PROLOGUE
The founder of modern critical genealogy, Horace Round (1854-1928), wrote that, 'Love of genealogical study is an inborn quality. Many who style themselves genealogists are absolutely indifferent to any genealogical evidence that does not bear upon their own pedigrees; but there will always be some, like my own teacher, that eminent historian Stubbs, who have possessed that rare quality, a love of genealogy for its own sake' [1]. I had no inspirational teacher like Stubbs and yet I have never known a time when I was not interested in the subject.
I was not yet seven when Georgiena Cotton Browne, our local landowner, died at Walkern Hall leaving her estate and personal property to a young cousin whose parents organised an auction sale of many of her effects. My mother, who occasionally worked at the Hall, brought home a few unwanted books including A school history of England; with a copious chronology, tables of contemporary sovereigns, and questions for examination (1841). The tables of contemporary sovereigns at the head of each chapter fascinated me. They were for Great Britain, France, Austria, Russia, Prussia, Spain and the Papal States, and ended, of course, with the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. They cried out to be brought up to date. I think that that is where it all began.
My father, an agricultural carpenter and builder well known to Hertfordshire farmers for his construction of corn-drying silos, was the son of the estate carpenter at Walkern Hall who had married the daughter of a bailiff on one of the estate's farms. My mother, who knew almost nothing about her father who had died when she was two years old, had first come from London to work at the Hall in 1914 and we lived in a Lodge situated on a private road crossing part of the wooded estate with fine views of the surrounding countryside and of the village of Walkern down in the Beane valley. My father had been given the use of the Lodge and 'some responsibility for the integrity of this end of the estate'. [2]. The death of 'Miss C. B.' whose family had been at the Hall since 1827, and the many changes that followed, not to mention the not so distant echoes of the War which was ending, caused much anxiety for the future. A few years later the growing New Town of Stevenage, the box-like houses of which were beginning to appear on the distant horizon, threatened to destroy the peace and tranquillity of the valley and magnified our fears.
These feelings of insecurity undoubtedly had a lasting effect and when, after my mother's death in 1973, I gave up the Lodge and moved to London, I frequently had nightmares, imagining houses built on the surrounding fields and frantically recalling the Lodge’s rooms, going from one to another and positioning every piece of furniture, picture, ornament and book, in attempts to recreate the past and not let any part of it slip from my memory. By recording something of it I thought that I might begin to do just that. Like many others and in the same way, after leaving his Russian homeland in 1930, the dancer Igor Schwezoff described in graphic detail his former life there and his need to write things down and the 'overwhelming desire to be able to snatch back a little of the past and to undo something that could never be undone - or could it, perhaps?’ [3].
After I went to the Grammar School at Stevenage in 1949, I developed these interests and thoughts in earnest. There was a little covered alleyway down the side of Jeffries' antiques shop in the High Street where cheaper furniture was displayed. A table there with second-hand books was one of my regular haunts after school and whenever I visited the town on Saturdays. There in 1953 I bought a book about the history of Russia which had a lasting effect on my interests, though they never developed in quite the way that I hoped at that time.
Nearby was a branch of Burgess Booksellers and Stationers and upstairs new books were occasionally bought and school prizes chosen. There not long before my father died, he bought for me Chambers's Biographical Dictionary (1950) for twenty-five shillings, a book that I cherished greatly, superior to its more recent editions. I remember him exclaiming in surprise, 'It's all about people!' and my not knowing what to say. Not long afterwards on a bus trip to London my mother bought for me in Charing Cross Road the two volumes of Mark Noble's History of the Protectoral House of Cromwell (1788) for the large sum of two pounds. It kept me busy for many happy hours, compiling vast pedigrees across the floor. My eldest brother had been an agent for National Savings but the large posters that he was asked to display were useless, our house being a mile or more from the village, and so their backs came in very handy for pedigree work and indeed for covering books!
Cheap second-hand biographies could be found in Stevenage's only other bookshop, The Book Nook, further down the High Street and run by Mrs Warren, where at a shilling or so a time, my collection grew. From them and from the biographies borrowed from the public library in Orchard Road I constructed pedigrees of all manner of people. Delving into autobiographies I began to write to the authors of those that took my fancy, asking them to confirm and/or expand the pedigrees that I had compiled. The Russian ones fascinated me and an early correspondent was Baroness Agnes de Stoeckle who had been at the Russian Court before the Revolution and had met Rasputin. Count Constantine Benckendorff, the son of the last Imperial ambassador in London, took an interest in my tables, loaned me a collection of pedigrees of his relatives and provided me with my first copy of the Almanach de Gotha which he had used as a door-stop.
Another place that my kind of books could be found was upstairs at the Book House in Hitchin's Market Square where Eric Moore would sometimes buy from me books that I and my mother had bought across the road at auction sales at the Corn Exchange. Its monthly furniture sales usually included one or two lots of books and my mother would call in after her ordinary shopping and bid a few shillings, bringing home in her bag those that she thought of greatest interest, old maps, engravings and county directories. One day she brought home the fourteen volumes of the leather bound Historians' History of the World, but sadly was obliged to leave the indexes behind! The rarer books that were of little interest, including a nicely bound Breeches Bible of 1560 and a large collection of 19th century engraved bill heads, I traded in at the Book House, buying other books with the proceeds.
Whilst at the Grammar School at Stevenage in the mid-1950s I was encouraged by the history master Charles Jones (1908-1986) to start a project on the history of the town and I borrowed from Miss Grosvenor the notes on its history by the late Edward Vincent Methold (1846-1926) and then explored the many cupboards of documents in the tower at St Nicholas’s church, transcribing large parts of the parish registers, copying many churchyard inscriptions and rubbing the brasses. At the same time I developed an interest in my own family by pestering the local clergy for access to their registers at Walkern, Cottered, Ardley and Shephall, again copying inscriptions and rubbing brasses in these and other local churches. I saw then the unsatisfactory conditions in which the records were often kept, though those at Stevenage had benefited from careful cataloguing in the 1930s. I could take the bus to Hertford and the county record office and there learned about bishops transcripts, wills and other local sources but my early pedigrees were not very satisfactory, the purchase of costly birth, marriage and death certificates from the General Register Office in London being quite out of the question. At Stevenage Museum, however, I was fortunate to get to know Dr John Morris (1913-1977),the brilliant historian and archaeologist who later wrote The age of Arthur (1973),who took me digging at Watton-at-Stone and St Albans, and later facilitated my entrance into University College London to take a degree in Ancient and Medieval History.
It was as a result of reading biographies and writing to people who might add to the pedigrees extracted from them that in 1954 I had first contacted Sir Anthony Wagner (1908-1995),then Richmond Herald at the College of Arms, about a pedigree of Adolf Hitler and an unlikely relationship to Queen Victoria that I fancied I had found. It was Wagner who encouraged the idea of my working either for him or at the Society of Genealogists and I first wrote to the Society, then in a fine old house in South Kensington, on 23 August 1957, wondering if there were any opportunities there before going to university the following year. I suppose the fact that I had already done genealogical work locally in Hertfordshire, including the transcription of some parish registers, as well as projects in archaeology and local history, and been school librarian for three years, all spoke in my favour. As recounted below, and with Wagner's endorsement, I was offered temporary employment and commenced work as a research assistant at the Society a month later.
It is not my intention to write a detailed account of the origins of the study of genealogy in England but I hope to sketch out the developments in the nineteenth century that led to the foundation of the Society of Genealogists in 1911 and then to give some account of the people who, for good or ill, were involved in its organisation and with the subject over the next hundred years.
When in 1911 the founders of the Society looked back over the previous century they saw the beginnings of a remarkable change in attitudes to genealogy but they were all too clearly aware that there was still much room for improvement in the work carried out. George Sherwood, in whose office the Society first took shape, called the division 'old and new' genealogy and in the 'old' world there were several things of which he strongly disapproved.
When discussing the possible formation of a society, Sherwood had written, 'Someday perhaps someone will arise with the gift of creating the proper atmosphere. At present we think the study suffers from its association in the public mind with, for example, the heraldic stationery trade, the trade in spurious antiques, manufactured ancestors, and the business of the shady character who ekes out a precarious existence on the reluctant half-crowns of deluded seekers after phantom fortunes' [4]. The following year he wrote that 'Old Genealogy became a byeword for no other reason than that it was neither Literature nor Science' [5].
The first textbook on genealogical research had been published in England in 1828 and the author, the peerage lawyer Stacey Grimaldi, of whom more will be said later, reckoned that the first printed book to contain a genealogy (in England that is) had come out in 1547. Compiled by a versifier Arthur Kelton and entitled A chronycle, with a genealogie declarying that the Britons and Welshemen are lineallye dyscended from Brute, newly and very wittely compiled in Meter, it showed the descent of the new boy-king Edward the Sixth from one Brutus, supposedly a grandson of the legendary Trojan hero Aeneas (son of Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite) who had fled from the destruction of Troy and the arms of Dido, Queen of Carthage, to found Rome in Italy in 753 B.C. [6] and who married there Lavinia the daughter of the local king, Latinus. [7] This Brutus, it was said, had come to England via Spain and had given Britain its name.
This fable was already circulating in Wales about 769 A.D. when the Historia Britonum associated with the name of Nennius was put together [8] and it was much elaborated about 1135 by Geoffrey of Monmouth for his fictional but influential and widely read Historia Regum Britanniae which was first printed in 1508 [9]. The Historia Britonum, not content with a merely classical origin for the royal family, had given Brutus a descent through the Kings of Troy to Jupiter and Saturn, and then to Javan, mentioned in the Bible as a son of Japhet the son of Noah [10].
Early in the Anglo-Saxon period a king’s genealogy had been regarded as one of his most important possessions [11]. Copies were widespread and the ancestries of the various Anglo Saxon dynasties were traced back to the gods, seven to the storm-spirit Woden and one (that of the kings of Essex) to the god-spirit Saxnot. The welding of these traditional British genealogies of pagan origin to people in classical antiquity or named in the Bible followed the arrival of Christianity, time and the ingenuity of later antiquarians carrying the pedigrees back through Noah to Adam. These later accretions may be easily identified but it is much more difficult to tell how far the original Germanic elements are historical and when the ancestry becomes fictitious. The three or four generations provided by Bede for most monarchs named in his Ecclesiastical History (finished in 731) may be taken as authentic, but the further nine generations to Woden given for Cerdic (died 534),the first King of the West Saxons, and Woden’s fifteen further generations to Sceaf (who was later said to have been born in the Ark) are to be regarded as ‘either fiction or error’. That, at least, was the conviction of the late Kenneth Sisam (1887-1971) who had made a minute study and comparison of the pedigrees [12].
Apart from the pedigrees of their ruling families the Saxons seem to have had little interest in genealogy but after the Norman Conquest lengthy statements in the courts regarding claims to inherited rights and property became frequent. This legal aspect in which pedigrees were referenced on particular points became of increasing importance and dominated the subject for many centuries. Such statements of descent and relationship, of which there are many from the early thirteenth century on the plea rolls (the records of pleas heard before judges) of the courts of Curia Regis, Coram Rege and de Banco, [13] seem largely to have been based on orally transmitted information, though some of the longer genealogies may have been compiled from written sources, as in the Scrope versus Grosvenor case of 1378 when charters were produced in evidence. All were naturally subject to bias and error.
It was not until the fifteenth century with the development of other antiquarian and topographical studies that collections of pedigrees began to be made, the oldest books dating from about 1480. The involvement of the heralds in genealogy also began in the mid-fifteenth century but became of paramount importance with the Visitations which they made following a Royal Commission in 1530, they touring the country and recording short pedigrees based on family information of those who claimed a right to arms. The heralds were not then normally chosen for their skill in genealogy and some had little critical ability. This coupled with the rise in the sixteenth century of many new families to prominence in a society where the prestige of old blood was great, resulted, as it did in the nineteenth century, in some genuine research but also in much concoction.
As a consequence the heralds’ visitations of the 1560s recorded many lengthy but doubtful pedigrees as well as some fabrications and Horace Round frequently warned against their use as evidence of events beyond the personal knowledge of the informants [14]. It was not until the visitations made in the northern counties in the 1580s that Robert Glover (died 1588),Somerset Herald, began to illustrate the principle that pedigrees should, if possible, be founded on record evidence. Glover made his entries in the form of drop-line, tabular or rectilinear pedigrees, as used by Sir Thomas Wriothesley (died 1534),Garter King of Arms, earlier in the century. By 1618 such drop-line pedigrees had completely superseded the old narrative and crane’s foot forms, the latter with its radiating lines reminiscent of a crane’s foot (or pied de gru) from which the word ‘pedigree’ derived.
A working knowledge of the public records was first brought to genealogical research in the College of Arms by the industrious Augustine Vincent (died 1626),a former clerk at the Tower Record Office and a pupil of the great antiquary William Camden (1551-1623), who was made a Pursuivant Extraordinary in 1616. An apprenticeship system was, into my day, considered important in the practices of professional genealogists who thus had many advantages over the amateur working alone.
One of the first family histories to be compiled seems to have been that of the Berkeley family in Gloucestershire by their steward, John Smyth of Nibley (died 1640) using both public records and the family’s papers and charters in Berkeley Castle [15]. The first to be published, unless we count the fine work of the herald Francis Sandford (1630-1694), A genealogical history of the Kings of England (1677; enlarged by Samuel Stebbing in 1707), was Henry Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough’s Succinct genealogies of the noble and ancient houses of Alno, or de Alneto, Broc of Shephale … and Mordaunt of Turvey (1685), written under the name ‘Robert Halstead’ but unfortunately containing forged charters and fictitious pedigrees.
Sir William Dugdale (1605-1686), Garter King of Arms, showed his superiority in the field in the skill with which he marshalled his various evidences for the descents of manors in his Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656) and for the descents of baronies and peerage dignities in his Baronage of England (1675-6), he citing contemporary record evidence for every statement made. When he was occasionally deceived by spurious documents, as with those on which rested the claim of the Feildings, Earls of Denbigh, to descend from a thirteenth century Hapsburg, one knows exactly what these were [16].
The pedigrees of knights compiled by the herald Peter le Neve (1661-1729) when Rouge Croix, show that by the end of the seventeenth century the pedigrees of newcomers to this class needed something more than knowledge of land tenure and he began to use the evidence of parish registers. In 1699 Sir Comport Fitch, whose father had been a carpenter, registered a pedigree at the College of Arms which had apparently been worked out for him by a herald Samuel Stebbing (died 1719). Stebbing had set about it by copying wills, making extracts from parish registers, noting monumental inscriptions, interviewing members of the family, and fitting all this evidence together as best he could. It is an early and elementary instance, as Sir Anthony Wagner says, of what has since become ‘a commonplace of genealogical method’ [17]. Church monuments had long been used but half a century later the importance of those in the churchyard for humbler families came also to be recognised.
In this brief overview of the subject prior to 1828 I have drawn on Wagner’s essay ‘The study and literature of genealogy’ in his English Genealogy (1960),which was based on thirty years’ experience in the records and collections created by earlier heralds at the College of Arms. Outside the College there was by the early 1600’s a network of antiquaries spread across the country with, in Wagner’s words, ‘a scholarly approach to documents, helped by legal training and an ardour for genealogies in relation at once to local history, family history and the safeguarding of rights of property’ [18].
The discontinuance of heraldic visitations after 1686 coupled with the rapid decline in the fashion for heraldic display at funerals about 1690 was followed by a breakdown in heraldic authority which lasted until the third quarter of the eighteenth century. This low ebb in the heralds’ activities did not revive until George III’s reign produced men of the calibre of Stephen Martin Leake (1702-1773), Garter, and his successors Ralph Bigland (1711-1784) and Sir Isaac Heard (1730-1822). It was the view of Sir William Blackstone, writing in his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-9), that ‘The failure of inquisitions post mortem by the abolition of military tenures, combined with the neglect of the heralds omitting their usual progresses, has rendered the proof of a modern descent for the recovery of an estate, or succession to a title of honour, more difficult than that of an ancient’, and Lord Chief Justice Mansfield wrote that ‘The proof of pedigrees has become so much more difficult since inquisitiones post mortem have been disused, that it is easier to establish one for 500 years before the time of Charles II than for 100 years since his reign’ [19].
Meanwhile, outside the College, an industrious Fleet Street bookseller Arthur Collins (1682-1760), the son of a gentleman-usher to Queen Catherine of Braganza, and a partner of Abel Roper, one of the publishers of Dugdale’s Baronage in 1675-6, produced in 1709 the first edition of a Peerage of England which brought Dugdale up to date and gave the pedigrees of newly created peers. It was an extraordinary success and new editions, regularly expanded, appeared in 1710, 1714 and 1717. Having acquired Dugdale’s manuscript revisions for his Baronage, Collins compiled a much fuller Peerage in three volumes in 1735, followed by further editions in 1741 and 1756, this last in six volumes, assisted by a pension from George II. After his death, further editions appeared in 1763, in 1779 and finally, edited by Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges (1762-1837) and with a useful index of stray names, in 1812. Collins’s Peerage dominated the eighteenth century and was hugely important as the basis for the pedigrees subsequently adopted by Burke’s Peerage, but, although valuable for the period after Dugdale, its various editions contained much highly inaccurate and mythical early material taken from the old heraldic pedigrees possessed by the various families which, for the favour of a subscription, they insisted should be included. Consequently, of the 294 peers listed by Brydges, thirty-five laid claim to ancestries dating to before the Norman Conquest [20].
The same was often true of the work of the local and county historians, mostly country parson antiquaries, who followed in Dugdale’s footsteps in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The industry of those who completed whole counties was quite remarkable but many embody fabulous material, their compilers not only being insufficiently critical but also coming under great financial pressure from the subscribers and patrons where their genealogies were concerned. As with the peerage families and the published Peerages, the gentry endeavoured to see their pedigrees published in these county histories and similarly these pedigrees found their way, fables, faults and all, into the coming editions of Burke’s Landed Gentry.
The traditional interests of these county historians were the established church and its buildings and the pedigrees and houses of the gentry and the descent of their lands. Their sources were chiefly, apart from family muniments and pedigrees, the basic parish registers, monumental inscriptions, wills and inquisitions, with only occasional forays into other public records. It is not difficult to understand why.
The first order that registers of baptisms, marriages and burials be kept in the parish churches throughout England and Wales had been made in 1538, but as every genealogist knows that does not mean that they necessarily survive from that date or have been regularly and carefully maintained. Their value as a source of information for relationships in those families that did not own land had been realized by the end of the seventeenth century and in the eighteenth century concerns for their proper keeping and preservation were already being expressed. Ralph Bigland (1711-1784), then Somerset Herald, an active and competent professional genealogist perhaps better known for his interest in tombstone inscriptions, in 1764 put out for five shillings a 96-page work, Observations on Marriages, Baptisms and Burials as Preserved in Parochial Registers [21], stressing the need for the registers to be accurately kept 'for the benefit of society'. His plea for fuller entries, a national marriage register, and for each parish to keep a record of its tombstone inscriptions, fell on deaf ears but would, it has been suggested, have made him the 'patron saint of modern genealogists' [22]. Bigland had, in early life, been a cheesemonger and his interest in genealogy was roused, it is said, by his family's successful claim to an inheritance. Although Bigland's proposed entry forms were not widely adopted his book was a major influence on the antiquary Revd. William Dade (died 1790) who introduced even more detailed forms for the recording of baptisms and burials in two York parishes in 1770 and was instrumental in obtaining their wider introduction in the dioceses of York and Chester. Later in the century similar forms were introduced in the dioceses of Carlisle, Norwich, St Asaph and Durham but not formally enforced; none affected the standard recording of marriages as required by the Marriage Act of 1754.
At the end of the eighteenth century a very few copies of registers were then made by local antiquaries. The Society of Genealogists has a neat transcript of the Ixworth, Suffolk, registers, made by Simon Boldero, who apparently commenced work in May 1675 [23], and a copy of some part of the early Leeds, Yorkshire registers from 1572 onwards, was held by a local surgeon, James Lucas, in 1791 [24]. However, the historian of parish registers, Edmond Waters, believed that in general, 'the negligence of the eighteenth century was more destructive than the civil wars of the seventeenth' [25] and it has been rightly said that registers posed and, of course, still pose serious problems for the unwary researcher, for 'They tantalized by being at once sufficiently complete and seemingly comprehensive to encourage the belief that a full genealogy could be constructed, yet they had too many gaps and omissions for it to be done' [26].
Rose's Act of 1812 required that the registers be kept in iron safes in the parish church but said nothing about a fee to be paid for searches in them; indeed it was generally assumed that the public had no right of access except by favour of the clergyman and churchwardens. Indeed the Chief Justice, Lord Tenterden (1762-1832), had declared that he knew of no rule of law that required the parish officers to show the books 'in order to gratify the curiosity of a private individual' [27]. The Civil Registration Act of 1836, however, which brought in the centralised civil registration of births, marriages and deaths in 1837, ordered that those having in their keeping 'any register book of births, deaths, or marriages, shall at all reasonable times allow searches to be made ... on payment of one shilling for a search of one year, and of sixpence for every additional year', and 2s 6d for every certified copy. No provision was made for the extraction or listing of uncertified information.
Some clergy were quick to point out that register books of births and deaths did not include register books of baptisms and burials and that all extracted entries should be treated as certified copies but as a result of a test case in the Court of Exchequer in May 1853 it was ruled that registers of baptisms and burials were covered by the 1836 Act and that anyone who paid the search fees was entitled to make such extracts as he or she chose [28]. The Court’s important ruling, little publicised and frequently overlooked, resulted from a case brought by an attorney whose clerk had been charged the extortionate fee of £4 7s 6d for twenty-five baptismal entries in the surname Taylor which he had seen and noted in four years, 1827-30, at St Mary Newington, the parish clerk working on the basis that each entry should be charged at 3s 6d [29].
Anyone needing to search the registers of several parishes might consult the annual transcripts of the registers which the clergy were supposed to send to their bishops, if he (or she, though women were practically non-existent in this field at the time) was aware of their existence, the transcripts survived and access to them could be obtained on payment of heavy unregulated fees at the diocesan registry, but otherwise separate visits to the various churches would need to be arranged with attendant delay and expense, coupled with the unknown obstacles and fees which might need to be faced at each church. The fees were widely regarded as the perquisites of the clergy and as there was no clear guidance as to how they should be calculated, unscrupulous clergy resorted to various subterfuges to inflate them, particularly when applications for searches were made by post (the fees being for personal inspection of the registers by the enquirer). Many clergy, although not willing to admit it, did not have the skill to read the early registers in their care and blamed their inability to read the writing on the 'bad writing' of the originals.
For the next 130 years genealogists and local historians, increasingly horrified at the dreadful conditions in which many parish registers were kept, their steady deterioration, the ease with which they might be falsified, and the annual disappearance of some through fire or theft, saw centralised deposit and the removal of the registers from the hands of the clergy as the only possible answer to the years of neglect that they had suffered, though with the passage of time, deposit in the Public Record Office rather than in the British Museum was more frequently urged, there being no viable local alternatives. The importance of the registers to the legal fraternity in London in their inheritance and peerage cases is amply demonstrated by their involvement throughout the century in moves to secure their future safety.
In the 1820s the great antiquary and bibliophile Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872) advocated that all the registers prior to 1700 should be deposited in the British Museum and that modern copies should be made at the expense of the parishes concerned [30]. He had personally witnessed the destruction of parchment by the many gold-beaters, glue-makers and tailors active in his time. A census of the surviving registers in England and Wales had been intended by Rose's Act in 1812 but was not carried out. However, the statistician John Rickman (1771-1840), Clerk of the House of Commons, after consultation with the solicitor John Southerden Burn (1798-1870), author of a recent work on parish registers, Registrum Ecclesiae Parochialis (1829), persuaded the authorities that a survey be undertaken as part of the 1831 census [31]. It revealed, when compared with a few earlier county surveys, enormous recent losses, though some registers previously thought to have been lost had since been found. Burn was then employed by the Government in the preparation of the Civil Registration Bill of 1837 and as secretary to the two Royal Commissions on non-parochial registers.
A case in 1844 which involved parish registers and attracted widespread publicity seems typical of much that was happening in the first half of the nineteenth century. A notorious adventurer from Cardigan, John Bowen, who dabbled in local records and genealogy, had for some time been obtaining money from poor local people by pretending that they had claims to the Whaddon Hall Estate in Buckinghamshire long occupied by the Selby Lowndes family [32]. Following the death of the celebrated miserly banker James Wood (1756-1836) of Gloucester (his face well-known from caricatures and toby jugs), Bowen took an interest in Wood’s disputed will and worked on behalf of John Wood of Brierley Hill who claimed, without a shadow of real evidence, to be one of his heirs at law. In July 1843 Bowen went to Pirton in Worcestershire and was caught in the act of tearing a page from the marriage register of Croome d’Abitot in order to remove evidence of a marriage in 1741, a false alternative entry for which he had already managed to insert in the bishops transcripts of Croome at the diocesan registry [33].
At his trial at Gloucester Assizes in 1844 Bowen was described in the calendar as a labourer but ‘had the appearance of a man of 50 years of age occupying a respectable station in society’. Newspapers of the day said that he was sometimes called ‘Captain Bowen’ and had been in the Merchant Service but at the time of the 1841 census he gave his occupation as ‘Army’ [34]. He was sentenced to be transported for seven years, but at the end of his trial William Selby Lowndes (1807-1886),a Magistrate and Deputy Lieutenant for Buckinghamshire, applied to see the papers found on Bowen at his arrest and it was widely reported that the two had some secret financial arrangement. In any event following Selby Lowndes’s intervention John Bowen was ‘on account of ill health’ not transported. Well publicised claims to both the Wood and Selby estates continued until late in the century [35]. William Selby Lowndes had a major interest in other antiquarian matters and was a claimant to the ancient Baronies of Monthermer, Montacute and Grandison.
Between 1841 and 1847 John Southerden Burn had been in partnership at 1 Copthal Court, Throgmorton Street, with the prominent peerage lawyer Stacey Grimaldi (1790-1863), himself well known as the author of our first genealogical textbook Origines Genealogicae: or the sources whence English genealogies may be traced (1828). Both would have been distressed at the stories of further loss and neglect of registers that continually appeared in the periodical Notes and Queries which had commenced publication in 1849. A second edition of Burn's book, entitled History of Parish Registers, appeared in 1862.
In 1863 the Government brought in a Bill to extend civil registration in Ireland which would have excluded Catholic marriages from its provisions and this exclusion was attacked by the barrister Robert 'Edmond' (Chester) Waters (1828-1898) in an article, hurriedly written in February 1863, for The Home and Foreign Review [36]. Waters (who had adopted the surname Chester Waters) believed that a complete system of registration without regard to religious belief was absolutely necessary and to him the omission of Catholic marriages was a 'grievous error'. He pointed out that following the introduction of the centralised registration of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales in 1837, two Royal Commissions in 1838 and 1857 had resulted in the authentication and centralisation of over 3,000 non-parochial registers. The Scottish Act of 1854 had not only introduced a centralised registration of events in Scotland but had made provision for the preservation and centralised custody of the existing registers. Chester Water was not alone in condemning the deficiencies of the Irish Bill and before the end of the Parliamentary Session a further Bill was introduced to cover Catholic marriages, both coming into force on 1 January 1864, but unlike in Scotland no provision was made for the preservation and custody of the earlier registers.
Chester Waters' article was revised and enlarged into a 47-page booklet, Parish Registers, in 1870. In it he described Burns' book as 'a pleasant and intelligent guide' but after Burns' death in June that year, he made it clear that although he acknowledged Burns' pioneering work, he had not been impressed by Burns' 'frequent inaccuracy of quotation' and 'want of power to grasp his subject' and he, although a bedridden invalid, consequently further revised and extended his own booklet as Parish Registers in England: their history and contents: with suggestions for securing their better custody and preservation (1883).
The impetus for this latter work, compiled in such painful circumstances, had been another case involving parish registers in which this time the clergy were also involved and which consequently gained additional publicity. Early in 1881 a former naval officer, the Revd William Henry Edward Ricketts Jervis (1843-1914), then living at Lexden in Essex, announced that he was claiming the title and estate of Viscount St Vincent. He was the grandson of Captain William Henry Ricketts Jervis, RN (1764-1805), the eldest nephew and heir of the first Viscount, but he was not able to prove that the Captain had married his grandmother Cecilia Jane Vinet. In 1880 he therefore advertised for evidence of the marriage, offering a reward of £500. A former naval seaman originally from Ireland, the Revd Patrick Morrison Flinn (c.1844-1928), Rector of Holy Trinity, Shaftesbury, produced an entry which he said he had found in his register for 1802 and claimed the reward. However, the bishops’ transcripts proved conclusively that the entry had been substituted for the real marriage of a couple named John Peacock and Ruth Day. By very curious coincidence the peerage claimant had earlier been a curate in that same Shaftesbury parish with, of course, access to the registers. The Bishop of Salisbury had the matter investigated but it was said that there was not sufficient evidence against either man to ensure a conviction and the inquiry was dropped. By then the page of the register which had been tampered with had been torn out and had disappeared [37]. The case again illustrated the great importance of the duplicate bishops’ transcripts and was used to lobby for their universal deposit with the Registrar General. Searches revealed that Miss Vinet had subsequently shown that she was not married to Captain Jervis by later marrying as a spinster at Kensington in 1807 and Mr Flinn, who for a while was later Rector of Mawgan in Cornwall, got into financial difficulties, went bankrupt in 1891 (when he showed himself a wholly unreliable witness)[38], and migrated to Australia where he died at Mosman in 1928.
Meanwhile Chester Waters’s revision of his book had also been spurred on by the introduction into the House of Commons on 19 April 1882 by William Copeland Borlase (1848-1899), Liberal M.P. for East Cornwall, of a Parochial Registers Preservation Bill 'to make provision for the better preservation of the ancient Parochial Registers of England and Wales'. Borlase, a wealthy antiquary and archaeologist, had been much influenced by the constitutional lawyer Thomas Pitt Taswell-Langmead (1840-1882) who had, when only eighteen, written to Notes and Queries urging the centralised deposit of all original registers, [39] and who subsequently published a pamphlet, The Preservation of Parish Registers (1882). Taswell-Langmead in fact drafted the Bill and Borlase wrote a preface to the pamphlet.
However, there was considerable opposition from other antiquaries to the Bill’s centralising provisions. It would have placed all registers and bishops transcripts (the copies which the clergy were supposed to send annually to their bishops) prior to 1837 under the Master of the Rolls for eventual removal to the Public Record Office, though the registers from 1813 onwards would remain in the parishes for twenty years from the passing of the Act before being centralised. Indexes were to be made and searches allowed at a rate of 20s for a general search, 1s for a particular search and 2s 6d for a certificate [40]. The archdeacons and rural deans of Lincoln sent out circulars to their clergy with a view to opposing the Bill but the solicitor-antiquary Walter Rye (1844-1929) wrote later that 'no sane man' accustomed to searching registers before 1754 could doubt that the proper place for them should either be the Public Record Office or a diocesan fire-proof registry as Burn had suggested [41].
Borlase's Bill never went to a Second Reading and was withdrawn on 5 July 1882 [42]. Chester Waters, who had meanwhile published a much respected history of his family [43], wrote that 'the exigencies of public business prevented the subject being discussed during the late session' but that 'there is little doubt that a similar Bill with some modifications will sooner or later receive the sanction of Parliament' [44]. He was overly optimistic. Apart from the opposition of the clergy, many believed that the removal of the registers to distant London would be a great discouragement to local research, arguing that many county histories could never have been written if the registers had not been available for local consultation. It was a view taken by Sir John Maclean, the author of The Parochial and Family History of the Deanery of Trigg Minor (3 vols. 1872-9). Chester Waters, in his Parish Registers in England (1883), argued forcefully that transcription of the registers, with a second copy deposited locally, was the only answer. He wrote that those parishes that wished to retain a copy should pay for it from the local rates and he quite wrongly believed that, 'the growing taste for antiquarian studies and an increased sense of responsibility amongst the clergy has arrested the course of destruction' [45]. However, he now had a major disagreement with Horace Round who thought him a poor medieval scholar and a plagiarist and henceforth, as Raymond Powell says, ‘assailed him mercilessly’, not least it seems because as a result of his work he had received a pension on the Civil List [46].
The vulnerability of the registers was graphically shown in a trial at Liverpool in May 1886 when it was found that following the death of Richard Harrison at Warrington in 1863, his relatives had fought over his property and that two claimants (deceased by 1886) had inserted more than fifty fictitious entries in the parish registers in at least four churches (Preston, Kirkham, Poulton and Lytham),altering and erasing others, and similarly, in the diocesan registry, altering or ruthlessly destroying the bishop's transcripts as well as forging marriage licence bonds. The Cheshire antiquary John Parsons Earwaker (1847-1895) wrote a detailed account of the trial and although he lived in distant Abergele in North Wales he strongly supported Borlase’s Bill and concluded that ‘the sooner Mr Borlase’s Bill for the removal of all the Parish Registers to Somerset House becomes law the better’ [47].
However, the involvement of William Borlase with the abortive 1882 Bill proved unfortunate for a few months after Earwaker’s warm endorsement Borlase was ruined by bankruptcy and a well-publicised scandal in which his Portuguese mistress played a large part [48]. Ostracised by his family, he went to Ireland for a time and died in 1899. Taswell-Langmead, who had just been appointed Professor of Constitutional Law at University College, died at Hove in December 1882, aged 42.
Taswell-Langmead's wording of the 1882 Bill was criticised by Arthur John Jewers (1848-1921), a practising surgeon dentist in Plymouth who was also an antiquary and had himself transcribed and printed the registers of St Columb Major in Cornwall [49]. Ironically, when congratulating Jewers on his publication, Borlase had written, 'In it some Borlases do not appear to advantage. I hope they were of another family' [50]. Jewers had written to Borlase about his Bill in 1882 but in 1884 he published a pamphlet, Parish Registers and their preservation, in which he said that the Bill showed 'considerable ignorance of the actual necessities of the case'. He then set out a formidable and most expensive scheme by which the Civil Service Commission would appoint a 'Parish Register Preservation Department' consisting of an inspector-general, four inspectors, twelve clerks or writers, a secretary, an accountant and keeper of books and records, and an index compiler, all of whom were to be experienced palaeographers. These persons were to transcribe the nation's registers and bishops' transcripts, initially prior to 1799, and, being provided with the services of one or more printing presses, were to print fifty copies of each register, thirty copies being strongly bound in leather and certified. The original registers and one copy would remain in each church, the bishops' transcripts being sent to the Public Record Office and the other copies distributed to various libraries and repositories or sold. The total costs of the department, Jewers estimated, would be £15,000 a year.
It appears that Jewers caught, at this time, something from William Borlase, for he now left his wife and children at Plymouth and, describing himself as a bachelor, married (without the convenience of a previous divorce) a much younger woman, Gertrude Shilton, in Islington in 1887 [51]. He worked as a dentist at Wells for a while [52] and then moved to London, his abandoned wife running a lodging house in Plymouth [53]. Arthur Jewers's new young sister-in-law, Dorothy Shilton (1884-1962), lived with the couple [54] and was infected by his enthusiasms, she becoming a well-known record agent and very much later, marrying in 1934 her partner the archivist Richard Holworthy, an active early member of the Society of Genealogists whose first wife had died in 1933.
Jewers's approaches to various Members of Parliament soon revealed their doubts as to the funding of the project that he had outlined. The writer Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) wrote immediately and realistically about the Bill, 'I fear it will be difficult to get it passed' and said, 'In the meantime could not a society do something of the sort, with such registers as the clergy will consent to have printed' [55]. Lord Salisbury wrote that he had 'no influence whatever with the Treasury, with whom such a decision would lie' [56]. The genealogist George W. Marshall wrote that he was in favour of the removal of the registers to London but that, 'What is most wanted is a Royal Commission to enquire into their present condition ... not more than one parish register in ten is safe from destruction now ... The idea of getting registers transcribed and printed is good, but impossible to put into practice' [57]. Jewers thus turned his attention to the possibility of a Royal Commission and concluded, along with the active Sir John Lubbock (1834-1913),then M.P. for London University, and William Borlase himself, that a Royal Commission might indeed be the answer [58].
To achieve this he conceived the idea of presenting a memorial or Petition to the Queen, signed by the Archbishops and Bishops of the Kingdom, that a Royal Commission be appointed which would name up to six commissioners to inspect and report on the extent and condition of the registers in their districts, and print fifty copies or 'a complete abstract' of any register found to be in decay. In 1891 Jewers, who was also a fine heraldic artist and was working on a complete record of the monuments and inscriptions in Wells Cathedral [59], persuaded the Bishops of Bath and Wells and of Ely to take the initiative and write to the others [60]. The Bishop of London wrote that although willing to sign, 'it cannot be acted upon without Parliament', but Jewers continued to collect signatures from various individuals and societies into 1892 when, at the suggestion of the Archbishop of Canterbury (Edward White Benson), the idea was abandoned [61]. The Archbishop had apparently given the impression that he would personally put the plan to the Privy Council but in July 1894 wrote to say that he could not recall agreeing to make any such proposition [62]. The archbishop died suddenly in October 1896 but Jewers persevered and immediately renewed his assault on the new archbishop, whom the Bishop of Ely saw about the scheme in February 1897, but with little headway, the Bishop of Ely writing realistically, 'I think there may be a great difficulty in getting the Chancellor of the Exchequer to agree to start this new office & staff' [63].
Meanwhile the passing of the Local Government Act in 1894, with its enabling powers to create local record offices, had given some hope of reform and during its passage the barrister John Cumming Macdona (1836-1907), M.P. for Rotherhithe and formerly Rector of Cheadle, who was very aware of the conditions in which many registers were kept, expressed the opinion that all the records in parish churches should be removed [64]. Registers were, however, specifically excluded from this Act’s provisions.
Early in 1897 Jewers heard that Macdona intended to introduce a Bill that would apparently place the registers in the diocesan registries in each cathedral city. Although advised by the antiquary Sir Henry Howorth (1842-1923) who was M.P. for Salford (and latterly a Vice-President of the Society of Genealogists), Macdona seems to have had little idea of what his Bill would mean in reality [65], but it was first read on 26 January 1897 and had its second reading on 17 March 1897 [66]. It then sank without trace.
Two days after the first reading the genealogist Edward Alexander Fry, of Birmingham, Secretary of the newly formed Parish Register Society and an active member and secretary of the British Record Society, had written very firmly to Jewers about Macdona's Bill saying that he was 'entirely against the removal of either Parish Registers or Records of any class to central depots either in London or elsewhere' and that 'Mr Macdona would do well to bear in mind that the Registrar General prohibits the searching of such Registers as are now collected at Somerset House under the 1837 Act & if that is done now the same could undoubtedly occur again to any fresh additions ... He certainly will have the most strenuous opposition from the clergy themselves or the bulk of them. The yearly Diocesan Conference would warmly take the matter up, I feel sure adversely to his opinions' [67]. Seemingly in no way discouraged Jewers continued until at least 1904 to promote his scheme for a Royal Commission, writing letters and interviewing bishops and archbishops, but all without effect.
The problems continued to be discussed in the pages of Notes and Queries and to be raised at the Congress of Archaeological Societies which published two Reports on the Transcription and Publication of Parish Registers in 1892 and 1896. Its important resolutions in 1900 following the revelations of the Shipway forgeries case are discussed below. In his book on the case William Phillimore, like Fry, had expressed himself strongly opposed to any idea of centralised deposit.
The situation continued to be argued at length by Joint Committees of Convocation which produced four reports on The collection and custody of local ecclesiastical records between 1905 and 1916. But it was only after the creation of the network of county record offices in the second half of the twentieth century that suitable places for deposit became available locally in each county and, after the legislation in 1978 described below, that the majority of the older registers were deposited and removed from the uneven care of the clergy.
By the turn of the century there was no shortage of books and pamphlets on the subject, they including Edward J. Boyce's History of Parochial Registers (1895), the Revd Nigel W. Gresley's pamphlet The history and custody of parish registers (1889) and, as we shall see, William Bradbrook's The Parish Register (1910) for Bernau's Pocket Library and J. Charles Cox, The parish registers of England (1910) for the series of Antiquary's Books.
Arthur Jewers left a more lasting monument in the work that he did for the City of London’s Library Committee between 1910 and 1919 when he and his second ‘wife’ copied the surviving inscriptions and arms in the whole of the churches in the City, in five beautifully indexed volumes [68]. Probably in recognition of this work he was granted a pension from the Civil List in 1918 [69]. He died at Hampstead in 1921, aged 73. Twenty years earlier Jewers had given a short account of his family to Fox-Davies's Armorial Families in which he omitted to mention his second wife but claimed that a male-line ancestor had changed his name from Eure to Ewers in the seventeenth century and that he was rightfully 'fourteenth Lord Eure, Baron of Wilton' [70], a claim not elsewhere recognised.
Sir Thomas Phillips had printed parts of a few early registers, the first apparently being Durnford, Wiltshire (1574-1650 only), in 1823. Various people unrealistically suggested that all the surviving registers should be transcribed and printed but, in view of the magnitude of the task, J. S. Burn urged in 1856 that only those before 1700 be tackled and later in 1868, when F. Fitz Henry proposed through the pages of Notes and Queries the formation of a Society to print registers, Burn quickly wrote that the ‘printing of a vast number of uninteresting registers … would be an enormous expense without a corresponding benefit to the public’ [71].
However, later in the nineteenth century some genealogists began to transcribe and publish registers in a systematic way. The Harleian Society, which had been founded in 1869 to print 'the Heraldic Visitations of Counties and any manuscripts relating to genealogy, family history and heraldry', subscribers paying one guinea a year, in 1876 published the whole of the registers of Westminster Abbey from their commencement in 1607 to 1875 in a remarkably detailed edition by Colonel J. L. Chester [72] (of whom more will be said later) and the following year that Society established a Register Section with the intention of printing as many of the more important parish registers as the members' subscriptions would allow, in the event mainly limiting its work to the London area, but including the registers of Canterbury Cathedral edited by Robert Hovenden [73], St Paul's Cathedral edited by John W. Clay [74], and Bath Abbey edited by Arthur Jewers [75].
Granville W. G. Leveson Gower (1838-1895), of Titsey Place, Surrey, who edited the first register for the Harleian Society, that of St Peter Cornhill in two volumes in 1877-9, had considerable doubts about the value of printing these registers in full and was concerned at the cost involved. He wrote that it would 'encumber' the volumes 'with a large mass of useless and uninteresting matter' and he argued that the society's business was 'only with the record of those who at the time the entry was made were persons of recognised social position'. It was a view shared by Chester Waters who wrote 'to print the whole mass [of registers] in extenso, is practically out of the question on the ground of expense' and 'it must be acknowledged that a very small proportion of the whole number of registers has any interest whatever for the general public' [76]. Leveson Gower copied no further registers for the Harleian Society, but his whole family were interested in genealogy. His grandson Richard Leveson Gower (1894-1982), a regular supporter of the Society of Genealogists, whom I knew well, was for a time a professional genealogist with the well-known firm of Hardy and Page, and Granville's brother Arthur (1851-1922), who was in the diplomatic service, copied and published vast numbers of tombstone inscriptions on his missions abroad. I also knew Arthur's daughter Victoria (1887-1977), a god daughter of the Empress Frederick, and helped her to identify some of those named in the diaries of her brother William, a clerk in the House of Lords but killed in action in 1918. I remember one day her pouring out on my desk from her knapsack for identification a pile of the most beautiful Victorian seals which had belonged to her grandmother Viscountess Milton.
In 1889 the Congress of Archaeological Societies and the Society of Antiquaries appointed a joint-committee to consider the best means of assisting transcription and publication, but unfortunately although many registers were subsequently copied, the committee’s recommendations, published in 1892, were that the registers be copied to the year 1812 only. A vigorous correspondence in Notes and Queries followed and in 1895 Edward Alexander Fry revived the idea of a general ‘Parish Register Society’ as Sabine Baring Gould had suggested in 1884. This time, largely through the efforts of George William Marshall, a society was formed in 1896 and continued to print complete registers until 1935. Local societies for the publication of registers were similarly established in several counties, including Shropshire in 1897, Lancashire in 1898, Yorkshire in 1899, Staffordshire in 1901 and Surrey in 1903. The Huguenot Society of London had begun to publish the Huguenot registers in 1887 and similarly the Catholic Record Society, founded in 1904, began printing the surviving Catholic registers the following year.
Following the above-mentioned recommendations, most printed transcripts covered the registers from their commencements up to the introduction of the 'printed form' registers for baptisms and burials in 1813, but some were taken to 1 July 1837 when the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths commenced at the General Register Office. Despite the initial optimism of the Parish Register Society, it was a slow and haphazard progress, much depending on the work of interested local historians and clergy.
The solicitor-genealogist William Phillimore Watts Phillimore (1853-1913) had argued in Notes and Queries that only the marriage registers should be copied (as they formed one thirteenth or fourteenth of the average register) and these only to 1812, and he did not think that indexing was urgent [77]. Believing also that 'one of the chief obstacles to the completion of a pedigree is the difficulty of obtaining the names of the wives', he therefore began to produce through his firm Phillimore & Co Ltd, founded in 1897, the first of a very long series of volumes containing transcripts of marriage registers only, mostly from the smaller parishes, and by the Second World War had covered about 1,650 parishes in 238 volumes [78]. The first volumes owed much to the work of the Revd James Harvey Bloom (1860-1943) and Arthur Scott Gatty (1847-1918) then York Herald (subsequently Garter), a skilled genealogist and formerly a secretary to Stephen Tucker, Rouge Croix.
As early as 1885 George William Marshall had compiled a list of those registers that had been printed, including in this the manuscript copies that were freely available in public libraries. This was printed in The Genealogist [79] and he later made a similar list for the Parish Register Society, Parish Registers: a list of those printed, or of which MS copies exist in public collections (1900) to which that Society added appendices in 1904 and 1908. In 1908 again G. F. Matthews put together his Contemporary index to printed parish (and non-parochial) registers, showing where copies may be found in some public libraries of London, Leeds, and Manchester and that same year Arthur Meredyth Burke produced his useful Key to the ancient parish registers of England and Wales, listing the dates at which the registers in each parish commenced and noting those that had been printed.
The value and utility of some form of central index to the entries in the available copies of marriage and baptismal registers was, it seems, first recognised by the record agents Ethel Stokes and her friend Mary Louise Cox who in about 1898 set to work to form 'a general index' to 'Parish Registers before 1837' in order, as they later announced, 'to overcome the difficulty of finding records of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, unknown'. Their intention was to compile indexes that might be consulted on similar lines to the centralised indexes of births, marriages and deaths which, from July 1837, were being compiled quarterly to cover all England and Wales at the General Register Office.
Mary Louise Cox (1873-1936) was the daughter of a prosperous law-stationer in Chancery Lane and would have been familiar with the Public Record Office from an early age. In 1901, when 27, she described herself as 'ancient records searcher' working on her own account. Ethel Stokes (1869-1944), born in St Pancras to another prosperous family that afterwards lived in Maida Vale, had similarly been a searcher at the Record Office from the age of eighteen. About 1898 the two friends formed a 'Record Office Agency' and in 1904 as 'Stokes & Cox' took an office at 75 Chancery Lane [80], though they lived with Ethel's aunts in Castellain Road. In 1911 they jointly described their occupation as 'Hunting up genealogies & other historic records in British Museum & other places' [81]. They retained their office until 1939 when Ethel Stokes gave up her record agency work, her friend Mary Cox, who then lived at Highgate, having died in June 1936.
The couple believed that the period just prior to the introduction of civil registration in 1837 was the most difficult genealogically and they initially concentrated on the London parish registers, attempting to index on slips the years 1790 to 1812 or to 1837 if the registers were easily available. Entries from the surviving Bishops Transcripts of the Diocese of London from 1800 to 1837 seem to have formed the basis of the index, and the years missing from the Transcripts, which only commence in 1800, are also generally missing from their Index. These London Transcripts had previously been little used and were widely thought, as Stacey Grimaldi wrote in 1828 and William Phillimore repeated in 1888, not to have commenced until 1813 [82]. Richard Sims wrote in 1861 that it had ‘never been the custom for the Clergy in this Diocese to transmit duplicates’ [83].
By 1907 the Index contained three million entries [84] and was being further expanded by the regular addition of marriages from the county volumes of the Phillimore marriage series as they were printed and from other available transcripts and publications. These included entries from the many typescripts of London registers and bishops transcripts that, from about 1929 onwards, were being made by William Harold Challen (1888-1964), of Carshalton, which he gave to the Guildhall Library and partially to the Society of Genealogists (which he had joined in 1920). Ethel Stokes who herself joined the Society in 1928 and was elected a Fellow the following year, spent many hours on the work, generally extending the index back to 1780 where possible, as is clear from a typescript list of the parishes included that was made after her death.
In the 1930s when Percival Boyd began to produce the typed sections of his marriage index, the Stokes & Cox index contained material that was not 'in Boyd', particularly for London and Middlesex which was one of the first sections that Boyd typed, but following the typing of his Second Miscellaneous Series in the late 1950s it seems likely that the majority of these additional parishes (many from the Phillimore series) had also been slipped by Boyd. Only the material from the London Bishops Transcripts then remained unique to the Stokes & Cox index [85].
Following her partnership with Mary Cox, Ethel Stokes had seen a rapid increase in work and she acquired a remarkable knowledge of early sources and, as a tribute in The Times said [86], a fine scholarship and a technical methodology of the highest order, she being engaged over a long period in peerage claims and in the composition of detailed articles on medieval baronies for The Complete Peerage. In 1912 she had edited an index to the PCC Wills 1605-19 for the British Record Society and followed that with volumes of transcripts of the Liber Ecclesiae Wigorniensis, of inquisitions post mortem for Gloucestershire and Wiltshire and of feet of fines for Warwickshire.
In the late 1920s, Ethel Stokes together with Miss Joan Wake (1884-1974) from Northampton was instrumental in expanding the work of the British Record Society into records preservation generally [87] and when the British Records Association was founded in 1932 she was successively its chairman and honorary secretary. On the outbreak of War in September 1939 she gave up much of her record agency work and threw herself into records preservation, setting up an office at the Public Record Office (where she also ran a canteen and would sleep in an improvised air-raid shelter under the Library table [88]) to review material sent for salvage, and remaining extremely active in that field until her tragic death in 1944, she being struck by a taxi in Great Russell Street when leaving the British Library. Harvey Bloom, the expert on medieval deeds, also spent his final years during the War worrying about records sent for salvage. The dreadful 'paper pulping', as his daughter Ursula wrote, became 'the nightmare of his old age, the ever-abiding ghost that walked with him'. Bombed out from his flat in Balham he moved to Stratford-upon-Avon and continued his work calendaring the charters in the Birthplace Library there [89].
Ethel Stokes had maintained her office in Chancery Lane until 1939 and the exact whereabouts of the great index that she had been instrumental in compiling is not known. It may have been in store somewhere but as a result of enemy action the greater part of the baptismal index was destroyed. Very fortunately the marriage index survived and at some stage it seems to have been acquired by Henry William Sayers (1876-1962), of Thames Ditton, who, as described below, had taken over the extensive next-of-kin business of the De Bernardy Brothers, initially at 25 Bedford Row and then, from at least 1924, at 59-60 Chancery Lane. At the latter address he and his wife Annie Lydia worked with John Herbert Pallot as genealogists and record agents, specialising in Chancery work and intestacy or next-of-kin cases, their telegraphic address being 'Sayersanco'.
John Herbert Pallot, who had been born in Jersey in 1904 and whose wife Elsye was a qualified accountant, lived at 2 Lawn Road, Hampstead [90] but also had an office at 59-60 Chancery Lane, at least from 1933 until the War. His firm Pallot & Co was at 2 New Court, Carey Street, from 1946 until 1960 (he living at Harrow in 1951-55), and Henry and Annie Sayers continued to work with him. Both died in 1962, John Herbert Pallot being their executor [91]. Meanwhile in 1961, Pallot & Co had been succeeded at 2 New Court by another firm of genealogists, Andrew & Co. The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies acquired the index, by then known as the Pallot Index, from John Andrew in 1972, the Institute adding slips for marriages in some further London parishes [92].
Although mentioned in Bernau's International Genealogical Directory in 1907-9, this extremely useful tool had remained almost unknown to working genealogists until this time. It was then said to contain 'several million marriages' in the London area between 1780 and 1837 [93]. The index became better known in 1978 following somewhat extravagant claims made for it in a full-page advertisement in The Genealogists’ Magazine [94], though many professionals considered the minimum search fee of £4 then charged by the Institute too high [95]. Later, when the 'Pallot Index' was published on CD-ROM by Ancestry.com in 2001, it was found to contain 1,695,352 records from 2,600 parishes [96].
The genealogical value of monumental inscriptions has been recognised for centuries [97]. The first book collecting them was probably the inaccurate Ancient Funerall Monuments (1631) by John Weever (1576-1632). In 1700 the Hertfordshire historian Sir Henry Chauncy, quoting Sir Edward Coke, wrote that inscriptions served four uses or ends but chiefly, ‘They are Evidences to prove Descents and Pedigrees’ [98]. In the eighteenth century Ralph Bigland, already mentioned as the author of the first book on parish registers [99], seems to have been the first to recognize the importance of tombstones as a source for those below the status of gentry and to copy them systematically. He collected local inscriptions in the 1740s whilst selling cheese to the armies in the Low Countries during the War of the Austrian Succession, long before he entered the College of Arms in 1757. In Gloucestershire he noted great numbers of inscriptions in churches and churchyards, many since lost, for his Historical, monumental, and genealogical collections relative to the County of Gloucester (posthumously published in 1791-92) [100].
Bigland was followed in this work by numerous 19th-century antiquaries and local historians, though most copied only a selection of the inscriptions that they found and even these were mainly those inside the churches. The destruction of many church monuments during the nineteenth century ‘restorations’ was a source of great disquiet to some of them and drew an unusual and heartfelt cry from the young antiquary Edward Peacock (1831-1915), of Bottesford Manor, Brigg, about their value for the ancestry of the ‘common people’ which appeared in the Stamford Mercury in 1861. He wrote with passion and foresight that ‘the desire to possess knowledge concerning our ancestors arises from no vulgar pride of ancestry, but from a natural instinct to connect ourselves with the far-off past. This instinct is felt as much by the poor as by the rich; it displays itself as strongly in the yeoman and the peasant as it does in the nobleman. … We most of us … are sprung in many lines from the common people; there are not many, we will hope, who are ashamed of this, or would wish to blot it from their own or other people’s memory. Is it not then a grievous thing that, by the meddling of churchwardens and others, we should be deprived of that which we now value highly, and which future ages will reprobate us for having permitted ignorant people to destroy? Genealogical investigations have always presented great attractions to a free people; as our race becomes more educated it is probable that the pleasure taken in the study of family history will be much more general than it is now. Already, America and Australia look to us to furnish them with materials of their forefathers’ [101]. The damage that had been done in Peacock’s county can be seen from the number of monuments noted between 1828 and 1840 by William John Monson (later 6th Lord Monson of Burton) which had disappeared or been destroyed by the time those notes were published in 1936. In the little church of Tallington, for instance, ten of the eleven monuments and a hatchment had gone [102].
It is thought that a Durham journalist and antiquary, Cuthbert Mills Carlton (1832-1892), was the first to make a complete copy of all the inscriptions in a particular place for his valuable The monumental inscriptions of the cathedral, parish churches and cemeteries of the City of Durham (1880), something that he himself considered important and of which he was proud [103]. In the churches and churchyards of London and Middlesex the work of Frederick Teague Cansick (1855-1918), both printed [104] and manuscript was noteworthy but far from complete. By the turn of the century several genealogists were copying all the stones in their areas, the work of William Gerish in Hertfordshire, mentioned later, being a notable example. On 8 September 1900 the active Revd James Harvey Bloom, Rector of Whitchurch, wrote to The Times regretting the widespread destruction of memorials and urging their transcription, as the earlier ones gave ‘information of relationships, offices held, places of residence and details of age which can be obtained nowhere else’ [105].
In the year that the Society of Genealogists was founded (1911), a few subscribers formed the English Monumental Inscriptions Society, its leading light being the Revd Thomas William Oswald-Hicks (died 1939, aged 77), Honorary Secretary and Editor of the Register of English Monumental Inscriptions, of which two volumes, mostly relating to Suffolk, were published for 1911/12 and 1913/14. He was probably thinking of the long established Association for the Preservation of the Memorials of the Dead in Ireland, founded in 1888, that did so much valuable work there and continued to publish its Journal until 1937. His society was however a casualty of the First World War.
Because proof of pedigree in relation to estates and titles was such an important element in the work of early genealogists the value of the probate records maintained by the church courts throughout the country, was also early recognised. In the seventeenth century Sir William Dugdale had made use of the wills proved in the senior court, the Prerogative Court of the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his Baronage of England (1675-6). In the next century the use of wills by historians became frequent and in 1780 the antiquary John Nichols (1745-1826) published all the surviving royal wills prior to 1508 in a volume, the first of its kind, Collection of all the wills now known to be extant of the Kings and Queens of England and every branch of the royal blood. The earliest index or calendar of wills compiled for publication seems to have been that made for Nichols about 1779 by his fellow antiquary Andrew Coltee Ducarel (1713-1785) who indexed the wills at Lambeth Palace, but the scheme to publish it did not materialise as the fees charged for the consultation of the Lambeth index would have been lost to the Palace dignitaries. In 1826 the peerage lawyer Stacey Grimaldi was asked 10s 6d for consulting it [106].
Most of the wills that had been proved in the bishops' consistory and archdeaconry courts were at this time deposited in the diocesan registries around the country. However, there were in addition a large number of small 'peculiar' courts that claimed the right to prove wills, the records of which were frequently held in private hands and not easily accessible, so that, as Stacey Grimaldi wrote in 1828, the persons whose wills were proved in them were often presumed to have died intestate [107]. Altogether there were in England and Wales at this time about 370 courts that had the right to prove wills and grant administrations.
In 1822 the young and aggressively practical antiquary-genealogist and former naval lieutenant Nicholas 'Harris' Nicolas (1799-1848), shocked not only by the number and variety of the courts but by the conditions in which many of their records were allowed to exist, had written to the Archbishop of Canterbury suggesting that a centralised 'General Registry of Indexes' to wills proved and administrations granted be set up in London. He had mentioned that no list of the courts in the various dioceses then existed, there was no guide to their jurisdictions and much less any guide to their records, so that after a fruitless search in the main court, the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, any enquiry for a particular will could be a lengthy process. The Archbishop did not reply.
As a consequence Harris Nicolas had himself compiled such a guide, Notitia historica: containing tables, calendars and miscellaneous information for the use of historians, antiquaries and the legal profession (1824), which, as he later wrote, proved useful 'in exciting attention to the manifest inconveniences which so many courts created'. He reverted to the subject in the preface to his Testamenta vetusta: or abstracts of wills of the royal family, nobility and gentry, from the reign of Henry the Second to the accession of Queen Elizabeth, illustrative of the manners, dresses, household furniture and customs of that period; and of the descents and landed possessions of many distinguished families: with biographical notes (2 vols. 1826), making some characteristically strong comments on the regulations of the Archbishop's Prerogative Court at Doctors' Commons. The publication of further similar collections of wills was urged by Joseph Hunter (1783-1861) in his History of the Deanery of Doncaster (1831) and the oldest local record society, the Surtees Society, produced the first of many such volumes in 1835 [108].
Meanwhile the attention of Edward Protheroe (later Davis-Protheroe; 1798-1852), M.P. for Evesham, having been drawn to the lack of information on the courts and their records, he promoted several parliamentary enquiries that sought to clarify the complicated situation, calling in 1828-32 for details of the probate jurisdictions claimed by the various courts then active, their fees, records, safety and frequency of use. Following the publication of the important Returns respecting the jurisdiction, records, emoluments and fees of ecclesiastical courts (Command Paper 205, 1830), Harris Nicolas poured scorn on the confusion revealed in the registries, their ridiculous number (there were 28 in the Diocese of Bath and Wells and 38 in that of Lichfield alone), the exorbitant fees and the vested rights of the officials, in his Observations on the state of historical literature and on the Society of Antiquaries ... with remarks on record offices, and on the proceedings of the Record Commission (1830). The later Reports ... into the practice and jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts in England and Wales (Command Paper 199, 1832) largely agreed with the points made by Harris Nicolas and, as he wrote, 'showed the existence of serious evils in glaring colours'. They recommended that the peculiar courts be abolished and that one centralised registry be formed [109].
However, the numerous officials of the courts for twenty-five years resisted any reform with, as Harris Nicolas said, 'feverish tenacity' and he sadly did not live to see the outcome, but the whole paraphernalia of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in matters testamentary together with the powers of the small temporal courts that claimed the right of probate was eventually abolished by the Court of Probate Act 1857, which created, as from 12 January 1858, the Principal Probate Registry in London and forty District Registries throughout England and Wales (with others in Ireland) which were given specific geographical areas of jurisdiction. In 1875 the Court of Probate was incorporated into the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court (now the Family Division).
The geographical areas of jurisdiction given to the District Registries bore little if any relation to the former boundaries of jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts. Some Registries were situated in county towns and served whole counties, but in Lancashire, for instance, there were registries at Manchester and Liverpool serving those towns and another at Lancaster for the rest of the county. However, the pre-1858 probate records of the ecclesiastical courts were hurriedly split off from their other records and moved from their ancient homes in the cathedrals and diocesan registries to the nearest available probate registries. Some of these diocesan registries had long traditions of careful records’ preservation but in others, particularly those of the smaller jurisdictions, the records had often been stored in the most appalling conditions. Some had suffered frequent moves and consequent losses. Now their records were to be divided and those relating to probate sent to the probate registries. In the diocese of London, for instance, many records were stored at St Paul's Cathedral in muniment rooms, 'in a turret on the north side of the Cathedral above the Lord Mayor's Vestry'. Officers from the newly created Probate Registry visited the Cathedral in 1861-3 to 'roughly arrange' the records before taking them away, finding it impossible to do more 'in a place so dark and dirty'. All the records of a purely ecclesiastical nature were left upon the shelves but anything of a mixed character was brought away, including some books that contained no probate material at all and which consequently became quite inaccessible to the historian [110].
The records remained at the various probate registries for almost a hundred years, sometimes in conditions that were far from ideal and they were the subject of frequent complaint by genealogists and other historians. There was often 'neither accommodation for searchers nor any inducement to officials to give facilities for search', access only being allowed if it was no 'impediment to the business of the registry'.
In London the Principal Probate Registry was initially located at Doctors' Commons 'one of the queerest old rookeries in London' [111] to the south of St Paul's Cathedral and at the corner of Bennet's Hill and Great Knightrider Street, which, apart from a short period after the Great Fire, had been the home of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury since 1572 [112]. Following the 1857 Act it received also the records of many of the courts relating to the Home Counties as well as those of the dioceses of Sarum (in Wiltshire and Berkshire) and Oxford and of the Archdeaconry of Richmond in Lancashire and Yorkshire.
The search room at Doctors' Commons was open every day, February to September, 9 am - 4 pm, and October to January, 9 am to 3 pm [113], but the conditions both as regards the storage of the documents and the facilities for their inspection were, throughout the nineteenth century, cause for complaint. In 1826 Harris Nicolas complained bitterly of the obstruction and rudeness of the officials [114] and in April 1848 Lord Braybrooke, President of the Camden Society and fifteen members of its Council sent a strong memorial to the Archbishop of Canterbury about the monstrous office fees levied for the consultation and copying of wills, no information being available except in the form of office copies and all copies from 1383 to the present day being charged at the same rate. His office was, they wrote, ‘probably the only public office in the kingdom which is shut against literary enquirers’ [115]. The Archbishop (John Bird Sumner) evasively replied that he ‘had no control whatever over the fees taken in that department’ and the Camden Society in January 1853 wrote fiercely to the Commission on ecclesiastical courts saying that the authorities in the Prerogative Office with its ‘offensively enforced’ rules, stood alone as the only depository of historical documents in which there was not only no feeling whatever in favour of literature and historical enquiry but also 'an anxiety to retain extravagant fees' [116].
However, following the abolition of the ecclesiastical courts in 1858, further representations by the Camden Society and the Society of Antiquaries to the newly appointed Judge, Sir Cresswell Cresswell (1794-1863) of the Principal Probate Registry, were rewarded when he agreed to 'literary' searchers (i.e. those not working for lawyers) with suitable references being allowed free access to records prior to 1700. The Camden Society marked this 'era in our literary history' by publishing in 1863 a volume of wills, edited by John Gough Nichols and another industrious antiquary, John Bruce (1802-1869),which had been made without payment of office fees [117].
Daniel Kirwan, writing just three years before the abolition of Doctors' Commons, said that, 'The lawyers who practice here are all well to do, snug, aristocratic old fellows, and enjoy good living and nothing to do as no other disciples of the legal profession can' [118], but a chronic shortage of space there had already been relieved by taking some of the records to Somerset House and in the late autumn of 1874 the whole of the remainder was taken in waggon loads down Ludgate Hill, up Fleet Street and along the Strand to rooms on the south side of that building which had been vacated by the Admiralty on its move to Whitehall [119]. The Principal Probate Registry was formally opened here on 23 October 1874 and this was its home until 1998. The wills were stored in a long gallery under the terrace overlooking the Embankment and produced to the public in a ‘large and handsome apartment’, Room 32, immediately above and on the ground floor. Here the calendars of wills in the various courts were made available. There were three clerks who did indexing and attended to the public and there was one seat for those who had obtained permission to see filed wills and calendars without charge.
In 1862 another room, Room 9, with six tables and chairs had been provided for literary searchers and named the Department for Literary Inquiry. However, this was in the basement facing the quadrangle and although it was a high room and had a wide area outside its windows, it had no artificial lighting and consequently the opening hours were restricted from 11 am to 2.30 pm in the winter and from 10 am to 3.30 pm in the summer. In the summer, to add insult to injury, this cold, dark and unpleasant room, later likened to a 'cellar' by Ethel Stokes, was closed altogether for six weeks. No searcher was admitted on more than two days a week even if he or she had made an appointment in advance. The 'privilege' of working here was frequently hammered home and anyone who complained was threatened with the room's closure or the withdrawal of their literary permit. Following protests and a petition by scholars in 1884, however, a second room was thrown into this room and a total of twelve or fourteen seats provided. That only three had been allowed for in the original regulations was still being argued in 1913.
Room 9 held duplicates of the calendars upstairs where they existed, but this was not usually until after 1660, and the others had to be requisitioned and brought down. As at Doctors' Commons the literary non-legal searchers who had obtained permits from the President of the Probate Division were here allowed to see registered copy wills prior to 1699 without charge [120]. Within three years of moving to Somerset House that date had been moved on to 1760 and in 1884 it was further extended to one hundred years from the year of search. In theory, if the required will had not been registered, searchers were supposed to be able to see the original will on payment of a shilling but that became more and more difficult and latterly access to the originals was almost entirely prohibited. No copying by the readers was permitted, all copies being made, sometimes quite incompetently, by the staff and for fees. Two staff alternated in the management of the room and there were two messengers who fetched the heavy books of registered wills and the smaller act books, though only eight books could be seen on any one day.
In 1872 the able scholar John 'Challenor' Covington Smith (1845-1928),whose father had also been in the Civil Service, was appointed Superintendent of 'the Literary', as Room 9 was often called, and from then until 1892 he played an active part in the work and development of his small section. In 1882 he had greatly assisted the philologist Frederick James Furnivall (1825-1910) with his Fifty earliest English wills in the Court of Probate, London for the Early English Text Society and Walter Rye says that 'he was ever ready to offer valuable suggestions and assistance to all who are earnest students and not mere triflers' but that he was removed to another department 'apparently to prevent the Search-room from becoming too popular' [121]. Earlier Rye had said that without Challenor Smith 'matters would indeed go badly with any enquirer' and that his 'special knowledge of his subject and unfailing courtesy especially fitted him for the place' but that he had 'for some inscrutable reason been removed from it' [122]. Immediately on leaving 'the Literary', and the two events are probably not unconnected, Challenor Smith compiled for the British Record Society in 1893-5 two volumes of an index to the earliest wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury 1383-1558, 'the finest privately compiled calendar ever printed' [123]. Challenor Smith had lived for some years at Richmond in Surrey and in 1903-5 the local Parish Register Society published two volumes of his transcripts of the Richmond parish registers. In 1919 he compiled an index to the wills recorded in the archbishops' registers at Lambeth Palace and he produced a number of articles for genealogical periodicals.
When the records were first transferred to Somerset House there were plans to print calendars of them, but a pilot scheme to index those of the Court of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster proved too laborious and that volume alone was printed in 1864 (but not distributed) [124]. The two Record Keepers involved in its compilation, John Smith and Joseph Frederick Coleman [125], had found, as they wrote in the introduction, that every piece of paper had to be examined and properly arranged first of all and that where, as in London, different courts used a common registry, the records had often been 'mixed or misfiled'.
However, in January 1882 George Hook Rodman (1836-1910), the son of a bottle merchant in Chelsea, was appointed Assistant to the Record Keeper. He had worked in the Probate Registry from an early age and had been responsible for collecting the London records from St Paul's Cathedral in 1861-3 [126]. He was now given the task of superintending the indexing and arranging of the ancient records at Somerset House which at this time held the records of some 76 courts, plus another 27 from the diocese of Salisbury [127]. For more than twenty years he laboured at their repairing, sorting and calendaring. Under his direction a small group prepared many of the parchment manuscript indexes or calendars in fine Victorian handwriting which are still in use today as the standard means of reference to the records of the courts in the London area, though some have been superseded by modern printed indexes prepared by private record societies. When reviewing his work in the 1960s the archivist Ida Darlington wrote that he had 'a fund of industry and patience', taking 'particular pains to note down everything he did either in investigating the provenance of the wills or in repairs or other alteration to their format' [128]. Walter Rye speaks of Rodman as 'a gentleman of long experience ... ably assisted by Messrs Cheyne and Rouse' [129].
The first of these assistants, Ernest Cheyne (1853-1903), was the son of a surgeon in Marylebone. He came to the Probate Registry with a university degree in the late 1870s to work with Rodman and is also remembered for his work on the indexes. He died in harness in 1903. In those years Dr Samuel Anderson Smith (died 1915) had written 14,000 index slips to the wills proved in the Prerogative Court, 1558-83, and these Cheyne checked against the Act Books whilst Challenor Smith prepared an index to the places, the whole being edited by Leland L. Duncan for publication by the Index Library in 1898. Ernest Cheyne spent most of his working life in the Registry and his two beautifully written indexes to the Oxfordshire wills 1516-1732, completed in 1902, which form the basis of the British Record Society volumes published in 1981, have been described as 'exceptionally accurate' [130]. It was perhaps significant that Challenor Smith had retired before his index was published and Ethel Stokes later told the story of the registrar at Nottingham who had, in his sparer moments, made a calendar of the wills there with the idea that it should be printed, but the authorities at Somerset House had refused him leave to do so, saying that it was the property of the office [131].
Apart from the official returns made in 1828-32, the various courts and their records still lacked any form of basic manual but in 1895 the barrister George William Marshall, then Rouge Croix Pursuivant of Arms, compiled A handbook to the ancient courts of probate and depositories of wills. I have the copy that George Sherwood bought for 6s 8d and began to annotate and index by county in 1898. It remained the standard reference work until Bethell Bouwens produced his Wills and their whereabouts in 1939.
One might think that in spite of its underground location and restricted hours that all was well in the Literary Department but that was far from the case, many of the later clerks there being quite unsuited to the work. Differing interpretations of the rules found William Henry Benbow Bird (1857-1934), the editor of the Close Rolls, being turned away when Room 9 was half empty because, he was told, the messengers could not be expected to work after 12 a.m. if prior to that time they had done 'all that was required of them' [132]. Herbert Chitty (1863-1949), the Bursar of Winchester College, not having a literary ticket, had been refused a chair to sit on although many were available and he was obliged to stand in a dark corner away from the window, as he said, 'like a naughty boy' [133], though following a petition in 1900 reflectors were installed to improve the light [134]. Herbert Chitty was particularly disgusted at the prohibition on note taking and the need to memorize facts from the wills and then to go outside to write them down [135]. It is said that the antiquary Lord Monson (1796-1862) was fortunately blessed with a peculiarly retentive memory and after reading a will a few times could commit its substance to writing, for the slightest attempt to take notes of its contents would at once have been stopped by the vigilant officials [136].
These petty restrictions on note taking (still technically in force into the 1960s) and the seating problems annoyed a growing number of people. Prominent amongst them was a genealogist, Gerald Fothergill (1870-1926) [137], who later played an important role in the early years of the Society of Genealogists. He lived at Wandsworth and had become a record agent when a teenager at Willesden in 1887 [138]. The son of a prosperous railway signal engineer, Fothergill was a friend of the librarian Henry Robert Plomer (1857-1928) who also lived at Willesden and was well known for his books and articles on the biographies of booksellers and printers, the research on which had taken him regularly to the Literary Department.
As a record agent Fothergill specialised in the English origins of migrants to America, charging $125 for a month's work [139]. Interested in 'Hidden Relationships' he too made regular visits to 'The Literary', where he made indexes to the stray names mentioned in the wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in the years 1660, 1700 and 1770 [140]. Already in the 1890s he was in correspondence with his local Member of Parliament about access to records generally and for thirty years he waged a long war with various authorities about freedom of access.
Gerald Fothergill was particularly active in 1903. In March that year he and Henry Plomer sent out a circular calling a meeting at 30 Little Russell Street to discuss the possible formation of a 'British Records Preservation Society' with the stated aim of abolishing restrictions and fees for the inspection and copying of records and compelling custodians to observe their legal obligations [141]. That proposed society, however, did not get off the ground. Henry Plomer, who had agreed to be the Secretary, withdrew in May because of the very small response that they had received and because his main aim was to reform the Literary Search Department [142].
However, on 30 May 1903 the periodical The Athenaeum published a strongly worded article, 'Somerset House and its management', signed 'Archivist' but written by Henry Plomer, drawing attention to the many grievances of the regular searchers, and in June, Vicary Gibbs (1853-1932), M.P. for St Albans and later editor of The Complete Peerage, followed this up by asking the Secretary to the Treasury, Arthur Elliot (1846-1923), ‘in view of the lack of facilities offered for research in their present situation’ to consider the transfer of the ‘ancient wills which possess only a literary interest’ to the Public Record Office. Gibbs was firmly told that under Section 66 of the Probate Act 1857 legislation would be necessary and that the President of the Probate Division 'does not think that any serious inconvenience is caused to literary searchers by the present arrangements' [143].
The article in The Athenaeum had, however, caused something of a stir, Plomer writing to Fothergill, 'The fat is in the fire at Somerset House with a vengeance'. Everyone suspected Fothergill of having written the article and George Rodman, the superintendent of the room, was particularly indignant at the article's comment that 'one of the two attendants should have been placed on the retired list long ago' and was going about saying that several noted Americans had made presents to him for his attention to them! [144]. The giving of gratuities was another matter of concern that continued throughout the Department's history; at the British Museum, as the Royal Commission reminded a witness, attendants who took gratuities were dismissed [145]. However, mainly as a result of this rumpus, the 'elderly attendant' was retired, the hours were very slightly extended, the seats were allocated more fairly, and the fourteenth seat, about which there had been unseemly squabbles until the President, Sir Francis Jeune, personally intervened, was made permanently available [146].
On 22 April 1905 The Athenaeum published a further letter complaining about the illegible state of many of the probate calendars, which meant that the attendants had to bring down the duplicate volumes from Room 32. There was still no electric light in Room 9 which was lit only from the area, although lighting had been installed in Room 32 which overlooked the Embankment and had good natural lighting. The number of will volumes that might be produced to any searcher on one day was still limited to eight. In 1910 Fothergill organised a petition, worded along the lines of the article, to the President of the Probate Court and although signed by many readers, its only result was to end the annual closure of the room in the summer, though even that took another year to implement. In 1912 the newly formed Society of Genealogists announced that the President of the Probate Division (Sir Samuel Evans) in compliance with the petition had ordered the Literary Research Department to remain open during the Long Vacation (except for ten days for cleaning), from 11 am to 3 pm and from 10 am to 1 pm on Saturdays, and that an attempt would be made to obtain for public use there copies of any printed calendars and lists taken from its records [147].
In 1807 a Record Commission had reported that the condition of the country’s national records in their various repositories was a growing scandal, ‘unarranged, undescribed and unascertained … exposed to erasure, alienation and embezzlement … lodged in buildings uncommodious and insecure’, and in 1836 a Select Committee of the House of Commons had proposed that they all be brought together in one repository and in the care of one man. Consequently, in 1838 an Act of Parliament had placed the ‘custody, charge and superintendence’ of the records in the hands of the Master of the Rolls (then Lord Langdale) who was to be assisted by a Deputy Keeper of the Records with a staff of Assistant Record Keepers and other workmen. Until the records could be centralised the various offices were to continue to operate as branches and the Act required the Treasury to fill all the posts in the new office from staff already employed in the branches who might otherwise be entitled to compensation.
The majority of the older ‘public’ records which were derived from the courts of law, the departments of state and the other agencies of central government, were described by Stacey Grimaldi in 1828 and were then either in the Chapter House at Westminster Abbey or in the Tower of London. It was to the keepers of these two repositories that he gave particular acknowledgment in his Preface.
At Westminster Abbey the fine thirteenth-century polygonal Chapter House had in medieval times been the meeting place of the House of Commons but in 1547 the Commons moved to the Chapel of St Stephen in the Palace of Westminster and the Chapter House, its tall windows blocked and with galleries and an upper storey replacing the original vaulting (taken down as ruinous in 1740),was converted into a government record office, mainly for the Exchequer records which included Domesday Book, the medieval tiling being covered with a wooden floor.
In Grimaldi’s time the Keeper there was the antiquary John Caley (died 1834, aged 71). Although Caley drew two salaries as Keeper of the records, he was also secretary to the Record Commission, 1801-31, and responsible for many of the financial and administrative scandals with which it was surrounded. He afterwards received an additional £500 a year to superintend the arranging, repairing and binding of the records, something which, in the words of the Dictionary of National Biography, he did ‘in a most disgraceful manner, the lettering and dates being inaccurate in almost every instance’. His office was ‘dirty and dark’ and as its contents were in the utmost disorder the public were rigidly excluded and he kept the few lists and keys to the records at his house in Exmouth Street, Spa Fields. Applicants for documents had firstly to apply there and the records were then brought up in bags from Westminster by his footman. As the wrong documents were frequently brought, it was said that a search which at the end of the century might take two days without charge, could be prolonged through two weeks, the fees involved depending entirely on Caley’s pleasure [148].
Caley died in April 1834 and the story is told that a few months later, on 16 October 1834, when the Houses of Parliament were destroyed by fire, the wind began to drive the flames towards Westminster Hall and the Chapter House, just across the road. Thousands watching that night saw two figures on the Chapter House roof, surveying the scene: Francis Palgrave (1788-1861) the Keeper of Records and John Ireland (died 1842), the conservative Dean. Before the wind changed, Palgrave suggested that they go down and carry the most valued treasures into the Abbey for safety. Dean Ireland ‘with the caution belonging at once to his office and his character’, as Dean Stanley wrote later, replied that he could not think of doing so without applying to Lord Melbourne, the First Lord of the Treasury, for the Chapter House was Government property! [149]. However, only a few years later the new Public Record Office in Chancery Lane began to receive the Chapter House’s contents. Only then, in 1865, was the building restored to its former glory [150].
The Tower of London had been the main repository for Chancery records throughout the Middle Ages and in the time of Charles II a Record Office was formed from the Chapel of St John the Evangelist and a large neighbouring room under the roof of the White Tower. However, it suffered a long decline and transfers of records were ‘limited and spasmodic’ [151]. The antiquary Samuel Lysons (1763-1819) was appointed Keeper there in 1803 and increased the staff from one to six. Amongst the newcomers were two young nephews of his brother Daniel Lyson’s first wife, Sarah Hardy (died 1808). They were the sons of Major Thomas B. P. Hardy, R.A., who had died in the West Indies in 1814. The eldest, Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy (1804-1878), who commenced work as a junior clerk at the Tower in 1819 and rose to be Deputy Keeper at the new Record Office in succession to Sir Francis Palgrave in 1861, is considered the father of the Historical Manuscripts Commission . His younger brother, Sir William Hardy (1807-1887), came to the Tower in 1823 and also rose to be Deputy Keeper, specialising in peerage claims.
These two boys were trained by Lysons’s successor, another antiquary Henry Petrie (1768-1842), who had a reputation for remitting fees for literary searches [152]. However, in 1828 Grimaldi expressed his best thanks for assistance to John Bayley (died 1869), who had worked there from an early age but, like Caley, was notorious for his exorbitant charges. He was a better scholar than Caley, as evidenced by his History and antiquities of the Tower of London (2 parts, 1821-5), but owing to his long absence from business his office at the Tower was declared vacant in 1834 and he moved to Cheltenham. However, irregular deposits of records continued to be made here until 1842 and for some decades had overflowed into much of the Wakefield Tower, but in 1857 everything was removed to Chancery Lane.
As well as these two major record repositories there were also fifty or so smaller repositories dotted about London. On the Rolls Estate in Chancery Lane, the Rolls Office and its Chapel, which had effectively been occupied by the Master of the Rolls and his predecessors since the thirteenth century, had received from the Tudor period many rolls and records of Chancery and other official records. Other records, removed in 1830 from sheds at the end of Westminster Hall, were sent to the Royal Mews at Charing Cross (demolished to make room for the National Gallery in 1835) and ended up in a large repository in Waterloo Place adapted from the former stables of Carlton House and called ‘Carlton Ride’. Here the testy antiquary and historian Joseph Hunter, formerly a Presbyterian minister and mentioned above for his interest in probate records, was nominally in charge. Yet another large repository, housing the records of the former Secretaries of State from the seventeenth century, was the State Paper Office in Duke Street, Westminster, near St James’s Park, but these papers were placed under the Master of the Rolls in 1855 and the building pulled down in 1862.
Prior to the 1860s, access to the records in these many repositories, as Jane Cox wrote, ‘was restricted in a rather haphazard way; there were as many record keepers as there were repositories, and each guarded his charges jealously. Only the tenacious and the relentlessly inquisitive could get to see them and use them for historical or legal purposes’ [153]. However, following the 1838 Act it was agreed in 1840 that the various offices would be open from ten until four except on Sundays. Searchers were to write their particulars in a day book and were allowed to make pencil extracts or copies from the records. A fee of a shilling was payable for a general search in all the available calendars or indexes and another shilling was charged for each inspection. The fees could be commuted at five shillings a week, provided the search was limited to one family or place, or to a single object of inquiry, but the £1,100 taken in 1842 in fact came mainly from charges for 1,250 office copies. The officers themselves could no longer take fees or gratuities from the searchers or act as record agents other than in discharge of their official duties. It is thought that in 1842 the total number of searchers could not have exceeded twenty a day, the Chancery records at the Rolls Chapel being the most frequently consulted. Lack of adequate indexes resulted in many unnecessary productions. Someone like the industrious and highly critical Nicholas Harris Nicolas, working on his life of Chaucer, might ask for 20 to 50 documents a day [154].
Palgrave had hoped to remit fees to all historical searchers and wrote in 1843 that they came ‘from all professions and various conditions’, not only lawyers but others ‘searching for information for historical purposes, for evidence of title, or for matters connected with arts and manufactures’. Many of the latter were ‘common workmen’ whose searches were prosecuted ‘with great patience, intelligence, and perseverance’. It was perhaps fortunate that there were not more of them for the search room at Carlton Ride was only eleven feet by twelve and had to accommodate two clerks as well as up to five or six searchers at any one time.
At the end of 1843 the various repositories had a total of seventy-eight staff of whom forty-eight were workmen, thirty-six of the latter being at Carlton Ride which had a total of forty-seven staff. There were nine staff at the Rolls Chapel and seven at Rolls House, eleven at the Tower and four at the Chapter House. Entry to the record service, where family relationships (as with the Watsons and Bradleys) were frequent, had long been dependent on patronage and influence but personal jealousies and animosities were rife and continued to be so until the end of the second half of the century in spite of the slow introduction of the new Civil Service examinations and internal requirements which laid stress on a knowledge of French and Latin as well as of palaeography. In addition to their salaries many officers derived considerable incomes from editorial and record agency work. For some years the two Hardy brothers supplemented their income by making transcripts for the historian Francis Palgrave and there was a long-running dispute about their rates of pay. In one altercation in 1832 the excitable and impulsive Thomas Hardy had knocked Palgrave down [155]. When the latter, a strict disciplinarian, was appointed the first Deputy Keeper in 1838 he continued to meet considerable animosity from the staff and other officers and his relationship with the ever-attentive Lord Langdale was sometimes extremely poor. Langdale had wisely concluded that ‘men admirable for antiquarian learning if they have not early learnt to be men of business cannot (at a certain time of life) become such & no business or Office can prosper under their guidance’ [156]. If the Assistant Keepers took time to be equally attentive to the public their output in editorial work (and their income) was naturally decreased. Some of those who acted as record agents then sought to safeguard their income by discrediting the validity of the office copies.
The question of fees for historical research was further argued in 1851 when Palgrave said that the fees charged to lawyers were moderate and equitable but he considered it ‘almost an act of charity to discourage misguided persons, generally in humble circumstances, from pursuing imaginary claims to property or titles because such endeavours frequently led to insanity or beggary’ [157]. However, as the result of a campaign and petition organised by the Camden Society which gained the support of Sir John Romilly, the new Master of the Rolls, it was agreed that year that no fees should be payable by those engaged in making searches prior to 1760 for ‘strictly literary purposes’. Some twelve thousand documents were produced for public inspection in 1861 and the yearly total rose steadily to 52,000 at the end of the century, but then quickly to 95,000 in 1908 when the 1760 limit was moved on to 1800.
The 1838 Act had initially been interpreted to refer only to the records of the administrative, financial and judicial functions of the old Curia Regis or King’s Court - the Chancery, the Exchequer and the courts of common law and equity, together with those of Palatinate and other special jurisdictions - but in 1852 an Order in Council extended its scope to include the records in government departments, some of which at their own discretion were already depositing non-current administrative records. Francis Sheppard Thomas’s pioneering Handbook to the public records, though later described by Walford Selby as ‘heavy as suet pudding, and just as indigestible’, was published in 1853 [158], and followed in 1856 by the more user-friendly general book by Richard Sims mentioned below. It should perhaps be noted that also in 1851 the Registrar General inquired about the need to keep the records of the 1841 and 1851 Census Returns and was told by Palgrave that they were ‘of great national importance and fit to be preserved’ and ‘will hereafter be invaluable for Historical and Legal purposes’. The Registrar General’s main concern at the time was to find the space, not only for the Census but also to store his birth, marriage and death registers, and he hoped that space for them might be found in the proposed new Records repository [159]. Thomas Hardy, who had succeeded Palgrave as Deputy Keeper in 1861, would have taken in assize records and bishops’ transcripts of parish registers, though neither were mentioned in the 1838 Act. That did not stop the Duchy of Lancaster records from being presented by the Queen and acknowledged as a ‘gracious and priceless gift’ [160].
Meanwhile there had been much argument as to the funding and possible location of the proposed new repository which was to provide safe and fireproof custody for an enormous and ever-growing array of material. The House of Commons had agreed back in 1846 that a new office should be built without delay. Some argued that it should be in Westminster, where the records would be more likely to stimulate public interest, but proposals to use the Victoria Tower or the roof space in the new Houses of Parliament, or that Westminster Prison be adapted and extended, found little favour other than with the Treasury, and the Treasury eventually agreed to expenditure on a new building to be sited on the Rolls Estate between Chancery Lane and Fetter Lane.
Work began there in November 1850 and the first, eastern, section of a massive mock-Tudor ‘Public Record Office’, designed by James Pennethorne in iron and stone with slate shelving, was completed in 1858 and became fully operational in 1860, having received its first deposits from the Chapter House, Carlton Ride and the Tower. As precautions against the possibility of fire the building was divided into a large number of separate rooms without central heating. There was no heating either in the old houses requisitioned in Chancery Lane and strengthened to take the records of the Admiralty and War Office.
Following the union of the State Paper Office and Public Record Office, Palgrave argued strongly for the resumption of publication by the PRO, believing that ‘a quiet hour spent by a student at his own desk was worth a day in any public library’, and in 1855 Mrs Mary Anne Everett Green (1818-1895), with the permission of her husband, was appointed the first external editor for work on the domestic state papers, she being paid ten or later eight guineas for each sheet of sixteen pages passed to the printer. From 1873 she was paid £200 a year plus £5 5s per printed sheet and she lived to complete some 41 volumes. Others appointed to do similar work but at different rates included Revd John Sherren Brewer (1810-1879) who was asked in 1856 to prepare a calendar of the vast series of Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII and spent the remainder of his life on the project. Brewer was also involved in the important Rolls Series of ‘Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages’ which had been launched by Sir John Romilly in 1858 [161]. The Series firmly established an academic tradition within the PRO but it should be noted that £3,000 was allowed annually for the small number of its part-time editors and a further £1,500 for those calendaring the State Papers, whereas a sum of £3,500 was expected to cover the annual wages of the service’s 55 workmen and seven charwomen [162].
Meanwhile all was far from honey and light for the readers. The original plan had envisaged thirty seats for them but it is doubtful that that number was ever reached, at least in the 1850s, in the separate rooms for literary and legal searchers. They were brought together into one room in 1858 and by 1860 the number of literary searchers was about 150 a year, each making about 15 visits [163]. Walter Rye made his first dispiriting visit to the new Record Office in July 1864 (having been turned away from the British Museum by a change of rule because he was under twenty-one) and in May 1865 found that he was twice unable to get a seat after lunch, because only nine were now provided [164]. A few of the older staff ‘who had been drafted in with the records, formed rather an eccentric group, some of them affecting the dress of an earlier generation’ and Rye remembered ‘a long unpleasant room, with low tables and high backless forms, which cramped the searcher’s legs if he were anything above a dwarf in stature’ [165]. Some of the assistant keepers, notably Joseph Hunter and Henry James Sharpe, undoubtedly saw themselves as a select band of qualified professionals and had little patience with readers such as those working on their pedigrees whom they regarded as mere amateurs, the literary use of the records being in their view entirely subordinate to the legal, but others, who had themselves been record agents possessed a general knowledge of the records which later keepers found hard to acquire [166]. Hunter himself wrote to Palgrave in 1853 about Americans ‘entertaining it is well known extravagant notions of obstructed rights to property and even hereditary honours in England’ and he had a very low opinion of the agents, like the unstable William Henry Hart and the American Horatio Gates Somerby (both mentioned below), who acted for them and might masquerade as literary searchers in order to avoid fees [167]. However, that local and family history, biography and genealogy formed an important part of the work of the literary searchers was revealed in Hardy’s second Report as Deputy Keeper in 1862 with its summary of work undertaken since fees were lifted in 1852 [168]. In those years a total of 1,081 literary searchers had made 13,123 searches and consulted 104,746 documents.
Domesday Book had remained at the Chapter House until brought over to the new repository in July 1859. Shortly afterwards the book’s section on Cornwall was reproduced by the Ordnance Survey at Southampton by Sir Henry James’s new photozincographic process, the copying of the whole book being completed in 1864 when a series of Facsimiles of National Manuscripts was commenced at the suggestion of Prime Minister Gladstone and continued until 1885.
Restrictions on funding meant that the two main public search rooms planned for the eastern end of the building by Pennethorne in the 1850s were not completed until 1869. These rooms remained familiar to searchers for a century: the impressive ‘Round room’ (or Literary Search Room) which rose through the height of the building and was top-lit by a glass roof, and the ‘Long Room’ (or Legal Search Room) facing Fetter Lane. Rye was not the only one to find the Round Room ‘a veritable rheumatism trap in winter’ but search fees, as long desired by Thomas Hardy and John Brewer, were now abolished and a lady recruited to superintend the ladies’ cloakroom. These improvement owed much to Lord Romilly, who had been raised to the peerage in 1865, but accommodation for the records remained critical and in 1877 the large first-floor copying room above the Long Room was converted to receive the rolls of Chancery, it retaining its new name of ‘Rolls Room’ when again converted into another room for searchers in 1961 [169]. A small refreshment room for the staff was opened in the basement in 1867 [170].
Fourteen workmen were on duty to bring documents to the searchers from the 103 record rooms. The latter were fifteen feet high and divided by galleries reached by iron staircases. Each room had two high windows designed to throw light into both divisions and twenty-five feet down the passages between the records. However, by the early afternoon on cloudy or foggy days the work of production, even when aided with lanterns was often extremely difficult if not impossible. There was gas lighting at intervals in the corridors (sufficient, it was said, to play cards by) but none in the small slip-rooms on each floor in which the men were based, numbering, flattening, stamping and packing documents for use. Consequently work in the dark and chilly repository was far from popular. There was, of course, no lighting in the search rooms but the keepers and clerks used oil lamps in the winter as well as candles, though the latter were forbidden in 1876 [171]. The installation of electricity in 1889 was, as Rye said, a vast improvement [172].
The Historical Mauscripts Commission was established in 1869, owing much to the work of Hardy (who was knighted that year) and Romilly, and was given space in Rolls House, its inspectors being paid two guineas a day plus travelling expenses. One of the latter was Alfred Horwood (1821-1881), Hardy’s son-in-law, who was also an active editor. In 1870 the Earl Cawdor placed in the Commission’s care the four volumes of the early eighteenth century Golden Grove Book of (Welsh) Pedigrees and this was passed to the Record Office [173].
In one quarter in 1874 a troublesome individual applied to see 46,360 Treasury papers. There were always critics and one, the combative and litigious John Pym Yeatman (1830-1910), a disappointed barrister, proved particularly unpleasant. Both in his Introduction to the study of early English history (1874) and in a pamphlet An exposure of the mismanagement of the Public Record Office (1875) he criticised the editorial system by which public money was distributed ‘amongst a party of clergymen and ladies who amuse themselves at the Record Office’ and referred to the Oxford school of historians (the followers of Freeman and Stubbs, later despised by Horace Round) as fastening ‘on to the sugar cask of the Record Office like wasps and flies’, deploring the enormous disparity between the small salaries of the workmen and the payments and ‘hereditary corruption’ of the editors, comparing Thomas Hardy in particular to the covetous John Caley and complaining about the general inadequacy of the calendars, the delays in document production and the poor facilities for searchers. In all of which there were, of course, quite large elements of truth. Yeatman’s unpleasant tirade was completely ignored but he then took a request for access to land tax material as far as the Court of Appeal and was firmly told that nobody had a general right of access to records in the PRO, all searches being subject to such rules as the Master of the Rolls might impose [174]. In contrast he had found remarkable ease of access to many records in New York [175]. Yeatman was later a critic of the Victoria County History and although twice declared bankrupt he found time and money to compile a vast Feudal history of the county of Derby (10 vols. 1886-1912) [176].
Another issue which had become increasingly contentious was that of the disposal of documents considered valueless, some already in the PRO but others being passed to it in growing numbers by government departments as if the PRO were an extension of the departments themselves. By an Act of Parliament in 1877 the Master of the Rolls was given new powers to dispose of any such material created after 1715 (a date moved back to 1660 in 1898), but the departments had to make sure that their schedules of papers to be destroyed did not include anything ‘of legal, historical, genealogical or antiquarian use or interest, or which give any important information not to be obtained elsewhere’. Disposal meant destruction unless the Master of the Rolls decided that the documents should be handed to a library. There was little opposition in Parliament but the chapter of the College of Arms had passed a resolution of protest against the Bill’s proposed new powers. The resulting system whereby destruction schedules were first compiled by the departments, examined by a Committee of Inspecting Officers, laid before Parliament, and then put into action by the departments, continued until 1958 when it was considered hopelessly inadequate, the application of the important historical criteria having been left to persons appointed in the departments themselves [177].
Apart from the 1877 Act little of moment had occurred during the last ten years and when Sir Thomas Hardy died in June 1878, his brother William Hardy, though already aged seventy-one, was appointed Deputy Keeper in his place. The latter, ‘a man of lesser energy and talent’ [178], had carried on a lucrative practice as a record agent whilst keeper of the duchy of Lancaster records but had done no work of note there. Yeatman would not have been pleased when Hardy’s young son, William John Hardy (died 1919), already undertaking private work, was found a place at the Record Office in 1879, but he fortunately resigned in 1885 after the Treasury had become concerned. The Master of the Rolls moved from the Rolls House to the new Law Courts in the Strand in 1882 and from that date his authority as head of the PRO began to decline [179].
An officer who had entered the service in 1867 and made a mark assisting the public in the Literary Room was formally recognised as its superintendent in 1882. This was the popular and much respected Walford Daking Selby (1845-1889), a friend of Walter Rye and Horace Round, who with James Greenstreet founded the Pipe Roll Society in 1883 and was editor of The Genealogist from 1884 to 1889. However, Selby shot himself in a bout of depression after being seriously ill with typhoid fever brought on, Edward Walford said, by the insanitary conditions in his room off the Round Room [180]. Many complained of the unlit and draughty search rooms, there was an unpleasant down draught from the dome of the Round Room through which rain occasionally came, and noise from the heavy traffic and black smoke from the printers’ chimneys in Fetter Lane was a growing problem, as indeed was the smell of manure and the yelling of boys from the neighbouring London Parcels Delivery Company on the Office’s north side [181]. Two other assistant keepers who came into prominence at this time were Hubert Hall (1857-1944), of whom below, and Charles Trice Martin (1841-1914) the compiler of the indispensable Record Interpreter (1898, 1910).
The showing of Domesday Book to a party of fourteen girls from a Board School in 1882 did not find favour with William Hardy and some must have wondered why he was knighted in 1883, for his reports (as the Royal Commission in 1912 noted) were ‘meagre and uninteresting’. He resigned in 1886 [182] and one of those who had earlier complained about the conditions in the search rooms, Henry Maxwell Lyte (1848-1940), was appointed to succeed him. Lyte had no previous experience in the administration of the Office. He was thirty-seven (all the assistant keepers had been in office since before he was born) and the first graduate to enter the PRO’s service, having recently been an inspector for the Historical Manuscripts Commission and written histories of Eton College and of pre-1530 Oxford University. However, he quickly showed considerable administrative ability and, after William Hardy’s laxness, was an autocrat where staff discipline was concerned. His interests included genealogy and his appointment marked a clear watershed in the Office’s development. As Geoffrey Martin said in 1988 he gave it, ‘a character and sense of purpose that lasted into our own time, and is by no means yet a spent force’ [183]. A practical man who wanted to promote the scholarly use of the records Lyte drove forward the work of their classification and arrangement. He had electric lighting installed in the three search rooms in 1889 and later the Office’s first lift next to the Round Room, but his prohibition of the use of ink (in which he was supported by the College of Arms) caused much protest. Amongst the many complainants was a regular visitor, the genealogist and author Theophilus Charles Noble (1840-1890) who in 1886 had published the list of subscribers towards the defence of the country at the time of the Spanish Armada [184]. The Long Room had in 1885-86 become quite crowded with solicitors and those seeking unclaimed money in Chancery and as a result fees for searches in legal documents after 1760 were re-introduced (1s for a legal document and 2s 6d for a search for a particular suit).
A group from the Library Association was welcomed in 1886 and Lyte was amongst those who organised the celebrations for the Domesday anniversary that year when some 300 visitors came to hear Hubert Hall speak about Domesday Book from the gallery of the Round Room. In 1887 the Office put on an Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition. The old and indigestible PRO Handbook (1853) by Thomas was replaced with a new Guide (3 editions, 1891-1908) by Samuel Robert Scargill-Bird (1847-1923) which remained the standard work until the more user-friendly two volume Guide (1923-24) by Montague Giuseppi who was in charge of the Search Department. By 1892 some forty to fifty people were using the search rooms daily and the number of documents produed had increased to 42,000 annually. However, although the 1888 Local Government Act had created the possibility of a co-ordinated approach to local records, Lyte and the Master of the Rolls, Lord Esher, were strongly opposed to the idea, having enough to deal with in terms of the growing deposit of departmental records and the official searches which had to be made therein.
In 1891 the inspecting officers intervened to save the muster rolls and crew lists of merchant seamen which might otherwise have been destroyed and they joined with the Registrar General in opposing the destruction of the 1851 and 1861 census returns which were then in the Clock Tower of the Houses of Parliament, but lack of space was partly responsible for the destruction in 1897 of the marked-up electoral poll books, 1843-70, in the Lord Chancellor’s Office. The port books for London, 1696-1795, important for economic historians, were also destroyed as a result of the schedules agreed in 1896 and 1899 [185]. However, it was the Board of Trade in 1900 which irregularly ordered the destruction of the outward and many of the inward passenger lists prior to 1890 and was soundly rebuked by the Master of the Rolls in 1917 for doing so [186].
The old Rolls Series was abandoned after the publication of Hubert Hall’s controversial edition of The red book of the Exchequer (3 vols. 1896-97) and the Office’s publishing resources were concentrated on improving the finding aids, commencing in 1891 with calendars of the patent rolls, followed by the close rolls (with an external editor) in 1892, the inquisitions post mortem (edited by a skilled genealogist Anthony St John Story-Maskelyne) in 1898, and other major series. By 1899 some 72 calendars had appeared. To complement these a new series of ‘Lists and Indexes’, designed mainly to assist those in the search rooms, was initiated with an index of ancient petitions in 1892 [187].
The PRO staff remained almost totally a male preserve, the only women being the part-time cleaners and the ladies’ attendant, though the editor Mrs Green had been succeeded by her niece, Mrs Sophia Crawford Lomas (died 1929). By 1900 a typewriter was being used for outgoing correspondence, other typing being sent to the Civil Service Commission. Of the searchers, however, many more (as discussed below) were now women and the US Government Despatch Agency and the Canadian record authorities employed a number of women in London for work on the American Loyalists’ and other papers [188].
Maxwell Lyte’s interest in the PRO’s publications and its staffing was coupled with a desire to increase the office accommodation and preparations went ahead to demolish the twenty rickety eighteenth century houses which surrounded Rolls Yard at the west end of the Rolls Estate and fronted Chancery Lane. They were used for storage and offices but two had resident staff; all were fire risks, access often needing candles or a lamp. After protracted negotiations the houses were demolished in 1891, some 124 van-loads of records being temporarily moved to the late Barge Dock at Somerset House, and the block now facing Chancery Lane with a tower over its gateway was built in 1892-95. The new offices had electric lighting and were a vast improvement and Maxwell Lyte was knighted at the Jubilee in 1897. However, the proposed destruction of the old Rolls Chapel and the Rolls House which now stood between the new block and the original Pennethorne block raised considerable opposition and did not take place until 1899-1900 when the latter block was extended westward and the Rolls Chapel replaced by a museum with a wide variety of records in a permanent display that incorporated the Chapel’s monuments. Twenty-seven large sacks of documents were found above the Chapel’s vaulting [189].
Power to present unwanted or duplicate material to other repositories had been given in the 1877 Act but it was not until 1890 that rules for the administration of the Act were drawn up whereby such material might be presented to libraries in Great Britain or Ireland. By an Order of Council in 1908 certain colonial office documents could also be transferred to those colonial governments interested in their contents. By 1912 only eight such transfers had taken place and the Royal Commission that year thought that much more could have been done ‘with advantage to local students’. However, the PRO’s policy remained largely unchanged until the Act in 1958 [190].
The genealogist George Sherwood, commenting on the Deputy Keeper’s Annual Report in 1909, paid tribute to the courtesy of the staff but worried about these new powers to transmit records to the relevant colonies and the ‘weeding-out’ of unwanted material which he thought should be roughly sorted and dispersed to the free libraries around the country. He believed that all public records over a hundred years old should be transferred to the Office but he noted that the handling of records there was ‘tending to become a less dusty affair altogether [191].
Many State Papers had remained in private hands and in the eighteenth century large collections of these had found their way into the British Museum. Here, as at the Public Record Office, admission was obtained by making written application, ‘stating the name, rank in life, and residence of the applicant’, and the request had to be accompanied by a recommendation from some gentleman ‘whose position in society, reputation, or public appointment, may serve as a guarantee of the respectability of the applicant’. When Richard Sims wrote this in 1856 the wonderful new Reading Room was springing up ‘as if by magic’ in the Museum’s quadrangle and the great Antonio Panizzi (1797-1879), who had designed it to seat 500 readers, was the Principal Librarian. When, in the 1870s, the young Kate Norgate (1853-1935), the daughter of a Norwich bookseller, was inspired by John Richard Green’s Short History of the English People (1874) to try her hand at writing history, her mother is said to have accompanied her to the British Museum to chaperon and sit by her in the Reading Room [192].
In the nineteenth century genealogists came together only through the pages of the many periodicals that flourished and it was through them, Horace Round thought, that John Gough Nichols (1806-1873) first founded the modern critical and historical school of genealogy [193].
John Gough Nichols’s interests and influences stemmed directly from his grandfather John Nichols (1745-1826) the industrious proprietor and editor of the Gentleman’s Magazine and the author or editor of some sixty biographical, literary and historical works, including a noted History and antiquities of the county of Leicester (4 vols. 1795-1815). John Nichols’s son, John Bowyer Nichols (1779-1863), continued his father’s work and published practically all the great county histories of his day including Lipscomb’s Buckinghamshire, Ormerod’s Cheshire, Surtees’ Durham, Raine’s North Durham, Clutterbuck’s Hertfordshire, Baker’s Northamptonshire, Hoare’s Wiltshire, Hunter’s South Yorkshire and Whitaker’s Whalley and Craven.
John Gough Nichols (1806-1873), the son of John Bowyer Nichols, had followed his grandfather as joint editor of the Gentleman’s Magazine and was sole editor 1851-56, contributing as his grandfather had done many papers on genealogical and heraldic topics and adding the detailed obituary notices. George Sherwood later wrote that this and other popular magazines of the period were to be found on the tables of every coffee room and club and that the ‘victualing’ fraternity was strongly represented in their pages [194]. In 1834 J. G. Nichols branched out to edit and publish a separate periodical, at £1 per indexed volume, Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica (8 vols. 1834-43), containing documentary material and some pedigrees. After a short break he continued with a similar The Topographer and Genealogist (3 vols. 1846-58) and then, when the Gentleman’s Magazine stopped publishing antiquarian material, he produced The Herald and Genealogist (8 vols. 1863-74), again on similar lines but containing also book reviews and critical essays. The Hertfordshire historian John Edwin Cussans described the influential Nichols (whose quotation for the printing of his history he had rejected as ‘absurdly extravagant’) ‘as narrow minded as he was strong, and as vindictive as he was bigoted, he was feared by some, hated by others, and respected by none … the very embodiment, the acme, the apotheosis of meanness, in great and little matters alike’ [195].
In 1866, Dr Joseph Jackson Howard (1827-1902), of Mayfield, Blackheath, who had worked in the Postmaster General’s Department and was a pioneer of the Civil Service Co-operative Stores, founding the Civil Service Supply Association, started a quarterly journal, Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, which was very similar in content to John Gough Nichols’s first two periodicals but slightly larger in format, with many nicely printed pedigrees and heraldic engravings, in the quality of which he was particularly interested. It was two shillings and sixpence an issue and so successful that, after the demise of The Herald and Genealogist and adding occasional critical articles and reviews, he produced it for a shilling and then in a New Series for six pence. His journal, affectionately known as ‘Misc Gen’ and edited by him until his death in 1902 [196], reverted to quarterly publication in 1894 and continued until 1938.
Between 1887 and 1895 Joseph Howard had also printed six large and fully annotated pedigrees illustrating the History of Roman Catholic Families in England, but he is perhaps better known for his collaboration with the wealthy genealogical enthusiast Frederick Arthur Crisp (1851-1922) and the latter’s private printing press, the Grove Park Press, in a beautifully produced series of twenty-one volumes of tabular pedigrees, A Visitation of England and Wales (1893-1921) with fourteen additional volumes of Notes, and A Visitation of Ireland in six further volumes (1897-1918).
Also following the demise of The Herald and Genealogist in 1874, George William Marshal started in 1877 another very similar periodical, The Genealogist, which also survived the First World War and continued production until 1922, receiving important critical contributions from Horace Round and the best genealogists of the time. These periodicals together set high standards in the pedigrees published which, largely because of economic reasons, have not been seen again in English genealogical periodicals though the tradition continues in the United States of America.
Yet another periodical, Collectanea Genealogica et Heraldica, was started in 1881 by the hard-working genealogist and transcriber Joseph Foster (1844-1905), the son of a woollen draper at Bishop Wearmouth and the grandson of the founder of a large London bottling firm, M. B. Foster & Sons, who was also interested in genealogy. His periodical (128 pages monthly for three guineas a year) was intended to provide ‘handy working indices for the genealogist’ and he began to print annotated instalments of indexes to the marriages in the Gentleman’s Magazine, to Musgrave’s Obituary and to other works, as well as providing with the help of Horace Round, as the Dictionary of National Biography says, ‘much trenchant criticism and exposure of current genealogical myths’. Unfortunately, although enthusiastically reviewed his work received little public support and with the labour involved in this and his other projects the periodical became irregular and ceased publication in 1888, many of the projected indexes sadly not being completed.
Joseph Foster, in collaboration with Edward Bellasis (1852-1922), Bluemantle and then Lancaster Herald, had in 1879 produced a remarkable Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, aiming at a greater level of accuracy than achieved by Burke, and they completed four extremely fine editions to 1883, the work being subsequently amalgamated with Lodge’s Peerage which George Burnett had considered ‘the best and most trustworthy’ of the older peerages [197]. Foster’s Peerage, which the Morning Post described as ‘a virtual impeachment of other authorities’, was noteworthy for its stringent attitude to those who had assumed baronetcies (who were mercilessly relegated to a section boldly called ‘Chaos’) and for its lively heraldic designs by John Forbes Nixon and Dom Anselm Baker of Mount Saint Bernard Abbey. Anthony Wagner thought that Foster ‘deserved more credit than he has had for his industry and his concern to get at the truth’ [198]. He had projected a series of Pedigrees of the County Families of England but only saw those for Lancashire (1873) and Yorkshire (3 vols. 1874) in print. He had transcribed with ‘heroic labour’, as the Dictionary of National Biography says, the registers of admissions to the various Inns of Court and the Clergy Institution Books 1556-1838, and he had edited for publication Joseph Chester’s copy of the matriculation registers of Oxford University 1500-1886 and the latter’s extensive extracts of London marriage licences 1521-1869.
In April 1897 the Morning Post announced the forthcoming appearance in May of a monthly journal priced at a shilling and edited by the controversial Arthur Fox-Davies (mentioned below) for the publisher Elliot Stock: The Genealogical Magazine: a journal of family history, heraldry and pedigrees [199]. The Derby Mercury said that it attempted, ‘to combine interesting family histories with the accurate and detailed evidences which are the real value of genealogical writers’ [200], having lengthy contemporary extracts from the London Gazette. The first issue even contained one article by Fox-Davies’ later adversary Horace Round. It completed eight volumes, but closed in 1904 after a series of controversial articles on corporate heraldry that moved Round to fierce ridicule [201].
The short-lived quarterly The Ancestor, published in twelve lordly volumes 1902-5, had the sub-title A quarterly review of county and family history, heraldry and antiquities and for a while it eclipsed all the others in production, illustration and content, each issue having 300 pages and being cloth-bound for five shillings. It had the wealthy genealogist Herbert ‘Arthur’ Doubleday (1867-1941) as its printer and Arthur ‘Oswald’ Barron (1868-1939), the Evening News journalist and medieval scholar, as its editor, but was discontinued in 1905 when Doubleday left the printing firm, Archibald Constable & Co, which he had helped to create. Doubleday was then enlisted by G. L. (later Sir Laurence) Gomme, clerk to the London County Council, who had conceived as a memorial to Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee the idea of the Victoria History of the Counties of England, and was its chief editor for the first ten volumes, 1901-3, when he was succeeded by his joint-editor, William Page (died 1934), who carried it forward in the face of great difficulties for the next thirty years. Doubleday, having founded the St Catherine Press in 1908, then played a major role in the fund-raising and production of the new edition of The Complete Peerage initially edited by Vicary Gibbs (1853-1932) and printed and published by the Press, Doubleday becoming its assistant editor in 1916 and editor from 1920 until his death in 1941.
Whilst paying tribute to the editors of the various periodicals in the development of critical genealogy, Round had drawn particular attention to the Shropshire antiquary Robert William Eyton (1815-1881) and to the retired Major-General the Hon. George Wrottesley (1827-1909) for their contributions to the field. Eyton’s work for his Antiquities of Shropshire (1853-61) had a particular appeal to Round ‘in its single-minded concentration – in a style some found repulsively dry – on the genealogies, properties, and public lives of the feudal landowners’ between 1066 and 1327. Sir William Hardy, Deputy Keeper, thought his work placed Eyton far ahead of ‘all our County Historians ancient or modern’ and the Dictionary of National Biography says that ‘his memoirs of the families of Le Strange, Mortimer, and De Lacy, in which nothing is admitted without strict proof, placed him at the head of contemporary genealogists’. His other works, partly in conjunction with Wrottesley, all related to the same early period [202]. The pair founded the William Salt Society in 1879 and Wrottesley as Secretary of that Society contributed vastly to its thirty-four volumes of Staffordshire Collections. Round thought Wrottesley’s critical sense more developed than that of Eyton in that he placed truth foremost and the Dictionary of National Biography says of his four published family histories (Giffard, Wrottesley, Okeover and Bagot) that they ‘had, too, that other virtue of the new school, the power of tacking on public history to private events in such a way as to give to the narration its reality and significance’. His invaluable abstracts of Pedigrees from the Plea Rolls, 1200-1500 (1906) were laboriously extracted at the Record Office between 1880 and 1904 [203]. Round called Major-General Wrottesley the ‘Nestor of genealogists’, presumably meaning, as the Oxford Classical Dictionary says of Nestor in the Iliad, that he was ‘fond of long narratives of his early successes in war’ but perhaps also ‘full of advice generally either platitudinous or unsuccessful’!
When William Page wrote in 1930 of Horace Round’s contributions to the new critical school of genealogy, he recalled the situation in the late 1870s and 1880s when Round first began to use the Public Record Office regularly [204]. Page said that in the 1880s the searchers in the Literary Search or Round Room at the Public Record Office were mainly genealogists, the regular visitors including George Wrottesley, James Greenstreet and John Vincent. Those historians with wider interest made only occasional visits.
James Harris Greenstreet (1846-1891) was born in Brixton the son of a traveller in the wine trade and started life as a clerk in an insurance office but by 1881 when living at Camberwell was describing himself as a record agent. In 1883 he helped Walford Selby to form the Pipe Roll Society. In 1888 at Catford he was recommended by Walter Rye and by 1891 when at Lewisham was a literary agent. He wrote a number of articles for Archaeologia Cantiana, was editor of the The Lincolnshire Survey (1884) and author of Memorials of the ancient Kent family of Greenstreet (1891). He did not marry until 1887 and had no children. At his early death in 1891 he left only £290.
John Amyatt Chaundy Vincent (1826-1905) was born at Barrackpore in Bengal, the son of a Lieutenant-Colonel in the East India Company Service who died at Bath in 1865 with an estate ‘Under £200’. Lodging with working families in Bloomsbury, John Vincent published Notes on the Elton Family in 1861 but was described as an architect and fundholder in the 1861 census, an annuitant in 1871, an antiquary in 1881, an historical antiquary in 1891, and a record searcher on his own account in 1901. With an office at 61 Lincoln’s Inn Fields he was listed as one of the best-known record agents by Walter Rye in 1897. At his death in 1905 his effects were valued at £366-10-5. His diaries from 1861 to 1871 are in Wigan Archives and show a later focus on genealogy and from 1873 he was transcribing deeds at the Public Record Office.
The record agents who had taken over the work of officials who in earlier times had prepared the evidence for legal cases, were found next door in the Legal Search or Long Room. Amongst this group William Page mentions Stuart Archibald Moore (1842-1907), formerly the secretary to Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy, who acted as a record agent. He was also a proficient yachtsman and rather late in life was called to the bar and gained distinction as an authority on the law relating to fisheries and the foreshore. He was highly successful in promoting claims against the crown by the lords of those manors bounded by the sea, writing the standard History of the Foreshore (1888).
Moore’s partner, Richard Edward Gent Kirk (1844-1908), had earlier been an assistant to Revd John Sherren Brewer in his work on the letters and papers of Henry VIII. Richard Kirk had been born in the Tower of London where his father, also called Richard Kirk (died 1866), had been a messenger in the Record Office at least since his marriage in 1842. Richard Kirk and his wife Sarah (nee Gent) were given the place and house of caretaker at the Office in March 1843 but four years later ‘Mrs Kirk was discovered using Lucifer matches to light the office fires in contravention of strict orders’. She resigned in order to avoid dismissal but he continued as a Messenger, living in Islington. Their son Richard E. G. Kirk was also a Messenger in the Record Office, aged 17 in 1861, but later worked as a record agent on his own account with an office at 27 Chancery Lane, being recommended by Walter Rye in 1888 and 1897. He and his son, Ernest Frederick Kirk (c.1880-1956), also a record agent, edited the four volumes of Returns of Aliens in … London, 1523-1625 (1900-8) for the Huguenot Society. He was an early member of the Society of Genealogists and as an agent was still supporting his disgraced grandmother, aged 90, at Upper Tooting in 1911, but he had resigned his membership of the Society by 1919.
Two other record agents mentioned by Page and recommended by Walter Rye were the solicitors Henry Gay Hewlett (1832-1897), keeper of the Land Revenue Records, who undertook searches for the Crown, and his son Maurice Henry Hewlett (1861-1923) who practised at 2 Raymond Buildings in partnership with his cousin, William Oxenham Hewlett (1845-1912), the author of a work on Scottish peerage law and an editor for the Historical Manuscripts Commission who also transcribed the early parish registers of Harrow, and was later a master in chancery. Maurice Henry Hewlett succeeded his father as Keeper of Land Revenue Records but quickly abandoned record searching to become a poet and essayist, best known perhaps for his The Song of the Plow. His resignation in 1901 was followed by the absorbtion of his Land Revenue work and its records into the Public Record Office [205].
William Page (1861-1934) was himself the son of a merchant and had been articled to a civil engineer before taking up a post in Australia, but he returned to England in 1884 to find that his eldest sister Margaret was ‘going with’ the above-named record agent and antiquary William John Hardy after his brief time at the PRO. Page joined him as a record agent and, when Hardy married in 1886 they went into partnership as Hardy & Page with an office in Lincoln’s Inn. Walter Rye thought them (with the Hewletts and William Phillimore) ‘as au fait at fighting a “record” case as getting the material together’ [206]. The range of inquiry received by the partners was almost unlimited, Page developed an expert knowledge of the records and the partners received much commissioned work, including calendaring and editing from the Historical Manuscripts Commission and various record societies. Page was drawn into the work of the Victoria County History by Horace Round and in 1902 was appointed its general editor, withdrawing from the partnership, but Hardy continued as a record agent until his death in 1919. He and his son, Colonel William Le Hardy, appointed in 1946 the first County Archivist for Hertfordshire, dominated research and publishing in the county for many years [207].
Genealogy and the Public Record Office have always attracted a share of eccentrics and the other searchers who favoured the Long Room in the 1880s, according to Page, included ‘two strange Welsh gentlemen who periodically retired to worship on the Welsh mountains and returned in unsavoury sheepskins’ [208]. They may be the ‘unsavoury and unclean persons’ about whom there had been complaints in 1881 when a hall porter was recruited to control admittance to the search rooms [209].
However, the chief of the eccentrics was undoubtedly General Plantagenet Harrison (1817-1890) of the Peruvian Army, ‘a giant, wearing a cowboy hat’. This extraordinary man, who claimed ‘against many impediments’ to be Earl of Lancaster, was called the ‘prince of genealogical cranks’ by Aleyn Lyell Reade (the authority on Samuel Johnson) who had heard all about him from his correspondent William Paley Baildon (1859-1924) in London [210] and he was described by Walter Rye as ‘a pedigree forger of the worst and most unscrupulous type’ [211].
Plantagenet Harrison later often used the name James Phillippe but he was born at Whashton and baptised George Henry Harrison at Kirby Ravensworth in Yorkshire, one of several children of Marley Harrison (died 1822) and Margaret his wife, nee Hutchinson. Harrison had taken an early interest in his ancestry and in November 1843 whilst in the Mexican province of Yucatan as a ‘General officer’, had assumed the names ‘De Strabolgie Neville Plantagenet’ claiming to be the direct representative of those families and descended from Elizabeth the sister of Henry IV. He claimed the descent through Margaret a daughter of Charles (Nevill), 6th Earl of Westmoreland (died 1584), who married Sir Nicholas Pudsey, [212] but George Frederick Beltz in his Memorials of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (1841) had already noted that Margaret and Nicholas did not appear to have had children [213].The descent was considered at some length and rejected by the Marquis de Ruvigny in his Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal (1905-11) [214] and noted by The Complete Peerage (1959) with the same conclusion [215]. Harrison almost certainly had no such descent, but in 1858 he petitioned the House of Lords for a summons to the House of Lords as Duke of Lancaster and published a Petition to the House of Lords touching the Duchy of Lancaster and the Forfeited Estates (1858) which was completely ignored. He told the Court of Bankruptcy that year that he was ‘de jure sovereign of these realms, but the Act of Settlement barred his claim’. The fact that he had an elder brother, Francis Harrison (1811-1894), a solicitor in Gray’s Inn and later at Great Sampford in Essex and Bristol who survived him, he dismissed with a comment to Paley Baildon that ‘he was a damned fool!’ [216]. Sadly his published pedigrees often show as little regard for the facts.
Harrison, who had never been in the British army, travelled extensively in South and North America, sometimes with local military appointments amongst the groups of wild gaucho horsemen, but apparently often relying on gambling, plunder and fraud for his income, taking his chances in the unrest of the times. In that he was assisted by his unusual height, a uniform heavy with gold braid and his display of the adopted Orders of the Garter and of St George. He was by his own highly coloured and exaggerated account with Abd-el-Kader against the French in Algeria and with Emir Becker in Syria before going to Yucatan and fighting against the Mexican Federal Government in 1843 as General of Brigade. In Guatemala in 1844 he fought against the Indians before going to Peru, where in July 1844 he helped to defend Lima. Later that year he was in Uruguay and, entering Corrientes, was in January 1845 made Grand Marshall of the Army of Liberty in the Argentine Republic. As a delegate from Corrientes to Brazil he was expelled and went from there in June 1846 to the Domincan Republic, was again expelled and went to Venezuela, but was again expelled and after trying to persuade Hayti to invade Dominica in November, he returned to England. That, at least, is the outline of an account he gave in his pedigree published about 1848-50 but little of the detail can be taken seriously [217].
In London in July 1847 he carried out a vicious attack on Major Richard Leslie Dundas (a friend of William Downing Bruce the genealogist mentioned below) who brought an action for assault in the Queen’s Bench in February 1848 which resulted in Harrison being sentenced to imprisonment for six months, but he jumped bail and went abroad; he was then ‘stated to hold the rank of Brigadier-General in the Mexican army’ [218]. In February 1849 the Morning Post, describing him as General of Cavalry, said that he had arrived on the French frontier on route for Madrid [219] and in May 1849 the London Daily News recounted his frauds there [220], but later that month published a letter from him at Gibraltar denying the account and saying that he had been in Denmark in July 1848 with the Danish Cavalry. He said then that as Prince of Plantagenet he had a ‘lineage more illustrious than that of any other prince in Christendom’ [221] but he was later obliged to admit that he held no formal commission in the Danish army [222]. According to later accounts he was imprisoned in Gibraltar for ten months for debt [223] and in April 1850 the newspapers were saying that the walls of Gibraltar were covered with placards in which he challenged to fight in single combat three Spanish generals and the English consul at Cadiz, but ‘in such gross and insulting language that we refrain from publishing it’ [224].
Back in London in 1850 he was apparently excluded from the Library at the British Museum by Sir Henry Ellis because he applied as ‘Duke of Lancaster’ [225] but in February 1851 it was reported from Berlin that he had been brought prisoner there for alleged frauds at Stralsund in 1848, having been arrested near Altona [226]. Whatever the truth of this he was certainly arrested in London on 24 December 1851 and returned to the Queen’s Bench Prison to serve his original term, though he immediately unsuccessfully petitioned for discharge [227].
Following his release he was imprisoned as an insolvent debtor, July-September 1852, following a fraud with guns bought in August 1847 and pawned the next day. In court he recounted his early travels in America and Europe but he was now ‘of no employ or occupation’. His only assets were £3,000 said to be owed to him as ambassador to Brazil from the Republic of Corrientes. He claimed to have been appointed a Lieutenant-General in the army of the Germanic Confederation by Archduke John but only ‘in time of war’ and he attributed his present insolvency to the peaceful state of Europe. He had received about £2,000 in military pay in the years 1843-4 and had after 1847 received about £1,200 from friends, winning at play another £1,300. It was ordered that he be discharged after he had been in custody at the suit of any of the creditors for three months, and at the suit of one of them for eight months from the vesting order [228].
In September 1853 it was reported that Harrison was at Constantinople offering his services to the Turks [229] and in May 1854 (just after the Crimean War had broken out) he denied from London any knowledge of conspiracies against Turkey [230]. At Hull in June 1855, having been apprehended on board a steamer at Grimsby about to depart for Hamburg, he was unsuccessfully charged with defrauding three banks. Described as ‘a fashionably-dressed, moustachioed and bearded Englishman’, his luggage and uniform were said to be ‘worth nearly £2,000’ [231]. He told the local newspaper that he was ‘entitled to seven millions of money, left to him, which he will shortly receive’ [232].
In November 1857 he was arrested for debt whilst at Marylebone Police Court on another matter and although surrounded by many people whom he had cheated he, being a crown witness, was discharged [233]. In February 1858 he was charged with assaulting two waiters at the Hotel de Paris, Haymarket, and fined 20s. On this occasion the money was paid [234]. In July 1858, in a case of property fraud, Meek v. Carter, he was described as ‘a mere adventurer’ [235].
In October-December 1858 he was again before the Insolvent Debtors’ Court ‘late a General Officer, now out of employment’, in prison and asking to be discharged. He claimed that his insolvency was due to the British Ambassador at Constantinople and Lord Palmerston on behalf of the Government not allowing him to serve in the Turkish army after his offer of service had been accepted by the Sultan and to his subsequent losses and imprisonment by the Prussian government. He had debts of £8,075 (for furniture, wine, fishing tackle, rent of a house for three servants, etc) of which £3,833 was without consideration. He said that his pay in the South American army had been plunder, his share being £150,000 in cattle, horses, etc. Counsel for the complainants said that after two previous insolvencies and a bankruptcy the incurring of debts without expectation of payment was fraud. The case was adjourned to complete further services upon his creditors. The lengthy notice in the London Gazette said that prior to being at Stralsund he had had offices in the Levant House, London, endeavouring to establish a mercantile and banking house in the name Skioldunger, Harrison & Company. He had later been a genealogist at 14 Clement’s Inn and among the items on his balance sheet was, ‘Received for making out Mr Wright’s pedigree 10 bonds of £1,000 each, the loss by sale of which was £9,750’ [236].
In August and September 1859 he placed a succession of advertisements in the Morning Post for a work The Golden Book of Westminster which he said would be ‘a correct history of the lineage of the various dynasties of the sovereigns of England, Scotland, &c, and of the ancient and modern nobility and gentry, with a description of the personal appearance of the present representative thereof, with his (the General’s) opinion as to the probability of each individual being descended of the blood he professes to represent. Also, a list of all gentlemen of blood entitled to bear coat armour, together with a list of such individuals as profess to be gentlemen, and who bear coat armour without being entitled thereto’, adding ‘Pedigrees compiled and published’ [237]. The book, which seems to have been an exercise in mass blackmail, did not appear.
In 1861 as ‘George Henry Harrison’ he was staying at the Great Western Hotel, Paddington, unmarried, aged 43, ‘gentleman’, but he apparently married shortly thereafter and by a wife Maria had a daughter Blanche Plantagenet Harrison who was born in April 1863 and baptised at St Pancras in July 1864. In April 1862 he had placed an advertisement in the Morning Post saying that he was ‘in want of a friend who will assist him to obtain justice’ [238] and in December that year had placed another advertisement there saying that he wanted someone to lend him £1,000 ‘for a special purpose’ and required ‘the services of two or three young men, of good blood who are ambitious of military glory’ [239]. The date and place of his marriage has not been found [240].
After apparently living for a while in some style in Kensington Gardens Square, Harrison was on 25 October 1861 again in prison for debt and was again adjudged bankrupt (in forma pauperis) when the extravagant style and title of the ‘pauper’ that appeared in the formal description caused some amusement [241]. He made several unsuccessful applications for discharge but seems to have remained in the Queen’s Bench Prison until 1 January 1863 when he benefited from a change in the law and was discharged. He then told the usher that he was a candidate for the throne of Greece! [242] It is not surprising that in February 1863 at a meeting of the Exeter Branch of the Trade Protection Society he was described as ‘one of the most extraordinary cheats London ever produced’ [243].
Harrison became a professional genealogist about 1862-3 and was at Bedford Row from about 1865 his principal business being to trace pedigrees which, as he said, was more profitable than translating records, the pay depending on the difficulty in tracing them [244]. He sometimes used the name ‘James Phillippe’ … ‘my grandmother being the heiress of the Phillippes’. However, in October 1867, trading as a genealogist and herald, he was again bankrupt with debts of £265 [245]. In January 1868 he was said to have assets of £262 10s, being owed that amount by Mr Piggott, of The Green, Richmond, for searching for his pedigree. Having insulted a witness, the discharge was adjourned for two months [246]. In June 1869 he took a successful action for libel against the Cornhill Magazine for a story about his time in Spain in which he was described as a ‘notorious swindler’ [247]. He said then that he had been a genealogist for six or seven years, was a linguist and antiquary, and was in attendance daily at the Record Office. Thomas Duffus Hardy, Deputy Keeper, said that he had known Harrison since 1863 and believed him sincere but eccentric; if Harrison were a swindler he would not be permitted to continue visiting the Office. Although the story seems to have had a factual basis, Harrison was awarded £50 damages and he was accordingly allowed to continue his work at the Record Office [248].
In the 1871 census George Harrison appears at 24 Hunter Street, St Pancras, as George Eley, aged 53, translator of records, born at Gilling, Yorkshire, with his wife Maria, aged 36, and daughter Blanche, aged 7 [249]. Eley or, more frequently Eeley, appears to have been his wife’s maiden name [250]. However, on 9 September 1871, styling himself ‘Mr James Phillippe, of 48, Bedford Row, London’, Harrison placed an advertisement in The Field newspaper which was copied and ridiculed for its self-confidence and effrontery in The Herald and Genealogist under the heading ‘A Radical Reformer in Genealogy’ [251]. Mr Phillippe had satisfied himself, he wrote, ‘that nearly the whole of the pedigrees hitherto pulished are fictitious’. The Visitation pedigrees were all ‘either fictitious inventions or the erroneous result of tradition’. The genealogical manuscripts in the British Museum were ‘simply trash’. Pedigrees could only be compiled from the Common Plea Rolls and having studied them for many years ‘he confidently states that he is the only man who ever lived competent to give a true account of all families of English extraction’. The advertisement concluded, ‘Fictitious pedigrees and family histories examined and reported upon’. An appended note attacked the registering and granting of Arms by the College of Arms saying that it ‘is wonderful that any persons should be such addle-headed donkeys as to entertain any such humbug’. Readers of The Field may not have known what he was talking about but some may have been attracted by his offer of ‘genuine pedigrees, properly vouched, at half the price at which spurious pedigees are obtained elsewhere’. Wrottesley did not start his work on the Plea Rolls until 1880 and had begun by taking only the Staffordshire entries and so there was little or no over-lap.
Harrison had for some years been planning a six-volume history of Yorkshire which was to include everything of value that he could find in his favoured Plea Rolls and in a series of notices in the York Herald early in 1873 in the name James Phillippe, he drew attention to the first volume of his forthcoming History of the North Riding of the County of York [252]. When the first volume actually appeared in 1879 its coverage was limited to the Wapentake of Gilling West near Richmond. Reviewers of the ‘ponderous tome’ were not impressed. It was prefaced with a copy of the portrait taken in Lima in 1844 and an account of his family in the male line from ‘Odin, King of Ascardia about seventy-six years before the birth of Christ’ who was said to be forty-first in descent from Eric, King of the Goths in the time of Abraham’s great-grandfather. The pedigree’s heading boasted, ‘This pedigree represents the concentrated glory of a world’. Aleyn Lyell Reade thought it ‘a supreme example of fantastic genealogy’ [253]. The history, which cost fifteen guineas, is said to have sold less than twenty copies [254] and no further volumes were produced.
Also in 1873, presumably in an attempt to gain publicity for his services, Harrison presented a quite bogus pedigree of George Washington’s family to President Ulysses S. Grant of America. According to Colonel Chester who had long known Harrison in London, the pedigree had been concocted by him as a catchpenny concern for the publisher John Camden Hotten who had died that year. The identity of Washington’s emigrant ancestor was not then known with certainty and Chester had shown the pedigree’s falsity in 1866 but the unpleasant Albert Welles in New York now published it in all its bogus glory, linking the first American president to the god Odin, the founder of Scandinavia, who, of course, was also Harrison’s first claimed ancestor. Chester wrote to a friend, ‘Of course you would not find any proofs of his statements. This distinguished ‘genealogist’ never furnishes any’ [255].
In July 1876 Harrison published a facsimile and translation of the Middlesex section of Domesday book which a review in The Graphic said had been executed ‘with the utmost care’ [256]. However, the following year he encouraged Henry De Burgh-Lawson to assume a baronetcy formerly held in a branch of his family which had been extinct since 1834 and authorised him to publish a letter in which he said that he was ‘answerable for the integrity of your pedigree’ [257]. However, in 1881 Joseph Foster consigned the claim to a section of his Baronetage entitled ‘Chaos’ as having no prima facie evidence and the family was not later entered on the Official Roll. In February 1878 Harrison was successfully sued in the Court of Queen’s Bench for the balance of the cost of a gold watch for which he had paid only £5 of the £75 asked [258].
Although supported by Duffus Hardy at the trial in 1869, Harrison had a difficult relationship with some at the Public Record Office and in 1875 his complaint that Alexander Ewald, the senior clerk, had that year written and published a highly popular two volume Life and times of Prince Charles Stuart, partly in official time, led to Ewald's official censure. The previous year Harrison had also accused a versatile and respected transcriber and superintendent of the workmen, Albert T. Watson, who in 1881 lived in Rolls Yard, of taking documents (a list of emigrants to America) out of the office for indexing, a charge that Watson was able to rebut [259].
In 1881 Harrison, his wife and daughter, were at 93 Highgate Road, St Pancras, he describing himself merely as ‘George Harrison, genealogist’. In 1883-8 he rented a garrett room on the fourth floor at 10 New Court, Lincoln’s Inn [260]. His life had become a record of poverty and disappointment but he may have mellowed somewhat for Paley Baildon remarked on his ‘great fund of anecdote and humour’ [261] and young Corrie Leonard Thompson (1868-1897), who cannot have known him long, said that he ‘bore with him a most kindly manner’ [262]. In his later years ‘the Major’ spent the majority of his time in the Record Office taking notes from the Plea Rolls. His income must have been slight but A. L. Morton noted that one source was research for other people called Harrison, though his extravagant pretensions and arrogant manner antagonised his fellow genealogists, ‘They regarded him as a crazy imposter while he regarded them as ignorant charlatans’. On his death in 1890 Edward Walford recalled that he had sought advertisements in his Antiquarian Magazine as ‘the only living genealogist’ and another writer ridiculed his pretensions and wrote that he ‘could only be regarded as a madman’ [263]. However, the lasting value of his indexing and abstracts was recognised and his daughter was able to sell twelve volumes of extracts from the De Banco and Coram Rege Rolls, written between 1865 and 1888, to the Record Office for £240 [264]. She had asked £600 for his thirty volumes. The remainder came into the possession of the genealogist Arthur Campling (died 1947) and after his death the Office bought a further five volumes, the remainder going to another genealogist Philip Blake (died 1994) and coming to the Office after his death. Harrison’s contemporary Walter Rye thought his advertisement of an index to the De Banco rolls ‘most misleading’, saying ‘he had an index to his notes or extracts only’ and adding ‘all young genealogists should be most careful of believing anything he wrote’ [265]. The references may be valuable but his stated relationships are entirely untrustworthy. Undoubtedly industrious, he lacked all critical sense.
Plantagenet Harrison died in Islington, 18 July 1890, and his widow Maria died in 1922. Their only child Blanche (1863-1934), married in 1892, John Christopher Cain Routh (1856-1939),but had no issue.
The history of genealogy is far from being that of a steady development of the subject, encouraged by dedicated and pleasant people, and amongst the eccentrics there have always been some genealogists who are thoroughly unpleasant and, indeed, quite impossible people. For all that the great medieval scholar John ‘Horace’ Round (1854-1928), a pupil of the Oxford historian William Stubbs (1825-1901),contributed to the subject and despite the sympathetic biographies accorded him by William Page [266], Frank Stenton [267] and Raymond Powell [268], he was one of the least pleasant persons that the subject has produced. Of a nervous and delicate constitution and living almost entirely alone, he suffered debilitating headaches and other ill-health from an early age. However, throughout life he was eager to enter into controversy and he developed a withering contempt for other scholars and anyone with liberal tendencies, displayed in violent and unnecessarily repeated and venomous attacks on those of whom he disapproved or had the temerity to criticise him. An elderly aunt told him about 1896 that ‘a touch of envy and discontent is your besetting sin (from early years) and it takes such possession of your mind that you are almost unaware of it’ [269].
Horace Round came from a gentry family involved in the public life of Essex but he was of modest private means. An involvement in electioneering brought him an appointment as Deputy Lieutenant of the county in 1892 but although use of the fancy uniform gave him pleasure, it was an honorific post without duties and he subsequently had no formal position other than when ‘Honorary Historical Adviser to the Crown in peerage cases’ in 1914-21 [270]. Round thus had time to contribute an extraordinary number of articles, reviews and notes to various journals over a period of twenty-five years. He had developed an interest in genealogy when quite young and had written to Sir Bernard Burke whilst fresh at Balliol College in 1874, apparently with corrections to one of his books, but a subsequent offer of assistance with research at the Bodleian was ignored. In his final year the College Master, Benjamin Jowett, who had heard from Round’s tutor that he was ‘too fond of pedigrees’, told him that he should read Freeman’s fierce article on ‘Pedigrees and Pedigree Makers’ mentioned below [271], but his first publication was a review of the 1879 edition of Burke’s Landed Gentry in the Saturday Review which praised its recent improvements [272]. Between 1881 and 1883 several of his genealogical papers appeared in Notes & Queries [273] and in those years he contributed to and promoted Joseph Foster’s Collectanea Genealogica and the latter's valuable new Peerage after which he eagerly gave support to the wealthy and avuncular George Edward Cokayne (1825-1911), Norroy King of Arms, then embarking on his monumental Complete Peerage (8 vols. 1887-98). They got on well, for although the prim Round ‘loved a lord’ and disapproved of the chronique scandaleuse found in Cokayne’s footnotes, Cokayne refused to be drawn into any quarrels [274].
Working at the Public Record Office, Round became friendly with Walford Selby, the superintendent of the search room, another well-connected Essex man, who had founded the Pipe Roll Society in 1883 and from 1884 was the editor of The Genealogist the mouthpiece of the critical school of genealogy. Selby claimed descent from the Browne family, viscounts Montagu, and at one time (like several others) had preferred a claim to that peerage, dormant or perhaps extinct since 1797. Between 1885 and 1903 Round contributed some 69 articles and notes to his journal, mostly on Anglo-Norman baronial families, though Selby, who died in 1889, was already referring to Round as ‘the official nightmare’! [275]. The prolific Round also contributed over 40 items to Edward Walford’s Antiquary (1880-7) and the Antiquarian Magazine (from 1882). Between 1885 and 1900 he wrote 78 articles for the Dictionary of National Biography, utilising recently published record sources and often, for the first time, demonstrating how genealogy could assist the historian [276].
Freeman’s pamphlet on the Nature and Origin of the House of Lords (1884) annoyed Round intensely and was the beginning of a life-long war on Freeman’s partiality and inaccuracy. Lord Lytton thought Freeman ‘a pretentious fellow and a bad writer’ [277]. Meanwhile, as a result of the three papers which Round gave at the octocentenary celebrations of Domesday Book in 1886 and published in Domesday Studies (1888),he became a recognised authority on Domesday [278]. His biography of Geoffrey de Mandeville (1892) with its use of royal charters, followed by Feudal England (1895) and his Calendar of Documents preserved in France (1899) [279] established him as a leading historian of the Anglo-Norman period [280]. He had excellent French having lived in France when very young. For the Calendar, on which he worked for five years and visited France seven times, he was paid half a guinea a printed page and earned a total of £386 [281].
Also in 1886 Round played a leading part in the foundation of the English Historical Review and until 1923 contributed some 63 items to all but two of its annual volumes [282]. Taking the value of good reviews very seriously, he provided it with over two hundred [283]. However, other historians were becoming increasingly wary of him and his editors needed great patience and firmness. Liberal disciples of Freeman such as Thomas Archer, Kate Norgate, Charles Oman and William Stephens were, after Freeman’s death in 1892, pilloried unmercifully [284], and following the publication of the Red Book of the Exchequer (1896), edited by a former friend Hubert Hall, then Senior Clerk at the PRO and Director of the Royal Historical Society, Round carried out a vicious and sustained attack on him. Hall, who was not a strong medievalist and had, in the legal historian Professor Frederic Maitland’s words, ‘a curious fluffy mind’, was also ‘a right good sort’ but was constrained by his official position and he said with some justification that these attacks were prompted by ‘private malice’. They were probably made worse by his work at the newly founded London School of Economics and his friendship with social reformers such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb [285]. However, Round’s selection of topics for his next work, The Commune of London (1899), seems to have been largely dictated (as was the case with his later books) as vehicles for personal animus and he was now widely disliked and feared [286]. He lost the friendship of Maitland who openly criticised his aggressiveness and bad manners and indeed his failure to sustain a continuous narrative without striking out at someone of whom he disapproved [287].
In 1899, having involved himself in various political and religious controversies, Round, a lonely man needing to be wanted, threw himself into the work of the Victoria County History and became a friend and supporter of its General Editors, Arthur Doubleday and William Page. As the ‘Domesday Editor’ of the series, he promoted it with evangelical fervour and contributed to it almost full-time until 1901 and from 1905 to 1908, though frequently criticising its arid style and lack of adequate maps [288]. The original plan was that each county would have a volume of pedigrees of local families which had held a seat and landed estate in the male line since 1760, but owing to the great expenditure involved those for Northamptonshire (2 vols. 1906) edited by Oswald Barron and for Hertfordshire (1907) edited by Duncan Warrand, were the only ones to appear [289].
In 1902, as noted above, Round and Barron persuaded Doubleday to found the quarterly magazine, The Ancestor, intending that it should set new standards in scholarship. Raymond Powell calls Oswald Barron, the son of a marine engineer from Dagenham, ‘an erratic little man without social graces’, but he got on surprisingly well with Round to whom he was ‘fiercely loyal, and submissive under reproof’. However, Barron, who had been educated at Merchant Taylors’ School and in the 1890s worked as a record searcher in the extensive practice of Henry Farnham Burke at the College of Arms, was unable to restrain Round’s taste for controversy and The Ancestor, as W. H. Benbow Bird told Round in 1903, had become ‘a vehicle for your personal animosities’ and was frightening away potential contributors [290]. Bird, a noted editor of the Close Rolls, had himself contributed the famous article on ‘The Grosvenor Myth’ to the magazine’s first volume but Round, who could not bear any form of criticism, savaged him over the Trafford pedigree in The Ancestor in 1905 and characteristically returned in 1910 to savage him again and at greater length in Peerage and Pedigree [291]. By late 1905 Round was a very sick man [292] and with Arthur Doubleday’s departure from Constables, the journal ceased publication [293]. Barron went on to write popular daily articles as ‘The Londoner’ on general topics for The Evening News, revealing an urbane personality of great charm [294], and he gained great acclaim for his magisterial article on ‘Heraldry’ in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. To that encyclopedia Horace Round contributed some 36 articles, including that on the ‘Battle Abbey Roll’.
Since 1897 Round had also been involved, initially with Joseph Foster who had strong views on the subject, with the rights of Baronets (some fifty of whom had very dubious claims to their titles) [295] and he worked hard on their reform and to give a stricter scrutiny to the descent and assumption of titles. A Departmental Committee on the Baronetage, appointed by the Home Secretary in 1907, was of the opinion that the position held by members of the College of Arms in the examination of such claims did ‘not guarantee the necessary legal training and experience to qualify them for the task’ [296]. After the establishment of the Official Roll of the Baronetage in 1910 Round involved himself in the work of the Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords, being regularly consulted on peerage claims, and apparently hoping that he might himself receive some public recognition as a peer or privy councillor [297].
In 1910 Round published two substantial volumes, Peerage and Pedigree: studies in peerage law and family history (750 copies, 25s.),the first of which was concerned mainly with the descent of dignities and the inconsistent and sometimes conflicting rules that had been applied. He discussed these at length in ‘The Muddle of the Law’ and ‘The House of Lords’. His second volume treated family history, as he wrote ‘in the modern critical spirit and on the same principles as other history’. In ‘Some “Saxon” houses’ he tackled at length the claimed Saxon descents of families found in Burke, following this with ‘The great Carington imposture’, an extended and savage attack on the History and Records of the Smith-Carrington family from the Conquest (1907) by Walter Arthur Copinger (1847-1910), Professor of Law at Victoria University, Manchester, and an expert on conveyancing, the registration of whose pedigree at the College of Arms had caused Round great indignation. Copinger, perhaps fortunately, had died just a month earlier. Round continued with ‘The Geste of John de Courcy’, an attack on Edward Irving Carlyle (1871-1952), the author of the article about de Courcy (amongst dozens of others) in the Dictionary of National Biography of which Carlyle was the Assistant Editor, Round describing him with heavy sarcasm as ‘doubtless a distinguished historian’. His final article was ‘Heraldry and the Gent’ with its attack on A. C. Fox-Davies mentioned below.
The perverse Round did not deign to appear before the Royal Commission on Public Records between 1910 and 1919 and, as John Cantwell says, ‘did not disguise his contempt for it’ [298], but that probably had much to do with the fact that the hated Hubert Hall, a dedicated and tireless advocate for archives, was its Secretary. However, in spite of his health Round took a leading part and gave two lectures at the International Congress of Historical Studies in London in April 1913 [299]. In one talk, entitled ‘Historical Genealogy’, he discussed genealogy as a branch of history, genealogy based on historical research principles, and genealogy’s own development. He thought that genealogy’s services to the general historian ‘can easily be overrated’ though it was essential for an understanding of Domesday Book and the feudal baronage. However, he thought it ‘of supreme value’ for topographical history and for the charting of manorial descents prior to 1485, saying that ‘the topographer should always have a pedigree by his side, and the genealogist a local map’. After 1485 genealogy was ‘unconnected with the tenure of land’ and became a ‘study based on other sources than the records of manorial descent’. It was to many minds ‘a subject of ridicule and of scorn’ and he spoke of the fabulous pedigrees in Burke’s Peerage and Landed Gentry. He could not accept ‘as a true student of genealogy one who cares for nothing but the pedigree of his own family’. The great age of pedigree concoction had been from the middle of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century and he blamed the heralds for the decadence of heraldic art, the commercial granting or arms, the producton of armorial scrolls and for greedily swallowing forged charters and seals, the great Burghley being ‘pedigree-mad’. With infinite labour he had set himself to expose them, ‘nailing them up one by one, as a gamekeeper nails his vermin, and trying to place the critical study of genealogical evidence on a sound and historical basis’. Under Charles II the public records in the Tower of London were, he said, searched with such assiduity that the knowledge of their contents became ‘absolutely astounding’ and the publication of Dugdale’s Baronage of England (1675-6) had been a landmark, standing for honesty and truth. Of the earlier heralds he used only the work of Robert Glover, Somerset Herald. He praised as ‘historical genealogy’ John Smyth’s great work on the Berkeleys, extracted from public records and charters and written on historical principles. Arthur Collins, although industrious and well qualified, lacked independence and his peerage was ‘crammed with ludicrous genealogy’ which was copied into Burke and now moved historians ‘to contempt and scorn’. He said that after 1832 two rival schools of genealogy developed: firstly that of the complaisant heralds and Burke, and secondly the critical and historical school founded by John Gough Nichols through his valuable periodicals and carried on by The Genealogist, ‘in spite of small demand for work of this character’. Joseph Foster’s attempt at a historically truthful Peerage had been ‘remarkably successful’. It was far easier to construct a spurious pedigree than to demolish an imposture, especially if it adduced no evidence. Pedigrees on ‘record’ at the College of Arms would not necessarily meet modern standards of proof. The word ‘tradition’ should excite no reverence. He ended by saying, ‘Show us the evidence – valid evidence, such as historians would accept – and we will gladly admit a pedigree from the Norman Conquest, its splendour increased by the very methods which have enabled us to purge genealogy of its dross and to give you its ore alone’.
In 1914 (by which date his branch of the Round family had been removed from Burke’s Landed Gentry) he was appointed Honorary Historical Adviser to the Crown in peerage cases. His advice was not always taken [300] and he resigned in 1922. In 1905 Round had accepted an honorary LL.D. from Edinburgh University but he perversely declined the Fellowship of the British Academy because Sir Charles Oman was elected at the same time and he declined that of the Society of Antiquaries because there was an entrance fee [301].
Meanhile, his work on the revival of dormant peerages had brought him into conflict with his former friend Arthur Doubleday who fiercely attacked the process in an unnecessarily provocative article in the Complete Peerage in 1916 [302]. Round responded violently in the English Historical Review in 1918 [303] charging Doubleday with inaccuracy and plagiarism. Doubleday together with the editor of the Review and its publisher threatened to sue Round for malicious libel and they were compelled to admit that the charges were ‘not substantiated’ and to publish an apology [304]. Geoffrey Henllan White (1873-1969) [305], a later editor of the Complete Peerage, thought that the charges against Arthur Doubleday were entirely devoid of justification. Until that time Round had assisted with the first four volumes of the revised Complete Peerage and its appendices but after the row with Doubleday in 1916 he took no active part in the preparation of subsequent volumes [306]. After an internal operation in 1915 Round was an invalid [307]. Although he had long been a crony of the industrious Walter Rye (about whom he poked fun as ‘Waltah’ behind his back) they exchanged bitter blows in 1920 when Round published a vicious attack on one of his books in the English Historical Review and an indignant Rye countered with a list of some fifty-seven people that Round had abused in print! [308].
Geoffrey White, writing after Round’s death in 1928, said that he was undoubtedly the greatest master of historical genealogy, equipped with much learning and insight and possessed of a remarkable skill in analysing evidence and detecting the weak points in the fraudulent pedigrees that he exposed, having a whole-hearted contempt for the sham genealogy and dishonest heralds of earlier days [309]. The Revd Henry Denny wrote, 'To him more than any other individual may be given the credit of having raised Genealogy from the realms of 'gorgeous mythology' to the position of an exact and scientific department of History' in which narratives were based solely upon citations to primary sources [310]. A bibliography of Round’s works by Raymond Powell lists some 960 items, 940 of them articles in some 45 periodicals or reference works [311].
Joseph Jackson Howard, George Marshal and, at the end of his life, Oswald Barron all had official appointments at the College of Arms and there was never any suggestion that their periodicals should form the basis of any larger organisation that might create a library or, Heaven forbid, undertake research that would take clients away from the College. In 1867, as described below, John Gough Nichols had himself carried out an attack on 'the tribe of advertising quacks who endeavour to intercept the business which ought to come to the hands of the professional Heralds' [312] and many clearly held that view.
However, although Sir Anthony Wagner wrote that English genealogists are individualists, who show no wish to be organized [313], there were some attempts to found a society of persons interested in genealogy in London in the nineteenth century, though they had no lasting impact and their collections, such as they were, have not survived. As mentioned, the College of Arms and long-standing and extensive professional practices viewed such associations, even into the twentieth century, with suspicion and concern, fearing that they would take paid work away from them.
The New England Historic Genealogical Society had been founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1847 and is now the oldest genealogical society in the world. A year earlier the ‘London Genealogical Society’ had been launched, a notice in the Morning Post for 11 March 1846 proclaiming that, ‘The Council will proceed to the next election of Fellows, Members, &c., on the 18th instant. Candidates are requested to forward their cards without delay. As a list of the corresponding members for each county is nearly complete, gentlemen desirous of being appointed for the county in which they reside, previous to a general visitation, are requested to apply to the Marshal as early as possible. Prospectuses and rules may be had on application – Genealogical Record Office, 32, Cockspur Street, Pall Mall’ [314].
The great wit Douglas Jerrold (1803-1857), writing in Punch in February, had seen the Society’s prospectus and with heravy sarcasm had made fun of ‘the astounding utility of this society’ with its ‘many nascent benefits’ and in particular its proposed visitations of the kingdom at which ‘arms and pedigree’ might be recorded for a guinea and membership obtained for two guineas [315]. The article said that a Genealogical Institution was also to be established and revealed that the ‘Marshal and Principal’ behind this money-raising scheme was calling himself ‘E. Wyrelle M. Weber’. Weber seems to have taken the idea from Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick’s Heraldic Visitations of Wales (1846) to which he had subscribed that year [316]. He certainly deceived the Yorkshire historian and journalist John Walker Ord (1811-1853) who, in an advertisement for his History and Antiquities of Cleveland (1847), proudly styled himself ‘Corresponding Member and Fellow of the London Genealogical Society’ [317].
Weber was a very doubtful character. He had been born at Ellesmere in Shropshire in 1812 as Edward Worall, the son of a ‘deedsman’. When he went bankrupt in 1849 [318] it was stated that before coming to London he had been an ‘author’ at Stratford-upon-Avon and at Wellington in Shropshire. After the promotion of his ‘London Genealogical Society’ he had been Secretary to the National Reform League and a ‘town traveller’, but when in prison as an insolvent debtor in 1856 it was revealed that he had been sued and was commonly known as Edward Wyrall, ‘author and artist’, and had a wife who was a Professor of Music. Indeed, the couple had at least five surviving children. These he deserted in 1869 when he married bigamously in Staffordshire one Eugénie Frédérique Nifenecker, a teacher of French, some thirty years his junior, by whom he had further children. At the time of his death at Hanley in 1873 he was calling himself ‘De Wyrall’ and had been variously described as a teacher, antiquarian and transcriber. It is perhaps not surprising that in April 1852 a correspondent to Notes & Queries calling himself ‘Metaouo’, said that shortly after its foundation he had been appointed corresponding member to the London Genealogical Society, but on going to the rooms one morning he had found that the concern had ‘vanished into thin air’ [319].
The original announcement of the ‘visitation’ from Shrewsbury had produced a perceptive note under the heading ‘The Genealogical Society of London’ in the Spectator which was copied into several other papers, saying ‘The announcement must have fluttered the hearts of the whole squirearchy ‘round the Wrekin’. All who have summered or wintered in ‘country quarters’ know the tendency of genealogies to grow backwards. A wealthy grocer purchases an estate and settles down upon it; his grown-up sons and daughters are civilly received by the surrounding gentry; their children are the equal play-mates of the aristocratic nurseries; in the course of two or at the most three generations, the grocer’s family is incorporated into the body of the county gentry by a silent imperceptible process analogous to the assimilation of food by the human body. Strangers and slight acquaintancies, on the strength of a name, attribute relationships to the new family, which it does not deny and comes at last to believe. Many a respectable family tree grows after this inverted fashion: genealogies are formed as the Chinese have constructed their historical cycles, by calculating backwards. The number of these ex-post-facto genealogies in a ‘shop keeping’ nation is enormous.Their existence if often suspected, but from common politeness rarely if ever spoken about. And this agreeable state of half self-delusion the Genealogical Society of London threatens to terminate by their invasion of the county of Salop!’ [320].
Very shortly afterwards an ‘Heraldic and Genealogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland’ was announced with the object of collecting and publishing documentary evidence. A note in the Chelmsford Chronicle for Friday, 7 May 1847, said that the wealthy Earl of Shrewsbury, a catholic, was its President, with the Marquis of Bute, the Earl of Eglintoun and Sir Thomas Phillipps as vice-presidents. Its council of twelve members included Thomas Stapleton (Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries),Sir Cuthbert Sharp and the young and well-connected William Downing Bruce (1824-1875), F.S.A. The latter, presumably the source of the information, was said to be ‘the author of many works on genealogical subjects, who is now preparing for publication a new edition of Douglas’ Baronage of Scotland, with revisions, corrections, and a continuation’.The society’s council was said to have appointed the Revd Roger Dawson Duffield, of Lamarsh Rectory, to be the corresponding member for Essex [321]. Perhaps John Walker Ord was confused between the two societies.
A correspondent, ‘W.P.A.’, asked about this organisation in Notes & Queries in March 1852 [322] and according to ‘Metaouo’ the following month [323], a prospectus issued ‘a few years ago’ had named its Secretary as William Downing Bruce, then of the United Services Institution, Whitehall. However, the London Gazette had revealed in November 1850 that Downing Bruce was then a law student and in a debtor’s prison! At his examination as a debtor the following month he gave a series of addresses and described himself as of no profession or employ, an author, a director of various railway companies and occasionally dealing in railway shares [324]. The President of the Society, the Earl of Shrewsbury was living abroad and died in November 1852. How far the ‘Heraldic and Genealogical Society’ had actually existed is not clear, but it does not appear again. William Downing Bruce had married at Paris in November 1847 and he and his mother-in-law had some connection with the genealogist and fraudster Plantagenet Harrison. It was Major Dundas’s aspersions on Downing Bruce’s wife that provoked Harrison’s vicious attack on the major mentioned above. Downing Bruce’s debt being less than £20 he was discharged in January 1851 but not before there had been allegations of forgery in which Pantagenet Harrison and his brother Francis Harrison were also involved [325]. Downing Bruce, who published a pamphlet on the ecclesiastical courts in 1854, was afterwards a judge in Jamaica!
However, the Genealogical and Historical Society of Great Britain, founded in 1853-4, 'for the illustration of family history, lineage and biography' and meeting until 1857 at 18 Charles Street, St James’s Square [326], certainly was a membership society and had a slightly longer existence. Correspondents in Notes & Queries later said that the promoters of this organisation had, on 14 May 1854, issued an admirable prospectus that deserved support and that it used as its unregistered arms Azure three scrolls, a crest A hand holding a pen, and supporters Time and Fame each holding a scroll [327]. An early idea to establish a branch in Cheshire and North Wales, though warmly welcomed in the local press [328], seems to have been quickly abandoned even though the Morning Chronicle carried a passionate manifesto of the value of such local societies. It ends, ‘Aid would be given to aid, information to information, correction to correction, illustration to illustration, evidence to evidence, which would prove satisfactory, truthful, and pleasing in the result’ [329].
In July 1855 the new Society advertised its existence in Notes & Queries, saying that it had been founded 'by several Noblemen and Gentlemen interested in Genealogical and Historical research, for the elucidation and compilation of Family History, Lineage, and Biography, and for authenticating and illustrating the same' [330]. The journalist and compiler Edward Walford (1823-1897), then involved in producing the Shilling Peerage, took the chair at the first AGM on 13 November 1855 and said that Lord Strangford (director of the Society of Antiquaries) had agreed to be the President but had died. A journal was to be commenced early the following year and there was an urgent need to establish a library. The chairman optimistically said that ‘he hoped all chances of misunderstanding that might possibly arise with the Herald’s College had been removed by private explanation, and showed that the interests of the two bodies were, in point of fact, identical’ [331]. That would certainly not have satisfied those at the College.
The society's Secretary throughout its existence was Theodore Rycroft Dalby Reeve (1821-1911), known as 'Rycroft Reeve', who lived then in Brompton Crescent, Kensington and variously described himself as a journalist, literary writer, art critic and genealogist [332]. From reports of the early meetings he seems to have been interested in ‘family history prior to the Norman Invasion’. The President, elected in 1856, was George (Egerton), Viscount Brackley, formerly Liberal-Conservative M.P. for North Staffordshire, who succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Ellesmere in 1859 and inherited a large portion of the property of the last Duke of Bridgewater. His father had been a book collector and patron of learned societies who opened the famous picture gallery at Bridgewater House to the public and the son was also a scholarly man, a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Trustee of the British Museum.
At the Annual Meeting on 20 December 1856, Viscount Brackley, then a Vice-President took the chair and said that the membership had increased considerably and that a number of old families had entrusted the Society with their manuscripts [333]. At another meeting in May 1857 it was noted how economically the Society’s proceedings had been conducted and that various books had been donated, some richly emblazoned pedigrees being laid on the table [334]. By then the Society was regularly advertising its existence in the Morning Post.
By the time of the Society’s fifth Annual Meeting on 11 August 1858 it had moved to ‘the Society’s house, 208 Piccadilly’, though it did not appear in the London Directories until 1861. The rooms there were apparently above Francis Pastorelli & Co, wholesale opticians, on the south side of Piccadilly near St James's Church [335].
With Lord Ellesmere as President the Society became more active and between 1858 and 1863 it published Annual Reports and a List of Members [336] but described itself as 'purely a learned' society, meaning that it did not undertake paid research and thus posed no threat to the College of Arms. The 1858 report says that in the absence of Lord Ellesmere, Lord Farnham, a vice-president, took the chair and that there was ‘a very numerous attendance of Fellows, amongst whom were several leading members of the aristocracy and leaders in the literary world’. At the ‘inconveniently crowded’ meeting a young man called Samon Service (died 1865),an insurance agent at Barton upon Irwell and the son of a parish clerk at Bowdon in Cheshire, outlined a scheme to make a summary index of the kingdom’s parish registers prior to 1836 and although the Revd Thomas Hugo (1820-1876), the ultra-High-Church Bewick collector, objected to the idea as against the vested interest of parish clerks and clergymen, the Revd Richard Cox Hales, Rector of Woodmancoat, said that the private interests of a few clergy should be made to yield to the convenience of the public and that compensation might be provided. The family historian Sir Edward Conroy (1809-1869),the spoilt son of Queen Victoria’s hated Sir John Conroy, said that something should be done to make the registers more available; when he was in the Registrar General’s department (he had resigned as Deputy Registrar General in 1842) he had looked at many schemes and he thought the present one worthy of examination by the Society. Several elaborate pedigrees, including one of Lord Farnham prepared by Sir Bernard Burke, were again laid on the table [337].
The Society's Sixth Annual Meeting was held at Lord Ellesmere’s town house, Bridgewater House, near St James's Palace, on Wednesday, 6 July 1859. An original invitation which I have indicates that Fellows were allowed to introduce visitors, carriages being instructed 'to set down in Little St James's Street'. Lord Ellesmere had presided at the council meeting in May and his invitation to Bridgewater House had been noted in the Morning Post [338], so there was a considerable gathering at the meeting when between four and five hundred persons were present. It was then said that the Society had upwards of 200 associates (perhaps mostly honorary), giving assistance freely to each other [339].
In an effort to gain greater publicity for the Society, Lord Ellesmere again opened the magnificent Bridgewater House to its members for a grand reception on 17 July 1860 when refreshments were served throughout the evening to ‘a numerous and brilliant assembly, composed of ladies and gentlemen in about equal proportions’ in rooms adjoining the picture gallery where the Society’s seventh AGM was held. Unfortunately the President was indisposed but Lord Ebury took the chair. He referred to the ‘many persons who are in want of the aid and information which an association of this kind is capable of affording’ and mentioned the many documents which had been ‘copied, registered, compared, and placed in form’, but the Secretary’s report revealed that the arrears of subscriptions totalled £679-7-0 and there was only £12-14-0 in the bank. There were four talks (on the Domesday Survey, the Anglo-Saxon Kings, Chronicles and Heraldry, on the Half-crown, and on Artificial Memory as applied to the Study of History) but thankfully we are assured that, ‘The proceedings terminated at an early hour’ [340].
From its early days the Society had elected Honorary Fellows and the newspapers of the time contain many references to persons who had been so distinguished [341], but that this provided any income for the organisation is unlikely. It cannot have been helped by the publicity given to an action, settled out of Court, which Commander George Baring Browne Collier, R.N. (1816-1890), a grandson of Admiral Sir George Collier, K.T., took against the Society’s secretary Rycroft Reeve for ‘neglecting to do what he undertook’ in August 1863. Collier believed that he was descended from a Baron de la Roche who had been summoned to attend Parliament in 1299-1306 and Reeve had undertaken to furnish the missing link. Collier, believing Reeve to be ‘the secretary of a genealogical society and a person likely to be able to furnish him with the required information’, had paid him £386 but now Reeve ‘had not found the missing link, and refused to give up the papers’. It was said that Reeve ‘had not gone the right way to work as a skilled man should have done’ and instead of ascertaining who the last baron was and whether he had issue, had attempted to trace Collier’s pedigree backwards in all its lines [342]. The ‘Baron’ had been summoned to Parliament by writs directed ‘Thome de la Roche’ whereby, according to modern doctrine, he had become Lord Roche, but none of his descendants were summoned to Parliament and any peerage that may have been created by the writs went into abeyance in 1382 [343].
The unfortunate court case had immediately followed the death in September 1862 of the Society’s invalid President, Lord Ellesmere, aged 39. His uncle wrote of him, 'No man ever bore so wearisome and painful an existence with more exemplary patience and resignation' [344]. His widow survived until 1916 but the Society now quickly went into a steep decline.
The Society’s officers moved its premises across Piccadilly to rooms at No 29 above those of a piano manufacturer and auctioneers and an entry in Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual, perhaps written late in 1864, says that 'Several pedigrees of families have been executed by the Society, which may be inspected at the Society's Rooms' [345]. However, although the organisation continued to appear in the London directories until 1882 and was listed amongst the 'principal societies' in Phillimore's How to write the history of a family in 1888 [346] it had apparently long been moribund. A ‘London Correspondent’, writing in the Lancaster Gazette in 1874, said that he was constantly being asked by friends in the country if he could tell them anything about the Society and he had been at some pains to make enquiries about it but without success. It held no meetings, published no transactions and did not name its ruling body and ‘must really be a very strange sort of association’ [347]. In response to an enquiry from ‘Y.S.M.’ in Notes & Queries for 23 July 1887, its former chairman Edward Walford wrote to say that it had done very little work after the first year or two and he did not know if it still existed. Its place was, he thought, fairly well supplied by the Royal Historical Society [348].
The writers in Notes & Queries in 1887 knew nothing about the organisation's papers or about all those pedigrees which had been laid on the table and about which Rycroft Reeve kept strangely quiet. He did not join the discussion, although named and his address at 25 Oakley Street, Chelsea, given. George Sherwood asked yet again through Notes &Queries about the society’s papers in 1905 [349] but received no answer. It was not until after Reeve’s death intestate at Wandsworth, aged 91, early in 1911 [350] that Richard John Fynmore (1839-1920), of Sandgate, a banker who had followed his activities in 1858-60, replied, but Reeve’s death was not mentioned [351]. The Editor may have known more about Reeve’s circumstances than he was willing publicly to say.
In the very early days of the Society its Manager, Henry Harvey of 14 Regent Square, Gray's Inn Road, who had later worked for various assurance companies, had gone bankrupt in August 1855 [352]. It is probably not a coincidence that someone of this name was much later a clerk to George Thomas Condy, a solicitor who was also involved in several London assurance companies but who also had gone bankrupt in February 1854 [353]. Rycroft Reeve was appointed the latter’s assignee in May 1854 [354]. In October 1872, Condy, aged 47, of Battersea, and Harvey, aged 53, of Pimlico, accountant, were sentenced at the Central Criminal Court to twelve months hard labour for conspiring together to defraud the creditors of one Abraham Fox, a bankrupt, by placing false claims on his file at the Bankruptcy Court [355].
Meanwhile in 1867 the periodical The Herald and Genealogist had noted the current popularity of heraldry and genealogy as witnessed by the number of publications on those subjects and by the great use that was being made of the genealogical manuscripts at the British Museum. It was at this time that its editor, John Gough Nichols, referred to 'the tribe of advertising quacks’, having received two circulars from one Henry Delaine calling himself the Secretary of the Fraternity of Genealogists at 51 King Street, Regent Street [356]. Delaine claimed that 'A Society of Practical Genealogists (resident in all the principal towns of England, Scotland, and Wales) has been formed for the purpose of properly and correctly tracing the pedigrees of families of ancient date. By this union access is acquired to every Public Library in Great Britain, and also to most of the celebrated Private Libraries. By the latter, very many perfect and valuable pedigrees and other MSS have been discovered, the existence of which was previously unknown, and by this, the pedigrees of very many families of note have been traced by Genealogists and others in the olden time can be laid before them'. He went on to say that several thousand pedigrees had been culled mostly from private libraries and that the pedigrees in the College of Arms 'are but copies of the most perfect in the Harleian Library, to examine and have copies of which, large sums are demanded'. The fee for an 'ancient pedigree' was two guineas pre-paid.
The editor of Punch, Shirley Brooks (1816-1874), rightly doubted Delaine’s statement that ‘most people can trace back to the 17th century and so join the modern and ancient pedigree’ and said of this ‘fraternal offer’ that he could make a pedigree for himself [357] but several of the circulars survive and a few families are known to have parted with their guineas and received pedigrees. However, later in 1867 [358] the credibility of Henry Delaine's work was doubted by the Sussex antiquary Mark Antony Lower (1813-1876) [359] and Delaine disappeared. That there had been any actual union of genealogists is unlikely as an appeal for information about the Fraternity in Notes & Queries in 1897 produced only a reference to Rycroft Reeve's former society [360].
When George Sherwood wrote in 1909 of 'manufactured ancestors' and of a study that was 'neither literature nor science' he was referring to the published work of Sir Bernard Burke on the peerage and landed gentry. More than forty years later, Brigadier Basil Charles Trappes-Lomax wrote that there are two roads that the genealogist may travel. The first is straight and has signposts with but one word on them 'Truth'. The other road, he wrote, is the one made primrose by the fictions enshrined in print by the brothers Burke [361].
The malign shadow cast by the Irish herald and genealogist, John 'Bernard' Burke (1814-1892), fell across the first half of the twentieth century and even today has not been fully blown away, for the fictions that he propagated in his many works and which were given a spurious authority by his knighthood and his badge of office as Ulster King of Arms (stamped lavishly on everything he did), still rear their ugly heads and are to be found in many computer databases worldwide.
Bernard Burke was the son of John Burke (1787-1848) of Gower Street, London, a catholic Irish printer who in 1826 had the bright idea of publishing a one-volume peerage in which all the entries would be in alphabetical order and which would show the ancestry of the first peer. It was intended to rival several other peerages appearing at that time, in which, like the established two- or three-volume Peerage of John Debrett (1753-1822), the entries were arranged by rank with the dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts and barons of the United Kingdom in separate groups, followed by those for Scotland and Ireland similarly arranged, but with consolidated indexes of surnames and titles. Burke's single volume was thus much easier to consult and it had an immediate success.
Like other peerage writers of the period John Burke used the indented narrative form long prevalent in Europe but he had a serious rival in a peerage produced in the name of the herald Edmund Lodge (1756-1839), Norroy King of Arms, descibed by Anthony Wagner as a ‘pioneer of social and biographical history and the study of historical portraiture’ and known for his annotated Illustrations of British History, Biography and Manners (3 vols. 1791) and similar works [362]. Lodge’s Peerage of the British Empire as now Existing (annual from 1832) was more accurate and more nicely produced than Burke’s but its pedigrees did not extend beyond the first peer. Quite separate concentrated accounts of their ancestries were provided in another volume called The genealogy of the existing British Peerage (also from 1832). The benevolent Edmund Lodge had in 1832 allowed his name to be used by three sisters, Anne (1790-1856), Eliza (1793-1861) and Maria Catherine (1796-1880), the daughters of Charles Innes (1763-1824), a linen draper and haberdasher at the corner of Chancery Lane and Fleet Street, but a son of the Rector of Devizes and a cadet of the family of Innes of Coxton [363]. The girls were fond of heraldry and genealogy and had previously published Sams’s Annual Peerage and Baronetage (4 vols. 1827-9) but now with the patronage of the Duchess of Kent and of Queen Victoria they continued to edit Lodge’s Peerage until about 1865 when Maria had problems with her sight, their highly esteemed Peerage continuing publication until 1932 [364].
As mentioned above John Burke's pedigrees were based largely on those to be found in the 1812 edition of Collins's Peerage and on the many other peerages that had appeared since Dugdale's Baronage but, unlike the best of them he rarely provided any indication of his sources for specific statements or ancestries. However, sensing the commercial possibilities and in a deplorable period rich in genealogical fable [365]. Burke then produced in rapid succession an Extinct and Dormant Peerage (1831; 3rd edn 1846), the Genealogical and heraldic history of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland (4 vols. 1833-7), A genealogical and heraldic history of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland (3 vols. 1843-9; 2nd edn 1850-3, and many subsequent editions), Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England, Ireland, and Scotland (1838, 1841, 1844), a General Armory of England, Scotland and Ireland (1842), The Royal Families of England, Scotland and Wales (1847-51), a Roll of Battle Abbey (1848) and other works.
From 1840 onwards John Burke was much assisted by his son Bernard, who had been admitted to the Middle Temple in 1835 and was called to the bar at the end of 1839, and Bernard's name appears on the title pages of the Peerage in 1840 and of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies in 1841. At the bar he made good money from peerage and genealogical cases and he continued his father's business after the latter's death in 1848. Bernard’s elder brother Peter Burke (1811-1881), barrister and serjeant-at-law, was also involved in peerage cases. Bernard Burke, although a 'concealed Catholic' and educated in France (about which he kept very quiet), was appointed Ulster King of Arms in Ireland in December 1853 and knighted by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at Dublin Castle in February 1854. He served as ‘Ulster’ until his death in 1892, being from 1855 also Keeper of the State Papers of Ireland.
For the next twenty years in Ireland, Bernard Burke devoted himself to the re-ordering and classification of the Irish records, securing the financial position of his office and introducing administrative reforms, a paragon of efficiency and attention to detail, but from the mid-1870s he busied himself with ceremonial duties. As early as 1872 he had written that his hand was 'so cupped' with rheumatism that he could 'scarcely hold a pen' and his last few years were plagued with ill-health [366]. Apart from the revisions of his father's reference works (discussed below), Bernard Burke oversaw the editing of annual Peerages from 1847 until his death and of the Landed Gentry from the third edition in 1843-9 to the seventh in 1886, as well as putting out a stream of popular multi-volume works with such titles as The romance of the aristocracy, The rise of great families and Vicissitudes of families, and The book of precedence (1881) on which he was an acknowledged expert. From the point of view of the Office of Arms in Dublin he and his predecessor as Ulster King of Arms, William Betham, were 'the right people in the right place at the right time' [367] for he made 'a significant contribution to the administration of the Office of Arms' [368] and his work on the Irish national records led to the passing of the Record Act in 1866 and the creation of the Irish Public Record Office in the Four Courts the following year.
One of those who knew Burke at Dublin Castle in those years wrote, 'How familiar was his little chirruping, cock-sparrow figure, his bright, round face, and with what reverence used he to call out the sacred words, "Their Excellencies"! I believe he looked upon the Lords Lieutenant as something supernatural. A good natured soul, always ready with some little service, capable of grand display - fluttering in his tabard or the blue mantle of St Patrick' [369]. The awe and deference with which Burke regarded 'grand' people is clear from everything he wrote and, in the style of the old peerage writers, he flattered them at every turn. It was the golden age of pedigree making and Burke, for all his abilities as an administrator, was 'no scholar, lacking both knowledge as a medievalist and a critical mind' [370]. Absurd ancestries were accepted and published and unpleasing facts carefully excised and omitted. Many of his pedigrees, both printed and manuscript, as Mary-Jane French wrote, 'contain specious and spurious accounts of early generations of prominent families', solely, it would seem, as a vehicle for flattery. What had been a necessary adjunct to obtaining a subscription to a work became an unnecessary habit. During a debate in the House of Commons in 1886, when there was a move to abolish his office, Matthew Kenny, M.P. for Mid-Tyrone, said that 'for a fee' Burke would provide anyone, if they were distinguished enough, with a pedigree back to the Norman Conquest [371]. A later editor of his Peerage, Charles Mosley, has called him ‘a charlatan, a pompous old fool’ [372]. He received a salary of £750 and another of £500 as Keeper of State Papers, but he made no fortune and his will was proved at £2,599-11-11.
Where the peerage was concerned Burke drew heavily on previously published works and he later accepted without question anything that he was told by the families concerned. This was in spite of his frequent claim, as in the Prefatory Notice to the first one-volume edition of the Landed Gentry (1858), that he had spared 'neither toil, nor devotion; every page has been re-written, every memoir carefully revised, and every pedigree minutely examined', followed by the usual flattery of his subjects who 'though undistinguished by hereditary titles, possess an undeniable right, from antiquity of race, extent of property, and brilliancy of achievement, to take foremost rank among the lesser nobility of Europe'. In 1882 he wrote that, 'no pains had been spared in the preparation of this edition of the Landed Gentry. Every available source of information has been exhausted, each memoir has been carefully revised, and in almost every instance the head of each family and many of the collaterals have been consulted. The correspondence thus carried on has brought thousands of communications from those most competent to improve the work', which had been 'the favourite occupation of a lifetime' [373]. Experience had not begun to teach him, as it did Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, not to 'believe for one moment, any man's account of his own family, or take his word concerning them. No matter how truthful a man may be’, Fox-Davies wrote, ‘his probity never seems to have stability on that one point' [374]. No wonder that Fox-Davies was so widely hated and Burke so widely loved!
Sir Bernard Burke wrote in 1883 that he had received 'thousands and thousands of communications' in the furtherance of his work and that 'The gentlemen of England did for The History of the Landed Gentry in the 19th century what their ancestors did for the Heralds Visitations of the 16th and 17th; they submitted freely and courteously their pedigrees and family documents, thus enabling me to produce a work which has, for a long series of years, been most favourably received' [375]. In 1891 he produced a two-volume Genealogical and heraldic history of the Colonial Gentry which contains many of the weaknesses of its British counterpart.
The qualification for inclusion in the early editions of Burke's Landed Gentry was, with good reason, not spelled out precisely. The title page of the first edition said that they were families 'enjoying territorial possessions or high official rank'. Philip Blake, writing in 1978 and usually well informed in these matters, understood that the qualification 'was not less than 1,500 acres until relatively modern times', but gives an example of a family in the 1876 edition with 700 acres [376]. Mark Bence-Jones says that the typical landed gentleman had something between a thousand and five thousand acres [377] but Peter Merton Reid wrote in 1969 that the qualification 'used to be ownership of five hundred acres and a coat-of-arms for at least three generations' [378], correcting this later, though without stated authority, to '300 acres of agricultural land' [379]. The editor L. G. Pine said in connection with the 1952 edition that fifty years ago the minimum land requirement had been 2,000 acres but that it was now 300 though any family might appear if it had rendered public service [380]. Michael Sayer says that the 1914 edition was the first to list families that had lost their land [381] and in the twentieth century the qualification for entry became little more than descent from an 'old' family or one that had formerly owned land, or, indeed, beginning with the 1965-72 edition, the acceptance by the editor of a pedigree submitted by any interested person. For Ireland, Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd wrote in 1976 that at the turn of the century the criterion had been about 1,000 acres, but after the Wyndham Land Purchase Act in 1903 that average was reduced to about 200 acres, though no family was disqualified from the 1904 and 1912 editions of Burke’s Landed Gentry of Ireland as a result [382].
Apart from his claim to extensive correspondence (which has not survived), little is known about Burke's method of work, but the final products rarely show evidence of the sources consulted and his claim to original research in general seems baseless [383]. The compilation of the revised General Armory (1878, 1883) and of the Extinct and Dormant Peerage (1866, 1883) and the updating of his father's other works presumably entailed the employment of someone other than his publisher in London but Burke himself lived permanently in Ireland at Tullamaine Villa, Upper Leeson Street, Dublin and he had no base in England. When he was thinking of publishing a revised General Armory in 1875, his calls to be informed of 'Blazons of Coats of Arms omitted in the original work' requested that they be sent to his publisher in London [384] and when his brother Peter Burke, another barrister, died in London in 1881, Bernard stayed at the Grosvenor Hotel in Buckingham Palace Road. For the 1878 revision he is known to have had the assistance of the commercially minded Stephen Isaacson Tucker (1835-1887), Rouge Croix at the College of Arms and the son of a discount broker, who made and quickly spent a fortune at that time [385].
Sir Bernard Burke had, even during his lifetime, some extremely fierce critics. As early as 1865 an anonymous writer, almost certainly George Burnett (1822-1890), LL.D., Advocate, who was appointed Lyon King of Arms in Scotland the following year, in a scathing booklet, Popular genealogists or the art of pedigree-making (Edinburgh, 1865) poured scorn on many of Burke’s works. In the first place Burke had, he said, a positive mania for introducing throughout his books and on the most frivolous grounds the statement that so-and-so ‘is entitled to quarter the royal arms’, something that would never be recognised by the English or Scottish heralds. He showed that the pedigree of the royal family in the Peerage indiscriminately omitted or ignored some of its immediate members. Burnett thought that in a few instances the lineages of peers were tolerably correct but these few were the exception, for ‘confusion and blundering’ were the more general rule in both the Peerage and Baronetage. For the Scottish peers the drawings of arms frequently differed from their heraldic descriptions. The Landed Gentry reflected no credit on its compiler for unlike the Peerage, which might to a slight extent be improving year by year, the Landed Gentry was deteriorating. Indeed the 'immense majority’ of its pedigrees were ‘utterly worthless ... Families of notoriously obscure origin have their veins filled with the blood of generations of royal personages of the ancient and mythical world' [386]. Fables were everywhere, ‘the small germs of truth being eked out with a mass of fiction’ and with a reckless disregard for dates and historical possibilities. As examples he disected the absurd pedigree and bogus seals submitted to the 1849 edition by John Ross Coulthart, a banker in Ashton-under-Lyne, tearing Coulthart’s account to shreds, and similarly ridiculing the many errors and inventions in the pedigree of Bonar where three generations of Presbyterian ministers had been transformed into Jacobite soldiers. Of Burke’s other works, Burnett said that they were full of the ‘same looseness’ and ‘easy credulity’ in everything that related to pedigree.
Ten years later Edward Augustus Freeman (1823-1892), the author of the magisterial History of the Norman Conquest (1867-76), questioned Sir Bernard's state of mind, asking in an article entitled ‘Pedigrees and Pedigree Makers’, 'Does he know, or does he not know, the manifest falsehood of the tales which he reprints year after year?' Did he think that the responsibility for their truth or falsehood rested with their contributors when, as editor, it was his duty to examine and verify them? Year after year he put forth these 'monstrous fictions, without contradiction, commonly without qualification or hesitation of any kind'. The covers of the Peerage were stamped with the royal arms and edited by a man from whom 'we have a right to expect historical criticism, and we do not get it' [387]. Instead, as Freeman says, 'such is the abiding life of the fables that they live through all [Burke's pretended] revision and amendment' and Freeman provides instances of the 'pedigree maker's power of invention', ridiculing Burke's 'gorgeous repertory of genealogical myths' in the accounts of the early Stourton, FitzWilliam, Wake, Ashburnham, Berkeley and D'Oyly families, and insisting that anyone who puts forward a pedigree, old or new, is subject to a 'burden of proof' and is duty bound to establish its authenticity by proving its every stated fact.
It was sadly unfortunate that Freeman, sometimes inaccurate in his own details and the proponent of the Oxford ‘liberal’ school of history, was himself to be mercilessly attacked on both scores by the ‘fierce, almost fanatical’ conservative, Horace Round [388]. Freeman and his followers represented King Harold as ‘the free choice of a free people’, but that idea and his account of the Battle of Hastings were ridiculed by Round, who held the Anglo-Norman baronage in high veneration, being himself the senior representative of the Malets of Enmore [389].
The year after Sir Bernard Burke's death, Horace Round took up this theme and wrote an article on 'The Peerage', i.e. Burke's Peerage, for the Quarterly Review, drawing attention to its 'errors, mis-statements and absurdities', and subsequently in his Studies in peerage and family history (1901), Peerage and pedigree: studies in peerage law and family history (2 vols. 1910) and in hundreds of reviews and articles, with 'cruel skill', as Sir Anthony Wagner later wrote, dissected and destroyed many of its pedigrees [390].
Bernard Burke had married in 1856 and had one daughter and seven sons [391]. His eldest son, Sir Henry Farnham Burke (1859-1930), was an absentee Deputy ‘Ulster’ to his father 1889-93, but had entered the College of Arms in London in 1880, rising to become Garter King of Arms in 1918. Like his father he was a highly competent man of business, but unlike his father he also had the reputation of being an able genealogist and master of the science and art of heraldry [392]. Both Oswald Barron and A. T. Butler had when young worked in his office.
However, another son, the less competent Ashworth Peter Burke (1864-1919), continued to edit the Landed Gentry from 1894 to 1906 and the Peerage until 1919. The many genealogists who had hoped to see an improvement in the articles in the Landed Gentry were quickly disappointed when the young Ernest Axon (1868-1947), a librarian at Manchester Public Library, wrote to Notes & Queries in 1894 saying that the first edition published since Sir Bernard’s death would ‘blast their hopes’. He wrote that ‘in numberless cases descents are implied that will not bear a moment’s examination’ and listed some thirty-nine examples of gross errors and absurd statements [393]. Ashworth Burke believed that, 'The nobility and gentry of the three Kingdoms are however by no means confined to these classes [the peerage and landed gentry], but include many other families of equal position, descent and alliance, for a gentleman derives his nobility from his ancestors and not from the mere possession of lands and titles' [394], and he published another group of pedigrees as Family Records (1897). The youngest son, Arthur Meredyth Burke (1872-1920), already mentioned, compiled the Key to the ancient parish registers of England and Wales (1908).
It was undoubtedly the fear of giving offence to influential people that fuelled the reluctance of subsequent editors of Burke's volumes, some of them very able genealogists, to remove from later editions all the false descents that so disfigured its pages. Alfred Trego Butler (1880-1946), Windsor Herald, who had worked with Henry Farnham Burke since the age of seventeen, edited the Peerage in the 1920s, and Arthur Charles Fox-Davies (1871-1928) and Harry Pirie-Gordon (1883-1969) edited the 1914 and 1937 editions of the Landed Gentry respectively. In his 1914 Preface, Fox-Davies says that the responsibility for the accuracy of the pedigrees had shifted from the families concerned and 'gradually fastened upon the Editor'. He noted that his excisions had often met with disfavour but 'the desire to believe has led to the belief in some most unconscionable rubbish'.
In spite of the slow improvement, every time a new edition of the Peerage or Landed Gentry appeared, genealogists came forward to criticise some of the pedigrees. In 1940 Brigadier B. C. Trappes-Lomax made an onslaught on the 'Moonshine from Burke' that had appeared in the 1938 Peerage, cataloguing the absurdities that still remained in many entries [395]. Even after the Second World War, when all Burke's office files and working papers were destroyed and the whole of the 1949 edition of the Peerage had to be newly set in type, the editor L. G. Pine, who claimed to have revised every genealogy in the light of modern criticism and had indeed vastly improved the text, did not seize the opportunity to remove all the remaining fictions, some of which had been exposed by Round more than half a century earlier [396].
The first of Sherwood's strictures about 'old genealogy' had concerned the heraldic stationery trade. A right to arms in England had been, at least since the sixteenth century, decisive outward evidence of gentility, regulated through the Court of Chivalry and the Heralds Visitations. But despite the Court and the Visitations many unlicensed herald painters invaded the heralds' territory to give out false arms and pedigrees. William Dawkyns, for example, a 'dealer in arms and maker of false pedigrees', was tried in 1597 for providing spurious pedigrees to nearly a hundred families, mainly in Essex, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire, and was put in the pillory and had his ears cut off [397]. The Visitations ceased with the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and the Court of Chivalry hardly functioned in the eighteenth century and so between 1670 and 1770 there was, in the words of Anthony Wagner, 'a breakdown in heraldic authority' when the great Whig lords had little or no interest in regulating the bearing of arms. In those years arms were widely assumed, mostly without ancestral right or new grant, by the new urban leisured classes and tradesmen who 'thought that their position required armorial pretension'. At Ipswich in 1727 an Irish dancing-master, Robert Harman, assumed the title and functions of a king of arms, and took large fees in so doing [398]. Into the nineteenth century ideas of heraldic authority had little political backing and there was a widespread assumption of arms from the 50,000 listed by name in A complete body of heraldry (2 vols. 1780) compiled by the coach painter and herald Joseph Edmondson (died 1786) and then from its successor volumes: William Berry's Encyclopaedia heraldica; or complete dictionary of heraldry (4 vols. 1828),Thomas Robson's The British herald, or cabinet of armorial bearings of the nobility and gentry of Great Britain and Ireland (3 vols. 1830) and the Burke productions, The general armory (1842, 1844, 1847, 1878, 1884), each copying and expanding on the last until the 1884 edition contained about 100,000 references to arms by surname. True and false were inextricably mixed and all lacked references to sources.
Pirate 'Heraldic Offices' or heraldic stationers sprang up like wildfire, providing arms from these volumes to any interested person. The successors to William Dawkyns and Robert Harman were everywhere. Walter Rye wrote that they were to be avoided 'like poison' [399]. One of them Thomas Culleton (died 1887, aged 63), a copper plate engraver and printer from Wexford, Ireland, called himself the Genealogist at the Royal Heraldic Office, 25 Cranbourn Street, and 21 Great Newport Street, London, W. C., and advertised in the first edition of Edward Walford's County Families (1860), 'Send Name and County, and in Three Days you will receive a Correct Copy of your ARMORIAL BEARINGS, Plain Sketch, 3s.; in Heraldic Colours, 6s. ... AN INDEX kept, containing the Names of all Persons who are entitled to use Arms, as copied from the College of Arms, British Museum, and other places of authority'. The sad truth, of course, is that not one in a thousand of the people who received these 'correct copies' would have had any right to use the arms provided. The brief outlines of family history which appeared in the early editions of Walford’s County Families were, as George Burnett wrote in 1865, ‘filled with matter so extraordinary that it is difficult to conceive from what source the writer could have collected it’ [400].
Thomas Culleton claimed that his Heraldic Office had been founded in 1840 and his shop in Cranbourn Street certainly built up a considerable working library on every aspect of European genealogy and heraldry, with staff going out daily to work at the British Museum and Record Office and heraldic artists painting hatchments and coach panels [401]. A very large collection of 'Research Notes on English Families' together with an index 'to certain selected groups of genealogical manuscripts in the British Museum', compiled by the firm, was microfilmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah in 1959 [402]. Thomas's son Leo Culleton (1859-1922) was also an heraldic artist and a genealogist active across Europe. The firm flourished in King Street, St James, until 1935 when it was taken over by another old firm of heraldic stationers, Longman & Strongi'th'arm Ltd, which continued at 13 Dover Street, Piccadilly, until 1969.
Today the selling of 'arms of the name' is so widespread that it is almost pointless to rail against it, but a hundred years ago there were many like George Sherwood who thought the use of bogus arms on signet rings and writing paper and the stationers who provided them, a public disgrace. The problem was that genealogists could not agree amongst themselves, some saying that arms were ensigns of nobility, granted on ennoblement, which could not be adopted at will, whilst others argued that any man might adopt arms (without the intervention of the College of Arms) provided that they were not already in use by some other person. Bernard Burke's advertisement in the 1870s which asked for people to send in arms for his General Armory had not asked that any authority for the use of the arms or the date of their registration be quoted and Ashworth P. Burke's Family Records (1897) claimed that all the Arms shown were based on 'official authority' but in no case named the authority, it probably being thought that there would be a reluctance on the part of the families themselves, to say when their arms were first granted, if indeed that date were readily known [403].
The young lawyer Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, a grandson of John Fox, of Coalbrookdale [404], believed that in England arms should only be used by recipients of grants of arms from the College of Arms or by those whose ancestral right to arms had been recognised by the College. When twenty-two in 1893 he put out a prospectus for a book which was to publish ‘genuine and absolutely reliable information’ as to coats of arms ‘legitimately in use’ (and not, as he wrote in a further prospectus in 1894, the ‘bogus and maliciously corrupt insignia so often displayed’) and in 1895 he published the first of seven editions of Armorial Families in which the entries of those who could not provide evidence of their right to arms were printed in italics. These doubtful entries were removed from the 5th (1905) and subsequent editions, so that by his final 7th edition (2 vols. 1929-30), he could, with some truth, call it 'approximately complete' and say that 'there are few families [other than those of peers and baronets] entitled to arms, whose right has been proved in sufficiently modern times to place it beyond reasonable doubt, that are now omitted'. It was an approach which tended to give equal status to both old and new arms and on that and other accounts, in particular the weaknesses of Fox-Davies’s Complete Guide to Heraldry (1909), he was viciously ridiculed by Horace Round who thought all modern heraldry an absurd anomaly and who with Oswald Barron poured scorn on Fox-Davies’s and William Phillimore’s contention that heraldry was ’a living science’ [405]. Round went so far as to say that ‘a grant of arms is of no account because nobody values what ‘anyone’ can obtain’ [406], quoting with approval a remark of A. S. Ellis that ‘Tudor Heraldry is mostly rubbish and Modern Heraldry beneath contempt’ [407].
Fox-Davies’ death at the age of 57 in 1928 unfortunately brought an end to a very fine series of books and no further editions were produced. An obituary in The Times said that, 'It was for him not merely a labour of love, but an exciting form of sport, to hunt down and kill some picturesque dragon of genealogical imposture, to overthrow some cherished idol of family pride based on nothing more substantial than the vain imaginings of a recent ancestor or the artful tale of some flatterer possessed of a smattering of heraldry ... it was he who took the campaign against armorial pretence out of the austere pages of learned publications and brought it to the notice of the public at large' [408]. He had, however, annoyed a great number of people. Later that year an anonymous writer in The Genealogists Magazine who had perhaps displayed such an 'armorial pretence' referred to 'the pretentious ignorance' displayed in Fox-Davies's books [409]. The fierce arguments on the subject, at their height in 1900-4, have not altogether subsided in heraldic circles though Fox-Davies and William Phillimore have probably won the day.
The last of Sherwood's strictures about 'old genealogy' had been 'the business of the shady character who ekes out a precarious existence on the reluctant half-crowns of deluded seekers after phantom fortunes'. Today 'next-of-kin' searching has become big business but in 1897 Walter Rye warned his readers against advertisements by which 'rogues try to rob poor people with specious tales of unclaimed stock', saying that, 'most of the statements they contain are absolute lies'. In his and his father's experiences, stretching back some sixty years, in which they had investigated many claims, not a single case had occurred from which anyone had in the least benefited. He gave an example of ‘the simple faith of a claimant’ in one Arthur Marsh, of Southampton, who had advertised for the address of the solicitor who held the property (now ‘in Chancery’) in Manchester and other places of one John Marsh, who had died about a hundred years previously, of which the Marsh family of Purbeck were believed to be the heirs. These types of claim had been questioned in the House of Commons in November 1888, when William Jackson, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, had said that the advertising agencies 'were simply misleading the public for the purpose of making profit for themselves and extracting money out of the pockets of poor persons' [410].
It has been suggested that following the end of the State lottery in 1825 and before the arrival of football pools, the most likely path to sudden riches about which ordinary people might dream was inheritance from an unknown relative [411]. English men (and widows and spinsters) have always had an unusual freedom in the disposal of their property by will and the nineteenth century novel regularly used unlikely inheritance or the sudden loss of 'expectations' as a theme. Samuel Warren in Ten thousand a year (1841), Charles Dickens in Bleak House (1852-3) and Little Dorrit (1855-7) and, later in the century, Wilkie Collins in a series of 'sensation' novels, are just a few of many examples. Claims to dormant peerages had been frequent in the 1830s, providing much work for the legal genealogists, and real life disputes about inheritance and estates were a commonplace, widely reported in the newspapers, the claims of Arthur Orton to be Roger Tichborne [412] and of Annie Druce to be the Duchess of Portland [413], attracting worldwide attention. Both may, as has been said, have been 'striking proof of the unfathomable depths of human credulity' but other stories about destroyed or forged entries in parish registers as with the Richard Harrison case in 1886 already described, or bogus tombstones as with the Tracy peerage claim in 1847, together with some interminable legal cases as, for example, those amongst the heirs of William Jermy of Bayfield in Norfolk (died 1751) and of William Jennens (died 1798),continually raised speculation and false hopes.
The Bank of England had published lists of unclaimed dividends for many years before similar lists of money in Chancery were first published in 1855 and then advertised in the London Gazette, but from the late 1830s onwards a growing number of commercial 'next-of-kin agents' began publishing lists of names taken from the little known official publications and from advertisements in newspapers. An Irishman, Frederick Henry Dougal (died 1904, aged 54), of Merton Road, Wandsworth, took over such a firm that had been established in 1844, and became particularly well known for several editions of Dougal's Index Register of Next of Kin, Heirs at Law, and cases of Unclaimed Money Advertisements, the last appearing in 1910. A case at the Old Bailey in January 1887 showed that from his office in the Strand he asked 1s 6d for the book and then £1 for a full copy of the advertisement mentioned. It seems likely that Edmund Robertson had Dougal’s agency in mind when he questioned William Jackson in the House of Commons in 1888. Dougal's 'next-of-kin' activities would have been known to George Sherwood with his office also in the Strand, but he may be better known today for his speculative purchase at auction of Aperfield Manor on part of Biggin Hill in Kent, and for the confusion that he later caused when he sold off the land in disorganised small plots in July 1895. Dougal was far from alone in the field. Robert Chambers and Edward Preston also produced lists over a long period and there were many others. The newspaper News of the World published a 214-page Missing Heirs and Next-of-Kin in 1911.
The extent to which some genealogists hyped up and orchestrated stories of unclaimed funds in order to extract money from prospective claimants, particularly those overseas, is uncertain, but these ‘shady characters’, as Sherwood called them, were not in short supply. The well-known James Coleman (died 1906, aged 88),for many years a dealer in documents, certainly did everything possible to publicise the so-called Jennens fortune for his own commercial advantage. Coleman, from Gloucestershire, was the son of a smith and had been a toolmaker in London since at least his first marriage in 1841 (when his wife was unable to sign her name). In 1851 he employed two young men in that trade but by 1861 he had set himself up as a genealogist and bookseller at 22 High Street, St Giles in the Fields, near the British Museum, starting an extensive trade in documents of every description which continued until his death in 1906, though he had moved out to 9 Tottenham Terrace, White Hart Lane, in the late 1870s. He was particularly well known for the pioneering and regular catalogue which he and his immediate successors published and George Sherwood later recalled the delight with which each issue was received, ‘notwithstanding the extraordinary blunders and misprints which often marred them’ [414]. The Society of Genealogists has a long, but not entirely complete, run bound in nine volumes, 1859-1911.
Coleman must have seen that another aspiring genealogist, Charles Bridger (1824-1879), of Witley in Surrey (the son of a draper formerly in Godalming High Street), had in the autumn of 1863 announced his intention to publish a bibliography of heraldry and genealogy and that he had, the following spring, also promised in Notes & Queries and in the Herald and Genealogist, to add to the bibliography an index to the pedigrees in county histories and other topographical works. Coleman realised how such a list could be exploited commercially and, not waiting for Bridger, rushed out Coleman's general index to printed pedigrees which are to be found in all the principal county and local histories & in many privately printed genealogies (1866), advertising in the book that he could provide copies of any pedigree listed, up to six generations, for five shillings plus six pence for each additional generation. The thwarted Charles Bridger then produced his An index to printed pedigrees contained in county and local histories, the heralds' visitations, and in the more important genealogical collections (1867; 10s 6d) containing 16,000 references and complaining in his Preface about the 'hastily prepared compilation of a similar nature' which had meanwhile appeared [415]. Bridger's projected bibliography, however, never saw publication. About this time he worked with a bank employee, Stephen Tucker (1835-1887), for Arthur Orton the ‘Tichborne Claimant’ whose case collapsed in 1872 and who was committed for perjury in 1874. When Tucker was appointed Rouge Croix at the College of Arms in 1872 he employed Bridger as a research assistant in his growing genealogical practice [416]. The 1871 Census shows him at a St Pancras lodging house, 'Geologist' (sic) [417]. Nine volumes of wills that Bridger had abstracted were purchased by the College of Arms in 1887 [418].
Bridger may have been put off publication of his projected works in 1863 by the publication that year by the industrious but extremely unpleasant John Camden Hotten (1832-1873) of A hand-book to the topography and family history of England and Wales: being a descriptive account of twenty thousand most curious and rare books (1863) which the Dictionary of National Biography calls his 'most laborious and least-known compilation'. It was in fact a misleading title for a 368-page catalogue of 7,659 items which were for sale in Hotten’s shop in Piccadilly. Hotten, the son of a carpenter and undertaker in Clerkenwell, had been apprenticed to an antiquarian bookseller in Chancery Lane but left for a spell as a journalist in America. Returning about 1853 and starting a bookselling and publishing business he acquired a fortune and an extremely unpleasant reputation as a purveyor of pornography (publishing books on phallic worship, aphrodisiacs, flagellation, etc.) as well as for his dubious deals and violent arguments, though his name is best known to genealogists as the compiler of the first list of emigrants to America which was published after his death (mentioned below). With his interest in illustrated books, historical facsimiles and popular antiquarian history, Hotten was well aware of the growing interest in genealogy and heraldry on both sides of the Atlantic and developed some skill in the use of material at the Public Record Office, undertaking genealogical research there as well as sometimes seeking out original documents for purchase which might be of interest to his clients or offering to obtain for them Grants of Arms from the College of Arms on a ten per cent commission basis. As Professor Simon Eliot says, Hotten not only provided comforting pedigrees for the socially uncertain or the defensively snobbish but he went on to serve snobbery and historical curiosity by offering ‘one comprehensive service, from the armorial cradle, as it were, to the gilded grave’ [419].
Hotten’s genealogical service began to form a significant part of his business and shortly after his death in 1873 his former chief clerk, Andrew Chatto, who had purchased the firm, in conjunction with a New York publisher, James W. Bouton, put out a prospectus for the ‘St James Heraldic Office’ under the management of the young Edward Albert Harrison (1843-1891) who had formerly managed Hotten’s Heraldic Department [420]. Harrison was basically an heraldic artist, but he was also the son of Arthur Prichard Harrison (died 1861) another heraldic artist who from 1830 onwards had published facsimiles of documents such as Magna Carta and the Rolls of Battle Abbey and Caerlaverock illustrated with arms. In 1852 Harrison senior had notably assisted the well-known dramatist and antiquary James Robinson Planché (1796-1880) with the numerous illustrations in his The Pursuivant of Arms: or Heraldry founded upon Facts.
James Coleman did not have all the market in old documents and a rival whose catalogues also contained short summaries of the material for sale, was Henry Gray (1850-1925). He was born at Rawtenstall in Lancashire and in 1881 was at 10 Maple Street, Cheetham, describing himself as an antiquarian bookseller [421], but by 1891 he had moved south to 39 Craven Park, Harlesden [422], and had a shop in Leicester Square [423]. By 1901, with the assistance of his two daughters, he was running a 'Genealogical Record Office' at Goldsmiths' Estate, East Acton [424]. He produced book bulletins yearly from at least 1899 to 1903 containing genealogy, topographical views, portraits and manuscripts, and at least one was later indexed into the Great Card Index of the Society of Genealogists.
Bridger and Coleman were not the only ones to see the value of the lists they compiled and the young barrister George William Marshall (1839-1905), the son of a banker with private means, had also meanwhile produced an 163-page Index to the pedigrees contained in the printed heralds' visitations (1866) which he saw as a companion volume to Sims's index to the manuscript ones published in 1849. His sales must have been affected by Bridger's book and the following year James Coleman, Bridger's rival, published a 70-page Catalogue of pedigrees hitherto unindexed (1867; 3s 6d) that Marshall seems to have compiled, though it does not bear his name [425].
James Coleman, who undertook general genealogical research as well as publishing and dealing in manuscripts, also had an eye to the American market and printed a Pedigree of William Penn (1871) as well as the registers of the chapel in Somerset House (1862) and part of the marriage registers of Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire (1880). Patrick Polden singles him out for criticism for his ruthless promotion of the Jennens claims which he must have known had no validity [426].
Another noteworthy firm of next-of-kin agents was founded by a Londoner, Constantine William De Bernardy (died 1886, aged 74), who in 1858 had published a 414-page De Bernardy's Index Register, for Next of Kin, Heirs at Law, Legatees, and of Unclaimed Property, in Great Britain, the Colonies, and on the Continent, from 1754 to 1856. He had a chequered career. When bankrupt in 1849 he was described as 'formerly of 46 Leicester Square, Middlesex, and of Putney, Surrey, and afterwards of Paris, France, but now of Rider's Hotel, Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, London, bill broker, money scrivener, commission agent, dealer and chapman' [427]. In 1873 he published at Philadelphia, The American's Hand-Book to Vienna and the Exhibition.
Going beyond the mere publishing of lists and the provision of advertisements, C. W. De Bernardy and his sons, who continued the business, began themselves to search for the heirs to the larger properties and to attempt to come to some financial arrangement with them. They produced an 83-page De Bernardy's Unclaimed Money Register (1883), for which they charged a shilling, but warned off the smaller fortune hunters by saying, 'They are nearly always poor or ignorant people, who are dazzled by the prospect of becoming suddenly rich, and are lured on until the exhaustion of their means puts an end to the investigation. But the dream remains as vivid as ever'. Two of these sons, Alfred De Bernardy (died 1922) and Augustus Kemeys De Bernardy (died 1931), continued the business at 28 John Street and 25 Bedford Row, as the 'De Bernardy Brothers, Legal Genealogists and Agents', until 1900, but another son, Lucien De Bernardy (died 1946),had withdrawn from the firm in 1884 [428]. George Sherwood certainly knew Alfred De Bernardy as he contributed to the first issue of Sherwood's The Pedigree Register in June 1907. Sometime after 1900 De Bernardy had gone into partnership with the young Henry William Sayers (1876-1962) and the latter, who had married Annie Lydia Checcucci (1877-1962) in 1907, took over the firm completely in 1909 [429]. Henry and Annie Sayers continued as 'legal genealogists' for many years and are mentioned below for their connection with Pallot & Co.
The activities of genealogists who acted as unclaimed money agents and probate searchers, some of whom were quite unscrupulous, gave rise to much criticism and for a very long time almost every aspect of the business was considered highly disreputable, as George Sherwood believed. These 'heir locators', working secretly at great speed and speculatively behind the scenes, claimed to provide a public service by bringing possible claims to the attention of persons who would not otherwise know about them, but they provided an absolute minimum of information about a claim (for fear that the claimant would circumvent them by going directly to the source of the funds) and would only do so on the strict understanding that one entered into an agreement to pay the locator a percentage of the fund. In the 1950's we called such heir locators 'ten per centers' but even then the charge was more often thirty and is now often forty per cent plus costs plus VAT. Such 'contingency fee agreements' are frequently criticised and may be judged illegal (as champerty) [430] if the locator agrees to finance a claimant's lawsuit in exchange for a portion of the amount involved.
In 1896 the De Bernardy Brothers came to an agreement with two beneficiaries of an estate about which they had obtained knowledge by which the two would pay the Brothers thirty per cent of anything recovered, but the De Bernardy Brothers had unwisely also agreed that they would take necessary steps to establish the claim, and the agreement was thus held to be void because it 'savoured of champerty' [431]. The Brothers avoided this problem in future by agreeing only to furnish details in return for a share in the property and the court upheld such an agreement in 1908 [432]. The 1896 ruling was held to be still good law by the Irish Supreme Court in 2003 [433].
The legal situation about ‘Unclaimed Monies’ was usefully set out by Malcolm Pinhorn in The Genealogist’s Magazine in 1959 [434] and the activities of the various firms involved, whom some considered ‘not true genealogists’, were a constant source of enquiry at the Society of Genealogists. A report in the Daily Mail in 1971 said that most of the firms admitted to anything up to a fifty per cent failure rate in the location of heirs and it cited one case in which the balance of an estate of £6,000 had to be divided between eighty heirs after the cost of 180 certificates and sixty interviews, as well as the firm’s thirty per cent, had been deducted [435].
However, the growing number of intestacy cases worldwide since the Second World War has given work to many genealogists, some still working on a percentage basis, though today it is argued that personal representatives such as solicitors acting as executors and trustee departments should not use those who will only work on commission as they may be breaching their duty to the other beneficiaries [436]. There are many genealogists who will gladly work on an hourly basis as I did when employed in such cases in the Research Department at the Society of Genealogists for many years and the firm Title Research (a firm which in 1994 had itself received unpleasant publicity when asking for 10% of a £3m estate [437]) has recently launched a campaign against the preposterous fees charged by those working on commission. This campaign has received a good deal of support from solicitors and deserves more [438].
The early books on surnames were concerned almost exclusively with their meanings and thus although of interest to genealogists and often quoted were not in themselves of practical value in tracing the histories of the families mentioned. The derivations which they provided were often deeply suspect and occasionally little more than guesswork. There were many others, but into this category fall English surnames and their place in the Teutonic family (London and Carlisle, 1858) by Robert Ferguson, presumably by the man of that name who had written The Northmen in Cumberland and Westmorland (1856) and who wrote The Teutonic name-system applied to the family names of France, England and Germany (London and Carlisle, 1864) and Surnames as a science (1883; 1884); Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom (1860) and English Surnames: an essay on family nomenclature, historical, etymological and humorous (4th ed. 2 vols. 1875) by Mark Antony Lower (1813-1876), a Sussex schoolmaster, also known for his Worthies of Sussex (1865) and Compendious History of Sussex (1870); English Surnames: their sources and significations (1873) by Revd Charles Wareing Endell Bardsley (1844-1898),Vicar of Ulverston, which went through several editions until 1906, and his A dictionary of English and Welsh surnames, with special American instances (1901); British family names: their origins and meaning (2nd ed. 1903) by Henry Barber; Surnames of the United Kingdom (2 vols. 1912-18) by Henry Harrison; and A history of surnames of the British Isles (1931; additions, 1946) by Cecil Henry L’Estrange Ewen (1877-1949).
All these works concentrated on the meanings of the surnames but much genealogical work in the second half of the nineteenth century was centred on finding their distribution until Henry Brougham Guppy (1854-1926), a naval surgeon and botanist from Devon, compiled Homes of family names in Great Britain (1890), based on the listings of farmers in Kelly's county directories, farmers being 'the most stay-at-home class of the country' [439]. Although the book's value was dismissed by Oswald Knapp in 1930, the editors of the Oxford Names Companion have recently concluded that 'over half the surnames in Britain still have a statistically significant association with a particular locality, despite all the scattering of population that has taken place since the Industrial Revolution began two hundred years ago' [440].
The appearance of George Marshall's early composite indexes to printed pedigrees which became so important as basic bibliographies of work that had already been carried out and had been published somewhere or other, has been mentioned, he commencing in 1866 with an index to the pedigrees in the printed heraldic visitations and in 1867 with a short additional catalogue, printed by Coleman. The first edition of his The genealogist's guide to printed pedigrees: being a general search through genealogical, topographical, and biographical works relating to the United Kingdom was published in 1879. It was revised in 1885 when the range of works indicated by the subtitle was extended to include family histories, peerage claims, etc., and again in 1893. A final edition, intended for Christmas 1902 was a little delayed and was eventually available for a guinea from the Piccadilly bookseller, Bernard Quaritch, in 1903. The book was, as Quaritch himself rightly said in a flyer, 'absolutely indispensable to every genealogist'. Marshall's searches were remarkably comprehensive, though, as he unkindly remarked in his Preface, unlike George Gatfield's Guide to printed books, they did not take such a low range as to include Frederic T. Hall's The pedigree of the devil (1883)!
The surname Hall would have been very familiar to George Marshall as he had married in 1867, Alice Ruth, the younger daughter of the Revd Ambrose William Hall and when she died in 1870 he married (illegally, of course) her elder sister Caroline Emily (died 1891). Marshall was the author of Notes on the surname of Hall (Exeter, 1887). The family would have been appalled when during the unrest in 1931 their nephew Anthony William Hall claimed the Crown and told rallies that he was 'one of the British people's natural leaders' being a direct descendant of Henry VIII; he hoped to be the first policeman to cut off the King's head! He was arrested for quarrelsome and scandalous language, fined, and not heard from again.
George William Marshall died in September 1905 and it seems that his fellow herald, Eric Geijer at the College of Arms, was intent on continuing his bibliographical work. In earlier years when George Sherwood had listed recently printed pedigrees in his Genealogical Queries and Memoranda there had been no objection to his doing so, but when in May 1907 Gerald Fothergill announced in Notes & Queries that he was preparing a supplement to Marshall's Guide, objections about the copyright were immediately raised by Marshall's second son Isaac (1870-1916), a barrister. Marshall wrote that the book ‘was in the process of being kept up to date’ with a view to a new edition, but Fothergill was not put off and replied that he was merely collecting omissions from and additions to the published work [441].
All this did not deter the new Society of Genealogists in 1911 from setting up, and Gerald Fothergill from joining, a 'Committee on Cataloguing Pedigrees' which for a few years only collected references to supplement Marshall, its secretary being a Founder and Fellow, Campbell M. E. Wynne (died 1940). These brief references to the whereabouts of printed pedigrees sometimes proving unsatisfactory, in July 1912 his committee approved and printed a standard ‘Pedigree Analysis Form’ on which to summarise any available printed pedigree, sending sample copies to every member with the intention that the completed forms be filed in the Document Collection and indexed in the Consolidated Index [442]. It was noted in December that the appeal had had ‘a gratifying response’ [443] but in the year 1913 only eight books were completed though this was considered ‘good progress’ [444]. Geijer eventually handed his index references to John Beach Whitmore who, of course, had access to the Society’s collections, but as described below his supplement did not appear until half a century later.
It is interesting that Nichols should have thought it right that all genealogical business, 'ought to come to the hands of the professional Heralds'. He had no particular axe to grind on that score and was not himself a member of the College of Arms. One wonders how many others thought in those terms.
Towards the end of the century Walter Rye provided a list of a dozen or so record agents and document transcribers then working at the Public Record Office of whom three or four were solicitors who would gather material for a 'record' case, and four or five were women [445]. He noted that their charges varied greatly and warned that the younger men who worked at a lower rate would take longer in their searches because they lacked the experience that would enable them to go straight to the records required. An indexer charged 7s 6d and upwards for a thousand references. Plain copies of documents, when the client supplied the references, were charged at 6d per folio of seventy-two words before 1600, and 4d per folio after that date.
To the names of those mentioned elsewhere, Rye added in 1888 and in 1897 those of A. F. Heintz and W. Boyd and, in 1881 only, W. H. Hart of Hammersmith. Arthur Frederick Heintz (1854-1932) was the son of an average adjustor in Hampstead. He was a clerk in Ealing in 1881, a record agent in Paddington in 1891, a record agent and translator of ancient records at Reigate, Surrey in 1901 and a translator of ancient records at Sidcup, Kent in 1911. He died at Sydenham in 1932 leaving £160-9-11.
William Boyd was more frequently known as William Keown-Boyd and was the third son of a former M. P. for Downpatrick in Ireland. He acted as a record agent in Chelsea in 1891 and was at Archway Road, Highgate in 1911, working at the Record Office. At his death, aged 85, at Upholland Vicarage in 1938 he was described as a well-known historian [446]. He had edited the diary of Mr Justice Rokeby in 1887 and helped with the volumes of the Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland. There are nine files of his notes at the National Archives. It may be noted that the majority of the private work and correspondence of similar agents has not survived, some record agents like Helen Thacker sending their original notes to their clients ‘to save errors in transcription’ as she would say.
William Henry Hart (1828-1888) was the son of a prosperous gunpowder maker at Deptford and trained as a solicitor but in 1852 he was one of the first searchers to be granted free access to do local research at the Public Record Office. He then became a record agent but in 1855 joined the Office as a clerk. In 1857 he was involved in an elaborate jape at a fellow clerk which was much disapproved of and in 1862 he requested leave to take a degree but was refused and given the task of editing the cartulary of St Peter, Gloucester for the Rolls Series. He resigned in 1869 and acted as a record agent in Kensington, but then over-actively canvassed for re-employment until reluctantly re-engaged on the cartulary of Romsey Abbey for the Rolls Series in 1882. He had become a Roman Catholic and in 1879 had married an actress less than half his age. His work did not go well and having broken his arm in a carriage accident and sustained losses from fraud at his bank, he died suddenly in 1888 [447].
Of the women named by Walter Rye, he warmly recommended Miss Walford. She was at 7 Hyde Park Mansions, Edgware Road, in 1888 and at 46 Great Coram Street in 1897, and he described her as 'probably the most accurate and rapid transcriber in the room'. This was Emma Mary Walford (1853-1907) who lodged at Great Coram Street in 1891 and described herself as a ‘literary author’ in 1901. She was a daughter of the thrice-married barrister Cornelius Walford, of Witham, Essex, and Enfield, Middlesex, a prolific writer on insurance and other matters and a relative of the compiler Edward Walford.
The other women named by Rye in 1888 and 1897 were Miss Rita Fox, Miss Collier, Mrs F. Grigson, Miss Hopper and Miss L. Toulmin Smith. Rita Fox, named only in 1888, was then at 1 Capel Terrace, Forest Gate. She had been born about 1866-7 the last of nine children of a dental surgeon, Charles James Fox, who died in 1869, and although described as living on her own means in 1891 she had presumably been obliged to help her widowed mother who died in 1890. She contributed on various subjects to Notes and Queries between 1887 and 1899 and was a subscriber (from 64 Watling Street, E.C.) to the British Record Society in 1898, but any later involvement in record searching has not been found. She seems to have married Joseph Walter Russell, much her senior, in 1903 and to have died in London in 1930.
Rye gives Miss Collier’s address in both years as 83 Charterhouse Street and she must be related to William Walter Collier (1848-1898) who for many years kept a coffeehouse at 83-85 Charterhouse Street facing Smithfield meat market. He was born at Coventry, married three times, became a Freeman of the City in 1881 and went bankrupt in 1886, but who ‘Miss Collier’ was is not clear unless this is his eldest child, Ellen Eliza, born in 1868, but she had married at Stroud Green in 1890 [448]. Rye had classed her merely as a transcriber in 1888.
Mrs F. Grigson of 45 Alma Square, St John’s Wood, is evidently Anna (nee Allsebrook) the widow of Francis Grigson (1852-1886). He was a son of the Revd William Grigson, Rector of Whinburgh, Norfolk, and before his early death at Alma Square in 1886 he had described himself as a ‘professional antiquarian’ though when eighteen in 1871 he was a clerk to a wine merchant at Thetford. She was the daughter of a prosperous master tanner at Worthing, Norfolk, but just prior to her marriage in 1881 was a ‘lady companion’ at Clapham. Perhaps Rye’s information was a little out of date for she seems to have left England before 1891 and by 1911 was living at Durban, Natal [449].
Miss Hopper’s address is given by Rye as 9 Cato Road, Brixton, in 1888 (when she was classed as a transcriber),and as 22 Plater Road, Brixton, in 1897, evidently mistakes for 22 Plato Road, and the home from at least 1881 of Helen (died 1916, aged 91), the widow of Clarence Hopper (1817-1868), a palaeographer and antiquary originally from Savernake in Wiltshire whose genealogical collections are in the British Library and who collected transcripts of records for a history of the Channel Islands. His edition of the London Chronicle during the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII was published by the Camden Society in 1859. Helen is described in the census as living on her own means but the occupations of her daughters are not given [450].
Lucy Toulmin Smith (1838-1911) was a daughter of the constitutional lawyer Joshua Toulmin Smith (1816-1869) and both find a place in the Dictionary of National Biography. Her first major work in original records was the finishing of her father’s English Gilds (1870) and was followed by several volumes for the Camden Society and the New Shakspere Society, and then the editing of Leland’s Itinerary (5 vols. 1906-10). She had been concerned that her name should not ‘go with every Tom, Dick & Harry’ [451] and in 1894 she had moved to Oxford to take up the post of librarian at Manchester College, so she does not appear in the second edition of Rye’s book.
Rye’s information is sometimes a little out of date but the uncertain amount of work coming to some of these ladies is clear. Another searcher of the period who appears in the census as merely living on her own means, was Vernona Thomas Christian Smith (nee Torry; died 1902, aged 73) who lived at Barnes and was the Scottish born widow of a Royal Navy officer Richard Sidney Smith (died 1880) who had served in the West Indies [452]. She herself had Barbadian ancestry and somehow she met and worked for some years (as the great bulk of her surviving manuscripts, mentioned below, testifies) for Vere Langford Oliver (1861-1942), of Weymouth, the compiler of a magnificent History of Antigua (1894) and later the editor from 1909 of the journal Caribbeana. By the end of the century the more commercially organised record agents Ethel Stokes and Mary Louise Cox (described later) had become active but the majority of such agents remained, and perhaps still remain, largely without advanced education or specialised training. In 1897 Rye issued an explicit warning to gullible rich Armericans ‘in their anxiety for pedigrees’ against the activities of some unscrupulous advertising record agents [453].
There were a very few women local historians in the provinces but better known in London was the group of scholarly women that developed at the end of the nineteenth century, centred at the Public Record Office and British Library, and mostly involved in transcribing documents and writing parish histories for the Victoria County History (VCH) which commenced publication in 1899. Five years later the Secretary to the Public Record Office deemed the VCH’s numerous women searchers there ‘a great inconvenience to the general public’ [454]. In 1905 there were twenty-two of them and Horace Round wrote disparagingly to the VCH’s general editor, ‘I would like to teach your 22 girls some topography, were it not that, I reckon, as we say in Essex, “they’re wunnerful plain”’. Two years later he again wrote ‘plain, plodding work that is all that you can expect from the girls’ [455]. These ‘girls’ did their hack work mainly from printed calendars and manuscript lists in London and were not expected to visit the parishes and unpleasant Round, though a tireless promoter of the VCH, could thus sneer at a system of which he disapproved by saying of someone like the competent Norah Niemeyer, subsequently a lecturer at Goldsmith’s College, that her draft parish histories ‘might have been written in Berlin with the aid of a map’ [456].
Fifteen of these young ladies were involved in the writing of the four VCH volumes for Hertfordshire (1902-14), the first county to be completed, mostly in connection with the general descriptions of parishes and the manorial descents. Two of them had university degrees, two had the History Tripos and two had been through the Oxford Honours School of Modern History; none were married. They included Lilian Redstone (1885-1955) of Woodbridge, ‘record agent own account’ in 1911 [457], who also wrote accounts of some thirty-three parishes in Suffolk that were never published and who much later founded the record offices of West and East Suffolk [458]. Others involved in the Hertfordshire volumes included Olive Moger (1880-1961) who in 1911 said that she was a ‘Topographer’ for the VCH [459] and was later well-known for her record agency work in Devonshire (compiling 22 valuable volumes of abstracts of the Devonshire wills the originals of which were later destroyed in the War), and Minnie Reddan (1870-1952),the daughter of a draper at Hampstead, who in 1911 gave no occupation at all [460], although she had contributed the large sections on religious houses to the History. Eleanor J. B. Reid (1874-1954), one of the two graduates, was in 1911 a ‘Teacher & Historical Research Student’ [461] and was the daughter of Sir Thomas Wemyss Reid, a well-known journalist and biographer.
Most of these ladies left the VCH during its financial difficulties in 1908 and although most had written accounts of the descents of manors for the History, none was involved in the foundation of the Society of Genealogists. When the Society was founded it came onto a scene that, from a professional point of view, was completely unregulated. The number of genealogists, record agents and record searchers who said that they were such in the 1911 census of England and Wales was sixty-two [462]. There was some overlap in the three categories and several ‘record agents’ were actually gramophone record salesmen. The great majority were in the immediate London area but the few in other parts of the country were Raymond Tinne Berthon at Selsey, James Cronyn Burrows on the Isle of Wight, Robert Beilby Cook at York, Joseph Joshua Green at Hastings, David Henry Hartopp at Leicester, Arthur Hill in the New Forest, Frederic Johnson at Norwich, William Clement Kendall an ‘Artist & Genealogist’ at Kirkby Lonsdale and Philip Hugh Lawson an ‘Architect’s Assistant & Genealogist’ at Chester. Most were working on their own account but several record searchers (Henry Badger, Alfred Baker, Henry Greaves, Frederick William Ludwell and Thomas Henry Reeks) worked for the General Register Office. William Cartwright was a ‘Record Searcher (private enquiry agent)’. Kate Corner, Mary Salmon, Ethel Thompson and Frederick Walford were literary searchers, Herbert Sayers was a ‘Genealogist & Journalist’ and Percival Lucas an ‘Antiquarian Author & Record Agent’. Margaret Mackay mentioned publishing, George Minns literature and music. Kathleen Thompson said she worked at the Public Record Office and Edith Moodie worked for the ‘American Library and Literary Agency’. Leonard Barnard was a ‘Genealogist & Heraldic Draughtsman’. John Byron Davies was a genealogist aged 74, but two had retired (Harry Clench aged 67, William Selby aged 73) and Mary Louisa Brodnax (nee Dalton), born in Alabama in 1836, had come as a genealogist from Manhattan to work in the Library at the British Museum and was staying in a hotel in Bedford Place. The youngest, Harry Edward Lloyd, aged 14, the son of a compositor at Tottenham, was a ‘Genealogist’s Office Boy’. The remainder described themselves simply as genealogists (twenty altogether, three with private means) or record agents and searchers. Of the sixty-two only sixteen were women and only eight of the total had joined the newly formed Society of Genealogists when the membership list was printed in 1913; they were James Burrows of Bushey, Gerald Fothergill of Wandsworth, William Clement Kendall of Lancaster, Ernest Kirk in Chancery Lane, Philip Lawson of Chester, George Minns of Norwich, Edgar Powell of Reading and George Sherwood of Brockley.
A record searcher in the London area who seems to have led something of a double life was John Robert Hutchinson (1858-1924), named below for his work on migrants, but who was also the author of several adventure books for boys [463]. He had been born in Nova Scotia the son of a master mariner and married there in 1878, having a son in 1881. The family lived for a time in India but he deserted his wife and child in 1890 [464]. At Camberwell in 1891, ‘author’, he was seemingly living with a young woman and their three month old daughter [465], but in 1895 he married as a bachelor at Pancras Register Office one Mary Blanche Shelley by whom he had four children. They were at Clacton, Essex, in 1901 when he said that he was a bookseller and born at Hull, but she divorced him for adultery and cruelty in 1909-10 [466]. She said then that he had a place of business at 11 Clifford’s Inn off Fleet Street. By the time of the 1911 census she was with the four children at 35 Cromwell Avenue, Hammersmith and herself working as a record agent; she died at Lambeth in 1929, aged 60. He had quickly married again at Croydon in 1910 and then moved to Joy Street, Barnstaple, Devon, where he traded as a ‘polished and genial’ bookseller until his death in 1924 [467]. One of his children had been born at Southwold, Suffolk, in 1897, and perhaps whilst in that area he had compiled two large typed volumes of ‘East Anglian Marriages’ (containing about 30,000 entries) which the Society of Genealogists bought in 1919, George Sherwood noting that they came from J. R. Hutchinson of Clifford’s Inn. Other Suffolk material acquired at that time may have come from the same source [468].
One record searcher who escaped the 1911 statistics [469] by describing himself as a ‘Writer for the Press & Record Searcher’ was Robert Westland Marston, the son of Charles Henry Marston a physician, who was born at Devizes in 1866 and was at 37 Millman Street, Holborn, a journalist, in 1901. In 1911 he was boarding with a carpenter at 79 Wood Street, Barnet. Reginald Hine, the historian of Hitchin in Hertfordshire, wrote that Marston ‘could find everything I wanted’ but refused to meet him. Hine could not understand why until Marston was pointed out at the Record Office and Hine, who described him in detail but did not give his name, was mesmerised by ‘the ugliest man I have ever seen’. He lived in great poverty, giving the little he earned to the Children’s Hospital, and died at Croydon in 1930. George Sherwood remembered seeing him last in May 1914 when he was apparently caring for an older woman, perhaps his sister Selina [470].
Although some of the Society’s founders recognised the need for a list of recommended searchers other than that provided by the Public Record Office, it was a long time before a regularly produced list emerged, though the membership list printed in the Society’s Annual Report for 1912 has fourteen persons marked as undertaking professional research. None were women.
The first textbook on the subject, Stacey Grimaldi's expensive but wide-ranging 342-page Origines Genealogicae (1828) has been mentioned. It was basically a collection of references to evidences for proving pedigrees and as the title page says, was 'Published expressly for the assistance of claimants to hereditary titles, honours, or estates'. Some 250 copies were printed and it sold for three guineas. Each record group dealt with was followed by a note on its ‘Genealogical Utility’ with examples of use in previous claims.
In the 1850s Richard Sims, working in the Department of Manuscripts at the British Museum saw a need for a book with a wider approach. As he wrote in his Preface, 'the knowledge of what had already been done for Genealogy might be more diffused; the riches of the valuable libraries in different parts of the kingdom rendered more available; and the students' labours greatly lightened, by a judicious concentration of memoranda, drawn from the best sources, and accompanied by carefully selected lists of books of reference'. It was fitting that he should dedicate his work to Grimaldi on whose 'legal and antiquarian' knowledge he had extensively drawn but his resulting work, known to many as 'Sims' Manual', aimed at the wider market, shows a remarkable and detailed awareness of the sources available at that time.
George 'Richard' Sims (1816-1898) was born at Abingdon, the son of an accountant at Wadham College, Oxford, and had been appointed to the staff of the British Museum Library in May 1841. He married at Paddington in 1846 and the couple lived close by the Museum but they had no children. Richard Sims had mastered several languages, ancient and modern, and was an expert palaeographer. In response to the growing number of genealogical enquiries received in the Department of Manuscripts he produced in 1849 the standard An index to pedigrees and arms contained in the heralds' visitations and other genealogical manuscripts in the British Museum and then compiled a Handbook to the library of the British Museum, &c, with some account of the principal libraries in London (1854). Two years later the bookseller John Russell Smith in Soho Square published the first edition of Sims's A manual for the genealogist, topographer, antiquary, and legal professor, consisting of descriptions of public records; parochial and other registers; wills, county and family histories; heraldic collections in public libraries, etc. etc. (1856),a second edition of which in over 500 pages, at fifteen shillings, came out in 1861 and another in 1888. Sims was described by a colleague in the Library as 'a living index to the treasures around him' whose industry and intelligence made him 'one of the most useful members of the Museum Staff' [471]. He has since gained some note because he considered the damaging letters of Madame Blavatsky (the founder of the Theosophical Society) to the Coulombs genuine [472]. He worked at the Library until he retired to live at Oxford in 1887.
One should perhaps mention here the remarkable compilation by George Gatfield (1832-1901) of a 646-page Guide to printed books and manuscripts relating to English and foreign heraldry and genealogy being a classified catalogue of works of those branches of literature (1892) with large sections by surname and on overseas countries, presumably all taken directly from the Library catalogue of the British Museum where he too had been an attendant since at least 1861. He was the son of a blacksmith at Hanworth in Middlesex and his son Charles later worked at the Public Record Office [473].
A solicitor-antiquary with a brilliant mind was William Phillimore Watts Phillimore (1853-1913), the son of the superintendent of a lunatic asylum at Nottingham who had, perhaps not surprisingly, changed his name from Dr Stiff to Dr Phillimore in 1873. Phillimore had published his first book on the church bells of Nottinghamshire whilst a student at Oxford and left the university with degrees in jurisprudence and civil law but devoted his life to genealogy and the preservation of records. He was greatly influenced by Francis Galton's Hereditary Genius (1869) and believed firmly in an aristocracy of blood or race, as his influential and popular How to write the history of a family (1887, 1888 and 1900) makes clear [474]. Phillimore's book, however, took a quite different approach from that of other manuals, dealing perhaps for the first time with questions of the meaning, relative frequency and distribution of surnames, the layout of the proposed book and its pedigrees (citing good American examples), typography and illustrations, and discussing portraiture and, as a committed eugenicist, anthropometry, recommending the regular measurement and photography (both full and side views!) of all ones family members. Phillimore also laid great stress on 'the duty of giving proof for every assertion made'. Lack of attention to this point, he says, had brought discredit to the study and it was now recognised that an inaccurate pedigree or one falsely seeking, as he put it, to join 'new men to old acres', only brought a family into contempt [475]. His passionate interest is shown in his comment, ‘Monuments and tombstones perish, but he who has written and printed a truthful history of his ancestors has raised for them a memorial more lasting than brass or stone’ [476].
In 1888, Phillimore, way ahead of his time, commenced a campaign for the creation of local authority record offices in each county or group of counties, into which parish registers, probate and ‘all provincial public records’ more than 50-60 years old might be deposited. He wrote at length to The Times in October 1888 suggesting that such an office should be styled 'The County Record Office' and made subject to the supervision of travelling record-inspectors from the Public Record Office. He was entirely against the centralised deposit of such material in London though ‘by a limited number of students it might be highly appreciated’ [477].
In 1896-7 he had played a prominent part in unmasking the 'Great Shipway Pedigree Fraud' in which many records, including parish registers and wills, had been tampered with by a bogus 'Dr' Herbert Davies and in 1898 he published an account of Davies's subsequent trial and conviction for it had, as he wrote, 'so important a bearing upon the safe custody of parish registers, wills and other public documents'. He used the story to show that 'our records are mostly in a very inefficient custody' and to again urge the foundation of county record offices [478].
Herbert Davies, without any particular antiquarian knowledge and quite unused to genealogical investigation had, at the age of 22 in 1895, been recommended to Colonel Robert Shipway (1841-1928), of Grove House, Chiswick [479], for the purpose of some ancestral research in Gloucestershire. Davies, calling himself a doctor and using an Oxford degree that had been awarded to another of the same name, claimed to have studied medicine at Heidelberg but apparently left without taking a degree [480]. Engaged by Shipway for six shillings a day plus expenses, Davies immediately embarked on an elaborate and lengthy scheme of imposture, providing an old silver watch falsely engraved which he said had belonged to the Shipway family and then an armorial seal with a similar story ‘verified’ with a bogus statutory declaration. He gained access to the Mangotsfield parish registers (improperly kept in the vicarage and on one occasion left open in the sun) and interpolated therein six Shipway entries, one a burial in 1625 mentioning the same arms. He excavated the churchyard and finding a lead coffin had it engraved with the name Shipway. During its removal a labourer was injured and shortly afterwards died. He carried out a similar excavation inside the church and finding two effigies identified them (on a screen with appropriate brass plates) as relating to Shipway ancestors, placing the name also on a shield from the Blount family monument, carving it into a beam in the belfry, and having Shipway initials engraved on the hasp of an old church chest which he induced the vicar to give to the Colonel. The herald Arthur Scott Gatty then told Colonel Shipway that he could find no record of any Shipway arms at the College of Arms and that further sources such as wills should be consulted. Davies thereupon turned his attention to the wills at Gloucester. There he was able to remove a will of 1547, clean off much of its surface and use the parchment to give new wording which included mention of a grant of Shipway arms in 1192 (sic !) and then to replace it in the files at the Probate Registry. In the Registry at Hereford he inserted a spurious will of 1524 and at that at Worcester he inserted spurious wills for 1490 and 1537. All the wills gave most extraordinary details of the family and all were verified with certificates provided by the office officials. Colonel Shipway’s solicitors were informed at each step of the search but raised no queries. However, the Colonel, pleased with his new found ancestry (which had cost him £683 in fees and expenses), showed the wills to William Phillimore, a neighbour at Chiswick. The latter went quickly to inspect the originals and the registers and found his suspicions well confirmed. However, the Colonel’s solicitors, having received a favourable report on Davies’s work from Francis Bridges Bickley (1851-1905) an Assistant in the Department of Manuscripts at the British Museum [481], raised strong objections to Phillimore’s conclusions and the latter was obliged to take up the matter with the President of the Probate Division, Sir Francis Jeune. Following detailed enquiries, the Director of Public Prosecutions took action in September 1897 and the case went to the Old Bailey where Davies pleaded guilty to obtaining money by false pretences and on 23 November 1898 was sentenced to three years penal servitude. Two days into the preliminary hearing and describing himself as a doctor of medicine Davies had married Linda Camilla Payne at Christchurch. In 1901 he was a Private in the Royal Army Medical Corps but by 1911 he was a draper’s manager in Brixton where he lived until after his wife’s death in 1918. Their only child, Kenneth, born in June 1898, served for a time as a surgeon at Guy’s Hospital.
Almost every aspect of this extraordinary case had caused Phillimore concern and his account spares none of the parties involved. The unfortunate Colonel Shipway had been reluctant to be involved in legal action and, it was said, ‘cut an undeniably comic figure in the hands of the suburban doctor’. The Pall Mall Gazette thought that he might ‘console himself with the reflection that many lineages provided for brand-new notabilities are quite as dubious’ as the ‘silly mistakes’ perpetrated by Davies, ‘a quarter-educated scoundrel’ [482].
Others took Phillimore’s concerns and ideas about county record offices much more seriously and they were strongly supported by the Congress of Archaeological Societies. In July 1899 the Congress resolved to ask the Government to appoint a Royal Commission to look into the matter and a strong group of concerned people, including Viscount Dillon, President of the Society of Antquaries, the Duke of Northumberland, the bishops of London and Oxford, Sir Henry Howorth, Horace Round, Laurence Gomme, Edward Alexander Fry and William Phillimore, agreed to form a deputation to the Prime Minister, but the latter was ‘unable to receive’ them and the Congress’s Report was referred instead to a Committee on the Preservation of Local Records appointed by the Treasury [483].
The Report, which had been adopted at a Special Congress held on 28 March 1900 and confirmed at the Annual Congress of the forty societies in union held at Burlington House on 11 July 1900 under the Presidency of the industrialist and archaeologist, Sir John Evans (1823-1908), recommended that legislation be passed to allow, but not compel, the deposit in county record offices of parish registers and other ecclesiastical records, the acceptance therein of court rolls and other papers in private custody and the making of the records available for inspection by students. It thought that the PRO should also unload on local county record offices 'all such documents now in the Public Record Office as in the opinion of the Office ought to be preserved in the localities to which they refer' and that it was 'of the utmost importance that none but properly qualified custodians should be appointed'. It also thought that it would be most undesirable for these offices to have any connection with public libraries, for 'the most competent of Librarians may not necessarily possess the qualifications of a custodian of Records'.
The only 'local' record office in existence at this time was the Guildhall Library in London which in 1899 had begun to take in the vestry minute books and churchwardens' accounts of various City parishes (but not the parish registers) as a result of a circular letter addressed to the Vestries by the brush maker and amateur historian James George White (1837-1906), then Deputy of the Ward of Walbrook to the Court of Common Council [484]. After the 1900 Conference its President, Sir John Evans, who was also Chairman of the local Records Committee for Hertfordshire returned to the County and built an air conditioned repository to house its records (costing £1,016), which opened in 1909 [485]. These were important developments along a most tortuous path.
Phillimore’s views were not shared by all genealogists and in 1911 George Sherwood wrote, when remarking on the sale of a further batch of the manuscripts collected by Sir Thomas Phillipps, ‘We do not altogether share the generally expressed opinion that such manuscripts should be all stored away in public libraries. It is better that the originals should be studied, used, enjoyed and passed from hand to hand, but we think that the information they contain should be preserved in print. Let our museums cease to buy, and spend the money instead in printing, cataloguing and indexing; they are crammed already with material more or less inaccessible, and which is, in consequence, imperfectly studied, used or understood’ [486].
Phillimore was, in fact, doing more than his fair share of this work. In 1888 he sought for the first time to provide, not full transcripts, but printed indexes to a variety of public records, issuing monthly instalments of several indexes at once, in a series called the Index Library. In this he had the active co-operation of Walford Selby, the respected superintendent of the Literary Search room at the PRO who was also editor of The Genealogist, and the financial backing of a legal publisher, Charles Clark. After Selby’s untimely death in 1889, Phillimore, in order to secure a stable number of subscribers, was instrumental in forming the British Record Society to carry the Index Library forward, becoming its first Secretary and remaining General Editor of its publications until 1893 [487].
Phillimore also initiated the Scottish Record Series in 1896, the Thoroton Society in 1897, and the Canterbury and York Society in 1904. However, he is undoubtedly best known to genealogists for the great series of printed marriage registers, produced by the firm he founded in Chancery Lane, Phillimore & Co, which from 1897 issued in some counties, with much voluntary assistance, two volumes yearly. One hundred and fifty copies of each were usually printed to sell at 10s 6d each.
Phillimore himself was not altogether a sympathetic character. Although a keen cyclist [488] he has been described as 'a cadaverous figure, six feet of skin and bone with long hair, a long forked beard and heavy lidded myopic eyes; a strict vegetarian and teetotaller' [489]. He was a prodigious writer, producing in addition to the above books, several family histories and other works including, with Edward Alexander Fry, the standard An index to changes of name, 1760 to 1901 (1905). In 1900 he wrote a brief handbook with basic information for beginners, Pedigree Work (1900),costing a shilling, which was revised by Thomas Blagg in 1914 and then again by Bower Marsh for publication in 1936 (3s 6d). Phillimore died at Torquay in 1913; his will expressed a sadly unrealised hope that his only son would preserve his papers. Unknown to him the first county record office was being established that year at Bedford.
Another solicitor-antiquary Walter Rye (1843-1929), already mentioned for his outspoken views on the deposit of early parish registers, was the son of a Chelsea solicitor and himself pursued a legal career (commencing in his father's office at the age of fourteen) in Wandsworth, Croydon and Putney before moving in 1900 to Norwich where he was Mayor in 1908. He was a prolific and indefatigable writer (of some 152 articles and 117 pamphlets and books) and a collector of Norfolk items, who after working for twenty-five years in London archives, wrote Records and record searching (1888; 2nd ed. 1897) [490], the first edition of which came out in the same year as Phillimore's How to write the history of a family. No two books on the same subject could be more dissimilar. It has been said that Rye was 'a long-distance runner, which perhaps accounts for his haste, and a controversialist, that perhaps accounts for his inaccuracies' [491] but his poorly organised work contains much useful matter as well as several asides that will have caused great annoyance to some of his contemporaries. However, the book shows that Rye, who did not work as a record agent but was a full-time solicitor whose research took him frequently to the archives, knew well the practical problems involved and noted, for instance, that the early closing (at 2 pm) on Saturdays at the Public Record Office 'is very hard on those who are engaged all the week, and whose only spare time is the Saturday half-holiday', a complaint that was heard for many more years yet to come.
Walter Rye's book, like that by William Phillimore, gives several credits for assistance to Edward Alexander Mercy Fry (1853-1934), then of Edgbaston, already mentioned as the Secretary of the newly formed Parish Register Society and particularly active as the secretary of the British Record Society. For the latter Society's Index Library Fry edited some nineteen volumes between 1896 and 1915. He is described in the census returns, 1881-1901, as a Brazilian merchant but he can have had little time for his business. In 1901 he edited a volume of Wiltshire inquisitions post mortem with George Samuel Fry, CBE (1853-1938),latterly of Hove, who worked at the Board of Trade. There does not seem to be any reason for supposing that they were closely related [492]. George Fry also edited three other Index Library volumes and is known for his calendars and abstracts of Dorset wills and a large collection of Fry family material at the Society of Genealogists of which he was an early, though not a founder, member.
James 'Henry' Lea (1846-1914) of Freeport, Maine, mentioned below, was one of the American researchers sponsored to work in England by the New England Society. In 1904 he had compiled Abstracts of wills, Register 'Soame', 1620 and two years later he produced Genealogical research in England, Scotland and Ireland: a handbook for the student (1906). The short book, drafts of which had earlier appeared in The New England Register, was aimed mainly at the American market, detailing a search for emigrant origins through probate material, and would have been extremely daunting to an overseas visitor, though a useful reference.
H. A. Crofton's How to trace a pedigree (London, 1911; 2nd ed. 1924) was a slight and very general book in a little series of ‘How to’ books ‘For the bibliophile and book-lover’ published at two shillings. I mention it here because it came out in the same year as the Society of Genealogists was founded and, unusually, was written by a woman, though this is not revealed in the book itself where only her initials appear. She was Helen Augusta Maria Crofton an Irish lady who had earlier been inspired by her aunt, Adelia Margery West (nee Slacke, died 1901), to write the little Records of the Slacke family of Ireland (1902) and thus had some personal experience of work at the Registry of Deeds in Dublin. She died at Lisburn, co. Antrim, in 1919, aged 61.
The descendants of families that have emigrated overseas, in the third generation or perhaps after about a hundred years, frequently turn their minds to their emigrant forebears and their ancestries in the 'home country' and Anthony Wagner noted that such enquiries had been made of the heralds in England from families in America since the seventeenth century. It was unfortunate, therefore, that the petition of Garter King of Arms, Sir Edward Walker (died 1677), for a commission to make an heraldic visitation of the American plantations in the 1660s had been unsuccessful [493]. A later Garter, Sir Isaac Heard (1730-1822), had personal connections in America and took a special interest in American families [494], corresponding at some length in the 1790s, as we now know, with George Washington about the latter’s ancestry and arms.
Historical societies were founded in America in the late eighteenth century, the first in Massachusetts in 1791, and the secretary of that in New Hampshire, John Farmer (1789-1838), published the ground breaking A genealogical register of the first settlers on New England (1829). The better known A genealogical dictionary of the first settlers of New England by James Savage (1784-1873) came out in four volumes in 1860-62. The intervening years saw the foundation in Boston of the New England Historic Genealogical Society in 1845 and the commencement of its quarterly New England Historical and Genealogical Register, generally known as the Register, in 1847.
Americans seeking their roots and 'lost fortunes' in the British Isles had thus been a commonplace of the genealogical scene in London and elsewhere for some years. Wilford Woodruff (1807-1898), a miller by trade and latterly President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, did research on his Woodruff ancestry whilst on missions in London in 1840 and 1846 [495]. In 1845 an early member of the New England society, Horatio Gates Somerby (1805-1872), came to England and spent much of the rest of his life here trying to trace the origins of early American settlers, though 'Unhappily he sometimes provided an ancestry for a generous client that later research has failed to verify’ [496]. Indeed, by the 1880s many of his rich clients’ pedigrees were found to be fraudulent [497].
An uncritical approach, coupled with a lack of knowledge of the social background and geography of the British Isles, has made much early (and not a little contemporary) work of this kind by overseas visitors of little value and the false assumptions of early searchers have frequently bedevilled all subsequent attempts to set the record straight. Similarities of name and date, particularly where early migrants are concerned, have seduced many an American into the adoption of false ancestries here, a frequent pitfall for the uninstructed and uncritical beginner in this field, as much then as it is now.
A critical approach was hardly known amongst amateur genealogists in England, let alone amongst its visitors, and there were plenty who would pander to the desires of distant Americans and provide spurious material. The Latter-Day Saints, with desires founded in religion, were easy prey. Perhaps because of this they eventually sought out trusted members of their Church in England to carry out research for other members and the main American societies took to sending over competent searchers of known integrity to explore likely material for emigrant origins. One unscrupulous ‘professional’, William Paver (1802-1871), who had been dismissed from his position in the Probate Registry at York for inserting fabricated wills amongst those proved there, obtained the position of Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths at York, and he and his son, both industrious professionals, conducted a wide correspondence, particularly in America where in 1857 the New England Society published a list of the Yorkshire pedigrees he had available for sale at a dollar a generation [498]. It is possible, however, that Paver’s fabrications, like those of many other genealogists, related mainly to his own ancestry.
Richard Sims remarked in 1861 on ‘the increasing interest displayed by our brethren across the Atlantic in whatever relates to family history and their connection with the old country’ and was amongst the first to draw attention to their labours as of possible interest to genealogists in England, printing lists of the English pedigrees that had already appeared in the first eight volumes of the New England Register, of American local histories containing genealogies, and of the many individual family histories that had been published in America, the first noted being Joseph Sharpless’s Family Record of the Sharples family published at Philadelphia in 1816 [499].
Horatio Somerby was followed to England by Joseph Lemuel Chester (1821-1882), a man of a completely different calibre where genealogy was concerned. Chester was a poet, temperance lecturer, miscellaneous writer and journalist, originally from Norwich, Connecticut, who rose to be a member of the city council of Philadelphia and, although without military service, was given the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, which he always used. He first came to England in 1858 and settled with an English 'wife', Georgiana George (though I have not traced their marriage), in Finsbury, later moving to Bermondsey where he remained until his death [500]. What led him to historical work is not clear but he began to undertake searches in London for clients in America and in 1861 published an account of John Rogers (1505-1555) the Marian proto-martyr from whom his family had, incorrectly as he showed, claimed descent. The next year he obtained permission to search without charge the pre-1700 probate records then at Doctors' Commons where he specialised in the origins of early American settlers. His major works include some 87 large volumes of extracts from parish registers and church notes by county (given to the College of Arms by his executor George Edward Cokayne), a complete transcript of the matriculation register of Oxford University where he received an honorary degree (the register being edited and published in eight volumes by Joseph Foster in 1887-92), extensive extracts from the Bishop of London's marriage licence allegations (also edited by Joseph Foster in 1887), and a splendidly annotated edition of the baptismal, marriage and burial registers of Westminster Abbey (printed in 1876) [501]. Colonel Chester was one of the founders of the Harleian Society and contributed transcripts of several London registers to its published series as well as, with Joseph Jackson Howard, an edition of the Visitation of London 1633-5 (2 vols. 1880-3). His biography in the old Dictionary of National Biography says that when he died in 1882, 'he had no superior as a genealogist amongst English-speaking people'. He is the only genealogist to have a memorial (in the south aisle of the nave) in Westminster Abbey.
In his early days in England Chester employed as a secretary one Harriet Ann Bainbridge (1829-1908), the daughter of a banker in Euston Square, ‘of the ancient house of Bainbridge of Westmoreland, settled there before the Conquest’, or so she claimed [502], whom he recommended to others. Later working on her own account he found that she was confusing, falsifying, and forging records for clients, and he forced her to give up genealogical work. She had, in 1872, married a clerk in the War Office, William John Salis or De Salis, and subsequently became a prolific writer of cookery books [503].
Meanwhile, the London bookseller and publisher John Camden Hotten, who (as noted above) when young had lived for eight years in America and maintained a close connection with the American market, had compiled the first edition of his Original lists of persons of quality, emigrants, religious exiles, political rebels ... and others who went from Great Britain to the American plantations (1874), a book, the first of its kind, which went through several editions. He had finished overseeing the 580-page work at the Public Record Office just a month before his death in June the previous year [504]. To say that some of these 'persons of quality' were minor criminals, in bondage, or living with someone else's wife, would not, of course, have sold the book! The important two manuscript volumes of 'Servants to Foreign Plantations' with 10,000 names for the period 1654-85 were not found at Bristol until 1925, when an American offered £1,000 for the volume that contained his ancestor’s name [505]. Transcribed by the genealogist Reginald Hargreaves-Mawdsley (1891-1970), they were printed as Bristol to America in 1929.
Following Colonel Chester's death in 1882, at the suggestion of a wealthy Bostonian lawyer, John Tyler Hassam and with his financial support, the New England Society decided to provide a small salary to someone in London who would continue his work and it chose Henry FitzGilbert Waters (1823-1913) who had come to England in 1879 and published in 1880 his first 'gleanings' from English records about New England families [506]. As a result, from 1883 to 1899, that Society's Register contained large numbers of extracts from records contributed by Waters, mostly from London repositories and largely as a result of trawling through and making copious extracts from the wills then at Somerset House. These extracts were collected together and reprinted in the 1,643 pages of Genealogical gleanings in England (2 vols. 1901) a work of considerable value for families on both sides of the Atlantic before 1680.
The New England Society continued the work of Chester and Waters into the twentieth century by sponsoring other searchers in England, notably James Henry Lea (1846-1914) who had joined the Society in 1888 and who claimed in 1906 to have spent twenty years doing work in England. In 1904 he had compiled Abstracts of wills, Register 'Soame', 1620 and two years later he produced the short Genealogical research in England, Scotland and Ireland: a handbook for the student, drafts of which had earlier appeared in The New England Register outlining a search for emigrant origins through probate material. His abstraction of wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in the year of the sailing of the Mayflower was, of course, no coincidence. He acknowledged the assistance of George Cokaigne [sic, recte Cokayne], the editor of The Complete Peerage, whom he calls 'the Nestor of English Genealogists'. However, Lea was probably best known for his work on The ancestry of Abraham Lincoln (1909) about which there has been much argument. In it he collaborated with John Robert Hutchinson (1858-1924), the record agent who for several years had been working unsuccessfully on the John Russell who migrated to Boston in 1635 [507]. Lea’s work was continued by George Andrews Moriarty (1882-1968), of Ogunquit, Maine, but he conducted his research by correspondence from America and employed English researchers.
The reading of the wills of persons of the same surname proved both before and after a migrant left England, as Lea advocated, starting with the Prerogative Court, had become the standard way of attempting to find the migrant’s origins but was particularly laborious when the surname was a frequent one. To make or publish abstracts of all the wills proved in a certain year and thus to reveal all the hidden subsidiary names and connections that they contained was a particularly valuable task. Using the Prerogative Court, Samuel Anderson Smith listed in 1893-4 all the names in the wills of West Country persons prior to 1743 (a manuscript that used to be at Somerset House but is now apparently lost), William Brigg printed in 1894-1914 abstracts of half the wills proved in the year 1658 and John Harold Morrison (died 1935) printed in 1934 abstracts of all those in 1630 [508]. Others later made similar abstracts, Mrs A. E. Rowan for 1651, Frederick Simon Snell for large parts of 1699 and 1751, and George Sherwood in 1917 abstracted and published the whole of the 4,382 wills (naming 40,000 people) in 'Register Greenly' for 1750.
Inspired by the gleanings published in New England, The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography began in 1903 to publish a series of 'Virginia Gleanings in England', initially using material extracted by Henry Waters and then by another well-known searcher Lothrop Withington who was killed on the Lusitania in May 1915. The latter had just sent a postcard to George Sherwood saying ‘Will come by the ‘Lusitania’, subject to Kaiser Wilhelm’s consent’ [509]. The series was then entrusted for three years to the genealogist Leo Culleton (mentioned above) and concluded by Reginald Glencross, of whom more will be said, the latter's contributions appearing intermittently in the Virginia Magazine until July 1929 [510].
One cannot talk about the development of genealogy in the United States and its impact on the United Kingdom without considering the part played by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Latter-day Saints believe that baptism, together with the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, is essential to salvation, but that these ordinances are invalid unless performed by priesthood authority. Their Prophet, Joseph Smith (1805-1844), first preached the doctrine of baptism for the dead in August 1840 and members of the Church that he founded immediately began to perform proxy baptisms for their deceased relatives in the Mississippi River. The following year such baptisms were restricted to the temples where endowments could also take place.
Another early doctrine taught that eternal marriage performed by priesthood authority, when linked to the children of that marriage and 'sealed' by temple ordinance, would create family bonds that would last for eternity. Members of the church believe that these endowment and sealing ceremonies are essential for their salvation and, indeed, for that of those who have gone before, for Joseph Smith said, 'The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead' [511].
After many early members of the church moved to Salt Lake City in 1847 proxy endowments were delayed until the completion of the temple at St George in the far south of Utah in 1877, when the nineteen-year old Susa Young, later an early member of the Society of Genealogists in London, was the first to be baptised for the dead. Two days later her father, Brigham Young (1801-1877), the President of the Church, stood proxy for the endowment of his father [512].
Several prominent early church leaders in Utah set an example in searching for family records. The brothers Orson (1811-1881) and Parley Pratt (1907-1857) did so whilst serving a mission in Washington in 1853 and Orson was the first Latter-day Saint to publish a family history. Their families baptised about three thousand of their ancestors. Wilford Woodruff (1807-1898), later President of the Church, did research whilst on missions in London in 1840 and 1846, and Franklin Dewey Richards (1821-1899) gathered records and an extensive library which he eventually sold at cost to the Church Historian's Office, becoming in 1894 the first president of the Genealogical Society of Utah [513]. In 1893 he had astutely advised Mrs Maria Newman, intent on having searches made in England that she should not tell the parish clerk that the information sought was for temple work as that might antagonise him [514].
As the interest in research grew, requests for assistance from missionaries travelling abroad became frequent. An early professional genealogist, Benjamin F. Cummings (died 1899), served two missions within the United States, 1876-78, and visited the New England Society then and again in 1892 when he made an extensive tour of the eastern States to learn about record-keeping systems [515]. By 1893 it is thought that about fifty people were going to Europe each year for genealogical purposes and that there were at least 178 genealogical missionaries, mostly coming from Utah and going to the UK, between 1885 and 1900. One church member who spent some years in London, James B. Walkley (1863-1940), a carpenter and later an engineer in Salt Lake City who had been born in Islington the son of a pastry cook, emigrated in 1883 but returned to London to do genealogical work for others. Perhaps sub-contracting searches, his services were described in the Deseret Evening News in 1892. He charged $1.50 a day for work in the indexes at the General Register Office, where the fees paid added about $6 to the cost of collecting a hundred names. He is credited with being the first to urge leaders of the Church in Utah to organise a society [516] the subsequent history of which is described below.
It has been noted that William Phillimore was a disciple of Francis Galton and interested in the social status of his family, in heredity generally and, of course, in the passing on of the best genes. An interest in the 'science of human betterment' or eugenics was widespread in middle-class progressive minds by the end of the nineteenth century and although the work of Charles Booth had brought recognition that poverty and unemployment were not necessarily the products of hereditary moral shortcomings, many people who thought like Phillimore founded in December 1907 [517] the Eugenics Education Society in London to promote a public awareness of eugenic problems and of the existence of positive and negative hereditary qualities.
Those who bred horses and other farming stock had always placed emphasis on the need for 'good breeding' but genealogists from farming backgrounds and with their roots in the soil would also have known instinctively, as the eminent genealogist Charles Bernau did, that 'many a good cow hath an ill calf' [518], and that there are ups and downs in most families which have nothing to do with genetic defects but have much to do with economic factors and chance. Bernau himself wrote, 'how much more [than royalty] must those of the middle classes expect to find that some of their direct ancestors were poverty-stricken and lived amid squalid surroundings' [519]. However, Bernau was an early member of the Eugenics Education Society, perhaps (one has to say) because it might give him commercial advantage, and he provided that Society with plenty of space in his International Genealogical Directory [520].
The eugenicist Ernest James Lidbetter (1877-1962) [521] had a somewhat different background. Born in Bermondsey in 1877, the son of a prosperous baker and the grandson of a greengrocer, Lidbetter was in 1898 appointed a Relieving Officer for the Hackney Board of Guardians with responsibility for investigating the claims of applicants for relief. He immediately noticed that many of those who came forward for relief did so repeatedly and were often the children and relatives of others in the same situation and he became convinced that this was due to some defect that was hereditary. He was not the first to notice ‘hereditary paupers’ and an article in the Shoreditch Observer under that heading in 1886 drew attention to a case before the Islington Board of Guardians when a man in his eightieth year applied for relief and was recommended the workhouse infirmary. The man’s parents, both nearly a hundred years old, were in receipt of out-door relief. The Board’s chairman remarked that its late clerk, Mr Hicks, used to say that he was able to trace pauper families back for a century or more [522].
When in 1910 a Research Committee of the Eugenics Education Society started an investigation of actual pauper families in the East End of London, Lidbetter and two neighbouring Relieving Officers, using the records of their three workhouses and assisted in the research by some twenty members of his Society, the Research Committee also came rapidly to the conclusion that 'a single family stock produces paupers, feeble-minded, alcoholics and certain types of criminals. If an investigation could be carried out on a sufficiently large scale, we believe that the greater proportion of undesirables would be found connected together by a network of relationship' [523]. Having no doubt in the truth of this statement, he for several years assembled pedigrees of the inter-married families involved and he published articles derived from them. He regarded the families, as Pauline Mazumdar says, almost as a breeding or 'biological isolate rather like the fauna of the Galapagos Islands' [524], but made no attempt to differentiate between conditions that were truly genetic and those that were environmental, let alone quantifying or providing any form of statistical analysis of what he was finding.
The genealogist Charles Bernau had already seen, when looking at documents in his parish church at Walton-on-Thames, that 'the task of tracing a family in the lowest stratum of society will be easier than compiling the pedigree of one in the upper middle class' [525]. Bernau's string of examples from the Walton-on-Thames poor law records, published in his The genealogy of the submerged (1908), were very similar to those used by Lidbetter and included settlement examinations, lists of inmates in the workhouse and a removal order in 1843 which showed four generations of a family. It is thus doubtful that Bernau could have learned from Lidbetter's techniques even if they had been more widely known in genealogical circles. In any case the 'submerged' were not themselves tracing their ancestors and the few genealogists, such as Bernau and Gerald Fothergill, who realised that working-class ancestors might appear in these records would undoubtedly have had problems in gaining access to the record, even if they could have persuaded their clients to pay for such research.
Whatever the reasons, there seems to have been very little overlap between the so-called 'gentlemen genealogists' of the first decade of the twentieth century and the membership of the Eugenics Education Society whose over-riding interests at that time were in propaganda for their cause. Unlike the Society of Genealogists, more than half their members were medical men, scientists and academics and more than half were women [526]. Lidbetter, an early and active member of the Eugenics Education Society (and subsequently a member of its Council and a Fellow), never joined the Society of Genealogists, and the Society seems not to have played any part in the Eugenics Education Society or in the first International Congress of Eugenics held in London in 1912 at which numerous pedigrees were displayed [527]. Even the standardisation of the medical pedigree format, which received much discussion at the time the Society of Genealogists was founded [528], involved no member of the Society. Francis Galton had himself written that, 'There are many methods of drawing pedigrees and describing kinship, but for my own purposes I still prefer those that I designed myself' [529]. In that at least, most genealogists in England were unfortunately agreed! Reporting on a lecture by the statistician David Heron (1881-1969) on ‘The work of the Eugenics laboratory’ in 1909, George Sherwood said that Heron ‘held that the inheritance factor was more important than the infection factor’, but made no further comment [530]. The Society of Genealogists' general lack of interest and involvement in eugenics seems to have continued into the late 1920s when some prominent members led a considerable change in attitude.
The social backgrounds of two well-known genealogists of the period, George Sherwood and Charles Bernau, both of whom subsequently took a leading part in the foundation of the Society of Genealogists, illustrate an important point. They were not, as some have described them, ‘gentlemen genealogists’. They were little more than lower middle class, though perhaps aspiring to higher station. Sherwood himself agreed that a considerable proportion of those who were now beginning to look into their family history, were, as Dr George Marshall used to say, ‘dug up out of the mud’ between 1800 and 1830 [531].
George Frederick Tudor Sherwood was born in Fulham in 1867, the son of a draper, George Albert Sherwood, who came originally from Wallingford in Berkshire and later ran a restaurant in Claverton Street, Pimlico [532], but returned to run a confectioner’s shop at Wallingford [533] before dying at neighbouring Crowmarsh Gifford in 1905 [534]. As a boy George persistently questioned his older relatives about their family history and he had become a record agent before he was twenty [535], continuing to eke out a rather precarious living in that uncertain profession for almost seventy years. His reader's ticket for use in the library at the British Museum was issued to him for life on 29 September 1886 [536]. He had married in 1887 and his wife died the following year. In 1889 he married again and started his ‘Publicity Reference Books’ [537]. He described himself as a record agent in the 1891 census when living with his father-in-law, a stone mason in Fulham [538], and there on summer evenings he copied the inscriptions in the old churchyard (only to find, as so often happened, that they had already been done twice before) [539]. In April 1895, from his father’s then address at 99 Angell Road, Brixton, he put out a pamphlet Sherwood Genealogy describing his collections for what today would be called a one-name study [540]. A few months earlier, when his children were baptised, he was describing himself as a journalist [541].
Most of the genealogical journals in the nineteenth century had printed queries from their subscribers about specific problems, but in 1896 George Sherwood had the idea of soliciting such queries from his friends and correspondents and publishing them in small quarterly booklets which he called Genealogical Queries and Memoranda. He produced seventeen of these between 1896 and 1900. They contained, besides queries, lists of manuscript pedigrees found in public collections and in recently published books. His few editorial comments mention his own collections, the possibility of co-operative searches and the formation of document files by parish, all heralding his later projects.
By 1901 he was calling himself a 'Record Agent - Searcher & Transcriber of Ancient Records and Archives' [542] and deploring the destruction of so many documents. By 1907 he had built up a large collection of old deeds, papers and pedigrees [543], advertising that he undertook the 'cataloguing, calendaring, abstracting, indexing, and arrangement of old charters, deeds, and documents on the system adopted by the Record Office and the Commission on Historical Manuscripts' [544].
George Sherwood had gone to live at Brockley in Kent in 1899 and soon thereafter got to know Charles Bernau, some ten years younger, who lived nearby at Lee. Charles Allan Stephen Bernau (1878-1961) had been born at Lee in 1878 the youngest son of an army agents' clerk born at Berbice in British Guiana [545], his male line coming originally from Stolp near Danzig and his mother's family of Benest from Jersey. His interest in genealogy is said to have been fired by tales of a pirate ancestor that he heard as a boy when visiting his mother’s relatives.
Charles Allan Bernau (who never used the Stephen in his name), a man of considerable energy and ideas, had been educated at the City of London School and in the Black Forest and Switzerland. Following in his father’s footsteps he became a clerk to agents at the then booming Baltic Exchange at St Mary Axe in the City, dealing primarily in grain, though genealogy seems to have taken up a greater part of his time from about 1903 onwards [546]. When twenty-two, the Electoral Register shows him lodging in two furnished rooms on the first and third floors of his father's house at 4 Winn Road, Lee, paying a rent of 10s weekly [547]. His mother had died when he was twelve and his elderly father had married a much younger British woman born at Moscow. Charles himself married in 1901 at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Rosa Emily the daughter of Samuel Bennion, a prosperous printer and stationer at Market Drayton. Rosa had previously assisted in her father's shop and after marriage she involved herself in her husband’s genealogical work. He had contributed an article on the 'Descent of Bernau from the Dukes of Normandy' to the Genealogical Magazine in March 1901 [548] and he later published, with other small pamphlets, his own short family history, Genealogy of the Bernau family of Stolp, in 1906.
Charles Bernau liked to think that he was a 'firm believer in united action in all matters connected with genealogy and heraldry' [549] but he was by no means an easy man to work with. His work with the Directory encouraged him to think of the possibility of forming a society of genealogists and he cast around for support amongst its subscribers so that he might eventually put the idea into practice. A hesitant Sherwood showed some interest in the idea but was doubtful of the level of support that it would receive. In 1905 Sherwood again asked through Notes & Queries what had happened to Rycroft Reeve’s earlier society but receiving no helpful answer, he asked in June 1906 through the same journal, ‘Will a dozen or so students of genealogy join me in forming a club for the making of what, for want of a better term, I will call “consolidated indexes”’. He was optimistically suggesting that a group of people each take one letter of the alphabet and copy onto index slips references from the indexes of any handy historical works, so that one vast index might eventually be made. He did not say if these slips, a standard layout for which he had devised, would be centrally filed or easily accessible [550]. The suggestion again met with no published response. The basic idea, however, remained with Sherwood.
We know that Charles Bernau corresponded with Sherwood in the course of 1906, perhaps as a result of this article, about the possible formation of a society and that they had apparently agreed, as Bernau later wrote, that 'the best policy would be to lead up to the subject by degrees and not to launch the scheme until the genealogical and heraldic public had become accustomed to the idea of international cooperation in their hobby or profession' [551]. Whether the cautious Sherwood was wholeheartedly committed to the ‘international’ ideas that, in view of his background, came naturally to Bernau, is very doubtful.
Sherwood had stopped publishing his series of Genealogical Queries in 1900 but their content may well have given the idea of producing a more substantial volume on an international scale to Charles Bernau who, with the wider circle of correspondents that he was attracting, published in June 1907 from Pendeen, Walton-on-Thames the first edition of an International Genealogical Directory. Quarto in size and with card covers, it sold for 10s 6d, its 113 pages listing the names and addresses of 1,387 correspondents and giving details of the families in which they were interested. In his acknowledgements Bernau wrote that Sherwood had been 'the first to welcome the scheme' and that his 'constant help and advice have been invaluable'. In turn Sherwood wrote that 'no genealogical work of reference of greater general value than this to the ordinary amateur has ever been issued' [552].
Bernau was amongst the first to realise that the professional middle classes who were his clients usually had much humbler ancestry that might also be traced and prove of interest. Between 1908 and 1910 he put out eight small guides to aspects of the subject in a series called The Genealogist's Pocket Library. They sold for 2s 6d each (or 2s 8d post free). The first, Some Special Studies in Genealogy, contained his own essay, The Genealogy of the Submerged, a pioneering work concentrating entirely on the 'common man' and parish chest material, together with essays by Gerald Fothergill on Emigrants to America: how to trace their English ancestry and Josiah Newman on The Quaker Records (1908).
Volume 2 of the series was devoted entirely to George Sherwood's Chancery Proceedings (1908) and volume 3, entitled Royal Descents - Scottish Records, contained W. G. D. Fletcher's How to trace a Descent from Royalty and J. Bolam Johnson's The Scottish Records (1908). George Sherwood had no time for Fletcher’s work, writing that he had ‘an entire absence of enthusiasm as regards this kind of labour, believing that it does genealogical study more harm than good, and that it fosters insufferable snobbery’ [553]. Volume 4 was Alfred Stapleton's The churchyard scribe (1908) with sections 'On recording the inscriptions in a churchyard or burial ground', 'Hints on reading apparently illegible inscriptions' and 'Typical and authentic examples'. Volume 5 consisted of William Bradbrook's From the Records of Quarter Sessions, Percy Rushen's The Records of Patented Inventions, and Perceval Lucas's Seize Quartiers and Ascending Pedigrees (1909). In the sixth volume William Saunders dealt with Ancient Handwritings and Percy Rushen provided The Genealogist's Legal Dictionary (1909). The seventh volume consisted of William Bradbrook's The Parish Register (1910) and the eighth of Gerald Fothergill's, The Records of Naval Men (1910).
Meanwhile in June 1907 Sherwood had begun publishing a well-printed quarterly periodical, The Pedigree Register at 2s 6d an issue, in which he printed a variety of nicely laid out tabular pedigrees based on documentary evidence. To him ‘a pedigree is the thing’ and ‘a little pedigree chart instantly appeals to all interested in the subject’ [554]. Certainly a drop-line pedigree has never been bettered for quickly communicating a relationship. The Pedigree Register was initially published from 50 Beecroft Road, Brockley, to which he had moved in 1899 and where his main collections were now housed, but soon afterwards he took a small office at 227 The Strand, which, if the drawing in his advertisement in the International Genealogical Directory (1909) is anything to go by, was quickly lined from floor to ceiling with bookcases and box files. His room in the Strand first appeared in the London Post Office Directory as the 'Pedigree Register Office' in 1910 and an advertisement in the 1909 Directory, 'Documents to Prove', illustrates the wide variety of work that he carried out. Down one side it read, 'Documents to prove biography, genealogy, family & local history, hereditary succession, family traits, and the influence of heredity and character, succession of incumbents, etc.' and down the other, 'Documents to prove pedigrees and the right to armorial bearings. The 'pedigrees' of old houses and land, as well as of people. Fishery, foreshore, and common rights, markets, fairs, etc.'
At the same time Sherwood advertised that items from his ‘Loan Collection of Old Deeds’, listed from 1907 in the Register, could be borrowed by subscribers in return for a postal order for half-a-crown (2s 6d) which would be 'devoted to improving the Collection' [555]. In 1909 he purchased 5,183 vellum documents from the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps but announced that the system of lending them out had not worked well and had been abandoned though subscribers to the Register might call and see anything of interest [556]. In his September 1908 issue he had published an early article on 'Criminal Records' and a contributor, Dr William Bradbrook, asked for information about any person of his su name before 1800 'however humble their position or shady their conduct' [557]. As Charles Bernau wrote in 1910 Sherwood allowed 'both Pauper and Prince free access to his pages' [558].
Bernau's family and school background no doubt played a part in his belief that any society brought into being should be international in character, but that belief proved quite unrealistic. A Convention Internationale d'Héraldique had been constituted in Basle, Switzerland, on the last day of December 1907, and in correspondence with its Vice-Chancellor, Rene Droz, on 3 September 1908, Bernau wrote that his International Genealogical Directory, which had just been brought to the attention of the Congrés Universal des Sciences Auxiliares de l'Histoire in Berlin, already had the official recognition of the Office of Arms in Dublin Castle and the semi-official recognition of the College of Arms in London [559]. This was a considerable exaggeration for, as Sir Anthony Wagner later wrote, the officers of the College of Arms, 'took a dim view' of the professionals who had founded the Society 'as an organisation of would-be rivals' [560], and it was some time before the College became reconciled to the idea, apparently on the understanding that any new society would not undertake large scale paid research [561]. Rene Droz, who believed that genealogy was more 'positive' and 'practical' than heraldry, had replied to Bernau proposing an international society for both subjects, but Bernau, in his answer of 10 September 1908, continued to think that the time was 'not yet ripe' for the formation of such a group.
In any case, Bernau was far too busy sending out circulars about his Directory to give detailed consideration to the idea. He told Droz in that 10 September 1908 letter that his plan was to bring out three editions of the Directory in which he would lead up to the idea of a society by degrees and that he would broach the idea of an international one in his third edition. However, he sketched out a few initial thoughts saying that the annual subscription should either be a nominal one of a shilling or two-and-sixpence, or that it should be a heavy one of from one to five guineas to pay for secretary, offices and a library. He thought that members might pay the smaller fee and Fellows the higher one. Ignoring the existence of Sherwood's Pedigree Register, he suggested that his own Directory should be the projected society's official organ [562]. He wrote again a week later stressing a role that county secretaries might play in such a scheme, believing that the use of local figures, such as Maxwell Wood in Northumberland and Durham and William Gerish in Hertfordshire, with their established connections and friendships, would lead to the proposed society obtaining many members in their areas [563].
Bernau persuaded the Convention Internationale d'Héraldique that the Second Edition of his International Genealogical Directory, which was published in March 1909 (again at 10s 6d), should be called the Convention's ‘Official Organ’. It was larger, with 166 pages and 1,381 subscribers, and was immediately followed in April by a First Supplement (at 3s 10d post free) consisting solely of an index to places, compiled by George Sherwood. Like more recent directories of the same kind the International Genealogical Directory was designed to bring together persons interested in the same ancestral families to share research and to avoid duplication [564]. Early in 1910 Sherwood wrote warmly that the organised approach of Bernau’s Directories was helping to remove the reproach that Genealogy was ‘neither Literature nor Science’ [565].
However, Bernau was finding all the work involved a considerable strain and instead of aiming for a third edition he in February 1910 produced a Second Supplement to the Second Edition containing reviews and correspondence as well as amendments to the First Edition and details of the interests of 83 new subscribers, of which he now had about 2,250. In a review of Sherwood's Pedigree Register, Bernau called it 'in a sense, the first-born of the children of the "I. G. Directory"', but as both had first appeared in the same month in June 1907 that seems hardly fair. In the correspondence Charles Fortescue Osmond (1877-1966) called for 'An official register of professional genealogists' and Sherwood appealed 'For those with time to spare' to consider the transcription of parish registers. The volume's index included the surnames of the families for which Sherwood held material that could be consulted in his office.
For those who could read French the Second Supplement to the Second Edition contained, in a report of the work of the Convention dated 1 December 1909, the surprising news that Bernau, who for some years had set himself a heavy workload, had intended that his third edition would be aimed at the rest of Europe, but unfortunately he had seen his health shaken by the onset of a lengthy illness and complete rest had been prescribed. The Convention regretted that his retirement had placed in question his stated aim to found an 'Association Généalogique et Héraldique Internationale' of which his Directory was to be the organ, and it announced that as a result it would look anew at participation in a proposed meeting of the Congrés Universal des Sciences Auxiliares de l'Histoire in London in 1913 [566].
Bernau's English introduction to his Directory had curiously avoided any mention of this turn of events. Perhaps he had realised the impracticality of what he was attempting and that the correspondence involved in a truly 'European' Directory would be considerable. Perhaps he also realised that the numbers of those in England with an interest in European ancestry was small indeed. In a note on page xlv of the Directory he reckoned that there were 30,000 persons in Great Britain interested in genealogy and that his directories had reached only 5-8% of them. How he calculated the first figure is not clear but he appealed for benefactors to come forward so that he could send free copies of the Directory to public libraries and reach a wider readership. One assumes that that appeal fell on very deaf ears.
Whatever the truth behind Bernau's actions, the slow developments in Basle were already being overtaken by events in London where another periodical, Notes & Queries, was playing its part in steps leading to the formation of a society in England and, as a result, the 'international' or 'universal' dimension was largely forgotten. Since its first appearance in 1849 many antiquaries and local historians had used Notes & Queries to publicise their schemes and projects and to lobby for access to records. In the early 1890s Mrs C. A. White had written a note there, between other notes on 'Cuckoos walled in' and 'Quicksilver in Plants', about the need to make and publish catalogues of manuscripts in private hands [567]. A little later William McMurray (1881-1945), a regular contributor, wrote about access to the old ecclesiastical probate records then at Somerset House [568]. In March 1910 William Blyth Gerish (1864-1921), a well-known antiquary in Hertfordshire, urged through its pages the importance of copying tombstone inscriptions [569], and wrote again the same month appealing for assistance with his proposed Dictionary of Hertfordshire Biography.
Gerish would undoubtedly have seen the letter from W. V. Morten of The Drive, Roundhay, Leeds, which appeared in Notes & Queries on 9 April 1910 [570], about an article in the Quarterly Review again calling attention to the desirability of preserving national archives and records. Mr Morten said that he was honorary secretary of a society for collecting, indexing, and properly arranging the old and current records of the Civil Service, though most of those he had obtained related to the Post Office. The writer was Walter Victor Morten (1862-1942), a telephone and post office worker, whose large collection, sold in the 1920s, was the basis of the archive now at Bruce Castle Museum, the former home of Sir Rowland Hill, in Haringey.
In a footnote to Morten’s suggestion the editor of Notes & Queries drew attention to the earlier letters and said that he was 'in full sympathy with such laudable effort to preserve and make known the memories of the past' [571]. There are always those, of course, who can see no reason why papers in private custody should become, as other correspondents put it, 'the property of the mob' or of 'the curious incompetent' [572], but Gerish wrote off immediately. He had himself been instrumental in the founding of the East Herts Archaeological Society and his books and pamphlets had received kind notices in the journal of the New England Historic Genealogical Society in far-away Boston as well as in Sherwood's The Pedigree Register. His letter appeared in Notes & Queries on 23 April 1910:
'This is doubtless an excellent project, but there seems to be room in this kingdom for a society similar in several respects to the New England Historic Genealogical Society. For instance, the increasing quantity of genealogical memoranda, both privately printed and in manuscript, has no habitat; and if a society did no more, in return for a moderate subscription, than secure a permanent repository, it would not have been founded in vain. Many of us have collected material for a history of our families, which, when the last summons comes, will most probably be destroyed; but if there were a society in existence, a clause in the collector's will would ensure the MSS being handed over to it. Perhaps Mr C. A. Bernau, as a genealogical expert, would favour us with his opinion' [573].
Bernau's reply was given prominence under the heading 'A genealogical society for the United Kingdom' in the issue of Notes & Queries for 21 May 1910 [574]. He said that he had received scores of letters on the subject in the last few years and he gave a summary of the various points that he said had been made in them. These points largely reflect his own overly optimistic views, and it is interesting that he now seemed to attach little importance to his original ideas about an international organisation. He wrote:
Bernau added as his own suggestion the idea that as expenses would be incurred in preparing a suitable scheme 'and submitting it to the many thousands in the United Kingdom who are interested in genealogy' they should form a preliminary society of about fifty genealogists to do this, they each paying a guinea towards the costs, a circular from fifty persons proving, as he wrote, that the scheme was not 'what is vulgarly called "a one-man show"'.
A month later the cautious George Sherwood set out his views [575]. He thought that the organisation needed a good name, suggesting 'The National Genealogical Society', a name actually adopted by a newly formed Washington-based organisation in America in 1912, but he made the interesting observation that there were many people who were deeply interested in local history, but for whom the word 'genealogy' had no attraction. He added, 'We must needs impress upon this class that genealogy implies no more (and no less), than the discovery of what their own personal blood-relationship may be to scenes, places, and events, and the men and women who took part in them - that a pedigree is not, as commonly supposed, an affair of mere vaingloriousness and pretence'.
Sherwood firmly believed that the society should not be a printing society, but one devoted to collecting and indexing. He saw its primary function as being the compilation 'of one great Index to genealogical, biographical, and local documents, on the Card Index system'. He too wanted a register of experts and of competent record-searchers in various parts of the country to whom enquiries could be passed, suggesting that these be elected by the Fellows. He ended, 'The ideal which such a society should set before it is the ready production, to any inquirer, of a body of direct reference to documentary evidence concerning any place or family in the kingdom'.
Shortly after this, in June 1910 [576], Bernau and Sherwood got together with three of their friends and fellow genealogists: Gerald Fothergill, Edgar Francis Briggs and Dr William Bradbrook. Edgar Briggs (1853-1928), the son of a merchant in Denmark Street, Bishopsgate, lived at Holmwood, Weybridge, and was a partner in the legal firm of Arnold and Henry White of Great Marlborough Street which subsequently, as mentioned later, was involved in the drawing up of the Society’s constitution, continuing to advise the Society on legal matters and to keep an eye on legal points which would affect genealogists. Not known to many members, he was of a retiring disposition, but he did some indexing, in particular the tedious slipping of the four-volume Armory compiled by a nineteenth-century herald painter, Joseph Eedes (1821-1891), which Briggs had himself loaned to the Society [577] . When younger and managing clerk to his firm he had shown himself remarkably gullible in loans totalling £3,500 which he and his wife had made to an impostor Emir Hafiz [578].
Dr William Bradbrook (1859-1940), the son of a pawnbroker in Bethnal Green who was also the local Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, was for 47 years a general medical practitioner at Bletchley and a man of great energy who became a pillar of the new Society, remaining a member of the Executive Committee for the next twenty years. He had learned to ride a bone-shaker in 1875 and for 60 years he cycled about to practise his hobbies of church architecture and heraldry. An enthusiastic inquirer and accurate recorder in remarkable variety he copied numerous registers and was Honorary Secretary of the Buckinghamshire Parish Register Society, writing one of the earliest articles, in the British Medical Journal, about the analysis of parish registers for statistical purposes [579].
In August the five (Sherwood, Bernau, Fothergill, Briggs and Bradbrook) sent out a prospectus asking for fifty 'Founders and Fellows' to come forward and provide a fund to cover the cost of incorporating the proposed society [580]. They began to keep an account of their outgoings on printing and stationery on 2 July 1910 [581].
Two of the young men who came forward had already offered their support through the pages of Notes & Queries [582]. They were William Roberts Crow (1878-1962), of Wallington, Surrey, and Richard Holworthy (1887-1961) [583], of Bickley, Kent, later an active professional genealogist. Holworthy had been born in Australia but lived when young at Bromley with his grandfather, an Australian merchant who had been born in Holland, and he was educated at a boarding school at Harpenden [584]. In 1911 he had just set up house with his first wife Grace Emily at Cromarty, Claremont Road, Bickley, and was describing himself as an importer of Canary Island produce. Crow came from a family of timber merchants at Bramley Hill, South Croydon and was himself in that trade [585]. Both Crow and Holworthy became Founder Fellows and were on committees in the early days of the Society, though Crow resigned his membership in 1920. Richard Holworthy's letter to Notes & Queries had made it clear that he did not think that the society should be a 'Syndicate' or Limited Company and it was not the only time that he and Bernau would disagree.
Gerish, whose letter had forced the pace and been the catalyst in all this, played no part in the foundation. He was active enough in Hertfordshire and his health was not good. In any case he would not have been pleased by Bernau's statement that the funds of the proposed society should not be 'wasted' in dinners or excursions for he liked few things more than a good excursion, in the organisation of which he excelled [586]. An indefatigable antiquarian, he travelled daily to London to work as a clerk in the London Provincial Bank, but at the same time organised the copying of the inscriptions on some 70,000 tombstones in 131 Hertfordshire churchyards, wrote numerous pamphlets on the county's folklore, indexed a large number of un-indexed works and embarked on several major biographical projects, as well as organising some forty-nine excursions for the East Herts Archaeological Society. His train journeys from Bishops Stortford were devoted to writing index slips. Though born in London, the only child of an engineer, he had been brought up at Gorleston, near Great Yarmouth, and in 1915 he retired to nearby Caister-on-Sea where he continued his local researches, dying there in 1921, aged 56 [587].
In a letter dated 7 October 1910 Bernau told the historian and biographer Lady Elizabeth Cust (1830-1914) that the new organisation was to be called 'The Society of Genealogists of London' in imitation of the Society of Antiquaries of London and that forty-three people had already enrolled themselves as Founders [588]. Bernau wanted Lady Elizabeth (the wife of the barrister Sir Reginald Cust and author of Some account of the Stewarts of Aubigny and Records of the Cust family) [589] to be a Vice-President. She declined but agreed to become a Founder and Fellow. Bernau was already taking subscriptions for the following year [590].
In late November 1910, after the Marquis of Tweeddale (1826-1911) had accepted the Presidency and the Marquis de Liveri et di Valdausa a Vice-Presidency, Bernau wrote to the latter that 'the Fifty Founders were obtained almost immediately' and that they were now hard at work electing the eleven members of an Executive Committee and preparing the Memorandum and Articles of Association. William Montagu (Hay),10th Marquis of Tweeddale, had succeeded to the peerage in 1878 and had various commercial and banking interests but does not appear to have been previously connected with the world of genealogy. He was already old and he died on 25 November 1911.
Rene Droz of the Convention, whom Bernau approached about a Vice-Presidency in December 1910, declined, but Napoleone Barone, Marquis de Liveri et di Valdausa, the author of the Libro d'Oro della Republica di San Marino [591], accepted. He was interested in heraldry, orders of knighthood, and coins and medals [592], had married at Lambeth in 1882 and had a house at Dulwich [593]. A second Vice-President was found in Lord Llangattock (1837-1912), a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a restorer of churches in Monmouthshire, but he also died in September 1912 [594].
On 27 November 1910 Bernau wrote enthusiastically to George Latimer Apperson (1857-1937), the editor of The Antiquary, asking if he wanted to be the first to announce that 'this important new Society will be incorporated at the end of December, if not before' [595]. However, in January 1911, when The Antiquary reported that a Society 'was taking shape' [596] Bernau in fact still awaited the approval of the Board of Trade. William Gerish had seen the report and wrote to Bernau on 3 January saying, 'I observe in The Antiquary that you have practically succeeded in floating the proposed Society of Genealogists. Please accept my congratulations', but as noted above he resisted any involvement in the Society that, as Bernau generously acknowledged in reply, 'started as a result of your letter to Notes and Queries' [597].
However, there were obstacles still to be overcome. On 15 February 1911 a formal notice, dated 7 February, was inserted in The Times over Sherwood's signature stating that an application had been made to the Board of Trade for a licence to omit the word 'Limited' from the Society's name. The notice set out the objects of the proposed Society as the promotion of the study of genealogy and topography through the formation of a library and safe depository for pedigrees, grants of arms, and other manuscripts and 'by forming and carrying on, either gratis or on payment of fees, a register or registers of pedigrees, grants of arms, birth, baptism, marriage, death, burial and other certificates, and other evidence of events in family history' [598].
It was this latter paragraph and the possibility of the growth of a rival commercial concern that gave the College of Arms concern. Pressure was brought to bear and the offending wording about the registration of pedigrees was considerably altered to read, 'By the preparation and use of indices, on the 'slip' or 'card' or other systems, to the printed or other collections of or in the possession of the Society to public records, printed volumes generally, and general sources of reference, particularly with regard to matters of genealogical, archaeological, topographical or historical interest to Members and Associates of the Society, and also by the acquisition and use of Government publications, including indices and reports of the Public Record Office and reports of Royal Commissions'. To this verbose paragraph was also added, 'By rendering assistance (other than of a financial nature) to genealogists and others, whether within or without the United Kingdom, in connection with genealogical, topographical and biographical research' [599].
Honour was thus satisfied, but everything had taken longer than the impatient Bernau had anticipated and it was not until 25 April 1911 that the seven subscribers set their names to the Memorandum of Association and not until 8 May 1911 that the Society was incorporated under licence of the Board of Trade as an 'Association not for profit', with permission, dated 26 April 1911, to be registered with Limited Liability but without the addition of the word 'Limited' to its name.
The seven subscribers to the Memorandum were Charles Bernau and George Sherwood, 'publishers of genealogical works', Gerald Fothergill and Frank Kearsey Hitching, 'authors of genealogical works', two solicitors - Cyril Shakespear Beachcroft (1885-1917) and Edgar Francis Briggs (1853-1928), and a barrister, Frank Evans (1850-1921) [600]. The names of the Founders and Fellows and of the first members of the Society were set out in the Articles of Association. Cyril Beachcroft, a Lieutenant in the Household Battalion with two very young children, was killed on active service in Belgium in October 1917. Frank Kearsey Hitching (1883-1926),another young friend formerly from Lewisham, and Frank Evans, who for many years was a member of the Law Reporting Staff of The Times and was the author of The Practice of the Chancery Division, but who had an accident in 1919 [601], both allowed their memberships to lapse.
The constitution, which closely followed Bernau's original suggestions, was drawn up by the barrister Frank Evans [602] but knocked into shape by Edgar Francis Briggs, a partner in the firm of Arnold and Henry White of 12 & 14 Great Marlborough Street, and described by Sherwood as of 'a retiring disposition' [603]. Sir Henry White (died 1922) was, as Charles Bernau proudly told Rene Droz [604], the King's private solicitor, and he became a subscribing member. The cost of incorporation had been £43 15s. 9d. The Antiquary gave the new organisation a warm welcome in its issue for July 1911 saying that it 'starts under excellent auspices and deserves success' [605].
However, Bernau's dream of an international organisation had proved quite unrealistic. Of the Founders and Fellows and thirteen members named in the Articles, the Marquis de Liveri et di Valdausa was the only European, though Eduardo Hillman, born in Chile, lived in Venice. Henry Boddington, of Pownall Hall in Cheshire, sometimes gave an address in France, two members lived in Scotland and two in Ireland. There were two Americans, the Revd Joseph Brown Turner, the Minister of the First Presbyterian Church at Dover, Delaware, a Founder and Fellow and a noted collector of genealogies, and Mrs William Gerry Slade (1847-1925), of New York City, an obsessive promoter of patriotic societies in America. She and Lady Elizabeth Cust were the only women named.
George Sherwood had acted as Honorary Secretary since at least January 1911 [606] and his little office high up in a modern building at 227 The Strand became the first home of the Society. As he later wrote the Society 'started in my small office in the Strand with a pile of books on the floor' [607]. His 'Room 22' was described as the Society's 'Temporary Office' on the letterhead whilst negotiations for a room or rooms elsewhere continued [608]. Henry Mayhew (1812-1887), the author of the classic social survey, London Labour and the London Poor, had been at No 227 The Strand in 1852, and later a building on the site had housed the 'Army and Navy Toilet Club' which in 1883 was offering hot and cold baths at a shilling each.
The Society's rooms were very conveniently situated above the Temple Bar Restaurant and facing the Law Courts in the heart of the legal district. They were within easy walking distance of the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane. Quite nearby, in the other direction, Somerset House contained the old and new probate records as well as the General Register Office. The character of the busy shop-lined Strand had changed greatly in recent years with wide scale 'improvements' but it still had many small hotels and boarding houses in its riverside lanes [609].
The Antiquary helpfully gave an encouraging report of the Society's first annual meeting, held at the recently restored Prince Henry's Room at 17 Fleet Street (opposite the end of Chancery Lane and one of the few buildings in the City to survive the Great Fire) on Thursday, 29 June 1911, at 5.30 pm, with Dr William Bradbrook in the chair, saying that 'a considerable number of printed books, original documents, manuscripts, and index slips, had been received'. At the meeting accounts were presented covering the period from 2 July 1910 to 15 June 1911 which showed a balance of £2-6-4, some £131-5-0 having been received in subscriptions. It was announced that 97 Fellows, Members and Associates had been elected since the first meeting of the Provisional Committee in June 1910 and that the Society was in negotiations for a room or rooms in which to place them [610]. These concluded on 25 August when two rooms at the same address became available [611]. the cost of the furniture and fittings being £42-11-7 and the rent, to Messrs Spencer, Santo & Co, to the end of the year, £21-1-11 [612]. A further Ordinary General Meeting of the Society was held at Prince Henry’s Rooms on Friday, 28 June 1912, when the accounts for the half-year 15 June to 31 December 1911 were approved [613].
By mid-August 1911 the membership had risen to 114 [614] and George Sherwood was able to announce in September that his Pedigree Register had been appointed the official organ of the Society [615] though, of course, it was not included in the annual subscription and those members who wished to receive it paid a further 10s 6d direct to Sherwood. A possible rival for the honour had withdrawn when Charles Bernau wrote in an introductory note to the Third Supplement of the Second Edition of his International Genealogical Directory which had come out earlier that year, 'Now that the Society of Genealogists of London has come into being, I feel that future Editions of this work will be unnecessary'. Bernau had grown tired of the work and the heavy correspondence involved and wrote that if a successor could be found 'his lot will not be a pleasant one'. A successor might make hundreds of good friends but, 'A tired brain and no spare time from one year's end to another is what he may expect'.
Bernau may well have found also that a subscriber to one edition would not necessarily subscribe to the next and that those actually willing to part with the cost of a subscription were far fewer than he had thought. His Third Supplement, published from Billiter Square Buildings in the City, had only eighty-four new subscribers and it contained a report of a far from satisfactory meeting of the Convention International d'Héraldique held at Lausanne on 5 September 1910 [616]. There had been a lively two-hour discussion but almost no agreement on any subject, though a Commission généalogique had been proposed and the journal of the Société Suisse d'Héraldique, Archives Héraldiques Suisses, had been adopted as the Convention's official organ. Bernau chose to ignore this latter snub and continued to call his Third Supplement the official organ of the Convention. However, he had given up all idea of producing another Directory; he turned his attention to financially more productive ventures and his surviving papers contain no further mention of the Convention or its Commission [617].
In spite of the work of Frank Evans and Edgar Briggs, the Society's first constitution, which remained in force for many years, caused a number of problems, particularly as the organisation grew. It allowed for Fellows, Members and Associates.
The fifty original Founders and Fellows paid two guineas a year, half their first annual subscriptions going to defray the preliminary expenses of the Society. They were a slowly diminishing number. The last survivor was Charles Henry ('Harry') Clinton Pirie-Gordon of Buthlaw, born in 1883, whose varied career included a period as editor of Burke's Landed Gentry (1930-36) when preparing for the 1937 Centenary Edition, who did not die until 8 December 1969 [618].
The Founders and Fellows (and future Fellows) were empowered to elect from amongst the membership new 'Fellows by Election' at meetings at which the quorum was three, but no guide as to the qualifications of these new Fellows was provided. This vagueness was bound to cause future problems and the somewhat questionable honour of election was, in any case, offset by an increase in subscription from one to two guineas. A Fellow could compound all future subscriptions by paying ten guineas and thus become a Life Fellow. Although not envisaged in the constitution, the first Honorary Life Fellow, elected on 7 September 1911, was the Revd Edward Cookson, of Ipswich, Suffolk (died 1920, aged 87)[619], a local record searcher who had given 180,000 completed index slips to the Society [620]. Already by 1913 there were doubts as to the ‘qualifications’ of the Fellows and the Secretary wrote in the Society’s second Annual Report that ‘a Member cannot now be elected a Fellow until he has been a Member for a year, and has shown himself to be a valuable Member’ [621] but that decision, whoever made it, was quickly forgotten, being contrary to the constitution.
Applications to be Ordinary Members had to be supported by two existing members or Fellows to whom they were personally known. They paid a guinea a year but they could compound all future subscriptions by paying seven guineas and becoming Life Members.
The Members and Fellows had access to the library, but initially under the Articles only the Fellows could borrow (an unspecified number of) printed books. In addition the Fellows were entitled to receive quarterly reports of any new information that arrived on a specified number of families or places. Their number was to be specified by the Executive Committee and was agreed to be ten [622]. Reports were made on a simple 'Reporting Form' that gave the name of the contributor and the place where the material was to be found (index slip, document or bound volume of manuscripts) followed by the surname or place-name and the date. No correspondence could be entered into about the report but a member not able to look up the entry could pay a fee of five shillings and ask 'The Officer in Waiting' (a fancy designation borrowed from the College of Arms) for details [623]. In September 1918 it was announced that the Executive Committee had decided that ‘for the future Fellows may borrow two books at a time, and Members one book, from the Library’. Books could be kept for a week, postage both ways being paid by the borrower [624]. However, no appropriate alteration was made to the Articles and the Members’ right to take books from the Library was long questioned by the Fellows, particularly if they had travelled some distance in the expectation that the book(s) would be available.
Besides the Members and Fellows there were also Associate Members, paying a guinea a year. Those Associates who had their principal place of residence 'distant at least 25 miles from the centre on the level of Trafalgar Square of the Nelson Column in that Square' paid only ten shillings and sixpence a year and were called Corresponding Associates. The Associates, who were not deemed members of the Society, also needed two nominees. They had the same privileges as members, but did not have the right to vote at meetings or the financial liability should the Society be wound up. No further associate members were elected following the major changes to the Articles in 1979.
By 1918 those Members who joined late in a year were allowed to pay a proportion of the current year, reckoned from the last quarter day, provided they paid their subscriptions for the following year in advance [625].
The curious 25-mile radius, which was later adopted as the qualification for Country Membership, had been copied from other societies but was a perpetual source of annoyance and argument. It caused considerable ill will, with people at different ends of the same road who used the same railway station paying different subscriptions or quoting the mileage as it appeared in some Road Book and disputing the very large-scale map, with its appropriate circle, that we were obliged to commission especially from Geographia. The map hung in the office until joyously taken down in 1997 when future elections to country membership were abolished, much simplifying my successor’s work.
Bernau was, it seems, also largely responsible for the administrative structure of the Society. The eleven members of the first Executive Committee were named in the Articles of Association. The Committee met in the Society’s rooms initially on the first Thursday in each month, changing this to the second Wednesday from February 1912, usually at 2 pm, the Fellows meeting afterwards at 3.30 pm.
By August 1911 three sub-committees (on parish registers, the Consolidated Index and on family associations) were actively at work [626], and on 2 November 1911 a large number of members was elected to serve on sub-committees, the Secretary being directed to take steps towards their formation [627]. By the end of the year fourteen sub-committees had been developed, each with chairmen, but not all with members willing to act as their secretaries. There were five for the Library alone (one each for printed books, manuscript books, loose documents, the slip-indexes by name and place, and the slip-index by subject), and others for heraldry, pedigrees, monumental inscriptions, parish registers and marriage licences, school and apprenticeship records, family bibles, local records, and family associations.
Details of these committees were all set out in an elaborate 43-page prospectus, of which a thousand copies were printed in January 1912. There were then 161 members [628]. The prospectus stressed that the function of the new society was 'to collect, index, and arrange historical, genealogical, and heraldic evidence, for the use of its members and associates, and to notify to its Fellows, as it accrues, material of special personal interest to themselves' [629]. It reiterated that this was to be accomplished through the compilation of slip indexes and that it was particularly opposed to printing and distributing record material in the manner of the older record societies.
By the end of 1913 two more committees had been added, for Irish and Scottish records, so that there were now sixteen, but it is very apparent from the Annual Report that only a few of the major ones were meeting regularly and several, desperate for volunteers, had not met at all [630].
For the Company Seal the Society adopted a design by the artist-member James 'Duncan' Moul (1864-1927) [631] of a tree showing some of its roots and dropping a leaf and although this was not, I think, one of his more successful works it was used as a Badge on the Society's membership cards (apparently first introduced and sold for a shilling in 1922) [632] and other publications until 1961.
Sherwood took the lead as Secretary of the Society from 1911 to 1914 and had the solicitor Edgar Briggs as Treasurer from 1911 to 1915 when Sherwood took over as Treasurer and continued in that role, not altogether successfully, until 1951. He took the view that if the Society kept its head above water and had enough income to pay the rent that was sufficient and that it did not need to build up reserves. It was a policy that almost had the most disastrous consequences.
However, in the early days it was usually Sherwood or the chairman of one of the committees who took the initiatives or wrote to the press, though other members, like William Bradbrook, Frederick Snell and the barrister Reginald Glencross (1878-1944) who had been Assistant Secretary to Sir Arthur Vicars, Ulster King of Arms, and an assistant to the editor of Dod's Peerage in 1906 [633], were also very active. Snell had been a schoolmaster in Africa but came to Colindale in north London to indulge his antiquarian interests in 1906. He was a regular attender at committees and spent much time as secretary to that on the Consolidated Index but although of great energy he suffered much ill-health and died in 1914 [634]. The chairmen of the executive committee only emerge as active in the mid-1920s.
Of the paid staff several came from the Lewisham area and were clearly recruited either by George Sherwood, Charles Bernau or the Revd Ernest Salisbury Butler Whitfield (1872-1943). Charles Bernau himself later employed quite a number of young ladies in his growing genealogical practice. Frank Ellis Price (1860-1948), a professional genealogist who for twenty-five years had been a herald-painter at the College of Arms [635] and also lived at Lee in Lewisham, acted as the first, and unpaid, Librarian until 12 October 1912 when he resigned [636]. He had been described as the Librarian-Secretary in August 1912 when a clerk was engaged to assist him [637]. The detailed prospectus of the Society printed in 1912 says explicitly that all the completed indexing slips were to be passed to the Librarian for sorting into the Consolidated Index, assisted if necessary by the Members [638], but the Annual Report for 1912 says that ‘the actual sorting-in of slips’ for the Great Card Index was being done almost entirely by the regular staff [639]. One wonders how congenial they would have found regular work of this kind. In January 1912 steps were first taken to install a telephone [640].
Sherwood came to his office from Brockley almost every day and on 20 May 1912 Bernau told the editor of The Antiquary that Sherwood was 'ready to receive contributions for the library at that address' [641]. On 22 September 1912 Miss Bradfield was engaged to assist the particularly active Parish Register Committee [642].
The young Ivy Constance Woods (1893-1971), only daughter of a solicitor's clerk at Shepherd's Bush, was appointed temporary Librarian-Secretary from 31 October 1912 [643] but continued in the post only until March 1914, the sum of £117-11-3 being paid in salaries in 1913. She had acted as Secretary to the inactive Committee on Records of Migration when it met in November 1913 [644] and had become a member of the Society in April that year [645]. In June she had written to The Times in support of a plea for more indexes to the PCC wills [646]. She married at Shepherds Bush in 1917 wealthy Edward Meynell (died 1931), a solicitor some thirty years her senior and himself a member since December 1912, but neither retained their membership. She had no children and died at Southend-on-Sea in 1971 aged 77.
Ivy Woods had been succeeded as Secretary in April 1914 by another lady who lived at Lewisham (though born in Liverpool), the recently married Grace Mary de Mouilpied (nee Councell; 1886-1968), the wife of Alfred de Mouilpied an Inspector of Schools for the London County Council who was originally from Jersey. She, however, left early in 1915 to have a baby, and only the services of an Assistant Secretary were retained. In the difficult War years another young lady, Constance Margaret Victoria Agnew (1897-1990), the daughter of a photographic expert at Ilford in Essex, was the Assistant in April 1916. She was appointed Secretary in June 1917, but resigned with the end of the War in sight on 1 November 1918, marrying Douglas Abbott in 1923 [647].
The rooms were, from October 1911, open from 11 am to 7 pm, Monday to Saturday [648], but from June 1914 they closed on Saturdays at 4 pm [649], the front door being closed on that day at 2.30 and members ringing the bell [650]. By 1918 the hours were 10 am to 6 pm, the rooms closing at 4 pm on Saturdays and on Bank Holidays [651] and those hours continued until August 1928 when the rooms were kept open for a trial period until 8 pm on Tuesdays and until 6 pm on Saturdays [652]. This trial period lasted until the move to Chaucer House in 1933 when the late openings on Tuesdays had to be discontinued. In August 1912 it was agreed that members might attend on the days of the monthly executive committee meetings, between 3.45 and 5, when round-table meetings to discuss genealogical problems, experiences and suggestions would take place [653].
The object of the early members was to transcribe and index original material and to make it readily available in one place. They set to with all the infectious enthusiasm of a new organisation and there was an early rapid growth in the collections. The First Quarterly Report of the Society, issued in September 1911, was circulated with The Pedigree Register. It announced, as an example of the way in which work would be channelled through the secretaries of the various committees, that six volunteers were indexing the registered wills of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury for the period 1790-1800, the Committee on the Consolidated Index having obtained permission to carry out the work [654]. In fact only the year 1792 seems to have been completed [655]. By September 1911 more than a hundred parish registers had had or were having their entries written on slips and filed in the Index.
One of the new organisation's first printed notices contained instructions for those who wrote slips intended for the 'Great Index to records in official custody, to MS collections and to un-indexed and imperfectly indexed books'. This held that a tombstone was a 'document in official custody', and gave examples of completed 5" x 3" index slips 'procurable of the Library Bureau and used all over the world' but freely available from the Society, stressing the importance of uniformity, clarity of writing and dates, and the need to show the source (or 'authority') of the information [656]. Sherwood, like Gerish, was an obsessive writer of 5" X 3" index slips. In November 1911 he was authorised to lend loose documents, pedigree charts, etc., the property of the Society, to members for cataloguing and indexing [657]. A major sort of the slips took place in the summer of 1912 when it was reported that the index contained (apart from the Cookson collection) some 79,440 entries [658]. Later that year it was suggested that the names of subscribers to early printed volumes might be slipped and that those of the 12,000 subscribers to Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary of England (1831), probably the longest list of the kind, should be entered [659]. The Place Index was at that time somewhat neglected and contained not more than 12,000 slips in one alphabetical series, but in 1914 a major reorganisation took place, that whole section being recast by county [660].
In December 1912 it was reported that racks had been fitted in the Society’s inner room to hold the drawers of the Consolidated Index, providing enough space for 460 boxes each containing 2,500 slips or 1,150,000 in all. The Society then possessed about half a million slips in what some called the Great Index and others the Consolidated Index. Two hundred thousand blank slips had been ordered and it was thought that an extension to the rooms would soon be imperative. Membership had risen to 207 [661]. However, the time being taken to sort in the continual flow of slips was becoming considerable. In 1918 Gerald Fothergill was working almost every day on the commoner names and in that year alone 34,880 slips were received. Colonel Gervase Francis Newport-Tinley, of Farnham, an active member whose death was reported in 1918, had contributed over 100,000 slips [662].
The generosity of the early members was notable. Many complete runs of periodicals were given: Charles Bernau and George Apperson gave long runs of the publications of the Society for the Preservation of Memorials of the Dead in Ireland; Colonel Gilbert Parry gave almost complete sets of the printed parish registers of Shropshire and Staffordshire; Dr Bradbrook gave a set for Buckinghamshire [663]. Some 86 volumes of the Gentleman’s Magazine 1731-1817 were purchased in 1912 [664]. Bernard Scattergood gave a complete set of the Yorkshire Parish Register Society volumes in 1913 and offered to subscribe to Phillimore’s Worcestershire Marriage Series if another member could be found to bear half the cost [665]; Mr McDowall gave the 14 volumes for Hampshire [666]. Miss M. E. Noble gave twenty volumes published by the Parish Register Society [667]. Sidney Chesshyre Bristowe gave an original parchment Tithe Book for Ifield, Sussex [668].
Few volumes were purchased but they included the List of Bankrupts 1774-1786 and some fifteen poll books [669], Charles Bernau giving the first three volumes of the revised Complete Peerage which had commenced publication in 1910 [670]. In the early part of 1914 other purchases included the first nine volumes of the Catholic Record Society and 197 volumes of the Phillimore Marriage series. A list of other needed volumes was published prior to the intended move ‘later on in the year’ [671]. By the end of the War the Society was itself subscribing to the main serial publications of bodies such as the British Record Society, the Catholic Record Society, the Harleian Society and the Huguenot Society, and in 1918 alone some 799 volumes were received [672]. Members who wished to sell or exchange genealogical books were encouraged to display them on an allotted shelf in the library, on condition that they were clearly priced and could be used by others [673].
Many groups of original deeds were received, including in 1912, from a firm of solicitors, about 2,500 relating to the eastern part of Kent, some dating from the 14th century [674]. Consequently a form of application to landowners was devised in July 1912, inviting them to deposit with or give to the Society any ancient deeds for which they had no further use. Two hundred and fifty copies were printed in August for circulation by the Librarian, he addressing letters to advertisers offering properties for sale [675]. The ‘enveloping’ of the Kent deeds was a fairly major task and in March 1913 bundles of a dozen or two dozen were being sent out to interested members to work on at home [676]. Later that year a further 600 deeds relating chiefly to Newark, Nottinghamshire, were received from a Fellow, Frederick Arthur Wadsworth (died 1926) [677]. In December 1917, the Society having received more than 1,100 deeds during the last month or so, an appeal was made for members willing to ‘envelope’ them, by writing on envelopes provided the names of all the people and places mentioned, the Society being glad to send out parcels of 25, 50 or 100 deeds for this purpose [678]. In September the following year it was reported that Colonel Phipps and Dr Bradbrook were enveloping large numbers of them [679] and in December, John Laybank Glasscock, the historian of Bishops Stortford, enveloped and presented fifty original documents relating to the parish, 1437-1824 [680].
The first meeting of the Committee on Monumental Inscriptions took place on 31 January 1912 when Richard Holworthy, who had copied the inscriptions at Bromley, agreed to be Secretary. A bibliography of those places already copied was a basic requirement and Holworthy worked on this at the same time as writing to county societies for details of any transcripts of which they were aware, but received little response [681]. The Revd Charles Moor took over as Secretary in 1913 and the bibliography then showed that about 1,000 parishes had been copied, the names in the copies received being indexed, as far as possible, into the Consolidated Index. Those copies held by the Society were listed in the Annual Report that year [682].
In 1913 Moor circulated the Borough Councils in the county of London asking what transcripts of monumental inscriptions of closed burial grounds they had amongst their records, receiving information from twenty-eight authorities. Those at St Pancras were particularly helpful and Colonel Parry (mentioned below) was able to transcribe for the Society and make index slips for all the grounds in the Borough [683]. In the 1930s the Society published a valuable bibliography, drawing on the details received and others collected from members at the time, listing the known copies in the City and county of London in The Genealogists’ Magazine [684].
Many early members of the Society were involved in this work and made valiant efforts not only to record the tombstones in their local churchyards but sometimes more extensively, wherever they went, on their travels at home and abroad. By so doing they preserved for posterity information that in many cases has long since been lost. As a result the names of some early members will be familiar to genealogists working in particular areas today. Many names spring to mind: Frederick Simon Snell (1862-1914) in Berkshire, Arthur Weight Matthews (1865-1937) as 'Ye Olde Mortality' in Bedfordshire (noteworthy for his beautifully crafted little volumes), the Revd James Harvey Bloom (1860-1943) in Herefordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Yorkshire, Charles Partridge (died 1955 aged 83) in Suffolk, Frank Charles Beazley (1857-1931) in the Wirral, Percy Charles Rushen (1874-1962) who copied 60 churchyards in the City of London [685] and Arthur Jewers, already mentioned, who did those in the City churches themselves. Others, like John Beach Whitmore (1882-1957), made great numbers of extracts in many churches, or like Charles Hall Crouch carefully copied just one or two large churchyards. Yet others, more recently, are mentioned below.
Although not a member of the Society, Arthur Leveson-Gower (1851-1922) had copied great numbers of inscriptions overseas when in the Diplomatic Service in Germany in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and had communicated his findings to the genealogical periodicals of the time. An indefatigable Founder-Fellow, Lieutenant-Colonel Gilbert Sidney Parry (1843-1920), retired from the Royal Artillery, continued his work and copied the English inscriptions in such places as Tenerife, Bellagio, Florence, Milan, Naples, Sorrento, Malaga and Mentone, between 1904 and 1913 [686], as well as being active about the library and card indexes generally.
In the West Indies, James Henry Lawrence Archer (1823-1889) who was apparently born in Scotland but had many ancestors in Jamaica, did some important pioneering work when there on Army Half-Pay [687]. ‘In two campaigns among the burial grounds of Jamaica’, as Philip Wright later wrote, in 1858 and 1864-5, he copied or caused to be copied more than two thousand inscriptions (about half of which have since disappeared) which were printed in his Monumental Inscriptions of the British West Indies (1875), a book that, Wright thought, even allowing for all the difficulties involved, ‘contains more than its fair share of errors’ [688].
Lawrence Archer was followed by Vere Langford Oliver, another Founder-Fellow of the Society, who produced a book with the same name in 1927 having earlier published the inscriptions on the Island of Barbados (1915). Oliver, mentioned above in connection with the manuscripts of Vernona Smith, had married in 1885 a niece of the immensely wealthy patent medicine vendor and College founder, Thomas Holloway (1800-1883). Oliver was in the West Indies in the 1880s and 1890s and, in collaboration with John Valentine Bromley (died 1941, aged 86), who had joined the Society in 1912, he published much material on St Kitts [689]. Bromley had married in 1898 Aymee Martha (died 1948, aged 84), the youngest daughter of Thomas Berkeley, CMG, a leading planter and member of the Legislature of St Kitts, and she was interested enough to continue her husband’s membership of the Society through the War until her own death in 1948 [690].
Another object of the new Society was to endeavour to secure by legislation the preservation of public and private records 'and particularly by urging upon the possessors or custodians of such records the necessity or expediency of arranging, cataloguing, calendaring and indexing them, and taking reasonable steps to ensure their protection from fire, injury or theft, and to allow free and ready access to them'.
In this connection the Revd J. Leonard E. Hooppell (died 1936) represented the Society at the Congress of Archaeological Societies at Burlington House in July 1911 when the Congress 'again decided to ask the Government to direct that arrangements should be made by the authorities at Somerset House, so that access to all documents, ecclesiastical as well as probate records, for literary study, might be given in the same way as at the Public Record Office' [691]. Immediately following that meeting it was agreed in September that the Society should be represented at the meeting of the Congrés Universal des Sciences Auxiliares de l'Histoire to be held in London in April 1913 [692].
This was the five-yearly congress that Bernau had been involved with at Berlin in 1908, but it was now called the ‘International Congress of Historical Studies’ and held 3-9 April 1913, being officially sponsored by the Government with King George V as Patron. The plenary sessions were held in the Old Hall of Lincoln’s Inn and there was an opening dinner at the Hotel Cecil. The congress attracted many distinguished overseas visitors known to Horace Round, but few of the talks were published. We are not told if Bernau attended but Sir Thomas Troubridge represented the Society and read a paper at Burlington House on the Society’s scope and objects [693]. Amongst the 194 papers delivered at the nine sectional meetings, held at different locations across London, was that by Round on ‘Historical Genealogy’ mentioned above but not printed until 1930. A young Hilary Jenkinson (1882-1961) spoke on ‘Palaeography and the practical study of Court Hand’ and Robert Whitwell first put forward his ideas for a new Medieval Latin Dictionary. The congress, was criticised as ‘Parish Pump History’ for its approach and parsimony [694] and although about 500 delegates were received at Windsor Castle on Saturday the King, in mourning for the King of Greece, was unable to be present. The journal Nature wrote ‘it must be accounted a real loss to the general public that the very faulty organisation of the congress, combined with our insular aloofness and the ignorance of modern languages which is an accepted item of English education, has prevented the meetings from receiving their due share of attention’ [695].
The Society's Second Quarterly Reportond in December 1911 noted that a committee had been appointed to communicate with the Registrar-General and others with a view to gaining access to the Census Returns of 1841 and 1851 [696]. It seems likely that Gerald Fothergill with his interest in more modern records was the leading man in this lobbying. Soon after the passing of the Old Age Pensions Act in 1908, the General Register Office had come under considerable pressure from the Pension Authorities to allow the census returns to be searched to determine the ages of claimants to the Pension but on 18 January 1912 the Society received a letter from the Registrar General ‘expressing regret that administrative difficulties prevented their being thrown open as desired’ [697]. It was not a decision that Fothergill would easily have accepted though it was clear that there was no room to make the returns available at the General Register Office in Sonerset House.
However, after a good deal of correspondence between the Treasury, the Local Government Board and the Public Record Office, the latter body agreed to take the returns for 1841 and 1851 and to make them available on payment of fees. Accordingly on 6 June 1912 a Principal Clerk at the Home Office, George Atherton Aitken, wrote to Gerald Fothergill to say that ‘the Secretary of State … has authorised the production to the public in the search room at the Record Office of the Enumeration Schedules of the 1841 and 1851 Censuses, on payment of the fees fixed by the Master of the Rolls viz. 1s for one piece, and 2s 6d for each set of 10 pieces’. I was particularly pleased when many years later in 1969 [698], I found this original letter amongst the papers of Fothergill’s step-daughter, Phyllis Shield, at his house in Wandsworth. Initially the number of official searches in the census returns was quite small but, by August 1912, it had so increased that the Public Record Office had to apply to the Treasury for additional staff and in September four additional boy clerks were employed [699]. Amongst genealogists, however, this important decision curiously received little publicity and it was not mentioned in the Society’s Quarterly Reports or in the Annual Report that year. It was not until 1952 that the Society was able to report that the census could be consulted free of charge [700].
As the result of a letter from a solicitor George Edward Moser (1843-1937), of Windermere, about the custody of parish registers and the fees for searches in them, the Executive Committee resolved on 2 November 1911 that 'this Society is strongly of opinion that the Parish Registers of England and Wales, before 1st of July 1837, be vested in the Master of the Rolls, deposited in the Public Record Office, and be open to inspection under the same conditions as other national archives are' [701], not a solution that a gentleman in Windermere would necessarily find most convenient. However, in December it was agreed that copies of the resolution be sent to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Master of the Rolls [702].
The Committee on Parish Registers and Marriage Licences first met on 6 June 1911 when Reginald Glencross agreed to be its Secretary and by the end of 1912 the registers of some fifty-six parishes had been entered onto slips for the Consolidated Index but the number of volunteers involved was very small [703]. Glencross circulated all the bishops of the established church to collect information about the fees charged to look at Bishops Transcripts and Marriage Licences in the various diocesan registries. At the same time a start had been made on indexing the Bishop of London’s Allegations for Marriage Licences, commencing in 1750 [704]. In June 1912 it was announced that this scheme was being ‘methodically taken in hand’, some six or seven members being involved in the writing and sorting of slips, but further volunteers were required [705] and in December that year the period 1751-5 was nearing completion [706]. In March 1913 they were being sorted into what was now being called the ‘Great Index’ and another five years had been started [707]. Several members contributed funds to the project and the work was then continued with paid labour [708]. Much of the later work on this series was overseen by W. P. Haskett-Smith and in 1925 it was reported that altogether the period 1700-1785 had been covered (and the typing completed in 1926 [709]) and he was engaged in copying the admissions to the freedom of the Fishmongers’ Company [710].
Reginald Glencross had also given two large volumes arranged by county listing all the parishes in England and Wales, with the dates when their registers began and what had been done towards printing and indexing them [711]. These two volumes, with parish maps that he also devised based on the Ordnance Survey key maps, which together must have taken a considerable time to prepare, were for many years kept up to date and they remained basic reference material in the library for the next sixty years.
On 13 March 1912 the Executive Committee agreed to attempt to purchase at auction Linton’s Gretna Hall Marriage Registers, 1825-1844, with the original certificates and an index, and quickly circulated the members asking for promises of donations. The Society received guarantees totalling £190, but on 29 March the registers were sold at Sotheby’s for the surprising figure of £420 [712].
On 10 July 1912 a report of the Law Society on the Custody of Parish Registers was read to the Executive Committee but the Quarterly Report makes no comment thereon [713].
The continuing unhappy situation in the Literary Search Department in Room 9 at Somerset House was a major concern to the Society and in January 1913 Gerald Fothergill gave some very cogent written evidence on the subject (and about the conditions in some local probate registries of which he had a fair experience) to the Royal Commission on Public Records appointed in 1910 and chaired by Sir Frederick Pollock [714]. This he amplified with verbal evidence on 23 January 1913, he and Reginald Glencross, elected an Honorary Life Fellow in December [715], representing the Society [716]. It was during the course of the verbal evidence that Fothergill mentioned his many earlier attempts to gain reform, describing himself as 'an awful agitator' [717].
The members of the Royal Commission who went to Somerset House in February 1913 found Room 9 'cold and dark' and noted that the records though 'fairly well arranged ... require extensive cleansing, flattening, repair, and rebinding, whilst there is a considerable residuum of undescribed documents. The state of most of these was exceedingly dirty'. Many were in bundles or sacks, roughly labelled. The then Superintendent of the Room, Francis Warren Xavier Fincham (1861-1931), who had worked in the Probate Registry for many years, reported that the inventories and other loose documents of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury were in 30 hampers and 46 boxes but 'practically untouched for years and covered inches deep in dust' [718]. His verbal evidence was particularly evasive and unhelpful and although he considered Ernest Cheyne's earlier work on the indexes 'a perfect masterpiece' he made several references to 'The Literary' being 'from beginning to end a privilege pure and simple'. If the increase in interest had been foreseen he said, the Department would not have been created. It was 'in the interest of order absolutely necessary to enforce the rule of keeping seats or chairs exclusively for literary searchers' [719]. Although he himself spent time looking at the non-testamentary material which was closed to all others and saw its historical value [720], he strongly defended the decision taken in 1910 not to allow it to be seen. Literary searchers were only to be allowed access to the specific testamentary records for which a schedule of fees (to the other legal searchers) had been fixed. The Commissioners were much troubled and thought the Search Room 'obviously regulated with a view to the receipts from official fees' [721].
Outside London the Court of Probate Act 1857 had also established some forty District Probate Registries and many of the wills proved in the local church courts prior to the Act had been hurriedly distributed amongst these registries. Apart from complaining about Room 9, genealogists had long agitated about the conditions in some of these local registries, though their possible use as district record offices for the deposit of other local material (and the temporary deposit of records for transcription) was advocated by some at the time of the Royal Commission on Public Records in 1912-13. To that Commission Dr Eli Wilkinson Crossley (1864-1942), the Secretary of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, had given evidence about the general lack of indexes and of being kept standing a whole day at Chester, no chair or stool being provided for literary inquirers. At York, where the officials had no interest in the preparation of new indexes, he had to pay for the production of each bundle of wills even though he had permission to index them. He put in two memoranda about the inaccessibility of many records and the lack of any basic guides to the contents of the offices, but suggesting their limited use as 'Local Record Offices' [722]. Ethel Stokes also commented on the conditions in some local registries, saying that searchers were not welcomed at busy times and drawing attention to the difficulties placed in the way of those who wished to compile indexes (as she was doing for the Index Library) [723]. The rules said that literary searchers were to be admitted at local registries if they did not impede the business of the registry and Fothergill told the Commission that at Chester he had been kept out for three weeks running, meanwhile amusing himself at Llandudno, because the officials were 'too busy' to attend to him [724].
The problems with the local registries were highlighted by arguments about the two series of wills proved in the Archdeaconry Court of Richmond which had been brought to London in 1861 and 1874. The wills for the Eastern Deaneries of the Court (relating to the North and West Ridings of Yorkshire) were, on the application of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, sent to the York registry in April 1912 [725]. The wills for the Western Deaneries of the Court prior to 1748 (relating mainly to Lancashire) were in London and the Yorkshire Archaeological Society proposed that they be sent to the registry at Lancaster (which already had the post 1748 wills) but the Council of the Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society declined to ask for them 'as it was considered that the documents were more conveniently accessible in London (where there is a skilled body of professional searchers and transcribers) than at Lancaster' [726]. It was then proposed to transfer these wills to York but there was an outcry from the Lancashire and other societies and it was decided that they should remain at Somerset House. The influential Frank Charles Beazley (1857-1931) of Birkenhead, a founder member of the Society of Genealogists and very active locally (he was Treasurer of the Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society), had meanwhile called attention to the 'regrettable transfer of Lancashire, Westmorland and Yorkshire wills from London to York where', the Society’s Quarterly Report noted, 'they will certainly be less accessible to inquirers' [727]. On 8 May 1912 the Executive Committee had passed a resolution urging the authorities not to make further transfers of ancient records from London ‘where they are chiefly required for purposes of research’ [728]. Following this reasoning, the Society continued for many years to oppose the distribution of material away from London to the provinces.
Also in 1913 the Society had made unsuccessful representations to the Master of the Rolls that the Chancery Proceedings before 1842, the Feet of Fines before 1834 and the Close Rolls before 1842, or to within seventy years of the present day, be opened freely to students at the Public Record Office. The ‘restrictive regulations’ with regard to the registers of births, marriages and deaths at Somerset House since 1837 and the records of the High Court and the Legacy Duty Office which were not sent to the PRO were also matters of complaint [729]. Sir Henry Maxwell-Lyte the greatly respected Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, a historian and keen genealogist, had been elected a Vice-President of the Society that year.
George Sherwood had published his quarterly The Pedigree Register at 2s 6d an issue or 10s 6d post free annually since June 1907 and in September 1911 it had become the 'Official Organ' of the new Society, eight detailed 'Quarterly Reports' being included in its pages or circulated with it until June 1913. In March 1913, however, young Richard Holworthy had somewhat impetuously launched (with Charles Bernau as publisher!) a monthly magazine called The British Archivist saying that a quarterly magazine would take three years to print material that he could issue in twelve months. He intended to print a monthly eight page magazine, each issue containing at least four four-page supplements that could on completion be bound separately [730]. The first of the latter were to be the Protestation Oath Rolls for Middlesex, some Chancery Depositions before 1714 [731] and the Monumental Inscriptions at Bromley. He was helped with brief articles by Arthur Jewers, Charles Bernau, Frank Marcham, Henry Boddington and others and he kept up the regular issues until August 1914, but the number of subscribers must have been very small.
Charles Bernau had meanwhile also been very active in the development of his private business. About 1909 he had started his 'Card Index to the Public Records of England', today known as the 'Bernau Index', and this he now developed commercially, gaining a reputation as a highly efficient record agent on a grand scale. In 1911 he published his Sixteenth Century Marriages, 1538-1600, an index to every marriage during the period in 94 parishes in 26 English counties (1911; 21s 6d) naming 25,000 individuals. He had intended this to be the first of a series of volumes that would cover the whole country and include every known marriage prior to 1600. He had even thought to ask 'every Incumbent in one County or all over England' to furnish an index to their sixteenth century marriages for inclusion but he not surprisingly rejected the idea as impractical [732] and Volume 1, taken partly from published transcripts and partly from original registers, was the only one to appear. The duplication of work must have caused those like Phillimore and the members of the struggling Parish Register Society, considerable unease. In his short review Sherwood, quoting Jacula Prudentum (1640), wrote of the book, 'The best of the sport is to do the deed, and say nothing'. [733] That same year, Bernau published for Frank and S. Hitching their two volumes References to English surnames in 1601 and 1602 (1911) each containing about 20,000 entries, more with the idea of localising surnames than identifying particular marriages. It is surprising therefore, that he should have described himself in the 1911 census, without reference to his genealogical activities, as 'steamship chartering agent, employer' [734] and one has to assume that this agency continued to be his main source of income.
It is difficult to review the history of the Society at this time without gaining the impression that there were considerable differences of opinion behind the scenes. These differences would have been exacerbated by the natural rivalries within the small group of professional genealogists who were actively involved in the Society, particularly as paid professional work became scarcer on the outbreak of War in 1914.
The Society's Annual Meeting in 1913, held in the Council Chamber of the Duchy of Cornwall in Fleet Street on 14 June, was something of a turning point in its affairs. At the meeting George FitzRoy Henry (Somerset), 3rd Lord Raglan (1857-1921), a grandson of the Lord Raglan who commanded in the Crimea and had lost an arm at Waterloo, was elected President in succession to the Marquess of Tweeddale. As a child in 1868-74 Raglan had been a page of honour to Queen Victoria and he subsequently served with distinction in the Afghan War, 1879-80, was Under-Secretary of State for War, 1900-2, and then Governor of the Isle of Man, 1902-19. He had been introduced to membership by Sir Thomas Troubridge (1860-1938), a great supporter of the Society, in December 1911 [735]. Very tall and known as 'Old Honesty' in the Guards, Raglan was said never to have worn a collar-stud or, when he could help it, a frock coat [736].
At the Meeting Messrs Bernau, Fothergill, Sherwood and Snell, were re-elected to the Executive Committee and its membership was increased, the new members including the Revd Henry Denny and Richard Holworthy. There were now 239 members. Sherwood had frequently stressed that the new Society was not to be a publishing one, but at that meeting the newly elected President, Lord Raglan, announced 'we have a valuable list of genealogical documents of a legal nature in preparation for the printer ... I refer to the List of Chancery Proceedings temp Elizabeth, now being compiled for the Society by Mr Holworthy'. Lord Raglan also said that the Society had 'what is probably the largest extant register of living persons interested in various families, so far as Great Britain is concerned. It contains some 4,000 references to people in this country and abroad who take an interest in English genealogy, and we are continually adding to it'. Raglan had clearly been talking to Charles Bernau and seems to have been under the impression that Bernau's Directory and the Society were one and the same thing, which, of course, they were not. The list to which Lord Raglan referred was the Calendar of Chancery Proceedings, Elizabeth, being those suits omitted from the printed Calendar published in 1827/30 by the Record Commissioners (1913) which Holworthy had offered to the Executive Committee on 12 June 1912 when it was proposed to print it in 24-page instalments at 3s 6d per part [737]. The Annual Report for 1913 called this a departure from the Society’s ‘original scheme’ and in the event Sherwood’s counsel prevailed and Holworthy agreed to print the parts in the name of the Society but at his own cost, the first instalment being issued free to members with the September 1913 Quarterly Report, with non-members paying five shillings per part [738]. In December that year the second part was in preparation [739] but Holworthy was still not ready with it by March 1914 [740] and the project then failed with only the first part printed.
One may speculate that relations between the conservative and slowly careful Sherwood and the impatient and unrealistic Bernau were not going too well. Bernau cannot have been pleased that Sherwood's Pedigree Register had become the official organ of the Society and he may have been behind the decision, briefly reported by Sherwood as 'with a view to reaching a new constituency' [741], to transfer that honour in June 1913 to The Antiquary. This popular illustrated quarterly had been edited by Edward Walford in 1880-1 and had attracted a number of early articles by Horace Round but Walford had then left to found the Antiquarian Magazine and Round had transferred his allegiance to that journal. Now under George Apperson's editorship The Antiquary had shown interest in the Society but was devoted mainly to archaeology. However, as a result members of the Society received those copies of The Antiquary which contained the Society's Quarterly Reports [742]. Four such Reports appeared in its pages between September 1913 and June 1914 but the circulation of copies to members proved very expensive (£30-00-10 in 1913 alone) and was then stopped. With the onset of the War, The Antiquary found itself in financial difficulties and it ceased publication altogether in December 1915.
In November 1913, with the new committee in place, it was decided to appoint in each county, honorary local secretaries to look after the Society's activities. In this scheme to reactivate the idea of county secretaries, Bernau's influence is undoubtedly to be detected. An apparently keen young Ivy Woods had become Secretary of the Committee of Local Records at the end of the year when the Annual Report said that ‘developments may be expected’ [743] and in the December issue of The Pedigree Register, George Sherwood printed a lengthy and overly daunting statement about the suggested role of the county secretaries which bears all the hallmarks of a Bernau composition [744]. However, a much watered down version was sent to the members in April 1914 [745]. The statement had said that the business of the secretaries would be to feed the Society with local material but the more reasonable letter enclosed detailed 'Suggestions' as to how members could be the eyes and ears of the Society in their county and how they might promote its interests, suggesting that the members in each county elect one of their number, not a professional, cards being enclosed asking for those interested to signify their willingness to act. The response was disappointing and in June it was reported that many counties were without representation; indeed in two counties, Northamptonshire and Shropshire, the Society still had no members [746].
As fewer Fellows were being elected it had also been agreed in November 1913, as an inducement to new ordinary Members and Associates, that those who paid a guinea a year might, like the Fellows, receive quarterly reports of new material accrued on any three named families, and that Corresponding Associates paying half a guinea might receive a similar report on any one named family [747]. Although one or two people came forward as possible local secretaries there was little enthusiasm for these ideas and the sending of reports to new members was quickly forgotten, the Fellows already paying a higher subscription partly for that very purpose. From 1 June 1914 an Entrance Fee of 10s 6d was for the first time imposed on all new applications for membership [748]. This fee was increased to a guinea on 1 January 1920 [749] when the subscriptions of Town Members were increased from one to two guineas.
With the impending removal of the Society from Sherwood's office, it is perhaps no surprise that Sherwood early in 1914 gave up the post of Honorary Secretary (there was already a paid Librarian-Secretary) and that by April 1914, Miss Grace de Mouilpied had been appointed Secretary in his stead.
In September 1913 George Sherwood had endeavoured to raise a little income for himself by soliciting subscriptions to cover his time in going through the 459 pages of un-indexed West Indian will extracts, 1625-1792, made by the late record agent Mrs Vernona Smith and deposited in the British Library [750]. He asked for 10s 6d for each surname sought. The idea apparently worked well and he repeated this 'co-operative search' early the following year, at the same time as publicising a more ambitious search through the eighteenth century lawsuits relating to Lancashire and Cheshire in the Public Record Office [751]. This would cost each subscriber 10s 6d for every 25 hours spent. A major part of Mrs Smith's large collection of material relating to the West Indies had been acquired by Bernard Page Scattergood (1862-1937) and in 1913 he presented the 45 volumes to the Society where volunteers began to index them into the Great Card Index [752].
In the summer of 1914 Charles Bernau unashamedly copied George Sherwood's idea for co-operative searches and launched from 20 Charleville Road, Barons Court, to which he had moved that year, a Genealogical Co-operative Research Club, the members subscribing a minimum of a guinea or five dollars a year to have specified groups of un-indexed records or books searched, the period covered depending on the number of subscribers. It is not clear when he gave up his steamship chartering agency but he had given up his office in Billiter Square in 1912 and with the outbreak of War in 1914 his agency work would have fallen completely away. He was fortunate therefore that for the next ten years his Research Club was a considerable success. Through his many contacts it expanded into three branches, for General, Local and Minor searches. With typical bravura he had persuaded Lord Raglan, Sir William Bull, M.P. for Hammersmith and Chairman of Singer and Sons, Sir Thomas Troubridge, Baronet, and the herald Sir Henry Farnham Burke to lend their names as 'Council' to the Club, which had Edgar Briggs as Treasurer (as he was of the SoG) and the Revd Ernest Salisbury Whitfield, of Lewisham, as Treasurer for Local Searches. In its first year it provided, Bernau said, 'occasional but well-paid work for nine persons, some of whom on account of the War would otherwise have been without employment' [753].
Meanwhile the Society's membership remained small but the growth of its collections necessitated the first move to larger premises and in the autumn of 1914 two rooms were rented on the first floor of 5 Bloomsbury Square, near the British Museum. Future meetings would be held there for many years. The Annual Meeting on 25 June 1914, as arranged by Grace de Mouilpied, had been held at 4 p.m. at Caxton Hall, Westminster, and the Twelfth Quarterly Report issued that month had announced, 'At Michaelmas the Society hopes to remove to larger quarters, where greater facilities will be possible to readers and volunteer workers, and the exact locality will be given later on' [754].
The move was not, in fact, mentioned in The Antiquary and it is curious that the change of address was not mentioned in George Sherwood's The Pedigree Register. Bernau's name had not appeared in his pages for five years and the launch of Bernau’s Research Club must have caused some concern at the Society. Sherwood was not doing too well and although in December 1914 he had announced his intention of continuing to publish the Register ‘as usual’ from his office in the Strand, ‘sanely keeping the old paths’ as he put it [755], he naturally faced a loss of subscribers and increased costs because of the War [756].
The new rooms in Bloomsbury Square, of which the lease was taken on 29 September 1914, were to be the home of the Society for almost twenty years. The larger one, south facing and overlooking the street, has a round-headed window flanked by two narrow lights matching the narrow 'attendant' windows either side of the entrance immediately below. To reach the rooms from the fine hall with its Ionic columns and white marble floor, one ascended a staircase with an ornate iron balustrade that continued to the top of the building. A fair sketch of the stair by the pen and ink artist Duncan Moul (1863-1927), an active volunteer, was published in the Society's Annual Report for 1923. By a curious coincidence I chanced upon and recognised the original drawing, propped up with other abandoned pictures, in the hall of Gerald Fothergill's house at Wandsworth, after the death of his stepdaughter Phyllis Shield in 1968, and it subsequently hung in my offices at Harrington Gardens and Charterhouse Buildings.
At the time of the move in 1914 many people believed that this dignified, but rather sombre house on the southwest corner of Bloomsbury Square but facing Hart Street (since re-named Bloomsbury Way) had been designed and occupied by the architect Isaac Ware, a well-known follower of Palladio who died in 1766 and that it had later been the home of Isaac D'Israeli, the father of the Prime Minister [757]. However, research had already shown that there was no evidence to support such a claim [758]. The two houses, numbers 5 and 6, appear to form a single house but have in fact always been divided. A former house on the site of number 5 had been occupied from 1704 to 1714 by Dr John Radcliffe, a physician to Queen Anne, whose great wealth endowed the Radcliffe Infirmary [759]. Number 6 had been the home of Isaac D'Israeli from 1817 to 1829 and the future Prime Minister had played as a child in the Square [760]. However, following the publication of Gladys Scott Thompson’s The Russells in Bloomsbury (1940) [761] it seemed likely that the two houses had actually been designed by the architect Henry Flitcroft (1697-1769) who had designed the neighbouring church of St Giles-in-the-Fields and, indeed, Woburn Abbey for the Duke of Bedford, and that appears now generally accepted [762].
The Society's removal expenses came to £18-15-6 [763] and the rent and cleaning here were £100-8-2 a year [764]. Walter Parry Haskett-Smith (1859-1946), a committee member who lived in Russell Road, Kensington, loaned most of the furniture and chairs for the new rooms, but at the end of the War he was beginning to wonder if and when he would get them back and an appeal was made for the gift or loan of further chairs [765]. However, an item for ‘hire of chairs’ continued to appear in the Annual Accounts for at least another ten years. Haskett-Smith, one might mention, had made a lone pioneering climb of Nape’s Needle, Cumberland, in 1886, and has consequently been described as the ‘father of modern rock mountaineering’. He repeated the climb some fifty years later in April 1936 [766].
The outbreak of War, in the month prior to the move, affected the Society in different ways. Several members fought at the front and many others were engaged in war work at home. The new rooms were much more comfortable and convenient but everyone felt the need for economy. There were, of course, some resignations, but the well-known Marquis of Ruvigny joined in 1915 and at the end of that year membership is said to have stood at 303 though the Balance Sheet shows that a total of 287 members had paid. That number fell to 265 in 1916, had recovered to 282 by 1917, was 321 in 1918 and 380 in 1919. Every expense was curtailed as far as possible and, as mentioned, only the paid services of the Assistant Secretary were retained, she being helped by volunteer committee members [767].
Just before the War the Society had purchased the large series of Phillimore's Marriage Registers [768] and in order to lessen the expense the Library Committee had issued a special appeal in January 1914. This met with a fair response, some £21 1s 6d being received, but in general as little as possible was spent on the library. The unique and important series of Berkshire manuscripts in 51 volumes, bequeathed by Frederick Simon Snell who had died in November 1914, were, however, beautifully bound with the proceeds of his legacy [769]. The appeal to members was renewed in October 1915 when it was said that the Library now contained upwards of 1,800 volumes [770].
At the suggestion of Revd Charles Moor, DD (1857-1944), in the Summer of 1914 the Committee for Cataloguing Pedigrees made an appeal for members to send in copies of their pedigrees to 'be preserved in boxes alphabetically arranged' of a uniform size, written on foolscap paper provided by the Society at a shilling a quire (refunded on receipt of a pedigree!), but it fell on deaf ears [771], producing only 7s 3d [772]. Good paper became extremely expensive during the War when many ledgers and cashbooks fell victim to the constant salvage drive.
At the Annual Meeting held at the Society on 25 June 1915 the resignations from the Executive Committee were ‘announced and confirmed at their own request’ (a curious wording used by Richard Holworthy) [773] of the Chairman and Honorary Treasurer, Edgar Briggs, of Charles Bernau, of Richard Holworthy and of Sir Thomas Troubridge, all considerable losses to the Society and evidently again the result of some internal argument, perhaps over the various journals, in which Bernau and his friends had not got their way. Bernau and Briggs were now much engaged in the former’s Research Club.
Bernau’s formal involvement with the Society of Genealogists now ceased altogether. He had been a member of several of the earlier sub-committees of the Society but he played no major part in any one of them though as secretary to that on family associations he collected details of the societies in America [774]. In 1913 he gave index slips to the marriage registers of his home parish at Walton-on-Thames, about 1,100 entries for 1639-1777 only, but they showed only the surnames and had not even been sorted into order [775]. That is hardly what George Sherwood had in mind!
With the advent of the War, Richard Holworthy was beginning to think that ‘there are duties more urgent than the publication of a genealogical magazine’ [776] and that it would probably be necessary to delay the publication of his The British Archivist. He produced one issue, dated September 1914 to June 1915, and then ceased publication until April and May 1920, these last two issues fulfilling his obligations to his subscribers. The April issue contains a note from Charles Bernau, revealing himself as the journal’s ‘publisher’ and announcing its fusion with Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica under the joint editorship of Richard Holworthy and A. W. Hughes Clarke [777]. They produced a final title page and index to their twenty-four issues in December 1921.
The circulation to members of copies of The Antiquary containing the Society's Quarterly Reports had ceased in 1914, but the Executive Committee was anxious to keep in touch with members and decided the following year to hold a series of Quarterly Meetings. The first was held in the library at Bloomsbury Square at 4.30 pm on Friday, 22 October 1915, with tea provided by a member at 4 pm. Colonel Parker, CB, took the chair and Dr Charles Moor, read a paper on 'The modern uses of armorial bearings', there being about thirty-five members and their friends present. These included Gerald Woods Wollaston, then Bluemantle Pursuivant [778], Sir Henry Howorth, President of the Royal Archaeological Institute [779] and the architect Earl Ferrers [780]. George Sherwood thought the talk ‘surprisingly interesting’ and wrote warmly of its delivery [781]. Dr Charles Moor, an active member of the Society for several decades, had retired from his clerical appointments in 1901 to live in Lexham Gardens, Kensington, writing a History of Gainsborough (1904), Erminois (1919) and then editing the five volumes of the Knights of Edward I (1929-32) for the Harleian Society [782].
The meeting being a fair success, Moor's paper was printed with a preface outlining the state of the Society in December 1915. The second of what became a regular series of meetings with published texts at 6d each was organised for 21 January 1916, with Herbert J. T. Wood (1863-1919) speaking on ‘Elementary Welsh Genealogy’. It was well attended though George Sherwood thought that the strings of names found in Welsh genealogies were like strings of onions and devoid of all interest, saying that the value of a pedigree ‘depends upon what it tells us of the people who figure in it’ [783]. Three years later Sherwood spent time trying to sort the collections of Welsh pedigrees received from Joseph Morris (died 1860), of Shrewsbury [784], from Philippa Swinnerton Hughes (1824-1917) [785] and from Herbert Wood (just mentioned) and decided not to include them in the main Document Collection [786].
It proved difficult to persuade further speakers to come forward but those lectures that were published were the Revd Henry Denny's 'Anglo-Irish genealogy' in May 1916, George Sherwood's 'How to make pedigrees interesting' in November 1916, and Walter Haskett-Smith's 'Surnames' in March 1917. The printed versions were not great money-spinners though the first two were advertised in The Church Times [787] and several were publicised ‘post free 8d’ in 1920 [788]; that by Charles Moor was still in print in the 1960s. Further talks in 1918 were by Dr Bradbrook on 'A scheme for a Dictionary of Surnames' and two by the Revd Harvey Bloom, 'Genealogical work in the Midlands' and 'Vicissitudes of families', but it was not proposed to print them 'during the present dearth of paper' [789] and they remained unpublished [790]. These ‘Quarterly Meetings’ continued to be publicised as such until December 1923 when it was said that those country members who intended to come should apply to the Secretary for invitations in advance, something not previously stated. The suggestion that talks on the records of the War Office, Admiralty and Clerks of the Peace might prove acceptable found no volunteers [791]. Lecture meetings tended afterwards to be held between October and April, but not always regularly.
The notice of the first meeting in 1915 announced also the formation of a Committee for Members' Interests to which inquiries received by the Society would be referred. It would consist of amateurs and no fees would be charged. The notice asked for those who had special knowledge on particular subjects to let the Secretary know and added that Members 'are aware that there are in the Society a few professional genealogists, whose names may be obtained on application to the Secretary, in case special researches are desired'. George Sherwood called it a ‘Committee of Amateur Genealogists to advise beginners how to set to work’ which probably gave a better idea of what it intended to do [792] but it was not mentioned again.
In April 1916 the Society's Committee voted a small sum towards indexing the personal estate suits in Chancery Proceedings, Mitford Division, and was able to send several hundred entries as 'interests' to members [793]. An undated circular, 'Original Research', signed by Constance Agnew but obviously Sherwood's composition, appealing for funds with which to sponsor the slip indexing of the PCC wills 1651-60, was also sent out, emphasising that 'to print these facts is economically a mistake'. A start was then made on abstracting the first year and in June 1918 it was said that the work was costing 25s a week. By September two thousand wills had been abstracted, the appeal having produced £34 [794]. A note with the circular in 1916 said that a recent appeal to Members to copy monumental inscriptions had resulted in copies from more than 277 parishes being received, many being completely covered, and that more than 1,000 original deeds had been received and filed.
Sherwood returned to the attack on the subject of the Society not being a printing one in a letter to The Spectator in November 1918 where, acknowledging that it was a 'pretty subject for controversy', he stressed the point that 'criticism has been directed to the Society's declaration that it is not a printing society, like, for example, the excellent Harleian and the British Record Societies. Our position is, especially at the present juncture, we believe that more useful work can be done by collecting material than by printing it, and that matter can be collected and made readily available for reference much more rapidly, at a tithe, a fiftieth, or a hundredth part of the cost of printing' [795].
The Annual Report for 1918 also spoke of the 'urgent need for economising labour and paper' and said that 'for patriotic reasons, the Quarterly Reports are not being printed at present'. In fact, they did not appear again. In June 1917 the Society had started publishing Quarterly Queries. These were only folded sheets, each of four pages, but they soon became the simple media through which to report progress to the members. The thankless task of editing them fell to the Revd Thomas Dale [796] and they continued until December 1924 when the last one noted, 'it is hoped to issue this paper in a much enlarged and more interesting form next year' [797], the first reference to the projected quarterly Magazine.
In his December 1914 issue of The Pedigree Register Sherwood had surveyed the records’ world in a lengthy review of the Reports of the on-going Royal Commission on Public Records but the Commission’s valuable recommendations came almost to nothing because of the War. In May 1916 he produced an index to his third volume of The Pedigree Register and sadly ceased its publication, though he hoped to renew publication when the War was over. The death of Sir Lionel Carden (1851-1915), a former British Minister at various places in Central America, at the age of 64 in October 1915 had been ‘a heavy personal misfortune’ to him. Carden’s unvarying kindness and interest in the subject had, Sherwood wrote, been uplifting and encouraging and in an unusually warm tribute Sherwood greatly mourned his loss [798].
That January 1916, Sherwood had launched a weekly bulletin called Dramatis Personae: new discoveries in Biography and Genealogy, consisting of loose, typed, quarto sheets that he supplied to friends at a shilling a time, the material being taken from a variety of documents and, 'Giving the names of those who took part in the minor dramas, comedies, tragedies and ordinary domestic affairs of the English from time immemorial, and showing from whence further details may, by the curious, be obtained' [799]. He had thought of it as a weekly periodical but the exigencies of record searching and the frequent difficulty of getting at original documents, made the plan impracticable, so in 1917 he invited subscribers at a rate of one guinea a hundred sheets and pro rata, beginning at any time, sixpence being added for postage ‘and a neat portfolio in which to keep them until they are bound’ [800], but the scheme did not proceed beyond the first few numbers.
In March 1916, Sherwood had also launched, as 'a War-work relaxation and a War-time economy', a scheme to abstract all the names mentioned in the PCC wills for the year 1750, hoping to find two hundred subscribers who would each pay a guinea for which they would receive about 4,000 names from a specified group of counties [801]. He believed that 1750 was 'roughly the beginning of a period when much of the migration of modern times, so baffling to the genealogist, took place'. As previously mentioned he published these names in a volume in 1917 but there was no call for further volumes as he had hoped, though Snell had started listing the names in the wills proved in 1751.
In another attempt to attract subscribers and following in his earlier footsteps, George Sherwood then launched The Pedigree Directory 1917: a list of pedigrees and of those interested in pedigrees, in one alphabet, published at 2s 6d. A sub-title described the 71-page booklet as ‘A key to the vast store of information in private hands’. Sherwood saw it as a development of his earlier Genealogical Queries and Memoranda to which it was very similar and he solicited insertions for an intended 1918 edition, but sufficient numbers were again not forthcoming.
In November 1916 Bernau was very annoyed to find that another un-named record searcher had copied his idea for co-operative searches and he sent out a circular saying that 'neither this Club nor myself has any connection whatever with him or his proposed schemes'. The identity of this person is not revealed but it seems to have been Bernau's friend Richard Holworthy who had put the The British Archivist on hold and was now the Genealogical Editor of The Connoisseur. Holworthy, still not yet thirty, was promoting a very similar co-operative scheme, though at a much lower rate of pay, through a series of articles about genealogical sources in the latter magazine.
After the War Bernau continued to prosper and in 1918 brought in his first wife Rosa as a partner in the Research Club. Together they acted as its main record searchers and their daughter, also called Rosa, became involved in the work. For the Local Search Branch they had noted all the deponents in the Exchequer Depositions by Commission 1559-1800 [802], publishing the early results in three volumes of Exchequer Deponents 1559-1695 (1916-18). In 1921 he completed an eight-year search through (and slip index to) the 114,849 names of plaintiffs and defendants in Chancery suits for the period 1714-1758, for which he had received subscriptions from about 150 people. That year he also published a Genealogical Register in which the members of the Club registered their 'interests'. This quickly ran through four editions, giving him the idea that it might gain as great support as had the International Genealogical Directory [803].
Bernau's Research Club continued into the mid-1920s, his 50th Local Search being completed in October 1924, but his slip index had grown so large that he was soon forced to leave London in order, as he wrote, to provide it with reasonably cheap accommodation in the country. By 1927 he had moved from the Barons Court and Fulham area, where he had lived since marriage, to a house that he called Bartica (presumably named from his father's time in British Guiana) in the remote village of Breage near Helston in Cornwall [804], though he retained rooms at 59-60 Chancery Lane until 1929 and his daughter Rosa continued with them until her marriage in 1931 [805]. At Breage he was far less active, though in 1932 he published a booklet, ? County, to publicise his index and in 1946 he reported that he had indexed the 30,000 people mentioned in the PCC wills proved in 1721 [806]. It was the only time that he advertised in The Genealogists’ Magazine but he still described himself as ‘Searcher in the Public Records’ in the 1939 Register. His wife Rosa had died in 1937 and in 1939 he married a widow, Dorothy Marian Jenkins (nee Thomas) [807]. He died in Penzance Hospital from Breage on 28 December 1961, aged 83 [808]. As is mentioned below, not long before his death he offered his vast index to the Society of Genealogists for a very modest sum and the purchase was carried out a few weeks before he died [809].
By curious chance Holworthy had died earlier that same year. In the late 1920s Richard Holworthy, no doubt with the anniversary of the Great Migration to America in mind, had, with the American genealogist, Charles Edward Banks (1854-1931) [810], launched an Anglo-American Records Foundation, intending to search out and publish British records of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries relating to the founding of the American colonies. He approached for support people such as the steel magnate Myron C. Taylor (1874-1959) and gathered a subscribing membership, publishing Banks's Able men of Suffolk 1638 (1931) and Dorothy Shilton's and his own High Court of Admiralty Examinations 1637-8 (1932), but the enterprise seems to have foundered following the death of Banks. Holworthy was elected a Fellow of the Society of Genealogists in 1932 but allowed his membership to lapse before the Second World War, making something of a name for himself as the 'record keeper' [811] or archivist to Kent County Council. The Society received some of his papers (including those of his relative Arthur Jewers) in 1962 [812].
A plan to publish a Roll of Honour of those members who had taken an active part in the War was announced in the Annual Report for 1918 [813] and in subsequent Reports to March 1922 [814] but subsequently abandoned, it being decided to engross the list so that it could be framed and hung in the rooms [815]. That plan also seems to have been abandoned in due course.
At the end of December 1915 the membership of the Society stood at 303, in 1920 it was 406, and in 1925 it was 681. By 1930 it had grown to 860. In the first year of its existence the American genealogist William Bradford Browne (1875-1953) of Blackinton, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, urged that a more definite appeal be made to other Americans by pointing out that the Society hoped to identify emigrants to America with their places of residence in the British Isles and the families to which they belonged [816] and by 1919 there were twenty-three members in America, the largest group outside the British Isles, though Browne himself was not amongst them.
An analysis of the membership list printed in August 1919 (the first since before the War) [817] shows that there were, in addition to those in America, fifteen members in Ireland, six in India and one in Ceylon, five in Scotland, four in Australia, two each in Canada and France, and one each in Portugal and South Africa. Of the total membership of 380 in 1919, there were only thirty-four women. Some 22 of the original members named in the Articles had died or resigned. The number of Fellows included in these figures remained at about 100 until at least 1920 but the number of Associate Members (also included), 83 in 1918, rose to 92 in 1922, the subsequent Annual Reports not providing a breakdown of the figures, nor for some years after 1930 giving any total figure at all.
At the turn of the century the Mormon/LDS Church had less than 5,000 members in the British Isles and after the First World War there were even fewer here [818]. However, amongst the Society of Genealogists' early women members was the very remarkable Susa Young Gates (1856-1933) [819], of Salt Lake City, a daughter of the Church's President, Brigham Young. In 1893 the Church's then President, Wilford Woodruff, a keen genealogist, had affirmed the importance of eternal family units, the necessity of sealing families under priesthood authority, and the obligation of Church members to trace their lineages for that purpose. The foundation of the Genealogical Society of Utah in November 1894 had followed closely on these revelations. It is to Susa Gates and to Joseph Fielding Smith (1876-1972) that much of the credit for the early work of the GSU is due.
Gates, the mother of thirteen children, was active in many fields, teaching, writing and publishing, and was well placed to increase the influence of the GSU within the Church, working tirelessly to that end, but the GSU was not at that time funded by the Church and it was the Relief Society that was responsible for promoting genealogy amongst Church members, for many of whom it had a low priority.
After a serious illness in 1901 Gates devoted herself to temple and genealogy work, helping to found the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, being elected its President and becoming aware of the GSU and its library in 1904, besides compiling a thirteen-volume history of the Young family. She instituted genealogy classes at the Lion House and, from 1907, wrote weekly genealogical articles in the Deseret Evening News. In 1908 both the classes and the articles were taken under the wing of the GSU which at that time had just 173 members.
Gates was also prominent in the Relief Society and under her influence it adopted regular church-wide lesson manuals in 1909. The GSU itself published a 45-page Lessons in Genealogy in 1912 and the Relief Society published Gates's Surname Book and Racial History, copies of which were sent to societies and libraries worldwide. I remember finding the copy at the SoG helpful even in the 1950s. The Relief Society went on to organise a genealogical convention in 1913 and the following year some 500 delegates attended a three-day conference in Salt Lake City.
With Joseph Fielding Smith, a GSU worker for nearly six decades (and long after Gates’s death President of the Church), Susa Gates 'exported classes and instructional materials, promoted the growth of local genealogical institutions, started classes at Brigham Young University, and instituted an annual 'Genealogy Sunday' in the Church'. In July 1915 the highlight of the decade for the Church's genealogical programme was when she chartered a train and took 250 Church members from Salt Lake City to the International Congress of Genealogy at the San Francisco World's Fair [819].
The great number of committees originally organised at the Society had fallen by the wayside during the course of the War, but in 1919 with the accumulation of work during the ‘weary years of the War’ it soon became apparent that more help had to be sought from the general body of Members and it was decided to reconstitute four of the committees: those for the Index, Library, Heraldry and Finance [820]. Though the Library Committee was to deal with printed and manuscript books and the document collection, the Consolidated Index Committee had charge of the index, parish registers, marriage licences, school and apprentice registers, migrations, monumental inscriptions and the cataloguing of pedigrees, a not altogether satisfactory division. The Society was much handicapped by the high price of labour and materials of all kinds, especially printing, but the Executive Committee thought it highly important to publish a list of the Members (which, as mentioned above) it did in August 1919.
In September 1918 it was reported that Colonel Phipps, Leoline Jenkins Griffith (1863-1938), an insurance broker, and Gerald Fothergill were giving much time to the sorting-in of the index slips and that Griffith was invaluable for reference on Welsh matters [821]. The members of the Consolidated Index Committee had each taken a special subject into their care, the overall Secretary being Griffith who supervised the work and devoted much time to the task of sorting the slips which, due to the War, was in arrears. He attended on most days at 4 pm to show others the ropes. Also in September it was reported that the Revd E. S. B. Whitfield, apart from Shropshire, was taking an interest in the neglected ‘Migration’ slips [822] for which additional material had been requested in March [823] but little was forthcoming until the index was revived by Cecil Brand in 1951. Paid assistance was once more being used to feed the main index and provide ‘Interests’ to members, the money being used to write slips to the PCC wills for 1651, the Bishop of London’s Marriage Licences, and the Chancery Depositions, Elizabeth to Charles I [824].
In 1920 pedigree forms or ‘Birth Briefs’ on which to record parentage to four generations were sent to all the members with the June issue of Quarterly Queries. Additional copies were available at 2s a dozen, postage extra, and the Society was glad to file any copies, even though incomplete, the left-hand page being intended for notes, authorities or proofs of evidence. The spaces on the forms were numbered for ease of reference, odd numbers referring to males and even numbers to females [825]. With the advent of the Magazine in 1925 the surnames from the forms were listed there and indexed accordingly.
Griffith, Fothergill and Dale continued their labour on the large number of incoming slips in 1920 [826] but in 1921 the sorting was again considerably behind [827] and despite the assistance of Colonel Phipps and Messrs Fothergill, Griffith and Sherwood, in 1922 some paid labour had again to be employed to reduce the backlog [828]. The Consolidated Index was, it seems, first called the Great Index in June 1920, but from September 1922 was generally called the Great Card Index [829]. Attention had been drawn to its separate ‘Topographical’ section in December 1919 when a request was made for slips relating to the descent of manors and other properties [830]. During three months in the autumn of 1922 the committee received 6,500 slips of London Marriage Licences from Mr Haskett-Smith, 6,500 of Exchequer Deponents from Mr Knapp, 4,100 of Kentish deeds from Clarence George Paget, of Croydon, and 3,500 from the Canterbury will abstracts by Albert William Waterhouse, of St Leonards-on-Sea [831].
However, much voluntary time was now being spent on the apprenticeship index and in March 1922 an appeal was made for additional help with the Great Index for which a hundred thousand slips still awaited filing and reporting to interested members [832]. The industrious Cregoe Nicholson, who had joined the Society in 1920, then organised a band of volunteers and in 1923 it was reported that they had almost overtaken the arrears which had accumulated during the War. They reckoned then that the Index contained about two and a half million slips, over a hundred thousand being received in the course of the year [833]. The struggle to keep on top of the incoming flow continued, many volunteers being involved. In 1924 the active sorter Colonel Phipps moved for a while to the country and Major E. P. Stapleton contributed 65,000 slips [834], transcribed from those given by Edward Cookson [835]. Nicholson and his band of helpers were still striving to overtake the arrears in 1925 [836].
The donation of books and periodicals continued and included, in 1919, 41 volumes of the Parish Register Society by Harry Pitman, but the works which were purchased included several volumes of the Index Library, Chester wills and marriage licences, Exeter marriage licences, Irish wills, various poll books, a fine set of Wiltshire Notes & Queries, seven volumes of abstracts of Kent Archdeaconry wills 1444-1731, two volumes of office copies of Worcester Wills 1665-1840 from the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps, and the Suffolk marriages and other material collected by John Robert Hutchinson mentioned above. Dr Bradbrook loaned 67 volumes of the Parish Register Society and volumes 7-32 of the Durham and Northumberland Parish Register Society. Members had been encouraged to send details of known poll books to the Society in March 1918 [837]. In September 1924 it was agreed that the Society would make ‘small searches’ in the printed and manuscript parish registers for a prepaid fee of two shillings, but the book had to be indexed or the year of search given [838].
In March 1919 The Times gave space to a long report on a lecture about book-plates given by Dr George C. Peachey (died 1935) which he had illustrated with many examples hung around the walls of the room. After the talk there had been a proposal that the Society take over the role of the recently dissolved Ex-Libris Society and collect and arrange ‘these alluring little works’ [839]. Inspired by the talk Viscountess Wolseley (1872-1936), the only daughter of the former Commander-in-Chief, who had joined the Society and was elected a Fellow that year, loaned several books on book-plates and gave a handsome collection of them, she being an avid collector [840].
In 1920 six volumes of original apprenticeship indentures, 1641-1749, collected by Frederick Arthur Crisp (1851-1921) in his series Munimenta Antiqua, were purchased and slip indexed [841]. To the latter Harry Clench (1843-1934), of Leytonstone, a retired genealogist and accountant, added in 1924, some 979 further indentures, 1775-1888 [842]. Crisp, who lived latterly at the Manor House, Godalming, had made a fortune as a patent medicine vendor and, I was told by the late Marc Fitch (himself from a family of bakers and provision merchants), that Crisp’s family had a secret recipe for baking and that he would go down to the East End of London early in the morning to mix sufficient for the day but then spent his profits collecting documents, later forming the Grove Park Press in Walworth Road to print extremely fine transcripts and pedigrees.
In 1922 Herbert Foster Anderton (died 1937) gave 44 volumes of the Lancashire Parish Register Society [843] and nine manuscript volumes of the Male Servants’ Tax 1780, of unknown provenance, were purchased [844]. The following year the widow of Cecil Spencer Perceval (died 1920), one of the Society’s founders, gave a long run of the Reports of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts and Frank Charles Beazley gave thirty volumes of the Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society publications, bringing the total number of books in the library to about 5,000 [845]. In 1923 the Society had purchased (spending £57-14-9 in the year) a large number of manuscripts that had belonged to Crisp, including 1,226 loose wills and deeds, 613 pedigrees, eight volumes of contemporary and draft copies of wills, 1415-1841, and thirty-six volumes of original bonds, 1582-1876 [846], the bonds being later indexed by Oswald Knapp (1858-1947). In 1922 Lord Raglan had completed the Socciety’s run of Harleian Society publications [847] and in 1925 Lord Farrer gave 42 volumes of the Oxford Historical Society’s Publications [848]. With the start of The Genealogists’ Magazine in 1925 details of the library and manuscript accessions were published there instead of in the Quarterly Queries and Annual Reports. When cumulative indexes to the Magazines were produced every few years they usefully included all these items, indexed by name and by place.
Early in 1919 there was a flurry of correspondence in The Times about parish registers. Seemingly unaware of the work of the Society, Montagu Lloyd wrote in February about their preservation and urged their publication in parish magazines [849]. Reginald Glencross immediately replied saying that probably a third had already been printed to 1812 and described the work of the Parish Register Society and of the various local societies, urging the collection of the original registers in London. Dr F. W. Dendy of Newcastle-upon-Tyne said that more support should be given to the local societies, pointing out what had been done in Northumberland and Durham. George Sherwood, however, writing from the Society thought that with the high cost of paper this was not the time to print but that copies should be made to 1837 and deposited in one central place. Ernest Baker, the President of the Greenwich Antiquarian Society, which was printing the early Greenwich registers, thought that public funds should be made available for the purpose [850]. Sherwood wrote again to The Times a few months later giving some idea of the problems encountered by searchers and the various reactions of the clergy to their requests. He noted the great size of some of the London registers and again urged their transcription and the deposit of copies with the Society [851]. The previous month Sherwood had written to the Church Times about the portfolios that the Society was creating for each parish (in its collections by 'Places') and soliciting donations of original documents for filing by surname and place [852].
The First World War had intervened, but Gerald Fothergill had not given up his struggle with the Principal Probate Registry. In April 1920 he sought unsuccessfully to clarify whose authority was required to provide access to the contentious records there [853] and, no doubt urged by him, the new President of the Society of Genealogists, Lord Raglan, wrote to the President of the Probate Court about these records which, as the Annual Report says, ‘have hitherto been jealously guarded from all access’. As a result, the Report says, ‘we have been granted permission, as a Society, to consult the collection’ [854]. In 1920 the Revd Harvey Bloom visited Somerset House and reported on the records [855] but obviously they were in no state to allow access to searchers. When Fothergill was being interviewed by the Evening Post that year (about his discovery of the apprenticeship records) he took the opportunity to say, 'There are still many records of the very highest importance to the genealogist, the antiquarian, and the student of manners lying neglected, unseen, unheeded in Somerset House', going on to describe the records of the ecclesiastical courts [856]. In 1922 he persuaded Brigadier-General Herbert Surtees, M.P., to once again ask the Secretary to the Treasury about the possible transfer of the probate records to the Public Record Office, but was yet again told that this would require legislation [857].
In 1919 the Society had joined the Congress of Archaeological Societies as a ‘valuable medium for the ventilation of matters affecting our interests’ [858], and in 1920 the Society was represented by Lord Farrer and Dr Charles Moor. At the Congress, John Arthur Watson-Taylor (1857-1923) [859], a Fellow who was also a delegate from the Wiltshire Archaeological Society and well known as a Cambridge oarsman in the 1870s [860], made an impassioned appeal for ‘The preservation of old deeds from destruction’ which was reported at length in the Wiltshire Gazette [861]. He spoke about the section of the report of the local records committee in 1902 on the loss of old deeds from banks and the offices of agents and solicitors when large estates changed hands and referred to the report in 1904 of the Historical Manuscripts Commission on the Laing manuscripts which had been rescued from a waste-paper dealer’s warehouse in Edinburgh, as a result of which the General Register House had said that it was willing to 'examine miscellaneous collections of old documents and to keep such of them as may be of real historical interest or in any way suitable for preservation as public records'. But, he said, destruction had continued at a greater pace. Government appeals for old paper had driven up its price from thirty shillings to £14 a ton. With the paper were parchment deeds that were cleaned with lime and sold to be re-used by law stationers, bookbinders, goldbeaters and makers of toy drums, or to be boiled down to make gelatine for use in photographic films and in the size on banknotes. Watson-Taylor thought that the solicitors were largely to blame and the Society of Genealogists had brought the matter to the notice of the Council of the Law Society as a result of which a notice had appeared in the Law Society's Gazette suggesting that disposals of records should take place only after consultation with a local archaeological or other learned society. There were fifty-nine local law societies in England and Wales and he urged that they all be directly approached.
However, suitable places for the deposit of old deeds, other than the Society of Genealogists, remained a considerable problem, though just before the First World War the first county record office had in fact already been established in Bedfordshire. There Dr George 'Herbert' Fowler (1861-1940), a retired professor of zoology from University College London who had bought The Old House at Aspley Guise and become interested in its history, founded a historical society for the county and, in 1913, when Chairman of the County Records Committee, created a muniment room for the deposit of local material which, in reality, was the first county record office. In 1923 Fowler published The care of county muniments, a pioneering work that saw the world through the eyes of the local archivist in distinction to his close friend Hilary Jenkinson's Manual of archive administration (1922) based on work at the Public Record Office which had come out the previous year. An interesting idea, suggested in the Society of Genealogists’ Annual Report for 1922, that privileges of access might be gained to private and semi-private ‘collections of genealogical and biographical fact’, such as were available to members of the National Art Collections Fund, perhaps fortunately made no headway at all [862].
At the Society in London Mrs Annabella Ellen Rowan (1875-1960), who had been trained as a genealogist by Gerald Fothergill, was appointed Secretary the day after Constance Agnew resigned in November 1918. Some £103-9-2 had been paid in salaries in 1918, £89-7-0 in 1919 and £138-19-11 in 1920. Mrs Rowan, the wife of a journalist, Hill Willson Rowan (died 1951),who lived at Hampstead, was much liked and greatly respected for her careful and accurate work. Before being appointed Secretary she had begun to extract all the wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in the year 1651 and she completed the work in fifteen volumes, the subsidiary names being indexed by others into the Great Card Index [863].
With the growth of the library in the two rooms on the first floor at Bloomsbury Square, the Secretary was largely responsible for much of the work but in 1919 two new members of the Library Committee, Lieutenant Hugh William Peel (1887-1975) and Arthur John Christopher Guimaraens (1882-1971), working alongside George Sherwood, had usefully re-arranged the bookcases to increase the space and ease of access to the shelves [864], some additional shelving for books and racks for index-slips being assembled [865]. The Annual Report says that although Harry Anderson Pitman (died 1942), a London wine merchant and generous benefactor of the Society, was the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Gerald Fothergill had continued his valuable work of representing the Committee in the administration of the Society’s day to day affairs [866]. The following year (1920) Sherwood gave considerable time to the arrangement and labelling of the books and Annabella Rowan, supervised by Gerald Fothergill, began to make a much-needed card index by subject [867].
The arrangement adopted, as the Annual Report said, was basically topographical: 'England (under counties), Wales, Scotland and Ireland, Foreign Countries. Exceptions to this rule are the publications of the Learned Societies, and periodical publications, which will be found in their own series, e.g., British Record, Catholic Record, Harleian, Huguenot, The Genealogist, etc., and certain subjects grouped under their respective heads, such as Legal, Heraldry and Book-plates, Parish Registers, Poll Books, School and University Registers, Quakers, etc. Family Histories are under the names of respective families, and other items, not included in the above, under authors alphabetically' [868].
The abovementioned Lieutenant Hugh William Peel, better known in the 1930s as the comedian Gillie Potter, had become a Fellow of the Society in 1918 [869]. He lectured to the Society on 'Old Bloomsbury Square and its surroundings' on 24 April 1924. Arthur Guimaraens, who acted as Secretary to the Library Committee in 1919, had joined the Society in 1912 when a land agent's assistant and had been on various committees. Peel and Guimaraens are sometimes described as the Society's Honorary Librarians [870] but there is no evidence from the Annual Reports of their making any particular contribution after 1919. Guimaraens was also Honorary Secretary of the British Record Society and was often spoken of as a competent genealogist by Cregoe Nicholson, being elected a Fellow in 1955, but he resigned in 1957. The amusing but sometimes tediously garrulous Gillie Potter, still a well-known name and long interested in the subject, opened the Society's Jubilee Exhibition which I organised in 1961.
In May 1920 the Executive Committee approved a draft revision of some of the Articles but these were not registered or put into effect. In November that year it also agreed that the annual subscriptions of members should be increased to two guineas as from 1 January 1921. It also agreed in November that the life membership fee be increased to twenty guineas, but the Committee unfortunately omitted to register the necessary amendment to the Articles with the Company Registrar. The Committee apparently believed that it was entitled to vary the life membership fee in the same way as it could the annual subscription and from 1921 until 1962, when a most unpleasant argument developed, it was the practice for the fee charged to be ten times the annual subscription. In 1929 there was a further suggestion that the fee be related to the applicant’s age and calculated on an actuarial basis but this was not agreed.
Annabella Rowan unfortunately gave up the post of Secretary on 7 September 1921 in order to take on professional genealogical work [871]. She became a member of the Society in 1928 and although she had a severe accident in 1954, she continued to work and was elected a Fellow in 1955, coming to see Lord Mountbatten elected President in 1957. She died aged 85 on 17 February 1960 [872].
Her successor as Secretary, Miss E. Hutchinson [873], was appointed in October 1921. Over the next seven years whilst she was Secretary the membership rose from 420 to 750 and, as mentioned below, the library expanded to fill all the rooms on the first floor. Its cataloguing had continued throughout the year and the general works by Subject were finished and those under Counties commenced [874]. The steady progress was maintained in 1922 when the Parish Registers and Topographical sections were also catalogued. The number of cards written was about 7,000 and it was then said that the catalogue had 68 divisions, the more important being America, Bibliography, Biography, Church, Directories, Family History, Heraldry, Ireland, Manuscripts, Monumental Inscriptions, Nonconformist, Parish Registers, Pedigrees, Periodicals, Records, Scotland, Societies, Text-Books, Topography, Visitations, Wales and Wills [875].
With the growing pressure on space it was decided in late 1922 that some duplicate books should be sold and these were marked at low prices to ensure a ready sale and placed on a table in the Index room. Amongst them were a number of printed parish registers at five shillings each. These were listed in Quarterly Queries but a year later exchanged for other registers to complete gaps in series [876]. In 1923, with the acquisition of a further room at Bloomsbury Square, the parish register collection was hived off and placed in special bookcases there for greater ease of consultation [876]. There was an attempt in June 1924 to reactivate the Committee on Monumental Inscriptions, inspired (if I remember correctly) by Cregoe Nicholson, and an appeal for further transcribers was sent out with the Magazine. Its suggestion that a duplication of work did not matter would not, I think, have inspired potential transcribers.
With the growth in membership and visitors after the First World War the ‘necessity for more space’, as Lord Farrer said at the ‘poorly attended’ Annual Meeting on 27 June 1923, ‘had been pressed upon their attention’ [878] and later that year the Society took and furnished most of the remainder of the first floor at Bloomsbury Square, including an elegant panelled room with floor-to-ceiling windows, some twenty-four feet by seventeen, which had been the drawing room and then (but not now) had a very fine mantelpiece. This room, overlooking the Square, housed the heraldic and Scottish material [879]. It seated about sixty people and the Quarterly Meetings were now held there, extra chairs being hired in for the purpose [880], a further appeal for donations of chairs being made. However, the cost of this much-needed space was a severe strain on the finances, the rental being £160 a year and Sherwood himself paid for an appeal to be printed and circulated with the Magazine [881]. The publication of a new membership list was contemplated that year but a new list was not actually published until 1936 [882].
By the end of 1926 the membership had reached 720 and in the course of that year the Society decided to acquire the lease of a small room between those already held (today a kitchen) and thus to occupy the whole of the first floor of the Bloomsbury Square house. This enabled the rearrangement of the library and document collection. The drawing room, called the East room, was re-shelved and fitted up as the main library and the West room allotted to the Great Card Index. The doors between the rooms were opened up so that the whole area was now self-contained. The total rent and cleaning bill that year came to £402-16-10 [883]. Elsewhere in the building at this time was the office of the English patriotic society the Royal Society of Saint George which had been founded by Howard Ruff in 1894 and which at his death in 1928 had more than 25,000 members in a hundred branches worldwide.
Those who visited the Genealogists’ rooms frequently commented on the pleasant scholarly atmosphere of the old house and of the view over Bloomsbury Square. The Evening News in 1925 referred to the ‘courteous and patient staff working methodically in an old-world atmosphere of peace and quiet’ but wrote of the ‘Palace of Hope’ where the undue hustle of the American visitors was the genealogist’s worst enemy [884]. The article mentions a story which appeared in several papers about a young lady from Boston who was anxious to have her descent traced from ‘Pharaoh’s daughter’. One supposes that this has something to do with the surname Farrar which sometimes appears in that spelling but one wonders if anyone told her that the phrase was also used to describe a courtesan! In a more detailed and illustrated article the following year the same newspaper wrote of people climbing the picturesque staircase full of hopeful family pride and descending them crestfallen as a result of the discoveries made [885]. An interview given by a Society member, almost certainly George Sherwood, to the Nottingham Evening Post the following year calls genealogy ‘a somewhat expensive luxury’ and remarks on the numbers who came not thinking that the chances were that they came from ordinary plebeian stock. If they found no trace of royal blood or nobility, he said, ‘people are usually most disappointed – even resentful’ [886].
Not all was perfect in the rooms, however, and Mrs Blomfield wrote later that Hart Street was ‘both dirty and noisy, and the Lectures either took place in an atmosphere which was most unhealthy due to closed windows, or else in a din of passing traffic which rendered the Lecturer inaudible except to the first two rows!’ [887]. The novelist Anthony Powell (1905-2000), who joined the Society in 1926, wrote much later that ‘The accommodation was decidedly cramped for the number of people who did research, and books and papers were unavoidably in rather a muddle too, owing to lack of space’ [888].
These rooms at 5 Bloomsbury Square, occupied by the Society from 1914 to 1933, were renovated in 2006 when the house was purchased (for £1.5 million) by the Russian Cultural Centre and renamed Pushkin House. I first visited it in 2009 for a quite fascinating and moving production by the Walking Thoughts Theatre Company of Marcelle Maurette's play Anastasia in a new version by Kate Sellers and Andrei Vironov which took place in the former West Room, a very clever and effective use being made of the doors onto that fine central staircase.
One of the Society’s committees that failed during the First World War after a short but active period was that on School Registers. Mrs Annie Florence Pitcairn Aman (nee West; died 1939, aged 78), who had joined the Society in February 1913, had been elected Secretary to the Committee on School Registers later that year. She worked on the Index and Library Committees and sent circular letters to many of the older public and grammar schools to collect information about their registers. A small collection of printed registers was also thus begun [889].
After the War, Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh (1872-1961), who was working on the Eton school registers, spoke to the Society in 1919 on 'Editing a school register' [890] and described their genealogical value, urging their editing with care and on some systematic plan. Austen-Leigh, a great-great-nephew of the novelist Jane Austen [891], was himself an Eton scholar and after taking classics at Cambridge had worked for a time as a Clerk in the House of Commons but had then gone into the family printing business. In later life he was President of the Bibliographical Society and of the Huguenot Society. He had joined the SoG in 1918 and was elected a Fellow in 1919. He edited two volumes of the Eton College Register, 1698-1752 (1927) and 1753-1790 (1921) but is probably best known as co-author of a Life and letters of Jane Austen (1913). He resigned his membership in 1938.
The editors of school registers, conducting wide correspondence, were some of the best known genealogists of their day and we certainly owe a debt to their labours. Mentioned later are Sir Wasey Sterry who edited the early Eton College Register, 1441-1698 (1943), William Gun who edited that of Harrow School 1571-1800 (1934) and the very active John Beach Whitmore with his Record of Old Westminsters 1883-1960 and his assistance with the earlier two volumes in that series. A note by Geoffrey Radcliffe in the third volume calls Whitmore ‘the outstanding genealogist of his day’. The first list of transcribed or printed school registers held by the Society was printed in the Magazine in 1929 [892].
The Society's President, Lord Raglan, was a first cousin of the Ladies Mary and Margaret Lygon, both close friends and in the Household of Queen Mary, and in June 1919 on Lord Raglan's return to England from the Isle of Man, Queen Mary agreed to become the Society's Patron. George Sherwood later recalled that he 'conferred with Lord Raglan, who induced H.M. Queen Mary' to accept the position [893].
The Queen was well known for a passionate interest in the history of her family and it became a guiding factor in the later years of her life when she continually added pictures and objects of family interest to the Royal Collection. Her interest had been fuelled by her mother, a granddaughter of George III, and fed by her aunt Augusta, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who had attended the Coronation of William IV in 1831 and did not die until 1916 [894]. In 1948 Queen Mary told the Librarian at Windsor Castle that she was the last of the family 'who has a good memory of what the family in 1874 looked like'; she was only seven that year but whenever they visited her mother she had, as she wrote, 'a good stare to take them all in' [895].
Queen Mary remained the Society's Patron until her death in 1953 but never visited its rooms and her intention to come to the 25th anniversary exhibition in 1936 was sadly frustrated by the death of the King. She did, however, take an interest in its activities and at one stage was sent specially bound copies of the Annual Report. She gave some sets of periodicals to the Library and I remember being very amused when later finding that one nicely bound set of something had been placed in store and replaced on the shelves with a not so nice set that she had given, just in case she should call and expect to see it there!
Lord Raglan was the Society's President for eight years. He lived at Usk in Monmouthshire and on the Isle of Man, where at one stage he had 25,000 German internees in his charge, but he took a keen interest in the welfare of the Society and was 'a fairly regular attendant' on its various committees. Having been in indifferent health for some years, he died on 24 October 1921, aged 64 [896]. The Revd Leonard Hoopell and the Revd Dr Charles Moor represented the Society at his memorial service at Wellington Barracks [897] and the new Lord Raglan gave some ninety-seven books from his father’s collection, including many visitations, to the Society [898].
The early death of the meticulously careful Marquis de Ruvigny (1868-1921), who had joined the Society in 1915, was also noted as 'a great loss to Genealogy' in the Annual Report for 1921. Melville Henry de Massue who styled himself, it seems improperly [899], Marquis of Ruvigny and Raineval, is best known for the five volumes of his The Blood Royal of Britain and The Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal (1903-11), The Jacobite Peerage (1904) and The Titled Nobility of Europe (1914), but he had earlier been a most ardent and controversial Jacobite legitimist [900]. Horace Round thus considered him ‘a charlatan’ [901] but the Society’s Annual Report said that he was 'a most industrious worker, and, of his many publications, the ambitious attempt to collect all the living descendants of Edward III was a monumental undertaking' [902]. Ruvigny's fellow genealogist, the amusingly provocative and outspoken journalist Oswald Barron (1868-1939), in 'To-days Gossip' in The Evening News, had thought that working on this 'monstrous pedigree' would keep any genealogist 'serenely happy' and it was thus a 'harmless folly', just like, he wrote, the 'hideous craft of fretwork' or the 'precious trash' of the stamp collector! [903].
Early in 1920 the Society received from the historian Cardinal Gasquet (1846-1929), through the good offices of the Revd E. Horne, the papers of the Hampshire antiquary Francis Joseph Baigent of Winchester (died 1918, aged 87), relating to about six hundred Hampshire families [904]. Baigent, a keen genealogist from his teenage years and 'the best man in that county for record work' [905], was a godson of Lady Arundell of Wardour, the aunt of Roger Tichborne, whom he knew well, and he was amongst the first to meet the impostor Arthur Orton, who claimed to be Roger, in 1866. Baigent, described as precious, shrill, disingenuous and a busybody, became one of Arthur's warmest supporters and took a prominent part in the famous trial that, turning on the proof of Arthur Orton's identity, was of great interest to genealogists. I have often quoted a comment by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Coleridge, who, when Arthur Orton was asked, 'Were you born in June 1834?', intervened to say, 'I don't think a man can know when he was born' [906]. However, after the first civil trial found against Orton in 1872, Baigent was said to be ‘in an exhausted and wretched condition, broken in health and spirits’ [907] and he took no part in the later criminal trial.
Much of the Society's growth and prosperity in these years was undoubtedly due to the hard work of the Secretary, Miss Hutchinson, and I am sorry not to have any personal details about her but, as with her predecessor, her duties were as much librarian as office assistant and she was always ready to welcome inquirers and to show them how to use the books and card index to best advantage. From 1921 she had the help of her eventual successor, Agnes Webb, and in 1925 the Society was able to pay £178-16-6 in salaries. Together they were busy on most fronts and the Society had a continual stream of press publicity, the library sometimes being advertised in the personal column of The Times (3 lines for nine shillings in 1922). Its meetings, from 1922 often with Lord Farrer in the chair, and its major Magazine articles were regularly reviewed there and in other newspapers, sometimes at considerable length.
When I first went to the Society some years after these events the story was told that Gerald Fothergill took pleasure in reading those Acts of Parliament that might lead to the creation of records and then making enquiries to see if the records had survived. In this way he found mention of an Act of 1710 that introduced a tax on apprenticeship indentures, made enquiries, and located the records in the basement at Somerset House. The story gained much valuable publicity for the Society in 1921 [908] when it launched a campaign to transcribe and index these 'Apprentices of Great Britain'.
Gerald Fothergill told the Morning Post that year that he had known about the records since 1910 [909] but it was not until December 1914 that he first formally applied to look at them, writing to Samuel Ellison Minnis (1882-1971), then a young Committee Clerk from Ireland in the Secretary's Office of the Board of Inland Revenue, who had described them briefly to the Royal Commission on Public Records in a submission in June 1913 [910]. As a reference Fothergill gave the name of Hubert Hall, the prominent Keeper at the PRO and indeed Secretary of the Commission [911]. Samuel Minnis replied that 'there are numerous volumes and no facilities for examining them in the place where they are kept, [and] it would be a great convenience if you would let me know in advance when you wish to call and for what period you would like to see the records, so that I might have the proper volumes readily accessible'.
Subsequently the Society sent a deputation to Somerset House to see if it could persuade the authorities to allow the books to be more easily consulted and as a result, in August 1920, these valuable records, believed at the time to relate to a million children, were transferred to the Public Record Office. The Society considered them of such importance that it voted £100 towards indexing them on slips. By March 1922 the three lady workers were producing about 3,000 slips a week and members were asked to contribute to the cost but by June progress had to be curtailed (to about 500 slips a week) though by the end of the year the members had subscribed almost £75 and 82,350 slips had been written [912]. The slips were fortunately kept in a separate series and not filed in the Consolidated Index [913].
The apprenticeship tax related to the whole of the British Isles. Its records run to 1804 and give the name of the child's father up to about 1752. Unfortunately a premium was not normally paid when an apprentice was bound to his father or to some other relative and the premiums of parish and charity apprentices were not taxed, so the records are far from complete. The Society organised the writing of index slips and their typing to 1774, but completed the indexes to the names of masters to 1762 only. Volunteer members sorted the slips into order prior to typing and the helpful Duncan Moul, who had been slipping the Bunhill Fields burials, 1823-54 [914], but unfortunately died in July 1927, was responsible for a large part of the early work. Moul was badly missed [915] but his place in the task of sorting was taken by Mrs Grace Hart (died 1950) [916], who had joined in 1924, and who later compiled the Register of Merchant Taylors School (1561-1934) where her husband was Secretary and Bursar.
It was a slow process, but by 1932 slips had been written to 1766 and a 'First Series' of the index to 1762 typed as far as 'Minn' in twenty volumes [917], an index to the names of the masters in the first five volumes having been completed the previous year. By 1935 the index to 1762 (with its 255,000 entries) had been typed as far as 'Smith' in 27 volumes, but the slips for the 'Second Series', 1762-1774, which came in at a rate of 1,000 a month, remained incomplete and largely unsorted. The index of masters in the first twenty volumes had also been typed [918]. The typing of the First Series was completed in 33 volumes in the summer of 1936 when the slips to 1774 were also ready for typing [919], the first typed volume being produced the following year [920].
It was surprisingly not until 1994-5 that the remainder of the masters to 1774 were indexed by a group of volunteers. The less useful registers from 1775 to 1804 remained un-indexed and involved lengthy searches until they were digitised by Ancestry.co.uk in 2011.
In spite of his health problems Fothergill had many irons in the fire. He started indexing the Defendants in Chancery 1714-58 and completed the first nine volumes, for which he charged one penny per reference, with a minimum charge of 3s 6d [921]. As well as writing two volumes for Bernau’s Pocket Library he had also compiled from Treasury records found in the PRO A list of emigrant Ministers to America 1690-1811 (1904) giving details of 1,200 ministers and schoolmasters who had received a bounty to travel [922]. That same year, advertising his work, he had put out a leaflet From whom are you descended or have you the right to use Arms? He transcribed the apprentices in the records of the Paviours' and Cutlers' Companies and, again as we have seen, spent much time in the early days of the Society in sorting slips for the Great Card Index. He died after a lengthy illness on 30 November 1926 [923] and was succeeded in his business and, indeed, in his direct and delightfully forthright approach by his stepdaughter Phyllis Shield (1896-1968) whom I knew well [924].
Lord Raglan's successor as President, Thomas Cecil (Farrer), 2nd Lord Farrer (1859-1940), elected on 15 June 1922, was a committed genealogist and antiquary. His father the 1st Lord Farrer who died in 1899 was descended from the Farrers of Eawood, Halifax, and had been a barrister and permanent Secretary to the Board of Trade [925]. He himself was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. As well as being President, Lord Farrer was unusually also elected a member of the Executive Committee [926] and he regularly presided at lectures and meetings, often using the library and collections and frequently contributing to them. He held the office for eighteen years until his death in 1940. It was initially a fruitful period in the Society’s history but latterly his extreme conservatism and Mrs Blomfield's not always welcoming attitude did not inspire the growth in membership that might have been expected.
The original Fellows, as we have seen, paid a higher subscription for the privilege of borrowing printed books and being informed about material on their 'interests' that came into the Library. To the outsider, of course, Fellowship implied that these persons were in some way more 'qualified' than the ordinary members. That idea slowly grew within the Society but no definition of their 'qualification' was attempted until 1979 and this lack of clarity in the Society's constitution caused many problems.
At a meeting of the Fellows held in August 1913 it was agreed that other than in exceptional cases, members would not be elected Fellows until they had been members for a year or had shown themselves valuable members [927], a self-imposed rule that was easily forgotten, particularly as a higher subscription was then due. At their meeting on 29 March 1922 the existing Fellow resolved that in future the names of those members wishing to be elected Fellows should be circulated in advance of the meetings and they were asked to send in their names before 15 August in each year, so that their applications might appear in the September issue of Quarterly Queries [928]. That, however, did not always happen.
The names of two who sought election were noted in September 1922 [929], but one of these 'desired to defer his candidature' [930]. Four more sought election early in 1923 [931] (not all being elected) and then two candidates put themselves forward from Canada and America in June 1923, when it was again stressed that 'Applicants should have some qualifications, such as having published a genealogical work, or done some signal service for the Society' [932]. That notice was repeated in September when there was one applicant [933] and in December it was noted that Lord Farrer would be proposed for Fellowship [934].
Early in 1924 it was announced that the name of Cregoe Nicholson would be put forward at a meeting on 27 March 1924 and it was said that, 'He has given valuable service to the Society as honorary Secretary of the Card Index Committee, and spent much time in organizing fresh workers on the Index'. At the same time it was said that Duncan Moul 'sought election' as a Fellow, having arranged and sorted nearly 140,000 apprenticeship indexing slips and devoted much time to the advancement of the Society's interests [935]. Duncan Moul queried the difference in wording and Quarterly Queries then noted that he had not 'sought election', but that Fellowship had been 'conferred on him by the unanimous vote of the Fellows, in acknowledgment of his many valued services to the Society' [936]. That he thus had to pay a higher subscription for his honour was a point that was not addressed.
Although not all those whose names were published as having put themselves forward for Fellowship were elected, the system continued for some years and caused a measure of concern and unpleasantness, the self-imposed 'rules' being continually changed. At a meeting on 11 February 1926 when prior notice had been given of proposals to elect three Fellows (Dr Arthur Adams, Percival Boyd and Geoffrey White) [937] and the name of Dr Theodore Thomson was brought up at the last minute, it was agreed, when all four had been elected, 'That Candidates for election as Fellows of the Society of Genealogists shall, in future, be proposed and seconded by Fellows or Members of the Society, and the Nominators shall state the grounds on which they consider that the Candidate merits election, which shall be entered in a book to be kept by the Secretary' [939]. Those present again overlooked the fact that the constitution did not allow nominations from Members.
In February 1929 the Revd Thomas Dale, then Chairman of the Executive Committee, wrote to the Morning Post suggesting that the minor scientific societies should follow the Society’s example and only elect to Fellowship, ‘after careful scrutiny …those who have made a real study of the subject’. He said that last year, for example, only two Fellows had been elected and that Fellowship could not be ‘bought with money and represents a real distinction’ [940]. He reverted to the subject at a meeting of the Fellows on 18 December 1932 when he said that too many Fellows were being elected and that the value of Fellowship was in danger of being diminished. He proposed that in future the number of Fellows should not exceed one tenth of the total membership. Only eleven Fellows attended the meeting, but the motion was carried, though two abstained and two dissented [941]. The proposal, again not being in the constitution, could not, of course, bind any future meeting.
In May 1916, at the end of a talk about 'Anglo-Irish Genealogy' the Revd Henry Denny, a founder Fellow and expert on county Kerry who served on the Executive Committee from 1913 to 1933, had voiced his relief that the precious contents of the Dublin Public Record Office had 'come through the recent rising comparatively unscathed'. He had said that, 'When the Four Courts were seized by the Sinn Feiners, books and bundles of documents from the Record Office were used to form barricades. But the majority of the valuable documents, though much tossed about, have not been seriously damaged. Some bundles of wills were thrown out into adjoining streets and were taken away by the residents, not so much, it is thought, as "loot", but rather as curious souvenirs of the rebellion. When these people learned that the authorities were once more in possession of the Record Office many of them brought these documents back to their custodians, and it is hoped that any others taken away will also eventually be returned' [942].
However, after the War the news from Ireland was terrible indeed. Sir Arthur Vicars (1864-1921), a diligent researcher and scholarly writer, best known for his index to the Prerogative Wills of Ireland [943], a Vice-President of the Society, who as Ulster King of Arms and Principal Herald of Ireland, had done much for the Irish Office of Arms in succession to Sir Bernard Burke from 1893, but who had been sadly dismissed for negligence in 1908 following the theft of the Irish 'Crown Jewels' from a safe in his office [944], was brutally murdered by a local band of the IRA outside his burning home on 14 April 1921 [945]. A year later on 30 June 1922 the Four Courts complex in Dublin, which included the Public Record Office of Ireland and had been used for storing ammunition by the 'irregular' anti-Treaty forces, was bombarded and burnt to the ground [946].
There was an immediate rush to collect Irish material and our member William Henry Welply (1886-1960) of Rantarlard, Whitehouse, Belfast, gave a large collection of abstracts of Irish wills [947] to which he added over the next twelve years until there were eighteen typescript volumes, known as Irish Wills and Pleadings 1569-1859. Their value was considerably increased when Monnica Stevens, with my encouragement and assisted by the Computer Group, organised a composite every-name index to all the volumes in 1985-7 [948]. Welply was interested in the family and descendants of Edmund Spenser and lectured to the Society on that subject in October 1922 and again about the little-known artist George Chinnery in 1925.
In 1924 the Society commenced a small advertising campaign by placing various notices in the personal column of The Times, Country Life and even in the Boston Evening Transcript. It seems also to have targeted some newspapers with short articles about its work and indexes. A short note in the Evening News early in 1925 saying that it had ‘full records’ of two million different surnames [949] produced, as George Sherwood carefully noted, some 120 inquiries. In July 1925 Sherwood made a ‘comprehensive search’ of the Society’s collections for the Daily Chronicle in connection with the death of William Newton Shansfield, a Parliamentary journalist, who had claimed, it appears correctly, to be the last bearer of that surname as only likely variants of the name were found [950].
The search for a pedigree has, since the nineteenth century at least, been something associated with the American visitor to the British Isles. A typical piece of snide journalism based on this belief appeared in the Morning Post in the summer of 1924: 'Pedigree hunting, always a favourite sport in the United States, is exceptionally attractive to Americans in London just now, and has brought a little ripple of badly-needed "affluence" to the pathetic folk who work at cataloguing and philological and general research in the British Museum Library to the order of chance patrons. For the really good pedigree, your American business man pays a really good price, and many of his hearty and optimistic kind are to be seen in the library of the Society of Genealogists in Bloomsbury-square, seeing what can be done for them. Needless to say, the Society does not manufacture pedigrees. But it discovers them sometimes' [951].
Two years’ later the Daily Mail, apparently prompted by someone at the College of Arms, warned the growing number of American visitors that although it was a praiseworthy instinct that made people interested in their ancestors, ‘pedigree hunting’, if a fascinating pursuit, was also one requiring much labour and great expert skill, and that it was scarcely surprising to hear that every year numbers of Americans returned home with imposing but bogus pedigrees prepared for them by unscrupulous persons, more interested in fees than in precision. The American visitor, the newspaper’s Leader said, who was provided at short notice by an obliging stranger with a complete and splendid account of his family would be well advised to treat it with a good deal of scepticism [952].
In August 1924 it was agreed to drop the 'of London' from the name of the Society, something that was even reported in The Times [953], and to expand the series of Quarterly Queries into a quarterly journal, The Genealogists’ Magazine. Notice of the change of name was given in the penultimate issue of Quarterly Queries and made at an Extraordinary Meeting on 12 September 1924, being confirmed at another meeting on 26 September [954] A new seal was consequently required and cost the Society £3-17-6 [955].
The decision to publish The Genealogists’ Magazine was taken, as previously mentioned, following the demise of the old periodical The Genealogist in 1922. Its first issue appeared in April 1925 [956]. It was originally proposed to acquire the rights to The Genealogist and to continue that as the journal of the Society, but it was finally decided to make a fresh start [957], the President, Lord Farrer, writing in the first issue that 'a permanent record of pure Genealogy will aid the sister crafts of History and Heraldry'. The Revd Henry Denny (1878-1953) [958], a member of the Executive Committee from 1913 to 1933, had agreed to be the first editor.
Henry Denny had joined the Society in 1911 and given a lecture on Irish records in 1916. He came from a long line of Members of Parliament for county Kerry where an ancestor had been granted Tralee Castle and 6,000 acres by Queen Elizabeth I [959], but he also held several appointments in England. He remained editor whilst Rector of West Wickham, Kent (1925-30), succeeded his cousin as 7th Baronet in 1928 and edited the Magazine until the June issue in 1931, when he became much more active in Church affairs and moved to Surrey [960]. He wrote many articles as well as a History of the Denny family of Tralee (1911) and Some pedigrees of Denny (1927). With him on the Editorial Committee were the Welsh expert Leoline Jenkins Griffith and Cregoe Nicholson [961] who sometimes acted as Editorial Secretary [962] and did the general correspondence.
The Genealogists’ Magazine, which was free to members and 1s 6d an issue to non-members, was given a yellowy-orange cover so that it might stand out, Nicholson used to say, on a bookstall, though I fear that it rarely if ever appeared on one. The colour, however, was destined for use on most of the Society's publications for the next sixty years, becoming orange for the National Index of Parish Registers and, in its extreme form as a particularly bright yellow ('vile yellow', as I then described it), on the exhibition boards prepared for the first Family History Fair in 1993. Duncan Moul's early drawing of a tree for the Company Seal was elaborated for the new cover by Charles Winckworth Allen, of Rathmines, co. Dublin [963]. His design also had a long life, lasting until the re-vamp in 1961.
With the advent of the quarterly Magazine the names of the new members elected during the year, obituary notices, lists of the main accessions to the library and the quarterly queries that had formerly been issued as a separate pamphlet appeared in its pages and the need for a less detailed Annual Report became apparent, it being reduced from a nicely produced 12-pages with cover to a single folded sheet in 1929, a format that the Annual Reports retained until 1975.
The new Magazine gave a boost to the Society but there were serious initial problems, not always with the printers, causing havoc with the accounts. All the first year's issues were delayed, that for December 1925 carrying news of events that had taken place the previous February [964] and the Annual Report for 1926 had to admit, but without explanation, that only one of the four intended issues had appeared [965]. A copy of the December 1926 issue that I have has been annotated by one irate member, 'Delivered 21 Dec 1927'! Problems and delays continued to distort the accounts into 1928 [966]. By 1933, however, the Secretary was able to refer to the Magazine’s appearance ‘with its usual punctuality’. By then it had 75 non-member subscribers, a goodly sum was being received from advertisers and, an important by-product, the number of books being received and reviewed had greatly increased [967].
In 1925 the wireless had for the first time invaded the domain of genealogy and Edward Le Breton Martin (1873-1944), the author of books on scouting and a history of Westbury in Buckinghamshire gave a talk entitled 'Mystery, History and the Family' which The Listeners' Library published as Family Foundations: a concise guide to genealogical research for the beginner (1s 1d including postage). A review in the Magazine said that the author pointed out 'the charm and value of genealogy and heraldry' and indicated briefly how the study of these subjects might be begun and carried out [968].
Following the demise of The Genealogist some doubted that another periodical would succeed. The old record-printing quarterly Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica founded in 1866, and now with an annual subscription of 15s 6d, was still appearing and in spite of financial losses continued to do so until 1938, from 1915 under the proprietorship and editorship of Arthur William Hughes Clarke (1873-1953) an interested and wealthy printer who lived at Wimbledon [969], Sherwood wrote privately in 1940 that ‘Misc Gen’ had done magnificent work and that all lamented its demise, but that its reviews were written by the office boy! [970].
The September 1925 issue of The Genealogists’ Magazine contained an interesting quotation from a letter that the Editor had received from the great Horace Round, who had been approached as a possible contributor, saying that, 'It has been proved to be most difficult to keep a really good genealogical magazine going, and the fact is, that hardly any care for the study of any family history but their own' [971]. It was a view that many shared, the genealogical bore being regarded as the greatest bore of all, and it remained a widespread view until the pedigrees of persons marrying into the Royal Family, politicians, and in this century of other celebrities became fair game for journalists.
Of course there were exceptions and the suggestion, in a lecture to the Society on 16 December 1933 by Lieut.-Colonel C. P. Hawkes that the father of the late Lord Birkenhead (F. E. Smith) was of pure gipsy descent on both sides, received much publicity with articles in The Times [972],The Observer [973] and Daily Telegraph [974], though Birkenhead’s sister, Lady Eleanor Smith, was not so certain. The attendance at these monthly lectures had more than doubled since the removal from Bloomsbury Square [975] and by 1935 was generally about fifty.
In 1938 Anthony Wagner stirred up something when he showed in the Magazine that the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, was nineteenth in descent from Edward I, sharing the first eleven generations with the American president John Quincy Adams [976]. The article was mentioned in several newspapers. George Sherwood told the Birmingham Post that thirty years earlier he had done work on the Chamberlain male line at Lacock for the Premier’s father, Joseph Chamberlain, and that he had a mass of material on the surname [977]. However, the editor of Truth wrote (and the Bristol Evening Post copied), ‘I can imagine nobody more indifferent to blue-blooded ancestors than Mr Chamberlain, unless it were the great Joe himself, who indeed used to wax furiously ironical on the subject of the flaneur descendants of kings. I am rather surprised that the Society of Genealogists and Mr Wagner (who is a man of learning) should stoop to this kind of tomfoolery, and that The Times should subsequently have given countenance to it’. The radical Truth concluded that proof that the reigning monarch was amongst half a million ancestors nineteen generations ago was of no more interest or importance than proof that one of the others was hanged for felony [978].
However, in the 1920s the editor Henry Denny quickly found that, if he excluded accounts of particular families and record material, there was a shortage of good articles. His own interests lay in the gentry and he published a regular record of the sale of portraits and did so for some years. However, an early issue, for June 1925, was notable for the publication of the first part of an article by Revd Henry Isham Longden on the 'History of the Washington Family', beautifully illustrated by Duncan Moul. Denny also published many reviews, including several of Irish interest, and in the first year, some 143 queries. He persuaded Horace Round, 'notwithstanding his very great infirmity and suffering' [979], to contribute an article to the June 1926 issue about his edition of the Colchester Free School register in the course of which he made the remark quoted above that 'Love of genealogical study is an inborn quality'.
Denny worked with Leoline Griffith (to June 1932) and Cregoe Nicholson (to March 1930) but they were clearly not altogether happy in their task, being under pressure to speed up production and to overtake the arrears. The Magazine’s editorial in September 1926 gave a long account of what was involved in its production and shows that at that time the three of them were responsible for its every aspect. As well as keeping up-to-date details of the members' addresses and invoicing non-members, they compiled the lists of accessions and queries, organised the advertising and soliciting of books for review, hand addressed and packed the envelopes (with any inserts) and stamped and posted them. 'We venture, therefore', they wrote, 'to express the hope that our readers will try to refrain from any unnecessary criticism, giving us, rather, all the forbearance and practical help possible' [980].
The committee of three was strengthened in June 1927 by the addition of Thomas Arthur John Pile (1874-1947) [981], an active member since 1915, who was Assistant Editor for a year only to June 1928, and then in March 1928 by William Townsend Jackson Gun (1876-1946) [982], another county Kerry man, trained for the Bar, editor of the Harrow School Register (1934) [983], interested in eugenics, as discussed below, and the author of Studies in hereditary ability (1928). Another member of the editorial committee (from March 1928 to June 1936) was the Founder-Fellow and Lancashire antiquary, Colonel John Parker, C.B. (1857-1938) [984], a Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries. The Revd Thomas Cyril Dale (1870-1937) a member since 1915 and former chairman of the Executive Committee joined them in March 1929. Henry Denny resigned as Editor in June 1931 but remained on the Editorial Committee until June 1933. Thomas Dale and William Gun were then Joint-Editors from September 1931 to February 1937, they being assisted by Colonel Parker (to June 1936), Dr Theodore Thomson (from September 1931 to June 1938), Ralph Jermy Beevor (1860-1937), a professional in the eastern counties [985] (from September 1931 to December 1933) and by Cregoe Nicholson who joined the Committee again in December 1933.
In 1932 the number of pages was increased from 44 to 48 and the Secretary, Kathleen Blomfield, was now obtaining the advertisements and increasing the income. She expressed the hope that 'if financial considerations permit, it may be possible to issue the Magazine in a larger and more attractive form' [986] but at the Annual Meeting in 1933 Thomas Dale said that this had not proved possible. The Magazine's appearance had been criticised and the Committee were anxious 'to present it in a more dignified form' but the Society could not afford to spend more on it even though it cost so little because of the income from advertisements. The cost of printing was then about ten shillings a page [987]. Dale repeated his comments in 1934 when the circulation was about 950 of which about a hundred were sold to non-members. The cost to the Society was only £54 a year. Not for the first or last time 'some objection was taken to the colour of the cover'! [988]. The Annual Report reveals that careful consideration had been given to producing the Magazine in a much larger format so that tabular pedigrees could be more adequately set out but that this idea had been shelved because of the costs involved. However, as the Annual Report also noted, the Magazine had attracted some 97 books for review, a valuable addition to the Library and a testimony to the standing which it had reached [989]. By 1935 it regularly contained 48 pages and in December, Kathleen Blomfield started a publicity campaign to try to get more public libraries to subscribe, claiming some encouraging results [990] and reporting at the end of 1936 that fifty libraries subscribed [991].
The senior Editor, Thomas Dale, was a man of considerable learning, universally popular and the soul of kindness. In 1931 the Society had given its name as publisher to his two volumes, Inhabitants of London 1638 which listed the 15,000 householders, though it had no monetary liability for the book, a useful arrangement from the publicity involved [992] though the stock was not exhausted until the 1960s. Dale's sudden death on 12 February 1937 'in the full flush of his activity' was a great loss to the Society [993] and the Annual Report recorded ‘deep sorrow at his untimely death’ [994].
William Gun then worked with his friend Byrom Stanley Bramwell, MA, LLB, TD (died 1948), who was Joint-Editor from March 1937 to December 1939, they together enlarging the Magazine to 56 pages in 1937 and (for two issues) to 68 pages in 1938. Bramwell was also interested in eugenics [995] and a noted speaker. He had been introduced to membership by Gun in 1932 and was Chairman of the Executive Committee, 1936-38 [996]. Other members of the Editorial Committee at this time were the medievalist Geoffrey H. White (from June 1937 to December 1938), Kendall Percy-Smith (from September 1938 to June 1940) and, for a very short time (March-June 1940), the playwright and author Herbert Wotton Westbrook (1881-1959) who had been on the editorial staff of the Globe newspaper.
The front-page editorial had been replaced by 'Notes and News' at the start of the new volume in March 1935. An index to the first sixteen numbers of the Magazine had been printed (250 copies) as an extra in October 1930, selling for 2s 6d [997]. Later indexes, compiled by Thomas Dale, continued to be published separately and to sell badly [998]. That for volume six (1932-4) also sold for 2s 6d and was thought indispensable for owners of complete sets [999]. Following the death of Dale in 1937 the index to volume seven (1935-7) was compiled professionally and did not appear until 1939 [1000]. It was then agreed to make volume eight a much smaller volume and to print its index (1938-9) as a major part of the December 1939 issue.
In 1937 the Society had produced for the first time a little folded card ‘Syllabus of Lectures’ for the coming winter season and this was produced annually until the War.
When English eugenicists came together again after the First World War, the pedigrees of 'social problem groups' constructed by Ernest Lidbetter which, unlike those collected by the similar eugenic movements in the United States and Germany paid no attention to the possible transmission of Mendelian traits, received searching criticism from the young statistician Roger Aylmer Fisher (1890-1962) who had now joined the Eugenics Education Society's Research Committee. As a result by 1923 funding for research that did not include statistical analysis dried up and Lidbetter's work which was beginning to be widely criticised [1001] came to an end with the publication of his Heredity and the social problem group (1933). The book contained 26 pedigrees, the first alone containing 387 individuals over seven generations of whom 204 had been in receipt of relief, but the promised analysis and further volumes never appeared. He had not modified his pre-War conclusions and now believed that, 'The best in civilization is the best biologically. What is therefore necessary today is attention to the problems of reproduction and its control'.
At the end of the year in which Lidbetter's funding dried up, William T. J. Gun, who had joined the SoG only a few months earlier, gave a talk to his fellow members on 'Hereditary ability as exemplified in certain genealogies', based on a study of the Dictionary of National Biography and designed to show the descent of positive traits. It was as weak in its scientific analysis as any Lidbetter pedigree. A report in The Morning Post the following day says that he concluded that while genius is rarely inherited, high ability persists for at least three or four generations and that it descends more through the father than the mother [1002]. An editorial in the same paper questioned the thesis, as did a sharp notice in the Westminster Gazette which thought that 'ability is handed on, but its expression may be inhibited by inheritance from the other side, and limited as well as directed by circumstances' adding that too little was known to say anything about 'genius' except that like 'sport' it appeared to arise from no adequate antecedents that could be readily identified [1003]. The amusing Oswald Barron as 'The Londoner' in the Evening News said that his mind was unsettled by all this talk of hereditary genius when the sons-in-law of bishops often held canonries and plump rectories. He reckoned that 'ability is wont to earn a better living than disability' and 'can give its children their regular meals, send them to a good school and push them handsomely out into life'. One did not need to ask questions of science, he wrote, to find out why ability should often be the child of ability [1004].
However William Gun, 'the last of the Guns of Rathoo' in county Kerry, who had taken History at Trinity College, Cambridge, and been called to the Bar, was elected to the Executive Committee of the SoG the following year (1924) and remained a member until 1946, being Chairman 1931-3 and editor of the Magazine 1937-42. He also served on the Council of the Eugenics Society from 1930 to 1946. Unabashed by the reception of his lecture, he enlarged on similar themes in his Studies in hereditary ability (1928), a book which was seen by some as a supplement to Francis Galton's Hereditary genius (1869) and a forerunner to the eugenicist Paul Bloomfield's Uncommon people: a study of England's elite (1955). In the book Gun discussed, without tabular pedigrees, descents in the female as well as the male line and the interlocked families involved, illustrating his account with many incidental anecdotes. He was, like Eric Lidbetter, highly selective and the book retains little reference value.
William Gun's interests are shown by his articles in the Magazine. He discussed direct female lines in history, the succession to baronies by writ and to the crown, the representatives of the Magna Carta barons, the oldest earldoms and their representatives and those Scotch peerages inheritable by females, and he provided a series of notes on successive generations in various fields. In a 1930 review of Charles Edward Banks’s The Winthrop Fleet of 1630 in which the majority of the emigrants listed came from the eastern counties, he had written, ‘The advocates of an almost purely Nordic origin for New England can in this connection point to the undoubted fact that the Eastern Counties are the most purely Nordic portion of Old England’ [1005]. His last paper for the Eugenics Review, in January 1938, was 'Haemophilia in the royal caste'. In the year in which he was Chairman, the SoG included in its Magazine a leaflet about the Eugenic Society's 'Pedigree Schedules' which consisted of an album of 'Individual Case Sheets', specimen charts and forms that aimed 'to provide educated persons with a means of conveying to their descendants a record of their ancestry', rather in the way that W. P. W. Phillimore had earlier recommended. The binder and forms were available for ten shillings but the idea did not catch on.
Meanwhile the Eugenics Education Society had, in 1926, changed its name to the Eugenics Society and between 1929 and 1934, when there was a fierce dispute between the environmentalists and the scientists (at the end of which Fisher resigned), it mounted a major campaign for voluntary sterilisation on eugenic grounds, eventually sponsoring a Bill introduced by the Labour MP for Wandsworth Central, Major Archibald Church, DSO, MC (1886-1954), 'to enable mental defectives to undergo sterilizing operations or sterilizing treatment upon their own application, or that of their spouses, parents or guardians'. The Bill was defeated by 167 votes to 89 at its Second Reading on 21 July 1931. The Eugenics Society's Education Secretary, Cora Hodson, had a year earlier been in touch about sterilisation with the subsequently notorious German psychiatrist and geneticist Ernst Rudin (1874-1952). It was, as Rudin later argued, little more than the science of the day, in which numerous geneticists around the world were involved [1006]. However, in England the accent now moved from sterilisation to birth control, the Eugenics Society ironically only surviving into the 1930s as the result of annual donations and a large bequest from Henry Twitchin (1869-1930), an Australian sheep farmer, who had believed in compulsory sterilisation of 'inferior types’ [1007]. That Society's membership, which was under 400 until 1925, was still less than 750 in 1939. Pauline Mazumdar, looking ahead, has suggested that 'the insistence on mathematisation and statistics led the movement as a whole in the direction of demography and population studies' [1008].
In 1932 William Gun had introduced to membership of the SoG another prominent member of the Eugenics Society, Byrom Stanley Bramwell (died 1948 aged 72) [1009], and he was a member of the SoG’s Executive Committee 1933-48 (Chairman 1936-8) and joint editor with Gun 1937-9. Byrom Bramwell, a son of Sir Byrom Bramwell (1847-1931), a prominent physician in Edinburgh, took law at Edinburgh University. He had joined the Eugenics Society in which several members of his family were involved in 1921 and was Treasurer 1929-33 and then a member of Council and Chairman until 1943. John Maynard Keynes was his contemporary on the Council, 1937-44. It was Bramwell when Treasurer who wrote, 'The subject of eugenics seems fertile in raising rows' [1010]. His few articles in The Genealogists’ Magazine included notes on the frequency of cousin marriages, span of life, genealogy and the Order of Merit, and surnames in Scotland, but he was interested in family investment trusts and had a career in London with Barclay and Fry Ltd, lithograph and letterpress printers.
The Society's former honorary librarian and co-editor of the Magazine 1931-8, Theodore Thomson, also had a lifelong interest in eugenics and joined the Eugenics Society in 1935, becoming a Fellow the following year. In 1935 the Eugenics Society had assisted with the compilation of the second edition of his Catalogue of British family histories and two years’ later in 1937, benefiting from these links with the SoG and as described below, the Eugenics Society exhibited its well-known pedigrees at the SoG’s Exhibition of Genealogical and Heraldic Records.
The possible existence of a published pedigree of any family was becoming more difficult to find as the years receded from the last edition of George Marshall's The Genealogist's Guide in 1903. After Marshall's death in 1905, Eric Geijer at the College of Arms had begun to collect material for a continuation of the Guide and this he passed to the London solicitor John Beach Whitmore (1882-1957) [1011] who, in the mid-1920s began to devote the greater part of his leisure to the task [1012], conducting a large correspondence and spending much time at the British Library, searching systematically through books and periodicals for printed accounts of families that contained information on any family for at least three generations in the male line. In view of the number of prospectuses and advertisements for projected family histories that were never published, Whitmore insisted on seeing all those he included in his forthcoming Guide and he bought dozens from booksellers, donating a stream of books to the British Library and to the Society.
Whitmore, the only son of a wealthy General Practitioner in Kensington, was a Major in the Queen’s Westminster Rifles who had served in France and Belgium throughout the First World War and was admitted a solicitor in 1920. By all accounts, however, he did little legal work, at least latterly, as his involvement in a wide spectrum of historical research grew apace. He had contributed his first note, on ‘chained books’, to Notes and Queries in 1912, and from 1920 onwards was a frequent contributor, mainly of biographical points and corrections, to its pages. By the time of his death in 1957 he had written upwards of 250 articles there and in The Elizabethan. In 1940, along with Hughes Clarke, he edited for the Harleian Society the London Visitation Pedigrees of 1664. He was a voracious reader and frequent corrector of other people’s books on a wide variety of subjects, even checking and correcting the fractional problems in R. W. Sloley’s chapter on science in Glanville’s The Legacy of Egypt (1942).
Apart from his work on the Guide and on the former pupils at Westminster School, Whitmore in 1922 began a correspondence with John Venn (1834-1923) and his son John Archibald Venn (1883-1958) the compilers of the truly remarkable Alumni Cantabrigienses, second only to the DNB as a biographical reference work, on which they had started work in 1907 and which attempted to identify the 140,000 students, graduates and office holders at Cambridge University from earliest times to 1900, the first two volumes of which (of four covering the period before 1751) were published that year.
These early volumes of the Alumni owed much to the skill of Florence W. S. Bloxham (1873-1939), the Venns’ principal assistant since 1915, who died suddenly in 1939 and who the younger Venn described as ‘one of the outstanding genealogists of her time’. Once their publication started in 1922, many well-known genealogists and editors of school registers contributed material to an Addenda placed at the end of the fourth volume and then to the more detailed six volumes covering the years 1752-1900 which appeared between 1940 and 1954. Much was contributed by the writer on cricket, Robert Langford Arrowsmith (1906-1988), who taught classics at Charterhouse and compiled the Charterhouse Register 1769-1872. In 1952 the younger Venn asked Whitmore, who was sending a stream of additions, if he would be willing to look through the proofs of the final two volumes prior to publication so that his additions could be incorporated at proof stage and Venn was later to write that their value and accuracy owed a very great deal to his vigilance and labour [1013]. These volumes appeared in 1953-4, but to the day he died Whitmore continue to send Venn further additions and corrections to add to the interleaved Alumni kept in the University Archives.
Whitmore was not just a proof reader. He was out and about checking additional sources all the time and he also gave casual employment to a surprising number of part-time professionals in the checking of parish registers and wills for his work on both the Guide and on the Record of Old Westminsters.
The results of Whitmore's labour on the Guide did not begin to see the light of day until 1949 but in 1928 the active Dr Theodore Radford Thomson (1897-1981) [1014], who was later Honorary Librarian of the Society, produced the first edition of A Catalogue of British Family Histories containing references to all those that he could trace. There were about 2,250 of them and the book sold for 7s 6d. With the assistance of the closely linked Eugenics Society, he produced a second edition in 1935 (all the profits going to the SoG) and forty years later, at my urging, a third in 1976 [1015]. With the support of the American Library Association this became something of a best seller and it was reprinted with an addendum by Geoffrey Barrow in 1980, when Thomson was 83. Thomson had insisted that his book contain only 'British' family histories and no amount of argument would persuade him to include any family of recent foreign origin, even the American ones being excluded, though a few appear in Barrow's addendum [1016].
The collection of parish register copies was always a priority for the Society and in August 1924 Percival Boyd very generously paid for the publication of the first list of the 2,500 in the Library entitled Catalogue of Parish Register Copies in the Society's Possession, an interleaved copy of which was sent to each member [1017], but the hoped-for printing of catalogues of other sections of the Library [1018] did not then materialise. The idea for the list may have come from the publication by Phillimore & Co the previous year (1923) of a list of the 1,400 parishes covered by their Marriage Register Series.
In September 1925 Percival Boyd made the first announcement of a project on which he was already working 'under the auspices of the Society' to compile the vast Marriage Index which today bears his name [1019]. He believed that one of the greatest difficulties in genealogical research was to find the record of lost marriages. His intention was to index all the available marriage registers by county in periods of twenty-five years and he commenced by making a slip index to the printed registers. To this he intended to add slips for the marriages in manuscript copies of registers and then to attempt to secure copies of the entries in registers that had not previously been copied. Finally he hoped to add entries from the Bishops Transcripts where the registers were lost or incomplete.
At the time of the announcement Boyd had already written slips for a hundred thousand marriages in four different counties and by early 1926 he had completed 213,000 slips. He was a business man engaged in the textile trade and he used to say that he had dreadful insomnia and that he needed some spare time occupation that would tire him out and so he started this index. The Society was then charging 2s 6d for any marriage found [1020] though at one stage whilst the Society was still at Bloomsbury Square he was putting out a little leaflet saying that a search could be made for a specific marriage for six pence and I received such a form in 1992 (when the postage alone was 24 pence), forwarded from the old address, with six penny stamps attached!
In 1926 Boyd used the Annual Report to thank the members who had helped with manuscript registers, and especially Phillimore and the Devon and Cornwall Record Society for allowing their transcripts to be included in the index [1021]. The first index volumes to appear on the shelves at the Society were those for Cornwall, 1538-1600, but by the end of 1927 some forty-four 25-year parts had been completed [1022].
In 1929, the index having reached nearly a million names, Percival Boyd had printed a list of all the parishes then covered, A marriage index on a new plan, and sent copies to every member of the Society. He made quite extraordinary progress. In the one year 1929 he added 46 volumes to the Index [1023], in 1930 the number was 27 [1024] and in 1931 it was 38, the Index then totalling 208 volumes and including about two and a half million names [1025]. In 1932 he added another 39 volumes [1026]. By 1934 the index had reached 283 volumes and had three million entries [1027].
Of course Boyd did not work alone and he wrote in 1932 that amongst all those who had helped in his scheme, the name of Norman Hindsley (1886-1966) was pre-eminent. Hindsley had become a member in 1924 and in five years indexed 200,000 marriages from the registers of 140 Yorkshire parishes. Boyd himself added 50,000 from another 60 registers and Hindsley sorted them together and had them typed to form the Yorkshire sections of Boyd's Marriage Index as they exist today. Hindsley allowed his membership to lapse when he went to Canada as a chartered accountant in the 1930s but I remember corresponding with him when he re-joined in 1961 and he died at Granby, Quebec, in 1966, aged 80 [1028].
Between September 1932 and July 1934 Boyd gave the forty volumes that he and his staff had completed for Suffolk to Ipswich Public Library and it was then reported that they contained every marriage in the county prior to 1753 (and many to 1837), including many from the licences as well as 20,000 marriages, 1563-1661, copied by Vincent Burrough Redstone (1853-1941; father of the Lilian Redstone mentioned above) from the Bishops’ Transcripts at Bury St Edmunds. Altogether there were 220,000 entries [1029].
Another man who made a great contribution was the Revd Evelyn Young (1866-1936), latterly Vicar of Colston Bassett, Nottinghamshire, who in November 1935 gave transcripts of some 130,000 marriages in Cambridgeshire, having covered the whole of the county except for a few parishes in the south east, supplementing the entries from the Bishops Transcripts at Ely. His copies were bound at the cost of the Society the following year when transcribers were being found to complete the remaining parishes. He died on 15 April 1936 [1030]. Similarly Herbert Maxwell Wood (died 1929), of Sunderland, chartered accountant, had done nearly all the work on the counties of Durham and Northumberland, he being the Secretary of the Parish Register Society for those counties.
By 1935 Boyd had completed 300 volumes with 3,561,400 names [1031] and by 1938 there were over four million entries from about 1,500 parishes and he was working on the miscellaneous volumes [1032]. Publicity about Boyd's obsessional work, which aimed to index a thousand names a day, greatly aided the Society and was frequently mentioned in the press [1033]. In January 1939 the Dundee Evening Telegraph said that at the present rate the index would be completed in 2024! [1034]. At 31 December 1939 it contained 5,611,000 entries [1035].
However, in March 1944 Boyd explained that additions to the typed volumes had been stopped by the War which 'had robbed him of his typists' [1036]. In March 1948 about 250,000 un-typed slips remained with Boyd at his home at Warlingham, Surrey [1037], and he was then working on slipping the 78 volumes of Phillimore's Marriage Series which had not been covered by the main Index, so that they could be included in a Miscellaneous Series [1038]. By the time of his death on 17 April 1955, aged 86 [1039], Percival Boyd had indexed the marriages in most transcribed registers and his Marriage Index contained over six million entries. The slips for the unfinished parts of the First Miscellaneous Series and additional slips for a Second Miscellaneous Series which he had also started to compile were bequeathed to the Genealogical Society of Utah, sorted into one series and subsequently typed in Salt Lake City as is mentioned below.
In March 1935 it was reported that Boyd, in cooperation with the College of Arms, was working on an Index of London Burials, 1538-1852, from easily accessible transcripts of burial registers and had so far typed to letter 'R' in twelve volumes, each of about 280 pages and containing 185,000 names. He had indexed the adult males only, mainly as an aid to finding their wills [1040]. By the time the Annual Report for 1934 was circulated, the finished work in 16 volumes, containing about a quarter of a million entries, had already been placed on temporary loan with the Society [1041] and they were purchased for a nominal sum in 1935 [1042].
The same Magazine (March 1935) reported under the heading 'A New Epoch in Genealogy', that the Executive Committee had agreed on 16 January to begin a collection of 'Family Units' on which, it was hoped, members would record details of complete family groups in a standard manner. Forms had been printed and were available and it was hoped to place the first completed volume on the shelves shortly [1043]. Fifty forms could be had for two shillings. The following June it was noted that six volumes had been compiled and that 'No way that has been invented up to the present can compare with this in making genealogical work accessible for other searchers' [1044]. In September it became clear that the man behind the idea was Percival Boyd and by then there were nine volumes of 'Boyd's Units' on the shelves [1045] and sixteen by the end of the year [1046]. However, the scheme did not catch on and was discontinued after forms for 34 volumes had been written, a collective index being compiled to the first 22 volumes. Some bound volumes of uncompleted forms were then sold off to interested individuals. Similar forms, known as 'Family Group Sheets', became very widespread in the United States, particularly after 1942 when a revised form became the basis of the Church Records Archives of the Genealogical Society of Utah [1047].
Since 1919 the Society had continued to send representatives to the annual Congress of Archaeological Societies at which the main record societies were also represented but there was a growing feeling that the proceedings of the Congress were overshadowed by the archaeologists and in June 1927 the Magazine’s editorial committee, led by Henry Denny, proposed to the Executive Committee that the time had come for the SoG to take a lead in arranging a special congress of record societies. He thought that co-ordination of methods, the avoidance of overlapping, some measure of uniformity in size and style, and the perennial problems of publicity and finance, would be subjects of mutual interest, strength coming from union [1048]. The suggestion was not acted upon and was overtaken by events with the formation of the British Records Association in 1932, though the Society’s membership of the annual congress of archaeological societies continued to be mentioned in its Annual Reports until 1928.
Conditions in the District Probate Registries with both their ancient and modern records, like those at Somerset House, were generally far from ideal. Their numbers had been reduced by amalgamation to twenty-five, but there often was 'neither accommodation for searchers nor any inducement to officials to give facilities for research'. The official view was that access might be allowed provided only that it was no 'impediment to the business of the registry'.
Following the Report of the District Probate Registries Committee in 1923, alterations were made to the jurisdiction of the local Registries in 1926 and their number was further reduced to twelve in 1928 (that at Hereford, where the wills had been tampered with during the Shipway frauds, was one of those closed). Lord Farrer persuaded the Society to write to the Lord Chancellor saying that although 'Wills are still by far the most important documents for establishing family records' yet they were dispersed in various counties and 'often difficult of access and kept at out-of-the-way places'. On behalf of the Society, he recommended that the ancient wills as well as the modern ones should be 'aggregated' at the proposed District Registries and indexed at the expense of the State. As so much had 'already been effected by voluntary effort', he concluded that 'this need not be a costly proceeding' and as 'Each of the 12 would of course have an Index of the others so that to discover the actual place of deposit of any particular Will would be easy as compared with the difficulties of to-day' [1049].
There spoke a very simple soul! The outcome was hardly as one would have wished. The Hereford wills went to Llandaff. Those from Lichfield, Northampton, Bedford and Worcester all went to Birmingham. The Canterbury wills, unwanted at the Principal Registry or the Public Record Office, were put in a redundant prison at Canterbury and were not available to the public. As Bethell Bouwens wrote about the latter ten years later, 'It is a pity the records & the official obstructionists cannot change places - the former being conveniently housed in London & the latter relegated to the empty prison' [1050]. He summarised the feelings of many genealogists when he wrote that the pre-1858 records 'ought at once to be centralised in not more than four depositories, - two, one in each province - would be even better, on grounds both of preservation & ease of access. District Registries are strictly business Departments, concerned with earning fees & do not want or welcome literary search as a rule; nor, generally, are the Registrars fitted by temperament or tradition to the custody of irreplaceable records' [1051].
The recommendations of the Local Records Committee in 1902 as to the deposit of registers and records were given further strength when in 1920 the Royal Commission on Public Records said that English parish registers should be deposited in a local centre or centres by some public authority, a recommendation unanimously welcomed by the Society at a meeting in October that year [1052] but stories about the neglect and destruction of registers continued. In 1925 a fire in Sutton church that had damaged the ‘archives and registers’ prompted Maurice Orlando Bridgeman, the Rector of Wakes Colne in Essex, to write to The Church Times about the paramount importance of having copies made (using Phillimore’s pamphlet Parish Registers, with suggestions for their transcription) and recommending that a copy be entrusted to the Society [1053]. He had copied his from 1549 to 1837, working two hours a day, in about a fortnight.
In 1927 a Committee of the Church Assembly concluded that the parishes would still generally desire to be the custodians of their own registers, but in order to prevent loss, neglect, or misuse, it suggested that there should be frequent and periodic occasions when they should be produced and compared with the list in the terrier or inventory, especially when a new incumbent was inducted and on the visitations of archdeacons or rural deans. The lists were to be signed in the presence of the churchwardens and other members of the parochial church council. Receipts were always to be given and remain with the parochial church council for any registers held away from the church or parsonage. If the inspection revealed a case of loss, neglect or ill usage, power was to be given to the bishop to order the removal of the registers to the diocesan registry or other central repository or to order the repair of a register at the cost of the parish. If the incumbent or parochial church council resolved that the registers had best be resigned into the keeping of the diocesan registry (or other local record office),the Bishop was to be empowered to give an order for their transfer. The search fees would still be paid to the incumbent, but the latter might be empowered to waive his fees ‘on being approached by historical students’. The county of Surrey became the first that year to publish a detailed list of its surviving registers [1054].
Details of the Church Assembly’s recommendations were printed in the Society’s Magazine without comment [1055] but the Parochial Registers and Records Measure in 1929 unfortunately put few of them into law, though importantly it did empower the bishops to establish one or more diocesan record offices at their diocesan registries or elsewhere into which registers might be deposited. A power to compel deposit in cases of neglect was also given though never, it seems, used.
However, also in 1929, largely through the initiative and influence of Ethel Stokes, the British Record Society, which until then had been concerned solely with the publication of indexes to records but had become very concerned at the widespread destruction of documents resulting from the break-up of landed estates and changes in the law of property which threatened the survival of title deeds and manorial records (in particular as a result of the Law of Property Act 1924 which came into force on 1 January 1926 and made the sale and transfer of land easier and cheaper and abolished copyhold tenure) [1056], decided to divide itself into two sections, one to continue the publication of indexes and the other, the Records Preservation Committee, to endeavour to save manuscripts from destruction and to place them in appropriate custody. With the approval of the Master of the Rolls and a grant from the Carnegie Trustees a large room was hired at 2 Stone Buildings, Lincolns Inn, and with Miss Atwood in charge, documents from all kinds of sources, chiefly the unwanted papers of solicitors, were collected, stamped, scheduled and distributed to the various approved depositories, by volunteer workers [1057]. By December 1935 the British Records Association, as the new organisation had become, had 340 individual members (at five shillings a year) and 160 institutional members [1058].
An editorial in the Society’s June 1930 Magazine noted with satisfaction the opening of new muniment rooms by the town Council at Guildford (with Surrey Record Society taking an active part in its management) and at Leicester, where Lord Hanworth (1861-1936; formerly Sir Ernest Pollock, created Lord Hanworth in 1926), the Master of the Rolls, said that it was ’reassuring to know that there is a place of deposit authorised and used in every county – thus proving that what was initiated by the manorial records has extended to the wider field of all records of interest in the county’ [1059]. Hanworth took a strong personal interest in his work, involving much contact with stewards of manors, solicitors and others, which, as the official history of the PRO says [1060], gave a real impetus to the study of local history and local records, the manorial material now becoming accessible to students in these approved places of deposit. The SoG’s Magazine encouraged its readers to add to the collections of documents in each county and in December it published a complete list of the places approved by the Master of the Rolls for the deposit of manorial records. In London these were the British Museum, the Society of Antiquaries, the Society of Genealogists and Hendon Central Library [1061]. Another article that year described the efforts of the Institute of Historical Research (attached to the University of London and founded in 1921) and the Congress of Archaeological Societies to build up a centralised record of the movement and acquisition of major groups of records and of the facilities for their consultation [1062].
In April 1931 Lord Hanworth opened a fine new county muniment room in the Shire Hall at Taunton that had been equipped by the Records Committee of Somerset County Council. Particularly concerned with the facilities for the preservation of manorial records since the 1924 Act, Lord Hanworth said that the rooms were the best that he had seen anywhere in the country. The chairman of the records committee who was also the president of the Somerset Archaeological Society, Sir Matthew Nathan, appealed for the deposit of other local records in private hands, but those of the church were not mentioned [1063]. Indeed, amongst the array of local notabilities present there was no representative of the Church of England. However, the Local Government Act, 1933, required County Councils from time to time to inquire into the manner in which the documents under the control of Parish Councils and Parish Meetings were kept, and Somerset became the first county to complete such a survey. The fine published work, completed with the co-operation of the church authorities, took Dr J. E. King three years to compile [1064].
In November 1933 a ‘Leader’ in The Times, taking its cue from criticisms by Professor Powicke at the first Annual Meeting of the British Records Association which had just taken place, criticised the variant fees in diocesan registries and cathedral muniment rooms and mentioned the proposals of the 1929 Measure to establish diocesan record offices [1065]. The Times thought that difficulties of finance had prevented the scheme from coming into action and recommended the example of Worcester where a disused church which might otherwise have been pulled down had been turned into a diocesan registry, though, as had been pointed out, the diocesan registrars had neither time nor training to act as archivists. However, as a result of the Measure some county record offices and large libraries such as the Bodleian Library at Oxford and Gloucester City Library were recognised as diocesan repositories. The loss and destruction of registers did not now cease but it was certainly slowing down.
One of the weaknesses of the Society’s ‘vast eternal plan’ of putting everything into one great slip index had encouraged some members to transcribe registers directly onto slips so that no independent transcript was created and one had to rely on the completeness of the index, a dangerous thing when slips were so easily misplaced and/or taken by searchers. In May 1927 James Howard gave a valuable slip index of the pre-1835 contents of the parish chest of Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, which was fortunately kept separately, but its contents, like those of the Great Card Index, were very vulnerable.
By the time of the second edition of Herbert Fowler's book on the care of county muniments in 1928 he was acknowledging the assistance at Bedford of an enthusiastic Clerk of the Records, the young Frederick ('Derick') George Emmison (1907-1995), who had commenced an apprenticeship to Fowler, the honorary director of the office, five years earlier. Derick Emmison joined the SoG in 1930 [1066] and described his work and accomplishments in The Genealogists’ Magazine in 1935 [1067].
Fowler and he were following the recommendations of the Local Record Committee of 1902. Between 1928 and 1934 Emmison visited every parish in the county to catalogue the records in the churches. Concurrently with the cataloguing, a few parishes began to deposit their records in the County Record Office. Following the Parochial Registers Measure and the Local Government Act, both in 1929, he had collected the insecure early registers of ten parishes and every known document relating to the relief of the poor in the county.
Emmison was wary of having the registers under the same roof as the bishop's transcripts but in 1930 he inaugurated a series of Bedfordshire Parish Registers in which the registers and transcripts were collated for printing and by 1935 ten volumes had been published containing the registers of 30 parishes prior to 1812. They were no money-spinners and caused much financial worry, not only to him, but also to the Society of Genealogists, for in 1937 the Society was embarrassed to find that it had spent £6 or a tenth of its total library budget on the series. Mrs Blomfield wrote that it was 'too high a percentage to devote to one county' and she unhelpfully suggested that he publish only one volume a year! The wonderful general indexes of names, particularly in deeds and miscellaneous documents, that were such a hallmark of Emmison's work were quickly started at Bedford and he early paid tribute to the work of Harry Causton (died 1947, aged 82), of Bedford, who had written 25,000 index slips [1068].
Fowler took the view that the 'Concentration of all County Records in the care of a single custodian is undoubtedly to be recommended' but as we have seen the development of local record offices was not in any way anticipated by Lord Farrer at the Society of Genealogists and his 1935 article 'English Genealogy', with its accent on local record societies and public libraries [1069], forms a distinct contrast with that by the more percipient Derick Emmison which appeared in the same issue of the Society's Magazine. Emmison moved to Chelmsford as the first county archivist for Essex in 1938. By then a similar office had already been established for Kent where a specially constructed Records Block had that year been built behind County Hall, Maidstone. The foundation of similar offices in most other counties, however, which had such an effect on the deposit and preservation of local records and the ease with which they might be consulted, did not occur until after the Second World War.
In December 1933, following the damage by fire of the registers at Mariansleigh in Devonshire and the apparent loss of a register at Coleridge in that county, Lord Devon, the president of the Devon and Cornwall Record Society, wrote to the Bishop of Exeter a letter which was printed in the Exeter Diocesan Gazette and in The Times [1070]. He expressed deep concern and anxiety at the inadequacies of the old iron safes and said that he did know if there was power to enforce it, but that parish registers should either be kept in ‘a real fire-proof safe in the parish to which they belong or some place should be appointed where they can be kept, together with the registers of other parishes, in a fire-proof room or building’.
Bernau's ideas about local societies had been much ahead of their time, the First World War intervened, and his suggestions were not acted upon for another fifty years, though a leaflet about the Society sent to the overseas press in 1921 which suggested that 'residents in India can by joining the Society have reports on family matters posted to them' was noted by The Englishman in Calcutta with the comment, 'What about starting a Society of Genealogists of Calcutta?' [1071]. A few genealogists like Emmison did foresee the possibilities. In 1926 a member, Hugh Beaver (1890-1967) [1072], then of Walton on Thames, Surrey, suggested in a letter to the editor of the Magazine that very small local groups might be a way of organising co-operative searches in local records [1073], but there was no response. A similar suggestion, put forward by a Fellow, William Fowler Carter (1856-1942), of Bromsgrove, Worcestershire in 1935, was that local groups of members should be formed at various centres to hold meetings and discuss (and record) local genealogies, the papers read at London meetings being passed on [1074], but that idea also sank without trace.
There was, indeed, strong opposition to the very suggestion. The influential but now very elderly, Lord Farrer believed that the Society should confine its efforts to England and Wales and 'become the recognized Clearing House for genealogical research within those borders'. In his 1935 article mentioned above he wrote that the Society should have the fullest and friendliest relations with any societies in Scotland and Ireland, but said that the county record societies and local libraries did 'much the same work as ourselves' and provided the 'loose decentralization' that he thought was needed. Quite how the public libraries would cope with 'any Tom, Dick or Harry, seeking his great-grandfather', as Farrer put it, except by charging for student's tickets, as he suggested, was not at all clear [1075].
With a grant of £10 from the Executive Committee in 1929 a special fund was opened (to which members were asked to contribute 'from one shilling upwards') with which to make abstracts of the allegations for marriage licences dealt with by the Vicar General in continuation of those printed by the Harleian Society which had ended in June 1694 [1076]. By 1931 the first index volume 1694-99 had been typed, but Miss Barclay who did much of the transcription of these licences and those of the Bishop of London died that year [1077]. In 1933 an appeal was made for funds to type the full details of the licences for the years covered [1078]. Two years later it was said that the indexing had proceeded to 1707 [1079] but it was not until 1940 that the slips for 1705-1709 were completed, the indexes being typed in 1946. In 1940 a possible new period commencing in 1801 was contemplated [1080] but slips of the allegations were only written for three years.
Miss Hutchinson regrettably was obliged to resign through ill health in May 1928 [1081] when her assistant since 1921, Agnes Webb, was appointed Acting Secretary. Mrs Agnes Phoebe Webb (nee Goadby), who had been born at Maidstone in 1867 was the widow of Sidney Robert Webb, a medical missionary in the Congo who had died from fever there at the age of 28 in 1895. They had married immediately on his graduation from Edinburgh in 1892 and went to Africa the following year, he having from childhood 'a most absolute singleness of purpose' to be a missionary [1082].
She organised a Conversazione after the AGM in June 1928 to which members brought objects of antiquarian interest [1083] and was confirmed as Secretary later that year (£320-7-9 being paid in salaries in 1928), but served only until the end of 1930 when she resigned owing to ill health [1084]. She became a Member in 1932 and undertook some voluntary indexing for the library [1085]. Her whole-hearted devotion to the best interests of the Society and her careful efficiency were recalled at the time of her death at Tonbridge early in 1955, aged 87 [1086].
In the short period that she was Secretary the Society obtained some further publicity through a series of interesting articles, ‘London and other Items’, about its meetings and lectures, apparently written by P. G. Robertson a friend of the Revd Henry Denny [1087], which appeared in the Hamilton Advertiser, a Lanarkshire paper, and through others, perhaps from the same source, in the Northern Whig and Belfast Post. When in May 1928 the American genealogist George Andrews Moriarty spoke at the Society about Thomas Hutchinson, the last of the English governors of Massachusetts, this correspondent recorded that there were about sixty people present, and following the Annual Meeting that year he wrote that Lord Farrer had spoken about the duties of Miss Hutchinson’s successor as Secretary and said that as a rule secretaries largely made their own duties and in a very real sense were practically the organisations which they served.
George Sherwood, the Treasurer, who (only two years earlier had told the Daily Graphic that the Society was growing so fast that it wanted to move from Bloomsbury Square) [1088] had revealingly remarked with regard to the financial statements ‘that the policy pursued was not that of forming “a nest egg”, for they practised the method of spending wisely, and leaving only a small balance’, and Dr George C. Peachey (died 1935) of Ridge in Hertfordshire, a medical historian and ‘champion of the voluntary hospitals’, had suggested that the Society’s new committee should be entirely comprised of those who could and would take regularly active interest in the work [1089].
The correspondent to the Hamilton Advertiser, who often wrote of the ‘genial genealogists’, did not mention a lecture on ‘Pedigree Tracing’ that was due to be given in February 1929 by Harold Waring Atkinson (1868-1946) [1090], but described instead three shorter talks given, for the first time, on a Saturday afternoon (by Percival Boyd, Mrs Hart and Haskett-Smith). I am not sure if Atkinson’s lecture took place but in March, George Sherwood made a plea in the Magazine for genealogists always to express their dates with the months written in full [1091], only to be answered by Harold Atkinson in the next issue foolishly dating his letter ‘16/4/1929’ [1092], contrary to all that the Society had taught! Sherwood had written in one of its first printed notes in 1911, ‘Dates, in all cases, should be fully expressed, e.g., “1585, July 9th,” to facilitate reference; “1585.7.9” would, in this case, be misleading and inaccurate’ [1093].
Mrs Webb resigned as Secretary in December 1930 and her assistant Miss Whitby, who had served the Society well for several months, resigned on account of her health at the same time [1094]. There was thus almost a complete break in the staffing when Mrs Dorothy 'Kathleen' Bell (1895-1989), then in her mid-thirties [1095], and Mrs Webb's assistant from only that November, was appointed in her stead with Miss Claudia Maidie Ord-Young (1888-1975) as her assistant [1096]. Mrs Bell was the daughter of Edward Abrahamson, an East India merchant who had come originally from Holland [1097], and after her divorce from her first husband Eric Preston Bell (1894-1979) in 1925 [1098] she had worked at the College of Arms as Secretary to Sir John Heaton-Armstrong (1888-1967) then Chester Herald and well-known for his meticulous genealogical work. In April 1933 she married the much older Dr Joseph Blomfield, OBE (1870-1948), a distinguished anaesthetist [1099], and although she later claimed that she had intended to stay only 'for a few months' [1100], she continued as the Society's Secretary until 1950, her long tenure giving it great stability. It was a period in which much was accomplished though the membership remained stubbornly small and she never saw numbers above a thousand.
Kathleen Blomfield was a small wiry woman of great energy and determination, highly efficient in the office and much respected, but with a reputation for not tolerating fools gladly. She could, indeed, be quite unwelcoming and her absolute insistence on small fees as one entered the door (frequently commented upon in later years – I often heard it said that ‘nobody would speak to you unless you had paid half-a crown’) may account for the fact that the membership remained almost static. The wording of the Minutes of the Annual Meeting in 1935 that 'an increase of the subscription might be regarded as a retrograde measure and hinder the growth of the Society' is characteristic of her thinking [1101]. In June 1936 she inserted a typical note in the Magazine that the 'intention of resignation must be sent to the Secretary before the 31st December in each year, otherwise the Member renders himself liable for another year's subscription' [1102]. In a subscription reminder in March 1937 members were told 'constant applications make much extra work' [1103] and in September 1937 there was 'Will those members who have not yet paid for the above (the Catalogue of Parish Registers) kindly do so, as a second application makes much extra clerical work' [1104]. The pages of the Magazine throughout her later years with the Society are peppered with such admonitions.
Although the Revd Ernest Whitfield had been nominally Honorary Librarian from 1926 to 1930 he does not seem to have been very active, though the rearrangement of the rooms that year must have given him some work, and the Library Committee had for some time been searching for a suitable person to take on the post [1105]. As a result of an appeal in the Magazine in 1930 Dr Theodore Thomson, the compiler of the published catalogue of family histories, came forward and commenced as Honorary Librarian after the Annual Meeting in 1931. He set to, according to William Gun, 'with the utmost zeal and efficiency', making considerable improvements [1106].
There was much to do. Early in 1930 a member, Mrs Henrietta Georgiana Mainwaring, of 11 Wilton Crescent, Westminster, had left the Society some three hundred books [1107] and the following year Frank Charles Beazley (1857-1931) [1108], a Founder Fellow particularly interested in Cheshire, left £100 and a large collection of books and clearly written manuscripts that filled seven large cases. An amusing note in the Liverpool Post, ‘With the Pedigree Hunters’, speaks at this time of taking tea ‘with the genealogists at their society’s old house in Bloomsbury-square, where there is a new high-tide of one-way traffic. Nevertheless in their quiet, cultured manner they proceeded to hold an annual meeting. Theirs is a dignified enthusiasm. The only form of hunting which man does not share with the brute beasts is pedigree hunting, and monkeys at least cannot climb a family tree. The genealogists were rejoicing over a legacy from one of their number – boxes of books and a pile of MS’s – and their joy was the greater on account of the singularity of this man among genealogists. It appears that he wrote in a legible hand’ [1109].
The Library Committee had already been selling off duplicate books and those that were not 'mainly genealogical' and typed lists were available to the members, but it was at this time that it was decided to keep duplicate sets of the books which were not available for loan, such as the heralds' visitations and the publications of the Harleian and British Record Societies, so that members could borrow copies [1110]. Over four hundred books were sent on loan that year [1111], almost seven hundred, a record, in 1932 [1112] and again about four hundred in 1933 [1113].
Theodore Thomson, as is mentioned below, made considerable improvements in the classification of the library and was Honorary Librarian during the move to Chaucer House in 1933, being entirely responsible for the arrangement of the Library in the new setting. He gave up the post sometime between March and June 1934 but assisted greatly with the preparation of The Genealogists' Handbook in 1935 [1114]. Cregoe Nicholson was then appointed Honorary Librarian and did duty for four years until June 1938 after which, as described below, Colonel Percy-Smith took over until June 1940.
In July 1931 there was considerable press interest in an elaborate bronze memorial that had been unveiled by Lady Eustace Percy (nee Drummond) in the Castle of Falaise in Normandy in honour of William the Conqueror and his companions. On it was inscribed the names of 315 knights who were said to have fought at the Battle of Hastings. A wealthy amateur historian from New York, Mordecai 'Jackson' Crispin (1875-1953) [1115], had earlier inspired the creation of a Comité Guillaume le Conquérant (which included Lord Eustace Percy the M.P. for Hastings) and, advised by Leonce Macary a schoolmaster at Falaise who was unfortunately quite unaware of English research on the subject, the committee had accepted the 315 names, largely taking their list from the Roman de Rou by Robert Wace, a poem written a hundred years after the event.
The touchy subject of the names of those present at the battle had, of course, been of considerable interest to British genealogists for many years, various versions of the so-called ‘Battle Abbey Roll’ having appeared in print since the sixteenth century. Between 1925 and 1930 Walter Rye had published an index to six versions of the Roll in The Genealogists’ Magazine [1116].
In December 1931, prompted by the celebrations at Falaise, Dr Theodore Thomson assisted by the leading expert on Anglo-Norman genealogy, Geoffrey White, wrote a trenchant article in The Genealogists’ Magazine in which they evaluated the sources used by Macary and concluded that the names of only fifteen ‘Companions’ were proved or extremely probable [1117]. An unsigned editorial in that issue of the Magazine, probably written by William Gun, said that the commemoration at Falaise had been made 'ridiculous' by the inclusion of the 315 names [1118].
That issue of the Magazine also announced that there would be a discussion meeting on the subject of 'The companions of William the Conqueror and their possible descendants', led by Geoffrey White and Dr Thomson, at the Society, on Saturday, 13 February 1932. It was a heated two-and-a-half-hour debate, chaired by William Gun (with the President, Lord Farrer, in attendance), which attracted considerable press publicity [1119] and was reported at length in the June Magazine [1120]. White dealt with the contemporary sources and Thomson with the descendants, saying that the public should be protected against charlatans and the ‘absurd people’ who tried to prove descents from the Conqueror’s companions. A paper by the relatively young Arthur Ronald Holman (1900-1978), who had joined the Society in 1929, was also read reinforcing some of the earlier points. Captain Bernard Stephen Townroe (1885-1962), General Secretary of the United Association of Great Britain and France which had arranged the expedition to Falaise, said that the expressions ‘charlatans’ and ‘absurd people’ were derogatory to French historians. Others criticised the tone of the Magazine article and its use of the word 'ridiculous'. At the start of the meeting some light relief had been given to a ‘room full of furious Normans’ by an elderly Chinese gentleman (not a Member!) knocking loudly on the street door downstairs and demanding to be let in, something he repeated later in the proceedings [1121]. However, the meeting’s general conclusions remained the same; the names on the monument should have been submitted to the most severe scrutiny but the Society had not been approached or consulted. Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Stanley Clack (1888-1945), an early Fellow of the Society who years earlier had fallen out with Sherwood [1122], had been at Falaise and was very critical of the Society’s ‘flippant’ approach, writing to The Times to clarify a point and to say that the names had been collected by a ‘French committee of historians and scholars’ independent of the subscribers before ‘any decision to ask other than Frenchmen to “assist”’ [1123]. Macary, because of the unfriendly attitude of Dr Thomson's first Magazine article, had declined to discuss it and wrote to The Sunday Times that his committee was extremely surprised that the Society had allowed some of its representatives to refer repeatedly to the work of the committee in extremely unfriendly terms. Complete documentation of the 315 names would, he said, be placed in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris [1124].
The editorial to the June Magazine drew attention to the lists of descendants of the so-called companions that had been published in France and in the Journal of the United Associations of Great Britain and France [1125] and asked for proofs of the descents to be published, but that, of course, never happened, though the biographical details of the 315 so-called companions assembled by Crispin and Macary were published in 1938 as the Falaise Roll, they having ‘after their compilation’ been ‘reviewed by Richard Holworthy, archivist and genealogist, London’ [1126]. At the meeting Holworthy had said that help rather than ridicule should have been offered by the Society. His sympathies were, he said, with the proceedings of the Falaise Committee which had worthily commemorated a great historic event. However, the Falaise Roll was savaged in America by George Andrews Moriarty for its ‘indiscriminate mixture of sound facts with fiction and error’ [1127].
The conclusions of Geoffrey White and Theodore Thomson as to the names of the known companions were not seriously challenged until 1944 when Professor D. C. Douglas wrote a paper for History in which he suggested the addition of a few more names [1128]. Mr White's extensive commentary on Professor Douglas's paper, published by the Society immediately afterwards [1129], accepted a total of nineteen companions of whom fifteen certainly and four almost certainly fought at Hastings [1130].
Meanwhile, on 7 September 1933 the controversy had been further ignited when Lord Raglan, the son of the Society's former President and himself the President of the Anthropology Section of the British Association, pronounced at a meeting of the Association in Leicester, that no existing family could trace a descent from a Saxon ancestor and but few from a Norman 'who came over with the Conqueror'. He, of undoubted Norman descent, was speaking on the theme ‘What is tradition?’ and gave as an example of the work of the ‘pedigree fakers’ the ancestry of Sir Hereward Wake. The Daily Mail, under a banner headline ‘Lord Raglan on ‘faked pedigrees’ of famous families: bombshell at scientists’ conference’, quoted the Earl Marshal’s secretary as saying that Raglan was ‘much too sweeping’ and that there were a small number of British families that had authentic pedigrees back to Norman times. The Daily Mail recalled the celebrations two years previously when Lord Derby had chartered a special steamer for the ‘pilgrimage’ to Normandy and listed a dozen ‘accredited descendants’ who had participated [1131]. An unnamed spokesman for the Society of Genealogists, however, agreed ‘wholeheartedly’ with Lord Raglan’s statements. The Evening News, under ‘Family trees “all a fake”’, had noted that more than 2,000 people attended the Conference in eleven different halls, but Lord Raglan’s comments seem to have received the most publicity [1132]. Lord Raglan was unperturbed and in an interview to the Daily Express mentioned Lord Salisbury and the Duke of Bedford’s unsubstantiated Norman ancestries [1133]. Even Punch had a little poem, ‘The Fading-out of Lady Clara Vere de Vere’, which concluded:
‘But now that age-old pedigrees, Are proved each one of them a dud,
The kindest heart, the simplest faith, Will disbelieve your Norman blood’ [1134].
Of course there was a back-lash. The Sunday Express, under ‘Famous Family Answers Scientist’s Charge of Bogus Ancestry’, quoted Admiral Sir Drury St Aubyn Wake as saying that Raglan was talking utter nonsense and the Earl Marshal’s Secretary (A. G. Blomefield Russell, Lancaster Herald) said the Wake pedigree was ‘beyond doubt’. The Morning Post immediately received letters from aggrieved people declaring that they were exceptions to Raglan’s sweeping assertions but Thomas Dale wrote in to say that not more than half a dozen families could prove an unbroken male descent from a Domesday tenant and that none had such a descent from an ancestor living in the time of Edward the Confessor [1135]. He and his co-editor, William Gun, wrote in The Genealogists’ Magazine that the Society stood for scientific genealogy and that 'the assertion of a pedigree without documentary proof is valueless' [1136].
In January 1932 in a lecture to the Society on 'Manorial Records', Herbert Wheatley Knocker, FSA (1874-1945), said, 'We may all agree - first, that the genealogy of the individual is good; secondly, that the study of his family's story is better, and thirdly, that the study of the individual's social group or village community from century to century is a fitting addition to the other' [1137]. The article’s ‘delightful reading’ was mentioned as far away as the Northern Whig & Belfast Post [1138].
Knocker was Secretary of the Manorial Society and his thoughts were certainly catching on at this time. The professional record searcher William Miller Higgs (1878-1958) [1139] joined the Society in 1922 and was elected a Fellow in 1923. He had written The Spurgeon family about the ancestry and family of Charles Haddon Spurgeon of 'Tabernacle' fame in 1906 and in 1933 produced with M. A. Higgs, A history of the Higges or Higgs family, showing in quite remarkable detail the history of a yeoman family at Thatcham, Berkshire, and South Stoke, Oxfordshire, which eventually sold 500 copies [1140]. Another fine example of the period was the will indexer John Harold Morrison's The Underhills of Warwickshire (1932). In a review of Thomson’s Catalogue in 1936, Ronald Stewart-Brown (1872-1940), FSA, sheriff of Denbighshire and elected a Fellow in 1934, wrote that the standard of research had risen in recent years and that it was one of the aims of the Society, by example and criticism, to set a higher standard [1141], a view echoed by another member, Arthur W. Vivian-Neal (died 1962), who two years later wrote that 'one of the most useful functions of the Society' had been, by criticism and advice, to assist in the development of the now established and widely recognized conventions on which family histories were best constructed. In commending The Bax Family (1936) by Bernard Thistlethwaite (died 1960) he wrote that rarely of late was a family history found to lack an index or the necessary chart pedigrees required to simplify the tracing of intricate relationships [1142].
A few years later Charles Edmund Lart (1867-1947) [1143], the expert on French and Huguenot pedigrees, noted that 'Genealogical research to-day seems to trend towards the making of pedigrees of lesser folk and ordinary mortals, who are after all the backbone of a nation and can be carried back as far and father as those of "Great Families", with fewer unsavoury incidents - such for instance as that of the Oglanders, country squires in the Isle of Wight, just published under the title of A Royalist Diary' [1144].
John Harold Morrison (1883-1935), the professional just mentioned for his work on the Underhill family, had joined the Society in 1930. He was an extraordinarily rapid and persistent worker and following the Underhill book he produced in quick succession three books derived entirely from the probate records at Somerset House. The first, Register Scrope, distributed to 67 subscribers in June 1934 and containing extracts of all the wills proved in the PCC in 1634, was an innovation in printing technique. It had been printed entirely on a Gestetner duplicating machine 'driven by a small motor (working on an ordinary electro-light circuit), and turning out copies of the pages at the rate of 70 a minute', he having cut the stencils on a Motor-Varityper which allowed him to use half a dozen different typefaces. Both techniques were only a few months old and this is thought to have been the first book of any size printed entirely in this manner. In the introduction he thanked the Superintendent of the Department for Literary Enquiry, Mr J. H. Pettit, for being 'unfailingly courteous in granting me all the facilities at his disposal'.
In December that year he published his second great work, an index containing abstracts of all the PCC administrations between 1620 and 1630. He was in a fever to fill in the gaps in the indexes printed by the British Record Society and in his preface wrote, 'Life is short by the measure of the work which remains to be done in this field ... It would remain to press on with the continuation of both series across the gulf which still intervenes before the official publications begin in 1858. And then the minor courts might receive further attention. How much of this will be accomplished, before the bombs fall and the original documents are destroyed for ever?' It was a prophetic comment but he did not live to see it come true. In August 1935 he published his third great work, an index to the PCC wills proved between 1661 and 1670. The Probate Act Book for the year 1662 was missing and, 'I had proposed', as he wrote in his Preface, 'with the aid of a friendly official, to collate my list with all the filed wills proved that year. But when this was about to be done, it was vetoed by Mr Horsford, of the Principal Probate Registry, who has done so much to obstruct access to the records of which he (unfortunately for all who are interested in them) is the official Keeper. Accordingly, unregistered wills proved in 1662 remain unlisted and unknown' [1145]. The official obstruction so well known in the Department had clearly preyed on his mind and with this final attack and after dedicating his book in Latin in a way which intimated that he was 'about to die', he dated the Preface 18th August and thirteen days later, upset also by the recent death of his mother, he gassed himself. He was fifty-one. Morrison's death greatly shocked the genealogical community and was long remembered and commented upon but the situation in the strong rooms at Somerset House remained the same.
Herbert J. Rumsey (died 1956) [1146], a member since 1924, had been a frequent visitor to the Society's rooms in 1931, assisting with the apprenticeship index, and was elected a Fellow in 1932. He returned to Australia and at a meeting of genealogists in Sydney on 29 August 1932 with Edward McCreery Shea Hill (1861-1946), a Fellow since 1911 and a member of early committees, and three others, was elected to a temporary committee to draw up a constitution for a projected Australian Society of Genealogists that Rumsey thought should function like the Society in London [1147]. The latter long considered the Society in Australia its 'daughter' and, although there was no formal connection, gave it what encouragement it could. In December 1933 our Magazine reported that Rumsey was the President and Hill the Honorary Secretary of the new Society and gifts of books would be welcome [1148]. The Society of Genealogists gave many duplicate volumes to the fledgling society and photocopied for its library several volumes of cemetery inscriptions.
Herbert Rumsey, who was the editor of The Australian Genealogist from 1932 to 1944, had himself witnessed the destruction by fire in 1886 of the Garden Palace building in Sydney where many public records had been stored. He came to England again in 1938 and spoke about the early and rapid development of his society in a talk after the Annual Meeting in July. His comments about the changing attitude to convict ancestry in Australia and the numerous claimants to dormant funds ('a common "complaint" with us') are particularly interesting [1149]. Hill had served as Secretary until 1942 [1150].
I have often said that it takes three generations or a hundred years for descendants to start questioning the reasons for some past great move in their families and by 1968 it was a hundred years since the last convicts were transportated to Western Australia, arriving in the Swan River on 9 January 1868. By 1978 it was reckoned that one in twenty living Australians had convict ancestors and great numbers of their descendants were happily tracing their ancestries and collecting as many convict ancestors as they could find [1151]. Many migrants went to New Zealand in the 1860s and it is no coincidence that the New Zealand Society of Genealogists at Auckland was not founded until 1968 [1152].
George Sherwood had been talking about the need for larger premises in 1926 but the lease at Bloomsbury Square was not due to expire until 25 March 1933 and so little was done until 1932 when the search for alternative premises became really necessary. Their possible location was discussed at the Annual Meeting in July when it was formally proposed and agreed that whilst preferring to remain in the Bloomsbury Square neighbourhood, the Meeting was of the opinion 'that a move to another central quarter such as the region of Victoria would be justified if better financial terms could be obtained' [1153]. In September the Society advertised for 1,500 square feet, preferably located on the ground and first floors of a building somewhere in central London or Kensington and near a station [1154], and in December it announced 'with the utmost satisfaction' that it had secured premises in a quiet little cul-de-sac called Upper Malet Street (formerly Upper Gower Mews and today called Malet Place) near University College, within four minutes’ walk of the buses in Tottenham Court Road and Goodge Street Station [1155].
At the time the University of London was drastically transforming that whole area and had recently bought two acres of land to the south of University College formerly occupied by Messrs Shoolbred, [1156] the furniture store in Tottenham Court Road. On the land was a ‘black wreck of a warehouse’ which in 1931 the Carnegie UK Trust thought might be converted for use as the headquarters of the rapidly expanding Library Association with which the Trust shared premises in Bedford Square. Arundell Esdaile (1880-1956), the editor of the Library Association Record, who had looked at numerous possible buildings, fortunately had the vision to see the warehouse as it might be. It was transformed beyond recognition, just over half the needed funds coming from the Carnegie Trustees. It was Esdaile who suggested that it be named ‘Chaucer House’ [1157].
The necessary work on the building took place in the latter part of 1932 and the Library Association officially opened there in May 1933. The Society of Genealogists had negotiated a twenty-one year lease of the whole of the third floor, the 1,750 square feet being a major improvement on the 1,250 at Bloomsbury Square. I remember Chaucer House quite well, having taken the examinations of the Library Association there after the Society left, in the 1950s. In 1932 it was thought that the new premises were 'in what is becoming the most important centre of the intellectual life of London' [1158] but initially they were noisy with the building work going on around them and the approach, as the Magazine editor said, 'lacked dignity since it was through a converted mews'. In Chaucer House, the Museums Association took part of the floor above the Society, the Library Association occupying the first and second floors and adapting the remainder of the upper floor for its own library later in 1933 [1159]. At the same time the National Central Library obtained an adjacent building. The development of the nearby Senate House complex was completed in 1936.
A small reserve fund, tended by Percival Boyd, had been accumulating for some time [1160] and the Annual Report for 1932 said that 'Cash and investments stand at £987 5s 5d, so there should be no anxiety about meeting the expenses that will be incurred in removing to and fitting up the new and enlarged premises' [1161]. The total cost, including the dilapidations at Bloomsbury Square (£96), legal fees (£42-16-0) and new furniture and shelving, came to £640, borrowed from the Bank and secured on the Society's investments [1162].
The move in March 1933, overseen by Kathleen Blomfield, was a considerable undertaking, requiring new furniture and shelving, but there was a great improvement in space, light and comfort, and there was a lift to the third floor. The space there was partitioned into a large library for bound books, a room for the card indices and document collection with convenient tables and a small room for the Secretary. Kathleen Blomfield later described the Society's old home in Bloomsbury Square as 'a lovely house with a beautiful staircase and Adam decorations shewing dimly through the gloom of the accumulated dirt of years', adding that 'the atmosphere was friendly - more that of an intimate small club than the headquarters of a learned Society', but she believed that with the move to Chaucer House 'all this intimate atmosphere was lost' [1163]. It was a sentiment that one heard again after the removal from Harrington Gardens to Charterhouse Buildings in 1984. However, at the end of 1934 she was able to say that the rooms at Chaucer House, far from the traffic of Bloomsbury Way, were ‘above all, quiet’ [1164]. Of course not all were pleased with the location and the journalist Francis Humphrey-Davy (1880-1953), who had been secretary to Lord Northcliffe and a member for several years, wailed from Kensington, ‘I have no idea where Malet Place is or how to get to it, without a taxi’, and that was after having been sent a map and told about the buses! [1165].
Kathleen Blomfield had Claudia Ord-Young as her assistant during the move and until March 1934 when, for a while, she worked alone, but from September 1934 she had two assistants, Miss Audrey Jennings and Miss Anna Luddington. The latter had gone by March 1935 (and married in 1937) but Audrey Jennings, who had been born at Streatham in 1890 and was living at Berkhamstead, served loyally as Assistant Secretary [1166] into the War years.
The books were arranged in the new bookcases by Theodore Thomson [1167], the Honorary Librarian, who many years later recalled unpacking on arrival at Malet Place and, as he wrote to me, the 'ensuing battle with Mr Tonks' fittings' (the metal strips and tags in the new adjustable shelving) [1168]. He had divided the lists of library accessions published in the Magazine by subject for the first time in September 1932 and his arrangement of the Library followed this pattern, which had slowly developed and now forms the basis of the present library classification. Writing about the library in the March 1933 issue of the Magazine, Thomson said that the bookcases would be labelled and each book would have its place indicated on the inside of its front cover 'so that it may be put back in its proper place'. He hoped to have a new and much better catalogue completed by the end of the year. He invited the loan of further books, saying that they would be safe in the new library and pointed out that the library was especially weak in the large standard county histories and needed a copy of the Dictionary of National Biography and more army lists. Offers from members for the old bookshelves were welcomed [1169]. The rooms, previously open on Tuesdays until 8 pm, were after the move open only from 10 am to 6 pm (including Saturdays) and late-night opening was not re-instituted until late in 1954 after the Society’s next move.
One great advantage of the new building, however, was that the Society's previously overcrowded meetings and lectures could now be held in the Library Association's Council Chamber, a room on the second floor which held 250 people. As a result the numbers attending the monthly winter lectures more than doubled [1170]. At a reception to mark the opening of the new rooms on Tuesday, 10 October 1933, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Hanworth, gave a talk on 'The History of the Public Records' and there was an exhibition of illuminated pedigrees and 'objects more or less connected with genealogical science'. More than two hundred members and friends attended but the President, Lord Farrer, was unwell, his place being taken by Alfred Trego Butler, Windsor Herald and Chairman of the Executive Committee [1171].
The Annual Report for 1934 stressed the importance of the unique typescript volumes that were now being received in the Library, twenty-four having been received that year. Mrs Blomfield said that although a member might not have the time to slip index a whole register containing perhaps 20,000 names and then to type the slips in quadruple copies, as had become usual, they might slip a smaller register, of twenty to forty pages, for the Society to have typed. A typed copy of the registers of Mitcham, Surrey, had been sold for six guineas. Donations to the fund, called the Research Fund, for typing the Vicar-General Marriage Licences and the Apprenticeship Index were few that year [1172], but greatly improved in 1935 when several manuscripts typed from the Fund (costing £44) were listed in the Annual Report [1173], it being there said that an average typescript volume cost £10 to produce. As a result it had been decided to add these costs (£250 in the year) to the 1933 valuation of the Library (£3,000) in the Balance Sheet.
When the Parish Register Society, founded in 1896, ceased publication in 1935 a donation of £60 was made to the Society of Genealogists and the Committee decided that it should be spent on the acquisition of further register copies [1174]. That same year 'an electric typewriting-machine' was purchased that enabled several copies of a transcript to be made at one operation [1175], one copy of each being sold to pay for more typing [1176] and in 1936 the Annual Meeting was told that many transcripts were in the process of being typed [1177].
Quantities of material for the document collection were also being received. In 1933 a large collection of extracts and copies of deeds, wills, parish registers and monumental inscriptions relating chiefly to Surrey and Sussex and made by Robert Garraway Rice, JP, FSA (1852-1933), of Carpenter’s Hill, Pulborough, who was well-known for his care and precision [1178], was received by bequest and filed by name and place in the “D.MSS”, as Sherwood called the Document Collection, D.MSS standing for Documents and Loose Manuscripts [1179].
However, in 1934 Kathleen Blomfield noticed that many members were disappointed that their gifts were not regularly being noted in the Magazine in which George Sherwood was now usually only recording the receipt of Birth Briefs. As a result, although the document collection 'is in the hands of Mr G. F. T. Sherwood', she began the system by which she endeavoured to acknowledge there practically everything that came in, although it was, as she wrote to John E. N. Walker, who had given an unacknowledged parcel of deeds relating to the Earls of Oxford, 'a severe tax on my already overfilled time' [1180]. The implied criticism of Sherwood is interesting. An unsigned note with the letter says, 'I can't find any entry in Mr Sherwood's book!' but he has curtly endorsed it 'Filed at "St Marylebone", Middx'. His rough and ready system was clearly not always working or indeed adequate.
About this time, for some unknown and not, I think, overly good reason, the member Oswald Knapp, instead of filing them in the D.MSS, pasted many miscellaneous abstracts and copies of documents into fifteen guard books, roughly in order of date, calling them ‘Evidences’, and provided each with an index [1181]. The D.MSS by family now filled 120 boxes and that by place 349 boxes, but there were in addition 160 parcels in order and 65 parcels awaiting attention, a somewhat daunting backlog.
Owing to the great influx of books some additional new shelving, costing £100, had to be obtained in the summer of 1936, the arrangement by county being continued within the bays, with runs of periodicals and outsize folios on the outer shelves [1182]. The sale of some old furniture had produced £12 the previous year [1183].
Following the death of the stalwart Revd Thomas Dale in 1937, the well-known antiquary Revd James Harvey Bloom (1860-1943) [1184], who had been a member since 1917, wrote a memorandum worrying about the Society, the lack of attention to the Card Index, the slow growth in membership and the need for publicity. The President, Lord Farrer, replied privately to his various points saying that with the recent new library shelving the Society probably had sufficient space for another seven years, though they were constantly receiving original documents, such as conveyances, mortgages and leases, from the British Records Association. John Francis Ainsworth had spent almost a year weeding duplicates from the Great Card Index and putting it in order but it did not remain in order due to the carelessness of the members. Farrer agreed that a paid librarian would be very desirable but the funds did not permit that or the expansion of the magazine. The total staff salaries in the last year had been £331 and the employment of a press agent was quite out of the question. Dr Dale's loss was indeed 'irreplaceable', he wrote, 'for he was the one person to whom the Staff could always appeal for information and from whom it was always forthcoming' [1185]. However, for a short time in the second half of 1937 the Society employed a 'Library Assistant', H. A. Taylor [1186], but the position was not retained into 1938 probably because of Kendall Percy-Smith's growing involvement in library matters.
The problems with the Great Card Index mentioned by Lord Farrer had been exercising the Committee for a number of years and there were continual appeals for people to help with the sorting. At the same time the typing of particular surnames had been encouraged, but members sometimes applied for a selection of entries to be typed and it was decided in 1927 that typing could take place only if all the entries for a surname were typed, a fully typed index being the Society’s ultimate object [1187]. The slips thus typed could be purchased for three pence a hundred and lists of the names involved were then published in the Magazine [1188] The charge for typing was a shilling a sheet of about forty entries (a sample sheet for the surname Sabin was printed and sent with the Magazine), but non-members were charged 10s 6d a sheet [1189].
In 1931 the Editor of the Magazine wrote that 'a very large amount of time and labour is occupied in correcting the carelessness of those who replace the slips in the wrong order or even upside down' [1190]. At that time there was still a Secretary to the Slip-index Committee and Miss Florence Bowman (died 1962) [1191], a member since 1928 who had been elected a Fellow in 1930, and who had laboured so hard to keep things under control, gave up and was succeeded by Miss Marjory Sophia Sinclair (1896-1980), a Member who had joined in June 1930 and who lived in Red Lion Square. She came from a ship-building family in South Shields and described herself in the ‘1939 Register’ as a genealogist. The Annual Report for 1931 noted that the index then contained almost three million slips but that 'numerical progress had far outrun systematised order'. A hundred and forty-four non-members had used the index that year and the slips for thirty-eight surnames had been typed [1192].
In 1932, when Miss Sinclair was again appealing for help with the work [1193], it was said that although 6,112 slips had been added to the index (some twenty members being involved in the work), another 4,724 had been withdrawn after typing, and that 'this branch of the Society's work is clearly expanding', there being a larger proportion of Country Members and a decrease in the number of foreign visitors [1194]. The dedicated Miss Sinclair was elected a Fellow that December and the following year supervised the re-housing of the index in its new quarters at Chaucer House [1195].
In an effort to attract more slip sorters a series of special monthly meetings with excellent speakers was organised throughout the winter, 1933-34, and publicised in the Magazine. These were open only to sorters [1196]. At the first, on 4 October 1933, Miss Sinclair provided sherry and lemonade, her little party being glowingly reported in the Magazine as a further inducement to volunteers [1197]. A second party was held on 3 January 1934 when a Vice-President, Thomas Ulick Sadleir (died 1957) [1198], Deputy Ulster King of Arms, spoke about his records [1199]. The other speakers were the Revd Thomas Dale, Edward Lynam, C. B. Oldman, Guy Parsloe and T. Rowland Powell [1200].
When Thomas Dale spoke to the sorters on 14 February 1934 he said that the size of the index, which he thought about two million slips, was only slowly increasing because of the slow trickle of new slips and the typing. As a result very few 'interests' were being sent to members (they were normally sent every quarter) [1201] and many members received none at all. In the first dozen years of the Society the enthusiasm for the index had been immense but it had then fallen away. He had made an analysis of the 6,667 slips added in 1931 and showed how very miscellaneous they were. He calculated that, at the very most, only 440 parish registers had been completely slipped [1202]. The number of slips added in 1933 had again fallen to 5,267. Some seventeen surnames had been typed [1203].
Following the report of Dale's talk Lieut. Colonel Henry Ramsay Phipps (1874-1949) who, over the last three years had spent much time on the index, cross-referencing variants in letter 'B' and removing a large number of duplicates, contributed 'Some Remarks on the Card Index' to the Magazine and said that the Society should give strict guidance as to the records suitable for indexing, stressing that every slip should be self-explanatory and that the lists of variant surnames on the head cards were a valuable guide to the beginner. People should be told to be more careful in its use. His outspoken comments about users and typists also queried the curious and unexplained way in which the slips were re-arranged into chronological order before being typed. On that point he received no answer [1204]. Colonel Phipps's many quite rude, but entirely justified comments, scribbled in thick black pencil on the slips about the foolishness of users and contributors, their handwriting and their inability to sort correctly, are probably still sometimes found, though a shocked Mrs Sherwood removed the worst of them! I remember also the deep embarrassment and offence caused to one visiting searcher by the comment 'Wasters all' that Colonel Percy-Smith had scrawled on a slip relating to the man's family!
Unfortunately Miss Sinclair was obliged by pressure of other work to resign the Honorary Secretaryship of the Card Index in the autumn of 1934. An optimistic note that appealed for a successor said that the index was in good working order and only required supervision for two or three hours a week, but two more sorters were needed [1205]. The same story was told three months later [1206] and it was presumably after this that the new member mentioned by Lord Farrer, John Francis Ainsworth (1912-1981), just out of College and working as a professional genealogist but also a member of the Executive Committee, agreed to be Honorary Secretary, the Annual Report congratulating him ‘on the headway he has made in the formidable task of going through each box, sorting the sadly disarranged slips, eliminating duplicates and typing or orienting neat head cards to replace those which in the past have been badly written’ [1207]. Some 13,377 slips had been added that year but in 1935 John Ainsworth, who was ‘now engaged elsewhere’, was only able to attend for a short period each week and only 7,280 slips were added [1208]. In 1936 an appeal was made for contributors to contact the Society before indexing a parish register as it had been found in 1934 that letter 'A' had about 33% of slips in duplicate and about 10% in triplicate. Contributors were requested to type their slips, something that must have dissuaded many from helping, and to follow the Society's scheme of abbreviations [1209].
In 1938 Percival Boyd described the task of keeping the slips in order as a 'labour of Sisyphus', for as fast as they were put in order members carelessly mixed them up again. In an effort to get more typed, the Society offered to type names at 3d a sheet, accepting postage stamps in payment [1210], and large numbers of names were then typed [1211]. In March 1942 it was announced that new material coming into the card index would be placed at the end of the surnames concerned and divided from the slips already there by a red card, but that the Executive Committee wished to limit the slips added, there being (because of the War) no voluntary labour to keep them in order. This and the recommendation that entries be placed on quarto sheets that might be filed in the Document Collection, spelled the end of the Great Card Index as a growing entity [1212], though for thirty years from the 1960s onwards the research assistant Alan William Rolfe regularly filed large numbers of 'stray' entries and 'late baptisms' [1213] which he found whilst searching London parish registers.
Wear and tear on the Great Card Index had reached a height in 1931 when, Mrs Blomfield later said, seventeen day-searchers from overseas were using the library every week, but the number had fallen to only two or three a week in the 1934 summer 'season'. The Society was, however, then receiving far more letters from America (as well as those from Germany mentioned below), the enquirers seeking to establish connections with well-known English families and to use their arms [1214].
As a result, just prior to the move, in 1932, the Executive Committee agreed to revise the scale of charges for more general searches in the library. A day's search was now to cost ten shillings, a shorter search being charged pro rata, with a minimum of 2s 6d. Non-members were to be charged double these rates [1215]. A note in the catalogue of parish registers printed in 1924, however, had already indicated that members requiring extended searches ‘by the Secretary’ would be charged ten shillings a day.
I have not seen the letter from Harvey Bloom mentioned above but it seems that he asked about the possibility of recommendations for professional work, as in his reply Lord Farrer added that the Society did not recommend record agents and that he was sure that this was 'the right attitude for a voluntary society'. According to his advertisement in The Genealogists’ Magazine, Harvey Bloom 'specialized in family and parochial history, transcripts and translations' [1216]. He had, of course, over many years been responsible for a series of highly regarded published works, including not least the well-paid but unacknowledged transcription of the deeds at Warwick Castle for Lady Warwick’s Warwick Castle and its Earls (2 vols. 1903) for which she sent him £50, more than double his estimate [1217].
In July 1931 there had been a sharp exchange at the Annual Meeting when the well-known professional Reginald Glencross, a much respected Life Fellow and supporter of the Magazine in which he had advertised since March 1929, asked for a reply to a letter in which he had inquired as to the Secretary's method of dealing with people who applied for the names of professional searchers, asking on what principle their selection was made. In reply Lord Farrer, the President who was also a member of the Executive Committee, read a letter that he had sent to the Secretary (Mrs Bell) instructing her to refer all such enquiries to the Executive Committee until a definite rule had been formulated. George Waterworth Younger, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and Theodore Thomson proposed that a list of professionals be prepared and given to inquirers but Thomas Dale and George Sherwood wanted the matter referred to the Executive Committee and it was eventually agreed that the Executive's decision be put to an Extraordinary General Meeting of the Society [1218]. Immediately thereafter in July 1931 the Executive agreed that it recommend that 'the Secretary be not allowed to give any names whatever of Record Searchers to inquirers' she being directed to strictly adhere to that rule [1219]. One has the impression that this was the view urged by Lord Farrer. He took the chair at the Extraordinary Meeting on 8 October when the suggested 'rule' was approved 'without dissent' it being pointed out that the Secretary of the Public Record Office kept a list of record agents and that inquirers might be directed there [1220]. That, of course, did not help those looking for local searchers outside London.
The Society's negative attitude to professionals is summarised in an interesting letter written by Kathleen Blomfield in 1937, 'The Society exists primarily for amateur genealogists who undertake their own research work aided by the records we are able to place at their disposal. Anything which increased the professional element is therefore not to be encouraged within the Society' [1221].
However, shortly afterwards, when Lord Farrer was no longer on the Executive Committee, the Society had second thoughts about its attitude and for the first time in March 1939 published a list of some eighteen record searchers which had been recommended to the Society for their work by its Members [1222]. At least eight of them had advertised in the journal. In the years 1929-39 there had been 38 advertisers of genealogical services in the Magazine. Of these nineteen were local searchers, eleven were London based (including those doing heraldic work),three in Ireland, one in Scotland, one in Germany (Peter von Gerbhardt in Berlin in 1929-30), one scrivener and two dealers in deeds.
The people on this list of 'Recommended Searchers' introduced in 1939 had, in theory, been recommended by at least two members for whom they had done work. From June to September 1939 the list contained twenty names but the number declined greatly during the War and for some years afterwards when only four or five people were listed [1223]. The number rose from eight to thirteen in 1957. The list was, however, a sensible compromise which was widely used to answer unwanted research requests and it lasted until after the foundation of the Association of Genealogists and Record Agents in the 1970s. The only problem with the list was that once a name appeared there was no agreed machinery for removing it!
At the end of her first year at the Society, Kathleen Bell (or Mrs Blomfield as she became in 1933) accepted an advertisement in the Magazine from Artcards Ltd of Folkestone, Kent, saying simply, 'Earn money writing Showcards at home. We teach and supply work' [1224]. She charged a guinea for four insertions of the text [1225] and the first appeared in mid-March 1932 when a member at Folkestone was quick to point out that Artcards was only that week being charged with conspiracy to defraud and that the case was receiving a good deal of notice in the local newspapers. The case went to the Old Bailey in May when five young men were given various terms of hard labour in connection with bogus advertisements for home employment. Their advertisements had appeared in a wide range of journals and one of the men had boasted that they had received 30,000 orders, each usually containing about £4, in six months [1226].
William Gun, one of the joint-editors of the Magazine, had meanwhile sought advice about the Society's legal position from Harry Pirie-Gordon (1883-1969) [1227] a Founder and Fellow who was on the editorial staff of The Times, and he in turn consulted the Manager of The Times, who said that the advertisement should continue to appear until a verdict was obtained [1228]. Fortunately it was thus not necessary to include the advertisement in the June issue.
It was not the first such case to interest the Society and in March 1928 it had expelled from membership one Colonel Edmund Octavius Eaton (1864-1946), of St Leonards, Sussex, who for twenty-five years had promoted bogus companies and in January had been sentenced at the Old Bailey to four years penal servitude for conspiracy, with a bankrupt baronet and others, to defraud through the extraordinary Chalk Fuel Power Gas and By-Products Corporation Limited [1229]. His prospectuses were often aimed at women and he perhaps had more interest in the possible use of the Society’s membership list than in tracing his ancestors.
In 1933, however, Mrs Blomfield began to receive complaints from members in America to whom she had forwarded letters from a Mr R. Bolton or Vincent, as he was sometimes called, of 273 Moseley Road, Birmingham. Bolton had been taking members' names and addresses from the Magazine and offering deeds and documents about their families for relatively small amounts of money. The money he always acknowledged in a most business-like manner but the documents never arrived. Members were warned against such offers in the Magazine [1230] and in November 1934 Mrs Blomfield was able to say that Bolton had been convicted of false pretences and sentenced to nine months imprisonment [1231].
The trade in deeds and documents of every description was widespread at this time. James Coleman left some 50,000 documents at his death in 1908 and these were sorted into county lots and offered for sale by his executors at the rate of £10 per 100, Edward Alexander Fry having specimen lots on view at his office at 124 Chancery Lane [1232]. Only two counties were sold immediately and the remainder were marketed by Coleman’s successors, S. & E. Coleman, who also published catalogues, 1910-13. About 1,500 deeds were bought by the National Library of Wales which published detailed abstracts of them [1233]. Meanwhile some of the stock had been taken over by another dealer Frank Marcham (1883-1944), of Edmonton, who with his brother, William McBeath Marcham (who lived at Hornsey and edited the local Court Rolls), was particularly interested in the early stage and in material about Shakespeare, publishing works on The King's Office of the Revels (1925) and on William Shakespeare and his daughter Susannah (1931). Frank Marcham, the son of a surveyor, had been interested in bibliography from an early age. He was a member of the Society from 1919 and joined the long established firm of Myers & Co, booksellers and printsellers in New Bond Street. Although he had come through the South African and First World Wars safely, he was killed in a bombing raid in Camberwell in 1944. Kathleen Blomfield called him 'an industrious and painstaking worker who spent a vast amount of time in research without expectation or hope of pecuniary reward' [1234].
Another extremely well known dealer in records of every description Herbert Richard Moulton (1861-1939), of Richmond, Surrey (later active in connection with the Society’s Jubilee Exhibition), in 1930 produced an enormous 342-page and large format illustrated catalogue Palaeography, Genealogy and Topography, in which he gave short but careful abstracts of some 10,000 deeds which he had for sale, ranging in date from the 12th to the 19th century. In 1936 he produced an 120-page index to the 30,000 surnames mentioned which aroused considerable interest [1235]. In a review of the catalogue itself George Sherwood wrote that it was a great advance on the earlier catalogues of the dealer, James Coleman, 'a pioneer of this kind of thing' [1236]. The Society has a long run of Coleman's catalogues (9 vols. 1859-1911) collected by Frederick Snell and to these, also in 1936, the member Brigadier-General Alfred E. J. Cavendish (1859-1943) added a valuable slip index in seventeen trays to the 45,000 names mentioned in the catalogue's short extracts [1237]. In 1931 Sherwood himself advertised 'Neglected old deeds and papers, after I had looked through them, realised £765. May I look at yours?' [1238].
It could thus be a busy time for frauds of the kind perpetrated by Mr Bolton and in March 1933 the journal Truth drew attention to the activities of Janson & Co of 12-13 Prudential Buildings, Clapham Common, which had circulated people with relatively frequent surnames, such as Warren, Finch and Bennett, announcing that they were writing histories of their families. They offered a discount if payment were made in advance, saying that a volume which would cost five guineas after publication could be purchased for £4, a deposit of £1 being required with the order, but that a copy could be secured by paying three guineas with the order. The firm had left the Clapham Common address in September 1932, but letters were still being forwarded and it was now trading from 56 Alderbrook Road, Balham [1239].
In July 1933 under the heading 'Bogus Genealogists' Harvest: Victims from U.S.: Missing Heirs: Guineas Roll In', the Daily Mail reported that the United States Consul-General's Office in London was receiving more than sixty letters a week from people who believed that they were missing heirs, and said that bogus genealogists in England were reaping a rich harvest by preying on the vanity of people who believed that they had claims to noble birth. Without naming the firm the article went on to describe the activities of Janson & Co, saying that some time ago 'a trickster living in obscurity in South London' had collected subscriptions for a history of the Bennett family that never appeared. The Daily Mail leader said, 'Some of these genealogies may be genuine, but in most imagination plays a large part. Human credulity, however, in such matters is only too anxious to be duped' [1240]. As a result of the article the firm commenced an action for libel against Associated Newspapers, the owners of the Daily Mail, but it was not pressed [1241].
The forthright member Phyllis Shield (1896-1968), the step-daughter of Gerald Fothergill who lived at Wandsworth and was well known for her strong and un-ladylike language, took an interest in Janson's activities and in October 1933 found that 'our slippery friend' was living at 15 Evelyn Mansions, W.14. She wrote, 'Oh how I'd like to have him right under my hands in a nice quiet corner where he could not run away, and where there were not any witnesses! I'd tell him much for the good of his soul' [1242].
In 1935 another member, Colonel Ernest Achey Loftus (1884-1987) [1243] of West Tilbury, Essex (the first headmaster of Barking Abbey School and later, according to the Guinness Book of Records, ‘the longest serving civil servant in the world’), was given a circular that had been received by his father-in-law, Allen Charles Cole, about a proposed history of the Cole family. It was from Janson & Co, now trading at 6 Conduit Street, London W1, and Colonel Loftus entered into correspondence with the firm in order to discover the name of the man who was supposedly working on the book. The latter was, of course, 'so busily engaged with the work of completing this book that he regrets that however much he would like to meet his different correspondents he is really unable to find the time' [1244].
A little later in 1936 a man describing himself as Sir John Brunton of the Faculty of Genealogical Research, also at 6 Conduit Street, London, offered 'authentic and certified Crests and complete genealogies' of 'intense interest' on the 'finest parchment' [1245]. Complaints were so numerous that Scotland Yard began to take an interest and Mrs Blomfield was able to say that by March 1940 the 'Faculty' no longer existed [1246].
However, Janson & Co had again moved and was at 7 Princes Street, Hanover Square, sending out circulars about a projected history of the Roberts families, said to be by one 'F. B. S. Roberts, assisted by a well-known historian and genealogist', which was to be published in December 1937, but again the book never appeared. This particularly annoyed Mrs Ethel Adair Impey (nee Roberts; 1877-1961) [1247] a Society member in Birmingham and a generous benefactress who was herself about to publish A Roberts family: quondam Quakers of Queen's County (1939). She continued enquires about 'F. B. S. Roberts' for some years but, not surprisingly, without success [1248].
The prospectus that Mrs Impey had received said that the firm had published histories of the Armitage, Banastre or Bannister, Chapman, Finch, I'Anson, Martyn or Martin and Wightman families, and histories of these seven families had indeed been printed; all had been compiled by Arthur ‘Bryan’ I'Anson (1873-1949). Five had been published in the period 1914-18, including that on the I’Anson family in 1915 'for the Genealogical Research Society', an organisation which did not exist, but the histories of the Finch and Martyn families had not appeared until 1933 and 1935 respectively.
Bryan I’Anson, from Saltburn in Yorkshire, was the son of a civil engineer and had been a fairly prosperous chartered accountant in Middlesbrough but his father died in 1915 and by 1918 he had moved to Epsom, Surrey, where his wife died in 1930, aged 51. He had continued to describe himself as an accountant and in 1935 was at 60 Warwick Street, Westminster, but he married again in 1936 and continued at that address until at least the outbreak of War. He died in Kensington in 1949 and his widow in Chelsea in 1981 [1249]. One presumes that following the death of his first wife he had intended to compile and publish a number of family histories for which the subscribers largely sent him the material and he was undoubtedly the man behind Janson & Co [1250], ‘Janson’ sometimes being an alternative form of ‘I’Anson’. His initial intentions may not have been fraudulent but he seems to have found it more remunerative to take subscriptions than to compile books. After the police involvement at Conduit Street in 1936 and his second marriage that year, no further books appeared. Large numbers of prospectuses had, however, been circulated and people still came forward asking for these phantom publications into the 1950s and 1960s, as I well remember.
Another particularly tiresome fraud which Kathleen Blomfield had to deal with was that perpetrated by the then young William Kingston Fudge (1904-1985) through magazines called The Topographical Quarterly and The Genealogical Quarterly owned by his company, Fudge and Co Ltd, of 94 York Road, SE1. In July 1933, just a few days before its disclosure of the activities of Janson & Co, the Daily Mail's reporter Montague Smith, who wrote that 'the world is full of people who think they are missing heirs' but that 'it also contains a few astute individuals who are prepared to foster that delusion at a price', noted that several readers had recently written to record the receipt of a postcard with the following announcement: "The Topographical Quarterly. The Editor presents his compliments and, in case you have not seen the Summer number of the Topographical Quarterly, begs respectfully to draw your attention to its Index to Advertisements for Next-of-Kin, Missing Heirs and Relatives, in the world's newspaper press, which mentions the name of ...". The postcards gave only the surname without forename or initials for that would, as Montague Smith wrote, 'assist in identification and blur our hopes at the same time'. The cards mentioned that copies of the Quarterly could be obtained from the publisher for 5s 6d post free, or 'if you do not wish to purchase it, ask for it at your library'. The cards concluded, "The Editor feels that you probably would wish to be informed of the matter".
'Recipients', as Montague Smith wrote, 'can hardly fail to think that the fortune is as good as theirs', and he went off to 94 York Road, near Waterloo Station, finding it to be the Pentland Bookshop, a dusty emporium of second hand books looking 'as much as possible unlike the Gateway to Wealth'. He bought a copy of the Quarterly and found that it contained about 300 names, complete with forenames or initials, but not addresses, taken from newspapers around the world. The details of the entry in the appropriate newspaper could be obtained on payment of a further 2s 6d.
Asking to see the publisher, Montague Smith was introduced to an informative Mr Fudge who admitted that for every issue of his journal he sent out about 20,000 postcards to people with similar surnames, their addresses taken from telephone directories in English-speaking countries, but that only about six libraries in the world actually subscribed to his Quarterly. Sometimes he concentrated his mailing on one town so that people would ask the local library for copies and encourage it to subscribe. He had only about a thousand actual subscribers and the copies of each issue cost him about two shillings. Mr Fudge claimed to be 'fulfilling a very useful purpose' but as Montague Smith's article remarked, 'Quite so, but for whom?' [1251].
Despite a warning article in the June 1935 Magazine which quoted extensively from a further interview with Mr Fudge, 'a short dark man with a merry eye and an infectious laugh', in the Evening Standard of 16 March [1252], dozens of people then and for the next thirty or forty years contacted the Society with copies of the pale green post cards that they or their relatives had received. Finding the idea remunerative Mr Fudge and his staff of twelve also published lists of names taken from old trade directories and sent out similar postcards as from the Genealogical Quarterly with offices in Lincoln's Inn Fields, drawing attention to 'information regarding the ... family'. For this Quarterly the annual subscription was 17s 6d but in it the unhappy subscriber found only a name and address.
In 1937 the periodical John Bull recounted the story of a reader called Dench who had received a card from the Genealogical Quarterly saying that its autumn issue contained some interesting information about the Dench family. He had paid 5s 6d for that issue by post and found that the information consisted of a one-line entry headed 'Leading Tradesmen of London in 1830' which ran 'Dench, Thomas, Hardwareman, 3, Shoe Lane, Fleet Street'. For every 20,000 postcards sent out Mr Fudge was said to receive 1,000 replies. John Bull concluded, 'Queer method of earning a living!' [1253]. The industrious Mr Fudge took exception to this, claiming that the article suggested that he was a dishonest and fraudulent publisher and was thus libellous. His action against Odham's Press Ltd (the owners of John Bull) eventually went to a Special Jury in the King's Bench Division in 1939 but was thrown out with costs [1254].
Meanwhile Mrs Blomfield had had to find excuses not to address circulars for Mr Fudge, not to refer the authors of rejected Magazine articles to him and not to place a reciprocal advertisement in his journal or co-operate with him in any way, though he claimed that the Genealogical Quarterly was 'purely and simply a magazine sold to subscribers (chiefly libraries)' and that he would promote the objects of the Society and 'the interests of its professional members' [1255]. His magazines and postcards continued to cause problems for several decades, many enquirers supposing that the Genealogical Quarterly was the Society's publication.
A rare case of champerty (the making of a bargain to share the proceeds of a lawsuit in the event of its success, then illegal in common law) came up in July 1935 when Mr Justice Eve in the Chancery Division held that an agreement by which Mrs Margaret Mary Charlotte Uttley, of Heywood, Lancashire, had contracted to pay Messrs Alfred J. Hooper and Company, a well-known firm of probate genealogists founded in 1923, one-third of her share of the estate of Miss Alice Jane Blake, a cousin once removed who had died intestate worth £7,569, was disgraceful and void. He gave judgment for the plaintiff with costs [1256]. Mrs Uttley claimed that she was cajoled into signing the document by Alfred James Hooper who told her that the money had been in Chancery for over a hundred years and that it would not be released - and none of the other beneficiaries would get anything - unless she signed. She had no idea that she would be giving away one-third of her share. All this was denied by Mr Hooper who said that he had conducted lengthy searches, including use of the 1841 and 1851 census returns to prove the pedigree. His firm's total expenses were £161 16s 6d and it would have received roughly £2,000 [1257].
In June 1934 the Magazine reported that a correspondent from Australia had written to say that when he was in Rome in 1884 'he was assured by the officials of the Vatican Library that all persons born in England from the time of St Augustine to the present time, of the Catholic Faith, had their names recorded in the registers of the Library, thus providing an immense store of genealogical information'. However, the officials said that no one was allowed to examine these registers without special leave from the Court of Cardinals, which leave was difficult to obtain.
The Magazine editors thought that the officials 'were misled by a too exuberant imagination' [1258] but George Percy Townend (1864-1941), an early Fellow of the Society who lived in Australia and claimed to have seen some of the registers, wrote to say that they were kept with such secrecy that no British archivist would be allowed even to know of their existence [1259]. The dreams of this former tester of worsted yarns from Bradford were, however, shattered when on 17 January 1935 the Prefect of the Archives at the Vatican said that no part of the archives was kept in such secrecy and that there were no such registers as those described [1260]. Sadly, of course, the story caught on and occasionally continues to raise its unlikely head.
In September 1934 it was announced that the Corporation of Trinity House had presented to the Society several thousand petitions from the wives and children of distressed seamen, 1780-1854, and Major Edward Parker Stapleton, OBE (1890-1967), of Barkston Gardens, who was sorting them into order, described them in the Magazine, some 44 volumes having already been bound and placed on the library shelves [1261]. Major Stapleton completed the work, in 102 volumes, in 1938 [1262].
Apparently at a later date (probably during the War) a number of further petitions were passed to the Society but not dealt with. They were placed in one of the basement stores in the housekeeper's flat in Harrington Gardens at the time of the move in 1954 and not found again until I cleared the bin during the structural alterations in 1969 [1263]. These also were then bound up and placed on the shelves. With them were a large number of interesting apprenticeship indentures and other papers for the period 1818-1845 (with one for the year 1780) and an index to them by Mrs Margaret Duggan was published in the Magazine [1264].
At the Annual Meeting in July 1934 William Gun suggested that the Society produce a handbook containing a list of the parish registers in its possession, specimens of calligraphy, a list of probate registries and other useful information, and the idea was referred to the Executive Committee [1265]. As a result in November 1935, Mrs Blomfield organised the first edition of a 20-page Genealogists' Handbook: being an introduction to the pursuit of genealogy (1935) containing basic information about parish registers, marriage licences, wills, searching at the Public Record Office, the College of Arms, with notes on Scottish, Welsh and Irish genealogy, and facsimile examples of the letters found in 16th and 17th century registers. The latter were, at the suggestion of Percival Boyd, included and written by the heraldic artist and calligrapher Claire G. M. Evans (died 1965) [1266]. An offprint of this key, with a map of the area around Chaucer House, was used as a publicity leaflet (costing 6d) which stressed the facilities for non-members then available at 13s 6d a day or 7s 6d for half a day [1267].
Much of the material in the Handbook had been collected by Theodore Thomson [1268] and the Annual Report for 1935 credits the original idea to him [1269]. A note in the Magazine, that he or Kathleen Blomfield perhaps wrote, showed great sympathy for the struggles of the beginner [1270]. The book sold for a shilling and received warm reviews in The Law Times and elsewhere [1271]. By the end of 1936 it had sold 526 copies mostly outside the membership and Mrs Blomfield wrote in the Annual Report that ‘better support from Members for this excellent publication would be appreciated’ [1272]. One understands why she was not greatly liked! The income was carried forward into the 1937 Accounts when the booklet had made a profit of £28 in the year (and a further £12-18-0 in 1938), ‘quite a considerable sum for a publication selling at a shilling’ [1273]. The review in The Law Times told the story of an old Scottish genealogist who, when he quarrelled with any of his acquaintances, used to threaten to 'bastardise' them, as his investigations in family history had shown him that if he went back far enough he was almost sure to find at least one ancestor who was a bastard! The little book was reprinted in 1944 and again in 1948.
In late 1935 the Society received on loan from Herbert C. R. Gillman (1912-1970) a set of the rare Irish newspaper the Hibernian Chronicle, October 1769-1802, and was given donations totalling £20 to start a fund to index the births, marriages and deaths recorded in its pages. A further £6 was received in 1936 and good progress made, the years 1769-1775 being quickly completed in two typescript volumes [1274].
The Society had for some time hoped to publish a new List of Members and eventually decided to do so in the Silver Jubilee Year. The list was in the printer’s hands by the end of 1935 and it appeared early in 1936 [1275]. Its successor waited until the next Jubilee in 1961.
At the Annual Meeting in June 1936 Lord Farrer proposed and it was agreed that under Article 10 not more than three Honorary Members at any one time might be elected [1276]. It is not clear what prompted that proposal, but in September that year, without any formal alteration in the Society's Articles, it was announced that in future second and subsequent Members of the same family residing at the same address could on election pay one-half the entrance fee and one half the annual subscription, they receiving only one copy of the Magazine and of any notices [1277]. I am not sure when the charge was first introduced (or indeed abandoned, for astonishingly it was never mentioned in the Magazine) but in the 1937 Annual Report Kathleen Blomfield remarked on the increased number of day students who were using the library, saying that ‘the arrangement whereby those engaged on special research for a limited period could take out a monthly season ticket for one guinea’ had been especially popular [1278].
It had been the intention to hold an exhibition in March 1936 to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary or Silver Jubilee of the Society but this was postponed owing to the death of King George V [1279] and the 'Exhibition of Genealogical and Heraldic Records' eventually took place in the Library Association's Hall at Chaucer House from Tuesday, 29 June, to Saturday, 3 July 1937, the Society's rooms being closed at that time. It was thought that London would still be full of overseas visitors for the Coronation in May [1280] and more than 1,200 attended [1281]. Some prior publicity in the Daily Telegraph proved useful [1282].
An organising sub-committee with Cregoe Nicholson in the chair had been set up in 1935 [1283] and the exhibition, which was designed to be instructional rather than just a display of rarities, involved various well-known specialists. George Sherwood was responsible for the section on Chancery Proceedings, Reginald Glencross for that on marriage licences and Catholic records, Anthony Wagner for that on the Heralds' Visitations, and Harvey Bloom for that on early deeds. Frank Tyler provided photographs of various parish registers. Eric Geijer, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, organised a fine heraldic display for which Wilfred Harris loaned some heraldic silver. The Librarian of the Institute of Historical Research provided a section of works illustrating 'Preserving and Making Accessible the National Records' and to this Lt. Colonel W. R. Mansfield contributed some impressive examples of his pioneering work on luminograms using ultra-violet light [1284]. Amongst others the dealer Herbert Richard Moulton loaned a large number of original documents from his collection and the Society's library was plundered for typical examples.
The Eugenics Society, which donated £30 towards the cost of the Exhibition [1285], showed several pedigrees 'illustrating how talents, health, various forms of skill as well as diseases and mental disorders and defects are passed from one generation to another', the accent being on positive rather than negative traits, though one of Lidbetter's pedigrees was also shown as 'part of a research into the population of an East London area'. The Eugenics Society had displayed pedigrees at many exhibitions and public meetings over the years, pointing up its moral and biological message, and it found that they were a 'powerfully direct means of persuasion' [1286] though, as Robert Resta has pointed out, they were sometimes extremely misleading and, on close study, revealed more about the biases of their compilers than about the families displayed [1287]. The exhibition catalogue controversially noted that, 'It is difficult to separate the effects of environment and heredity. There is little doubt that both contribute to the result, but where there is no inherited ability, the best environment cannot produce talent which is not innate. A bad inheritance tends to produce a bad environment and placing defective people in a good environment does not raise them above a certain low standard' [1288]. It would be interesting to know how many members of the Society of Genealogists shared those views.
The Secretary, Kathleen Blomfield, was responsible for much of the exhibition's organisational work and it was, from the publicity point of view, a considerable success, though Queen Mary was unfortunately unable to come. There was a private view on the Monday evening attended by the President, Lord Farrer, and an array of notabilities from the record and library world [1289]. Mrs Blomfield was keen to stress that this was the first exhibition of its kind in England [1290] but the newspapers were more interested in some of the pedigrees provided by the Eugenics Society that showed, for example, the transmission of colour-blindness and the genealogy of the Terry and Gielgud families [1291]. A diary started by Anne Prewe in 1581 and added to over some three hundred years by members of the Nicholson family also attracted much attention [1292], as did the pedigree of the former Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin (created Earl Baldwin earlier in the month), which showed that his ancestor renounced any right to Arms in 1663 [1293]. The curious records of the 'Society of Unanimous Sisters' of Sunderland, founded in 1818, which were exhibited, were also noticed [1294]. In interviews Mrs Blomfield said that the Society's work had doubled in the last year, the number of casual visitors doubling in the last five months [1295]. The value of the Great Card Index, of the growing index to apprentices and of Boyd's Marriage Index, was frequently mentioned [1296]. The fact that genealogy 'is not necessarily an expensive process and that it is a most enjoyable task for one to do it oneself' was also remarked upon [1297]. There was even an informative article in Exchange & Mart [1298].
Entrance to the exhibition was free but a detailed catalogue had been put together and was available for a shilling. Its striking cover, with a design of different generations of people in a tree surrounded by simple coats of arms, was again the work of the heraldic artist Claire Evans [1299]. The drawing was far too good to use only once and I later adapted it for use as the cover for many editions of the library guide. Receipts from the sale of the catalogue were supposed to cover most of the cost of the exhibition (some £146 [1300]) but a considerable number remained unsold. They were the subject of an appeal to the members later in the year [1301] and still not selling the price was reduced to six pence in 1939 [1302]. The publicity for the exhibition had overlapped with that for the centenary of the General Register Office for which an important exhibition at Somerset House had also been organised [1303].
Publicity for the Society was doing quite well and in 1938 the cartoonist Lee did two drawings of incidents at the front door of the Society for his series ‘London Laughs’ in the Evening News. In one a wealthy but explosive gentleman is entering a chauffeur-driven car exclaiming, ‘Well! They tell me my great-great, great, great, great grandfather was hanged for stealing sheep’ [1304] and in the other a sad monkey-faced gentleman is saying, ‘They’ve traced me back umpteen generations … then there’s a link missing somewhere’.
Byrom Bramwell's article on cousin marriages (mentioned above) resulted from a lecture on 11 January 1939 which attracted considerable notice in the press. The talk had been publicised in the column 'What's On' in the Daily Express that morning which said 'you can get in free if you let them know beforehand' and it took the line that every stranger passed in Tottenham Court Road was at least one's thirteenth cousin and that cousin marriages were more frequent in the north then in the south, being uncommon in Devon and very infrequent in London. The lecture concluded that people were gradually becoming more related to each other and that English people today are more unlike those on the Continent than they were 600 years ago. The talk and subsequent interviews with Bramwell were reported in the News Chronicle, the Eastern Daily Press (Norwich), the Daily Herald and the Liverpool Post, the last saying, 'Touching a certain fashion for 'Aryan' ancestry, Mr Bramwell said that in the case of English families, if there were no Jewish ancestors in the last three generations it was most unlikely that there would be any further back'.
After the racial decrees were promulgated in Germany in 1933 the Society of Genealogists dealt with 'many hundred inquiries' and it received more after the annexation of Austria in 1938. In 1934 Mrs Blomfield said that nine out of ten did not know the maiden names of their grandmothers, others with ancestral marriages in London had 600 parishes to search but the record of a marriage at an Anglican church was considered sufficient evidence of 'non-contamination'. Most enquiries were from the professional classes and many were from English widows of German officials [1305]. Seeing an opportunity for a little work the professional genealogist Reginald Glencross of Wimbledon advertised in the March 1935 Magazine, 'Aryan descents traced’. The following year the News Chronicle reported that a whole new industry had sprung up, but that Hitler was not satisfied with registration at Somerset House and demanded certified copies of entries from incumbents and ministers. Occasional assistance from the 1861 census cost the Society ten shillings for each entry [1306]. The Society had noticed that in Germany itself practising genealogists had now to be examined in heraldry and history before being registered with the 'Board of Family Research'. Those with local knowledge were particularly welcomed and set fees could then be charged [1307].
In 1938 Mrs Blomfield was reported as saying that, 'The inquirers, professional men or government officials, often have to establish their pedigree back to 1790' and that she had helped many with English ancestry who were worried about their positions. The search fee was £1 a day, but she often did it for much less as those affected could not send more than ten shillings a time out of their country. She said, 'we are so sorry for these poor people - it is often a matter of life or death for them to get the information - that we try to trace their family history as we would for our own members' [1308]. The authenticity of some claims was doubted and at the end of the War a reporter for the Evening Standard, after talking to her, remarked on this 'spate of frantic inquiries from Germans of real or pretended British origin' [1309].
The Times of 14 August 1940 had a leading article, 'Great-Great-Greats', on the compulsory establishment of 'racial purity' in Germany and the genealogical difficulties that would arise if there were ever a similar requirement to name all one's 32 great-great-great-grandparents in England. The paper’s leader had been prompted by a letter from the barrister L. G. H. Horton-Smith (died 1953) which described the booklets that were needed to record the pedigrees and saying that after some years of research he could only identify 21 of his 32 [1310]. He wondered if the records in England were any less well kept that those in Germany. Anthony Wagner replied that the parochial registration in Germany was and still remained much fuller than that in England and that there had been recent large-scale microphotography of parish registers there [1311]. C. L. Norden then wrote that one in thirteen births in Germany were illegitimate and that a large proportion of the population would thus have difficulty in completing their booklets [1312].
Bramwell's conclusions, valid or not, on the frequency of cousin marriages came from a study of the duplication of surnames found in Percival Boyd's marriage index and it should be noted that much of the Society's activity in the period immediately prior to the Second World War undoubtedly owed its success to the industry of Percival Boyd (1866-1955) [1313], MA of Cambridge, chairman and managing director of J. C. Boyd Ltd, of Friday Street, London, merchants and warehousemen, and fifth generation partner in the firm. He had joined the Society in 1922 and had been elected a Fellow in 1926. He was elected to the Executive Committee in 1928 and was its Chairman, 1929-31, when he resigned due to ill health. He served on the Committee again, 1933-49, and was Chairman from the summer of 1938 to that of 1940, being elected a Vice-President in 1944 [1314].
Percival Boyd had a much more progressive attitude about the Society than many of his contemporaries and said that he regarded it and its collections as a sort of laboratory for the use of genealogists, the library providing the tools [1315]. It was a frequent later boast, as he said when elected a Vice-President in 1944, that he was not a genealogist but merely a 'tool-maker', providing the means by which genealogists might work [1316]. In 1938 he initiated a detailed 'Chairman's Page' in the Magazine and in the first one said that he intended to print small specialized sections of the library catalogue where that could be done with little expense [1317], but, beyond parish registers, marriage licences (listed in the National Index of Parish Registers) and poll books (published as an insert to the March 1939 Magazine) [1318], further lists were not published for many years.
On 18 April 1939 Boyd gave a sherry party at the Society which was open to any member, 'as it would be a good thing for the members to know one another better' [1319]. In the event more than two hundred members and their friends attended and the success of 'Mr Boyd's Sherry Party' was remembered for many years. There was a small exhibition of books organised by the Honorary Librarian, Captain Percy-Smith, to illustrate classes of record that were perhaps overlooked in the larger collections on the Library shelves and at intervals throughout the evening there were six 'two-minute talks' about the document collection, the National Index of Parish Registers, the making of the Marriage Index, the Great Card Index, provincial newspapers and the Society's library [1320].
That same March 1939 Boyd announced as 'an experiment in co-operation' the completion of the first 10,000 unit sheets of his 'Citizens of London', later called the 'Inhabitants of London', the index to which had been placed on the library shelves [1321]. In the event he received very little co-operation and he ended up, over the next fifteen years, writing the vast majority of the 59,389 sheets himself, retaining them at home as he worked on them. By September 1939 he had written 19,500 [1322] and, when Beach Whitmore drew attention to their value in March 1944, there were 38,000 [1323]. By 1948 there were 210 volumes and Boyd was appealing for more unit sheets to be added for the period 1701-1850, blank sheets being freely available from the Society [1324]. In October that year, however, he wrote to Whitmore, ‘My own work is limited to my own house, & owing to age & diminished resources is not as large as it was’ [1325]. He was still working on the unit sheets in December 1954 [1326] but the next February [1327] (just before his death on 17 April 1955) he passed the 238 completed volumes to the Society and his index sheets were bound into a further 27 volumes at a cost of £40, paid for by Professor R. C. Gale [1328]. A large number of annotated books from Boyd's library also passed to the Society. In a tribute to this remarkable man, William Harold Challen (1889-1964) [1329] a great transcriber of the City of London marriage registers, wrote that Boyd was 'always intensely and lucidly interested in any problem. What is every day in use is apt to be taken for granted or undervalued, but constant consultation of his works will never diminish grateful remembrance of his untiring industry, unstinting help, and friendliness' [1330].
As already described the old firm of Phillimore & Co Ltd founded in 1897 [1331], had in the early days of the twentieth century published a very large number of marriage registers, covering some 1,500 parishes in 238 volumes, but owing to the high cost of printing after the First World War the firm had only produced a very few more, though it owned several hundred manuscript transcripts [1332]. The company's founder, William Phillimore, had no connection with the Society but several of his successors in the firm were involved in the Society. When the firm was incorporated in 1910 one of the shareholders was Thomas Matthews Blagg (1875-1948) [1333] of Newark on Trent, who joined the Society in 1917, and he continued to work on the marriage volumes for many years, becoming a recognised authority on parish registers generally [1334]. In 1914 he revised Phillimore's useful little book Pedigree Work: a handbook for the genealogist (1s 6d) and published a Supplementary Catalogue of the marriage volumes then available for sale (at 10s 6d a volume, except for Yorkshire at 15s).
In 1921 a controlling interest in the firm passed to the genealogist Bower Marsh (1866-1935) who had formerly been an assistant to the document collector and publisher Frederick Arthur Crisp (1851-1921) with whom he had edited a record of the foundation scholars at Charterhouse in 1913. Bower Marsh was later well known as the transcriber and editor of seven volumes of records of the Carpenters’ Company. He died in November 1935 [1335] but shortly before his death in April 1935 he had sold his interest to Charles 'Harold' Ridge (1890-1957) [1336] who was Managing Director until 1951 and who immediately began to publish further registers, the first being volume 26 of the series for Cornwall in an edition limited to 100 copies at 15s 6d each [1337], quickly followed by 80 copies of volume 12 of the Norfolk series [1338]. The energetic Ridge, who had joined the Society in 1929 and was a member of its Executive Committee during the Second World War, also re-issued Bower Marsh's revision of Phillimore's Pedigree Work (1936) and the following year published a Select bibliography of English genealogy (1937) by Howard 'Guy' Harrison (1886-1963) which remains a valuable book in spite of (or perhaps because of) the selective revision published in 1965 [1339] and the highly inaccurate and deficient one published later [1340]. The newly published marriage registers did not sell at all well and it was feared that the series would have to be discontinued. Members of the Society were urged to support the endeavour [1341] and at the end of 1937 owing largely to the support for the Nottinghamshire volumes edited by Thomas Blagg, more were produced [1342]. In 1938 the many unpublished transcripts held by the company were loaned to Percival Boyd for inclusion in his marriage index [1343].
It may be noted here that the well-known professional genealogist Edward Dwelly who had been elected a Fellow in October 1911, died at his home at Fleet, Hampshire, in January 1939, aged 74 [1344]. He had no obituary in the Magazine but although originally a bank clerk in London he had made a name for himself by publishing at Herne Bay five important volumes (the first two with Arthur Jewers) of Bishops’ Transcripts at Wells (1913-19) for parishes where the early registers were lost, and latterly for single-handedly compiling, printing and publishing a Gaelic dictionary of over 1,000 pages including 675 illustrations, for which he was awarded a civil list pension of £50 in 1909 [1345]. Dwelly had also been responsible for publishing, amongst other things, the Somerset subsidy rolls for 1624-74 (1930), and like Sherwood, had put together a miscellaneous index of genealogical material, much of it relating to the West Country, which at his death contained about 900,000 entries. The index was crated up during the War and sent to Bristol University where it remained for many years before being given to the Society in 1988, when it was found that letters A-B and part of C were unfortunately missing [1346].
The fees for personal inspection of parish registers laid down by the 1836 Act and confirmed in 1853 long remained the same (at 1s. for the first year and 6d. for every subsequent year, with 2s. 6d. for a certificate) but in 1938 the Church Commissioners were given powers to increase the fees for access to the baptismal and burial registers. The Commissioners had already, in 1929, empowered the bishops to establish diocesan record offices in which to deposit registers and as a result some libraries, notably (as already mentioned) the Bodleian at Oxford and Gloucester City Library, had been nominated for their receipt. Where registers were deposited in this way the fees were to be shared between the offices and the incumbents but there was a growing unease amongst genealogists that these fees would now escalate.
As a result of the 1938 Measure any individual parish could apply to the Church Commissioners to set a table of fees for the searching of its registers and many thousands of separate orders were made under which two shillings could be charged for the first year of a search and one shilling for each succeeding year, the parishes without such an order remaining at the old (1836) rate. In 1949 the Marriage Act set the fee for searches in marriage registers at one shilling for the first year and six pence a year thereafter and that, of course, applied everywhere [1347], the charge being increased by a Statutory Instrument in 1952 [1348]. These legalities were not widely known or understood and much confusion ensued. Many clergy insisted, contrary to the 1853 ruling, that entries could only be copied on a ‘certificate’ basis, others charged additional fees for unspecified ‘facilities’ provided during the search [1349] and some bizarrely sought to charge search fees from the year of the ‘opening’ or commencement of their first register to the date, perhaps some hundreds of years later, at which a required entry was found. There was also some legal opinion which did not accept that the 1836 Act applied to parish registers in the first place [1350]. The public at large rarely understood that the rates were for personal inspection of the registers; if the application for a search were made by post the incumbent could charge whatever he wished. Personal inspections were permissible ‘at all reasonable times’ but some clergy thought it unreasonable to give time to the dead rather than to the living and were quick to say so. The inspection of a bundle of bishop's transcripts in a diocesan registry might cost anywhere from half a crown to as much as three guineas [1351].
The Ecclesiastical Fees Measure of 1962 standardised the fees for all parishes (with a doubling of those set in 1938; the fees for marriage searches remained the same) and the Local Government (Records) Act the same year allowed local authorities to permit the deposit of registers in their record offices. The situation about fees for general searches remained very unclear though there was provision in the 1929 Measure for fees to be waived when the search was for historical (including genealogical) purposes. In view of the great difference in size of some registers, genealogists now began to think that any fee should depend on the time taken in the search and not on the number of years searched, and that as the registers were 'public records' that no fee should be levied for access to those in local authority offices. The question of fees remained a very sore one until the vast majority of the registers were taken out of the hands of the clergy in the 1970s and 1980s.
Meanwhile the increasing public interest that was being shown in parish registers had greatly reduced the losses in original registers which had been such a deplorable feature of the past. However, the need for more transcription and publication was continually pressed. As Frederick (‘Derek’) George Emmison (1907-1995), the son of a railway telegraphist and then an assistant in Bedford Record Office, wrote in 1931, 'Prohibitive fees, costly journeys from village to village, and lack of expert assistance, demand that our registers be published for the benefit of students' [1352]. He argued that the material obtainable from parish registers might be used to foster an interest in local history and he urged the complete publication of these 'records of the people' as an object worthy of the assistance of local authorities. In 1934, with the assistance of Bedfordshire County Council he commenced the publication of the parish registers of Bedfordshire prior to 1837, checking the entries against the surviving bishops transcripts, a task that he saw completed only in 1992. It was the first county to see all its registers in print and I was particularly pleased to be at Bedford with Derek Emmison to see the last volume launched in April that year [1353].
In a note about the needs of the Society which appeared in the Magazine in December 1934 it was said that the bishops of Chelmsford, Ely and Norwich had given permission to their incumbents to lend their parish registers to approved applicants so that they might copy them at home. Applications were to be made to Charles F. D. Sperling, FSA (1861-1938), of Ballingdon Hall, Sudbury, Suffolk [1354]. The number of transcriptions was now increasing steadily and in the late 1930s and early 1940s it became the custom to send typescript and manuscript copies to the British Library where the names of transcribers such as Colonel Frank Wall (1868-1950) in Kent, Oswald Greenwaye Knapp (1859-1947) in Dorset, and the Revd Richard Grosvenor Bartelot (1868-1947) also in Dorset, regularly appear in the British Library catalogue. Bartelot loaned a collection of 96 Dorset transcripts to the Society for re-copying in 1937 [1355]. The work of William Harold Challen in the transcription of London registers at this time has already been mentioned.
Kathleen Blomfield had known Kendall Percy-Smith (1897-1975) [1356] for some years before he joined the Society in 1936 and became so active in its affairs. His will, dated in April 1965, speaks of ‘many kindnesses received by me over nearly forty years, from her, her late husband Dr Joseph Blomfield and their families’. Kendall had been born at Tong in Shropshire the son of a chartered accountant, Horace Percy Smith (died 1928) [1357], who abandoned his own wife and children to take his brother’s children to Hong Kong [1358], but subsequently returned to England. Kendall, educated at Shrewsbury and the Royal Military College, was gazetted to the 14th Punjab Regiment and served in Turkey and Mesopotamia before being posted to India in 1919. There he developed a great interest in the families and biographies of those who had served with the Honorable East India Company, but whilst still a Captain he had retired from the regular army and by 1922 had returned to live at Eardley Crescent, Earls Court where he remained until 1935, moving then to Maida Vale and then to Fordwych Road, Kilburn, where he was when he joined the Society in December 1936. Whilst in the East he had made an unhappy marriage and his wife, Alice Sophia (died 1946), who had come to live at Streatham, divorced him in 1935 [1359]. He was generally known as Hubert ‘Kendall’ Percy-Smith but he appeared in the 1901 census as Herbert Kendall David Percy Smith [1360].
As mentioned Percy-Smith became a member of the Magazine’s editorial team and was appointed Honorary Librarian in the autumn of 1938 when Cregoe Nicholson was unable to continue owing to the pressure of business. Percy-Smith was fortunately able to ‘devote practically all his time to the library’ making considerable improvements in its arrangements and he had made an immediate impact by spending £173 on the acquisition of directories and poll books and in the completion of various runs of books [1361]. Various collections were also received. Ethel Fry gave a great number of books and papers that had belonged to her father George Samuel Fry who died in July; the executors of Leoline Griffiths gave his books and papers; those of Frederick Montague Farrar also gave a valuable collection of books; Florence Hankin, the widow of the playright and essayist St John Hankin (and a daughter of George Routledge the publisher) gave twenty volumes of cuttings of births, marriages, deaths and obituaries from The Times to go with the Index of Deaths 1894-1931 already held; Harry Pitman gave fifty very valuable poll books; and Mrs Bird, the widow of W. H. Benbow Bird, gave her late husband’s papers for sorting by George Sherwood [1362]. Percy-Smith prepared the little exhibition at Mr Boyd’s Sherry Party in 1939 but immediately after joining he worked with Kathleen Blomfield on the catalogue of the Society’s collection of parish registers.
A catalogue of the Society's growing collection had, as mentioned above, been published at the cost of Percival Boyd in 1924, but at the end of 1936 it was announced that a new edition was in preparation and that copies would be 3s 6d to those who subscribed in advance [1363]. The much revised second edition of the Catalogue of Parish Register Copies in the Possession of the Society of Genealogists was produced by Kathleen Blomfield and Kendall Percy-Smith in June 1937 and listed the three thousand five hundred transcripts then held. Although at the end of the year it was said that ‘it is clear that the sale of this will cover the cost of printing very shortly’ and that it was anticipated that a profit would eventually be made [1364], the book sold very slowly indeed, being remaindered some twenty-three years later [1365]. However, the couple appealed in its preface for information about further transcripts of registers that might be held by other organisations or in private possession, saying that they would also publish a list of these, no such list having been printed since those produced by George Marshall and Arthur Burke prior to the foundation of the Society.
In furtherance of this work, on Monday, 21 February 1938, a letter under Mrs Blomfield's name appeared in The Times in which she appealed for information about transcripts of registers held privately or by other organisations so that a 'national index' showing their location could be published. The Times gave warm support to the idea in a lengthy Leading Article published the same day [1366]. Both made the important point that such a list would help to prevent duplication of effort in the future. The resulting correspondence pleasingly revealed that there was a desire by many incumbents to have transcripts made of their registers and some even offered to send them to the Society for that purpose. About eighty people came forward to offer help with the copying of both originals and copies. As a result copies relating to some 106 parishes were placed on the shelves that year [1367].
The Society's Executive Committee had no prior notice of Mrs Blomfield's letter to The Times but a month later she put a memorandum before the Committee proposing the formation of two committees, a powerful one of influential people to make an appeal for funds for register transcription and a small sub-committee to organise the work. She mentioned that Captain Percy-Smith was already working several hours a day on the various lists of existing transcripts, the College of Arms had agreed to its copies being included and public libraries would need to be circulated. She suggested that in view of the number of Americans interested in 16th and 17th century registers that an appeal be made to the Pilgrim Trust for a grant, that the businessman and philanthropist, Lord Wakefield (1859-1941), be approached about the City of London registers, and perhaps the motor magnate and philanthropist Lord Nuffield (1877-1963) about those in Oxfordshire. She said that the local parish register societies and the various archaeological societies would all need to be involved [1368], There is little doubt that Percy-Smith was the organising force behind these ideas.
The Executive Committee agreed to set up a sub-committee consisting of Alfred Trego Butler (1880-1946) then Windsor Herald, Eric Geijer (1894-1941) then Rouge Dragon Pursuivant [1369], and Captain Percy-Smith, with Percival Boyd as chairman. They were to consider the compilation of what became the National Index of Parish Register Copies and to deal with the offered loans of registers, £25 being authorised to pay for the making of copies of transcripts [1370]. In May, Boyd reported on a visit by Sir Josiah Stamp (later Lord Stamp), a trustee of the Pilgrim Trust and a member of the Society since 1931, and said that a formal application to the Trust for funds with which to copy registers was being prepared by Mrs Blomfield. Meanwhile Captain Percy-Smith was, he said, busily working on the Index but clerical assistance would be required 'if the work was to proceed at all quickly' [1371].
By June 1938 letters of enquiry had been sent to all the public libraries and archaeological and record societies about transcripts in their possession [1372] and it was found that one society alone had 450 transcripts in manuscript. Percival Boyd, about to become Chairman of the Executive Committee, told the Annual Meeting in July that the aim was to get the un-copied registers copied but the best thing would be for the copying to be done locally [1373]. Later that month he was able to tell the Executive that the Society had received a grant of £300 from the Pilgrim Trust towards the cost of preparing and printing the index. Kathleen Blomfield noted that his announcement was greeted with applause. She was then formally made a member of the sub-committee [1374].
Although the receipt of the £300 was mentioned in the Society's Annual Report for 1938 [1375] the money had, for reasons which have never been fully explained, been put in a special account and although in the name of the Society, it did not appear in the Society's audited accounts, the auditors later saying that they had been told by Mrs Blomfield that the account had 'nothing to do with the Society' [1376]. The National Index of Parish Registers eventually appeared in late September 1939, having taken much longer to compile than was expected owing to its size [1377] and it had then been delayed at the printers by 'urgent government work' [1378]. The title page said that it was 'compiled for The Society of Genealogists by Kathleen Blomfield and H. K. Percy-Smith'. One thousand copies were printed at a cost of £56-3-10 and they sold for 3s 6d each. The 'Index' listed over four thousand transcripts outside the Society's library, the slip writing being the work of Kendall Percy-Smith. The Annual Report noted sadly that, ‘Whilst it was a most unfortunate moment for any book to appear, a certain amount of support has been forthcoming from Public Libraries and other institutions, but the number of copies sold to Members has been surprisingly few’ [1379].
By late 1938 Percival Boyd was able to list the names of some 85 people, not all members, who were actively engaged in copying registers for the Society [1380] and in February 1939 a three-page spread in the magazine Picture Post gave some excellent publicity to their work and that of the Society in general, showing the remarkable baptismal register of Ware in Hertfordshire which in the 1790s has as many as 1,200 entries across one opening [1381]. In the summer of 1939 Kathleen Blomfield used the publication of the National Index to gain further publicity for the campaign to involve people in the transcription of registers and, following an interview with the Evening Standard, successfully obtained notice in several local newspapers [1382]. She said that some registers 'have been found in dustbins, others on rubbish heaps and in second-hand book shops' and that teachers, governesses and retired Civil Servants all over the country were becoming amateur genealogists in their spare time, taking part in a nationwide campaign to copy the registers before 1837.
The ultimate aim was to make two or three typescript copies of each register. The member Frederic Vaughan Cowell (1881-1955), a London accountant who had joined in 1939, had been transcribing registers at a rate of 300 pages a week for several months [1383] and was paid a special tribute in 1941, having written 1,000 pages [1384]. Writing about the destruction of records during the War, Mrs Blomfield said that the register found on a rubbish heap had been collected from the stables of an outgoing incumbent and was being burned by his gardener [1385]. One major coup of her campaign was when a woman brought in a register from Filey in Yorkshire dating from 1573 that she had found amongst her family papers. How it came there she did not know or was not willing to divulge but it had been missing from the church ‘for many generations’ and to salve the family conscience, as The News Chronicle said, she became a member of the Society which repaired the register (at a cost of £4-10-0) and returned it to Yorkshire [1386].
At the Annual Meeting in July 1939 Captain Percy-Smith said that copies of registers were coming into the Society at a rate of five a week and that almost 500 had been received since the letter in The Times. Percival Boyd said that Mrs Blomfield had worked in her own time almost night and day on the National Index and that Captain Percy-Smith was putting in almost as much time as any member of the paid staff [1387].
In August 1939, however, David Ensign Gardner (1915-2007), a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints then living in Liverpool, later to become well known for his books on genealogical research, wrote to the Liverpool Post expressing concern at the slow progress of transcription and, with the danger of air attack being discussed, stressing the urgent need for the micro-filming of registers. He wrote that 'several thousand folios can be recorded in a day'. The films could then be preserved, he said, until such time as a more leisurely transcription could be made, either from the originals (if they survived) or from the projected film [1388]. The previous year the possibilities of the new technology had been praised in a circular to members of Gardner's church by Archibald Bennett, the Secretary of the Genealogical Society of Utah and, with the 'world trembling on the brink of wholesale war', an approach was made through University Microfilms to film the registers of the Isle of Man. This, however, was rejected because the ministers there feared the loss of income from people who came to the parishes to do their own research, and the registers there were not filmed until 1950 [1389]. In England, Hugh B. Brown, President of the British Mission, wrote to all 43 diocesan bishops of the Church of England asking for permission to approach the parish priests within their jurisdictions and reported that although he had received outright permission from some, 'provisional permission by others, and curt refusals from still others', the majority of bishops were favourable to the idea. In the event, however, in Europe most filming by the Latter-day Saints had to wait until after the War [1390].
Unfortunately, on the outbreak of War in September 1939, Kathleen Blomfield's stalwart supporter, Captain Percy-Smith of the 14th Punjab Regiment, was recalled to service and once more sent to India. He was an indefatigable indexer of magazines and parish registers and a characteristic letter from him written on the day that War was declared, continued the following day 'en route for India', asked for 15,000 indexing slips to be sent to meet him at Bombay so that he could finish indexing the June 1939 Magazine and complete the West Bromwich parish registers! [1391]. Mrs Blomfield was not so keen and, wary of the considerable cost involved and the fact that even blank paper had to be declared for customs, she suggested he try to obtain them in India and debit the Society [1392].
With the outbreak of the War, however, Kathleen Blomfield began to think about the possibilities of microfilming parish registers and started a vigorous promotion of this important pioneering project. Marc Fitch (1908-1994) gave £100 to forward the work of copying or filming in June 1940 [1393] and the Pilgrim Trust gave £500, adding a further £500 in 1941. These amounts were also paid into the special bank account [1394]. After an item about the filming appeared in the Amateur Photographer some of its readers offered help and placed their cameras and services at the Society's disposal. Mrs Blomfield hoped that if sufficient volunteers came forward it would be possible to carry out the work locally with the aid of the record societies [1395].
In September 1940 the Magazine mentioned that the Society had been offered the loan of a microfilm projector and an appeal was then made for someone to transcribe from it a few of the shorter registers which had been filmed. Some churches had been bombed and registers destroyed but other registers were being sent by post to London and could be filmed within 48 hours or whilst the messengers waited [1396]. It was said that a country parish could be filmed for twenty-five shilling, but that a London one might cost from fifty to a hundred pounds [1397]. In an article about the library at this time Bethell Bouwens, who had replaced Percy-Smith as Honorary Librarian, remarked that the reduced office staff should not be bothered with queries as it was 'now usually busy on parish register work' [1398].
In March 1941 the Chairman of the Executive Committee prematurely reported that the 'sub-committee on parish register copying having completed its task is now dissolved' but that the 'Provisional Committee which was looking after micro-filming parish registers continued' [1399]. This is the first mention of a Provisional Committee, no record of its appointment having appeared in the Society's minutes. However, the Executive Committee agreed that the Society 'supports the work and is willing for the scheme to continue to be organized from its premises under the patronage of the Society' [1400].
Kathleen Blomfield, who had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, was quick to attempt to explain the position in the March Magazine. She wrote that, "Following the publication of the National Index of Parish Register Copies, it was the intention to form an Association to deal exclusively with parish registers, their preservation, duplication, printing, etc., the Council of which was to be composed of people in touch with the various Parish Register and Record Societies having an interest in this subject. Unfortunately, the war began before the Association could be formed, and although many distinguished people had expressed their willingness to serve on the Council of such a body, the general opinion was the moment was not propitious to launch a new enterprise. The position then was that parish registers might be destroyed by enemy action without any copy having been taken unless members of the Committee originally concerned with the production of the National Index of Parish Register Copies undertook the work of getting parish registers micro-filmed and the information they contain thus safeguarded" [1401]. Quite whose intention it had been to form such an Association is not clear, but one must assume from later developments that it was the joint idea of Kathleen Blomfield and Kendall Percy-Smith. Meanwhile the Provisional Committee soon became the 'Committee for Microfilming Parish Registers' [1402]. Quite why Kathleen Blomfield opened a separate bank account for the funds is not known. At a time when the Society's funds were in a precarious state she perhaps wanted to ring-fence the money obtained for filming and transcribing and, sensing some opposition to her ambitious scheme, she may have wished to place her enterprise beyond the interference of the Society's committees.
In her article she said that the microphotography scheme had the 'benevolent support' of the Society but that the Society had no interest in the films beyond sometimes being their temporary custodian when other arrangements could not be made. She stressed that all the organization and office work had been done voluntarily and she paid tribute to the generous help of the research assistant, Freda Podmore, who since September 1940 had been closely involved. Prior to that date the filming had been carried out in a studio in London, any registers kept overnight being housed for safety in the neighbouring National Central Library through the courtesy of its Librarian, Colonel Luxmoore Newcombe (1880-1952), but with the constant air attacks in London from September onwards filming centres had been set up with the cooperation of local record offices outside London. Some clergy had even allowed their vestries to be used for filming, collecting registers from neighbouring parishes and offering hospitality to the operators. The registers of about a thousand parishes had thus been filmed.
Mrs Blomfield stressed again that the Society would not have access to the films so that there would not be any loss of fee income to the parishes. The Society did not even have a projector and, in any case, to make typescript copies of a large number of registers would 'need many experts' and several projectors. Copies could, however, be made free of charge, at the request of the incumbent, though 'it is not expected that they can be provided (except in the case of registers which are destroyed in the meantime) until after the war'. She added that, 'Although it would then be desirable to provide typescript copies for those who wish for them, here again the project is one which must be undertaken by the Association when formed, and not by the Society'. She would be haunted by this rash promise for the next forty-eight years.
In September 1941 Kathleen Blomfield mentioned in an obituary of Lord Stamp that he had presided over short informal meetings of the Provisional Committee and again said that the registers of over a thousand parishes had been filmed [1403], some 64 transcripts having come into the Library in the last six months [1404]. In April 1942 she reported that she had secured the services of two juniors - one for the office and one for microfilm work at a pound a week each [1405]. Concerned at the legal validity of microfilm copies of parish registers if the originals were destroyed, she was also pleased to note that in March 1942 an infra-red photograph of a brittle will which had been charred by enemy action had been admitted to probate by the President of the Probate Division [1406].
That year the Committee for Microfilming obtained the patronage of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and its membership was strengthened by the addition of Charles (later Sir Charles) Travis Clay, Librarian at the House of Lords, Canon Alan Campbell Don and Prebendary Christopher Cheshire. Even Cregoe Nicholson, who disliked Kathleen Blomfield and was an early critic of the scheme, was impressed at the Committee's 'National character' [1407]. When in 1943 the Pilgrim Trust gave a further £500 it was entered in the Books of the Trust as being paid to the Provisional Committee [1408].
Mrs Blomfield gave a report on the Committee's work in the March 1943 issue of the Magazine, saying that half a million pages of registers had been filmed. In London Messrs Lever Brothers and Unilevers Ltd had placed an apparatus and operator at the Committee's disposal for the filming of London registers and eleven parishes had been completed, including St Andrew Holborn and St Margaret Westminster. About 1,500 parishes altogether had been filmed. She made a point of saying that the child had outgrown its parent, for the Committee 'is quite independent of the Society except that it gratefully accepts office space at Chaucer House for its secretarial work'. That the Society also paid her salary was not mentioned. The Committee was using a portable Graflex camera which, loaded with a hundred feet of film, could photograph about 1,600 pages, the exposures being automatically controlled by a foot pedal. About two to three hundred pages could be photographed in an hour. Anything not in good condition was excluded from the scheme. Mrs Blomfield wrote that the Committee would arrange for the camera operator to go anywhere in England provided that not less than 5,000 pages were available to film at the chosen centre. No register was being filmed beyond 1812 [1409].
In May 1943 it was reported that the sixty-five Kent parish registers transcribed by Sir Thomas Colyer-Fergusson (1865-1951) had been loaned for re-copying [1410] and the following year the Society's recommendations for the copying of registers (with an approved list of abbreviations) were, for the first time, published in the Magazine. In spite of the shortage of paper, ruled sheets for the first rough transcript were being supplied by the Society [1411]. Some people were particularly busy on the Society's behalf and Mr A. C. Glynn Grylls an instructor in languages at the Royal Naval Engineering College Devonport, who had transcribed the registers of eight Cornish parishes, went to Launceston in March 1943 to explore further possibilities in that area, distressed at the number of churches being blitzed and registers damaged. Known as the relative of a prominent solicitor at Launceston he attracted useful publicity for the Society in the local press [1412].
When the National Emergency was declared in September 1939 the Society's opening hours (which had been 10 am to 6 pm, Monday to Saturday) were restricted to 5 pm on weekdays and to 1 pm on Saturdays and Mrs Blomfield wrote to The Times saying that the continuation of normal activities and recreations should be maintained as far as possible and that the Society’s facilities for borrowing books would be extended [1413]. She wrote in the Society’s Annual Report that attendance of members at the rooms since September had varied little in numbers compared with normal times and that this indicated that the decision to keep the services available as far as possible ‘was a wise one’ [1414]. However, in December 1939 it was announced that the remainder of the lecture programme had been abandoned owing to the difficulties of restricted travelling and from 18 November, when daylight saving ended, the rooms were opened from 9.30 am to 4 pm and to 1 pm on Saturdays, the whole building being closed at that time due to the depletion of staff on war service. The number of books that could be borrowed was increased from two to four, the period of loan being increased from one to two weeks [1415], but the rule had reverted by March 1942 when those offenders who detained books longer received a severe rebuke from a stern Mrs Blomfield [1416]. A detailed list of what could not be borrowed unless there were duplicate copies had been drawn up in January 1939 [1417].
In December 1939 some of the members engaged in ARP work, particularly on switchboards, were already using the long intervals between calls in indexing for the Society [1418] and a year later Mrs Blomfield appealed to bored ARP wardens 'in their dug-outs' to help sort a considerable collection of will abstracts [1419]. In May 1940 when the Annual Report for 1939 was written she complained that the staff had been ‘working under considerable pressure and during the cold weather when the heating proved quite inadequate, discomfort. It is to be hoped’, she wrote, ‘that these special conditions will not last long or occur again’ [1420] but the Annual Report for 1940 again said ‘the winter has been unpleasant because the heating has been most inadequate’, though otherwise the daily routine of the Society had suffered very little. As for the world situation Sherwood, who was doing a little research for Percy-Smith, wrote to him in India that August, ‘we have our tails well up, and think we shall conquer the beast, once again. It seems worse to you, far away, than it does to us at home, I daresay’ [1421].
And so when 'Summer Time' commenced in 1940 it was possible to return to normal hours including Saturday afternoons, but only two lectures were then held [1422], with tea provided, though members who took sugar were asked to provide their own [1423]. Indeed Kathleen Blomfield does not seem to have waivered in her view that the rooms should be kept open at all costs, even when in September 1940, some of the windows were blown in with consequent ‘small damage’. She wrote in the Annual Report that the Executive Committee had considered the matter but that it would not be possible to put away any particular section of the library considered specially valuable to a safe place, if such could be found, and she urged members to continue their support of the Society, for if it ‘were allowed to decline it would take many years of hard work to build it up again’ [1424].
However, in the winter of 1940 the opening hours were again restricted, the rooms closing half an hour before the official 'black-out' times, Saturdays included. If the closing was obliged to be earlier than 4 pm the rooms did not open at all on Saturdays [1425]. There were iron gates at the end of Malet Place and under the Defence Regulations members had to show their Identity Cards at the gates [1426]. In March 1941 it was said that attendance at the library had been sparse throughout the winter but the rooms were then opened until 5.30 [1427]. In the winter months of 1942 the rooms were again closed about an hour before 'black-out' [1428] and this then remained the practice until the end of the War.
In 1941 monthly lectures were held in the spring and summer and advertised in the 'Personal' column of The Times (a practice that continued throughout the War), members being asked to notify the Society in advance 'to allow for accurate catering' [1429]. Members were asked to bring friends, as the few lectures that were organised were not well attended. Attendance was ‘very poor’ in 1945 [1430] and this complaint was still heard in June 1946 when tea was dispensed with because of the rationing of milk, bread and cakes. It cannot have helped that owing to the extreme shortage and rationing of paper no separate lecture syllabus was sent out and that until September 1947, when the provision of tea was still doubtful, the members had to rely on the twice-yearly Magazine for information [1431].
As we have seen the Honorary Librarian, Kendall Percy-Smith, had been recalled to serve in the Indian Army in September 1939 and Bethell Bouwens, a member since 1918 who had recently moved to London, kindly offered to carry on his work. Bethell Godefroy Bouwens (1884-1942), a retired motor engineer, of Dutch ancestry, was also Chairman of the Executive Committee in 1940-41. In March 1940 he had succeeded Byrom Bramwell as joint-editor of the Magazine with William Gun and they worked together until March 1942. Bouwens’s only sister Hyacinth (1890-1968), subsequently Lady Walsingham, had been a Fellow since 1912 [1433]. His remarkable family history, A thousand ancestors (1935), in which he attempted to trace all the lines of his ancestry for ten generations, had been followed by the valuably detailed Wills and their whereabouts (1939) copies of which he (and subsequently his son Derek) generously donated to the Society for sale to benefit the Library Fund [1434]. Bouwens' books had been printed photographically from his own handwriting in a 'Replika' process and that distinctive black writing was soon to be found on large numbers of the cards in the Library Catalogue, for, despite considerable ill health he was an extremely active man. The Annual Report says that he made a ‘material improvement to the card catalogue’ and it was he who was responsible for bringing all the printed tracts on families together and binding them in a series of volumes in distinctive canary cloth [1435] thus undoubtedly saving many from loss or theft, as well as introducing the first card catalogue of the periodicals.
There was also a considerable accumulation of books needing to be accessioned [1436]. Of the 1,000 books accessed in 1939, sixty-three had been received for review, but large donations of books had also come from the executors of Captain James M. C. Gibbon, of Abberton Hall, Pershore, who died that year and of Leoline Griffith who had died in 1938 [1437]. In addition Bouwens, who Sherwood told Percy-Smith was ‘devoted to the library’ [1438], made various changes in the library, removing the volumes of visitations, wills and marriage licences from the county shelves and placing them in separate groups, still in county order. He intended to do the same with the poll books and directories but this never happened. Although apparently planned by Percy-Smith it was not an altogether satisfactory arrangement. Searchers working on the county shelves frequently overlooked the additional volumes and after Lawson Edwards retired we returned many of them (except those that covered a whole diocese or more than one county) to their original places. Bouwens also took the folio books, mostly county histories, which did not fit on the county shelves and placed them together, at that time in the central aisle [1439].
At the Annual Meeting in July 1940 Bouwens said that the number of books received in the Library in the last six months had almost equalled that in the previous six years (‘as people die or reduce their establishments’ as Sherwood said [1440]) and he was anxious to fill the gaps in many of the periodicals that he had been cataloguing, a subject that he reverted to in March 1941 when he published in the Magazine a long list of missing journals [1441]. In September 1940 he had printed there a fairly detailed explanation of the arrangement of the library, adding that he was usually present from noon onwards. As a joint-editor of the Magazine, he appealed in vain for further correspondence [1442] and later expressed his dissatisfaction with the journal as it then stood, though suggestions for its improvement (other than to print outline pedigrees taken from the document collections) were not forthcoming [1443].
The Society's third President, the ‘excellent’ Lord Farrer (as Sherwood called him) [1444], who had taken a very active part in the Society's affairs and had attended its meetings regularly, died at Abinger Hall, Dorking, on 12 April 1940, aged 80. At the Annual Meeting in July the former Sir Josiah Stamp, who had been so helpful with the funding of the National Index of Parish Registers and had been created Baron Stamp in 1938, was elected President in his stead. Lord Stamp's father had been the manager of a railway bookstall at Wigan and he himself had entered the Inland Revenue Department as a boy clerk in 1896. He became an eminent statistician and administrator and was one of the original trustees of the Pilgrim Trust and, in 1936, President of the British Association. Not himself a university man, he received 23 honorary degrees. He had been a member for some years but sadly after less than a year as President he was tragically killed with Lady Stamp and their eldest son Wilfrid, in the shelter of their home in an air raid on 16 April 1941, just a few days before the Society’s Annual Meeting on 24 April [1445].
George Sherwood had continued to maintain his office at 227 The Strand until at least September 1917 but had moved to another small office at 210 The Strand (near the Savoy on the other side of the Aldwych) by August 1919 [1446] and he advertised in the Magazine into the 1930s, mentioning his indexes, selling small indexes of records, transcripts of registers and typed notes of lawsuits, wills and deeds [1447], and charging about £1 for each one hundred sheets. In 1930 he had written, 'The fixed plan of nearly forty years work amongst the records has been the discovery of fresh material and the systematic typing out and filing of matter already in hand. It is progressively acquisitive and exploratory, never at a standstill, and in that we find our sustained interest and pleasure' [1448]. In 1931-2 he acquired, for instance, a collection of 250 original marriage licences, 1750-1850, from Southwark which he offered at £2 each and a collection of 250 engraved portraits from James Granger's Biographical History of England (1769) which were £12-10-0 each.
Sherwood had a considerable knowledge of the problems of tracing the origins of early emigrants to America and in 1932 he also published the '1st Series' of his American Colonists in English Records: a guide to direct references in authentic records, passenger lists, &c, quickly following this with a '2nd Series' a year later, but his projected '3rd Series' never appeared [1449].
In 1934 he said that his general index, which rivalled that of the Society and probably contained about two million slips, was valued at £1,000 for insurance purposes. It filled six six-foot bookcases and had a large overflow [1450]. By December 1935 he had acquired a collection of about four thousand letters on genealogical, heraldic and ceremonial topics addressed to Sir William Betham, Ulster King of Arms, in the years 1810-30, and he published a catalogue of them the following year. The intention was to sell the letters individually but the venture was a failure and he sold the great bulk to the National Library of Ireland during the War. The subject of the letters was not entirely genealogical and there is one catalogued, 'Anonymous (signed William Betham) to Walter Cox, bookseller, Dublin, Oct. 1815, as to O'Donnell pedigree and wife beating - 15s' [1451]. The Betham catalogue mentions his earlier work sorting the Clayton deeds and papers prior to their sale and the cataloguing of the deeds, letters and papers of Sir Mark Sykes, Sir Henry Jerningham, Sir William Lawrence Young and the Pownall Hall deeds of his client Henry Boddington.
Sherwood moved from 210 The Strand about the end of 1935 and worked until June 1937 from Phillimore's rooms at 120 Chancery Lane [1452]. However, by December 1937 he had given up his London base and was working entirely from home, now at 48 Beecroft Road, Brockley (to which the family had moved in 1933), advertising that he undertook research as well as the compilation and verification of pedigrees, particularly those dealing with the middle classes [1453]. His name appears on the Society's first list of recommended searchers in the advertisement pages of the Magazine in March 1939.
Sherwood was married three times. His first wife, Alice Mary Hutchinson, whom he had married in 1887, sadly died the following year aged 23 and he married secondly at Fulham in 1889 after a six-month courtship, Sophia Mary Floyd Gibbs, five years older than himself and the daughter of a stonemason, by whom he had four daughters and one son. He observed in 1911 that ‘most people marry near their own class … it is distinctly uncomfortable to marry far out of it’, saying that, ‘The old rule was for men to move a step up by marriage; women a step down’ [1454]. Surviving letters from Sherwood to 'Sophie' in their early years of marriage give an idea of their hand-to-mouth existence as he travelled around the country looking at records for his clients, uncertain when, or indeed if, they would pay him for his work [1455]. George's only son, Ralph Tudor Sherwood, who had been born in 1891 and in 1911 was assisting his father in the business, served in the First World War but unfortunately died in late 1927, just a few months after his mother Sophia who was sixty-four.
George then married thirdly at the age of 62 in October 1929, May Ethel Trinder (1891-1975), who had worked for some years as secretary to his old genealogical friend the Revd Ernest Salisbury Butler Whitfield (1872-1943) when Curate of St Andrew, Holborn. Whitfield, who also lived at Brockley, had joined the Society in 1912 when Vicar of St Luke, Deptford, and was later a member of the Executive Committee and Librarian, 1926-30. May Trinder had been born at Deptford, the daughter of the Official Coal Meter at the Coal Exchange. She charmingly appears in the 1911 census as a ‘Lady Secretary’. In 1922 she made an unhappy and childless marriage to Harry McIntyre whom she divorced in 1926 [1456] but meanwhile late in 1925 she had become a member of the Society [1457]. She must at some stage have let her membership lapse for she joined again after her marriage to Sherwood in 1929. She and George Sherwood had two sons, John in 1930 and George in 1932. Her stepdaughters, who lived with them for a while and with whom she was good friends, were, of course, almost the same age as herself. I remember one of them, Barbara I think, coming to see her at the Society. May always seemed much in awe of ‘Mr Sherwood’, as she referred to her husband, but as will be seen, was a great support to him in his later years. It would have amused him to recall reading in 1916 some statistics that proved that it was ‘impossible for anyone born within a century of his great-grandfather’s birth to become a distinguished man’ [1458]. It was said that a child of a man of 60 has more than fifty-one times as good a chance of becoming eminent as the child of a man under 24. Sherwood had commented then, ‘The recipe is not to marry early and to marry often but to marry late and the later the better’ [1459].
May Sherwood used to tell stories of how the two boys were brought into their father’s office at tea-time and stood on his desk for inspection. Not surprisingly, they took little or no interest in their father’s work. He was completely immersed in his indexing, typing and filing, the large book cases with their box files and parcels arranged around him. He used silver paper to make the parcels more attractive and if the heavy parchment deeds were too intractable he would jump up and down on them so that they could more easily be filed. He was not averse either to cutting the seals off late documents that he considered of little importance so that they too could be easily ‘enveloped’. Money was always short and one day, May recalled, she found him in the bathroom attempting to wash out a typewriter ribbon so that it could be used as tape. String cost money and there were little drawers in his office labelled with various lengths, the last with the words, ‘String too short to be of any use’.
Their marriage was certainly not an easy one financially and May Sherwood always advised me against thinking of genealogy as any form of career. Early in 1940 George Sherwood put out a little leaflet setting out his Credentials [1460] and aimed at raising some work, but May used to say that he received no commissions at all throughout the duration of the War. At the end of that year he wrote to Beach Whitmore from Brockley worrying about the effect of the bombing in the City, but he had been busy at home putting in order some 13,584 slips of marriages from an incomplete run of The Monthly Magazine, 1796-1825, which he valued ‘for ordinary middle-class people’ because his own great-grandparents on both sides appeared in it, one at Canterbury and the other at Oxford. However severe the bombings, he optimistically wrote, there would still be ‘plenty of material to work upon’ [1461].
Without Sherwood at the Society in the early War years, Bethell Bouwens took on the task of sorting some of the manuscript material that was received. Bouwens was appalled at its quality, writing in the Magazine under the heading 'Memento Mori', that it was 'dreadful to review the waste of effort' and 'a saddening business' attempting to reduce the collections into order. He thought that 'the more distinguished the worker the scrappier and more disorderly' were his 'literary remains', some being 'wholly chaotic and unintelligible' [1462]. It was a point that came up many years later when I told the then Chairman, Robert Garrett that the money spent on sorting dud collections might perhaps be better spent on purchasing worthwhile ones [1463].
Realising the possible risks arising from air warfare, the possible evacuation, dispersal and duplication of records was much discussed by London archivists in the early days of the 'phoney' war in 1939-40 and some 90,000 large packages weighing two thousand tons were dispersed from the Public Record Office to seven different regions of the country. They went to a prison at Shepton Mallet, a poor law institution at Market Harborough, to Belvoir Castle, and to various private houses, and yet every record remained available for official use and, from November 1939 onwards the Search Room with the 1841 and 1851 census returns remained open and some street indexes to the larger towns were compiled by the staff. Shelter in the safer parts of the building was then given to other vulnerable records such as those from Lambeth Palace and from some City Companies. There were, of course, many incendiary attacks and some twenty-three fell on the Chancery Lane building in one night in 1941-2. The records were not always safe in their new homes and although none were destroyed by bombing, some suffered from damp and mildew. In London there was much damage to papers stored in basements from mains and sewers broken by high explosive bombs and the Chancery Lane Safe Deposit was flooded with sewage that could not then escape through the solid concrete walls. At Exeter, although twenty-five tons of books and records had been removed from the City Library and saved, the Probate Registry was completely destroyed. Only then, following the intervention of Ethel Stokes the Secretary of the Records Preservation Section of the British Records Association, did the President of the Probate Division order a systematic dispersal, evacuation, and interchange of records in the remaining Probate Registries [1464].
By March 1940 the Society's document collection, arranged by surnames and places, filled 663 heavy box files [1465], but whilst Chairman in 1940-41, Bethell Bouwens put on permanent loan with various local repositories most of the original deeds from the 'places' section, on condition that they were available to members and that abstracts would be prepared for the Society's use [1466]. Their extent may be seen in that the Society then offered for sale about 300 box files that had contained them [1467]. Many schedules of these documents were returned to the Society but in one county some documents found their way into private hands and were offered for sale, much exercising Mrs Blomfield who was obliged to involve the Society's solicitor. After Bouwens became unwell she wrote grumblingly to Kendall Percy-Smith in India that 'the acting Hon Librarian who was at that time also Chairman ... took over the disposal of these things although they were rightly Mr Sherwood's province' [1468].
The whole of the nearby Maples furniture store between Tottenham Court Road and Gower Street was destroyed by bombing on 16-17 April 1941 [1469] and the question of removing some of the Society's irreplaceable documents and records to a place of safety was again discussed at the Annual Meeting a few days later on 24 April, but the general wish of those members attending was that the collections should be kept intact as a working library in London 'but that if advisable part of its collections might be sent to a place of greater safety' [1470].
Only a few days later, in the terrible raids on the night of Wednesday, 10 May 1941, the library had a very lucky escape. A correspondent to the Society of Australian Genealogists who had been on fire-duty that night described Chaucer House as 'a mass of flames, from floor to roof, an incredible inferno', but went back the next day to find that the building, 'soaked in water from hoses and the burst pipes, and filled with the dust and grime of such an occasion, with windows broken by high explosive and the heat of the fire', had in fact been saved and that Mrs Blomfield (who had lived since her second marriage in St Andrew’s Mansions, Dorset Street, off Baker Street) [1471] was there with the cleaners, nothing having been damaged [1472]. She herself played the incident down and wrote that it would be well to stress, 'especially for our overseas readers, that no material damage was suffered to Chaucer House itself. Some highly coloured reports of flames licking up the lift well, etc., seem to have been circulated, but that is sheer nonsense. A certain amount of water entered the building from leaking hoses, etc., playing on adjacent premises; but the fact that the library was only closed for a couple of days, and only then in order to remove broken glass and dirt which had blown in, should prove how light the actual damage was' [1473]. The truth seems to have been, as W. A. Munford later wrote, ‘Chaucer House might have been completely burnt out had it not been for the prompt action of its senior porter, E. A. Hornsby, who gallantly fought the fires alone until help was forthcoming; thanks to him, damage was slight’ [1474]. The adjacent National Central Library was very seriously damaged by fire, but since most of the Library Association staff had been transferred to temporary accommodation in the Public Library at Launceston (from 1940 to 1943), the vacated space at Chaucer House was able to be placed at the disposal of the stricken National Central Library. University College to the north and other buildings on both sides of the mews’ entrance were seriously damaged [1475].
Cyril Hankinson (died 1984, aged 88), the editor of Debrett’s Peerage, later recalled the worrying days that month when he could not get to his office in Ludgate Hill, once walking down Fleet Street whilst flames shot up from the man-holes where escapes of gas had become ignited, the way eventually barred by fire engines and unexploded bombs, and then telephoning from the Post Office in New Bridge Street to hear the reassuring tones of the bell ringing in his abandoned but unscathed office [1476].
Very sensibly later that year all the Society's 'duplicates for loan' were sent to safety [1477] and later the collection of poll books, which included the fifty given by Harry Pitman in 1938 [1478], was also wisely sent to the country [1479]. The Society's material was taken to Gloucestershire by the kindness of one member and housed by another, Charles Holmes Harrison (1872-1949), at his home at Algars Manor, Iron Acton, about ten miles from Bristol [1480]. Harrison, late of the Indian Civil Service, was married to Marjorie Delves Broughton, a first cousin of the librarian Bethell Bouwens [1481]. It was, as Lord Mersey remarked in 1945, 'most fortunate' that the Society had not suffered damage from bombing and worthy of mention that it had kept the library open throughout the War [1482]. The records and principal collections of the College of Arms had been removed to Thornbury Castle, also in Gloucestershire, the home of Sir Algar Howard, from 1939 to 1945 [1483], and the College had a very narrow escape from destruction by fire, also on 10 May 1941, when all the buildings on its east side were destroyed [1484]. Upwards of 30,000 books at the Guildhall Library were destroyed by bombing and many thousands more badly damaged [1485].
Mrs Blomfield recorded at the end of 1941 that some thirty-four new members had joined the Society since the start of the war but at least two of the younger members had been killed on active service and overall, with other deaths and unpaid subscriptions, there had been a decrease in numbers [1486]. Her Annual Reports sadly provide few statistics, but the entrance fees paid by new Members, £97 in 1939, slumped to £22 in 1940 and did not recover to the pre-War figure until 1952. For the first time in some years there was an excess of income over expenditure (of £78) in 1941 though Percival Boyd had made a donation of £168. The number of daily visitors had surprisingly been greater than in 1940.
In 1942 there were fifty-eight new members, of whom thirteen were in the UK or Allied Forces, an average of six members using the rooms daily, together with, in the course of the year, eighty day or half-day searchers. She noted that ‘statistics were never very welcome’ but gave these to justify the policy of keeping the library open and providing the usual services [1487]. One wonders what statistics she would have produced if the library had had a direct hit. Percival Boyd made another donation of £35 and £200 was received under the will of Harry Pitman.
George Sherwood was Chairman of the Executive for the three years during the War, 1941-43, as well as being Honorary Treasurer. He advertised, 'Ancestors traced; descent and kinship proved. Speciality, the conservation of records in War time, and, above all, indexing' [1488]. In 1942 Reginald Glencross, whose home at Wimbledon had been much damaged by blasts in 1939 [1489], presented to the Society his own large collection of papers, many relating to Cornwall and described in the Annual Report as ‘equal in importance to any of the collections previously received’ [1490]. Sherwood thought it 'one of the most important the Society has received' [1491], but he was later much criticised for breaking it up, regardless of its index, and filing each careful pedigree amongst the others in the Society’s Document Collection.
Another important accession received about this time but not mentioned in the Magazine or in the Annual Reports of the Society was a cabinet containing a fifty-seven draw slip index compiled by James William Fawcett (1867-1942), of Satley, county Durham [1492], relating generally to North Country families. Fawcett, who was not a member of the Society, was the son of a small farmer at Satley and had travelled extensively overseas when young but returned to publish The Birds of Durham and Tow Law, its Foundation and Early History in 1890. Then, after a period in Australia where he continued his interests in natural history and the local clergy, he came back to Satley to write a series of books on the Derwent Valley, to transcribe local parish registers and to become a prolific contributor to various local papers and journals on every aspect of local history, usually describing himself as a journalist. He had a considerable interest in the clergy and in the early Primitive Methodists of the area and his index, which was little used and not fully alphabetised until the 1960s, contains much material about them.
The most active Bethell Bouwens continued to attend regularly at the Society until within a few months of his death on 24 October 1942, aged 58, his courteous and helpful presence being particularly appreciated because of the lack of other staff [1493]. Kathleen Blomfield's Assistant, Audrey Jennings, had been obliged to leave in August 1940 'owing to retrenchment and economy' [1494]. It was ‘a pity’, as Sherwood wrote to Percy Smith, ‘but we had no choice’ [1495]. Her departure was followed by that of Miss Locke, about whom I have no personal details but who had been with the Society for nearly four years. She left shortly before the Annual Meeting in April 1941 when William Gun paid a tribute to her as 'always so efficient and ready to help Members'. Mrs Blomfield said that ‘her pleasant personality is greatly missed’ and much difficulty was experienced in replacing her for she had, since July 1940, done much of the work formerly undertaken by Miss Jennings. Staffing problems generally were acute and at the Debrett office Cyril Hankinson recalled young girls coming and going and being obliged to engage boys and girls in their school holidays to address envelopes [1496]. At the Society Mrs Blomfield was then described as the only remaining member of the permanent staff [1497]. So that she could have a holiday and because it was impossible to obtain relief help, the Society closed its rooms for two weeks in 1941 (20 September - 6 October) and no correspondence was attended to [1498]. The Annual Report says ‘The Executive Committee propose to continue this practice’ [1499] and the closure was repeated in June-July 1942 [1500], June-July 1943 [1501], August 1944 [1502], June-July 1945 [1503], June-July 1946 [1504] and June-July 1947 [1505].
However, matters were slightly improved when Miss Kathleen Sayers (1902-1951), who had been with the British Dental Association for nine years and had latterly acted as Senior Library Assistant there, was appointed Assistant Secretary in October 1941, an appointment that Mrs Blomfield considered ‘most fortuitous, since she already had experience in a specialist library and was accustomed to dealing with library enquiries’. The Society was, however, ‘without a junior of any kind, and all the work, which is not less than in peace-time, must be shared between the Secretary and Miss Sayers’ [1506]. That was remedied with the arrival in 1942 of ‘our youngest and latest comer, Rita Drenon’ [1507], who was only fourteen! [1508].
A new President of the Society, Charles Clive (Bingham), 2nd Viscount Mersey (1872-1956) [1509], a noted traveller and diplomat, was elected at the Annual Meeting on 11 April 1942 when it was mentioned that he was a trustee of The Complete Peerage and had been a keen genealogist all his life [1510]. He took a close interest in the Society, particularly during the move, and presided at many of its meetings and at the popular luncheons mentioned below, remaining President until 1956. His father, the 1st Viscount, had made a name for himself when heading the Board of Trade enquiries into the sinking of the RMS Titanic, the RMS Lusitania and the RMS Empress of Ireland.
I have the impression that Kathleen Blomfield did not altogether approve of Bethell Bouwens' activities in the Library and after his death in October 1942 the Committee decided not to appoint another Honorary Librarian for the duration of the War [1511]. There had been some criticism of Bouwens’s re-arrangement of the books in the Library bays but the Executive Committee agreed in 1943 that the then arrangement followed the lines laid down by Major Percy-Smith when he was honorary-librarian and that any further alteration should await his return. He had been appointed Corresponding Member of the Indian Historical Records Commission for the next five years [1512].
Kathleen Sayers acted as Assistant to Mrs Blomfield from March to September 1943, but the latter apparently worked without a formally named Assistant for the remainder of the War, describing herself in the Magazine as 'Secretary and Acting Librarian' from March 1943 to March 1945. In May 1945 Lord Mersey said that Mrs Blomfield had, we might think not surprisingly, been 'ill for some considerable time', but she had carried on working 'and had managed to surround herself with an efficient staff' [1513]. The strains and stresses of wartime London may have had their effect on Miss Sayers also, for she left late in 1943 and died in Paddington Hospital aged 48 in 1951.
After the War, however, Mrs Blomfield complained (through Lord Mersey) that salaries generally had almost doubled since 1939 and that well-qualified staff were not obtainable with the salaries offered. Aside from members, there were about 500 non-members a year coming to the rooms and considerable correspondence [1514]. The following year the situation improved and in 1947 she was able to say that the assistants were interested in the work and their advent had done much to further the smooth running of the Society [1515].
As during the First World War many irreplaceable records were destroyed, so in the Second many were destroyed as a result of the incessant salvage drives. As early as November 1939 Mrs Blomfield had written to the Radio Times challenging a remark that if anyone was in two minds as to what to do with waste paper they should ‘throw it away’, appealing to listeners who were in doubt not to throw old documents away but to consult either the British Records Association or the Society about them [1516]. She returned to the subject in the Magazine in March 1943, commending the great enthusiasm of the volunteers at the Annual Meeting of the British Records Association but at the same time chastising the collections and actions of incompetent genealogists! [1517].
Some years before the War there had been a sudden growth in a fashion for making lampshades from old parchment documents but the wartime concentration on military production fortunately meant the virtual disappearance of the lampshade industry. Sadly, after the War the manufacture revived, the parchments generally coming from solicitor's offices. Deeds, bonds, indentures and probate copies of wills thus found a ready market [1518]. Once more, Cregoe Nicholson pointed out the activities of the Records Preservation Section of the British Records Association in sorting and distributing unwanted records from solicitors' offices and urged the members to support its work [1519]. Nicholson had a life-long interest in the work of the Association, encouraging me to become a Life Member in 1957, and again stressing its importance to the members in 1959 [1520]. Back in 1936 when Honorary Librarian he had written to the Observer about a fashion for collecting Revenue Stamps cut from documents, urging those involved to preserve the complete record, but perhaps unwisely mentioning the large collection of such stamps on original apprenticeship indentures at the Society [1521].
In 1943 there was an upsurge in membership, with seventy-three new members joining and many visitors, particularly from the American and Dominion Forces stationed in England. One hundred and thirty one persons used the library as day searchers (as against eighty the previous year), the youngest being twelve years old, and some 600 books were borrowed. Donations of books continued, some 387 were received of which sixty were parish register copies [1522]. However, the overhead expenses continued to increase and as the Annual Report said, money was now much needed with which to pay for typing and indexing the parish register transcripts. It was a vain hope, the Society being on a strict quota of paper because of the War.
Mrs Blomfield gave a very upbeat assessment of the Society's general situation in a 'Retrospect and Prospect' which appeared in the Magazine in March 1944 [1523] and in the Annual Report she said that the year had proved to be one of the busiest in the history of the Society [1524]. At the Annual Meeting in May the President, Lord Mersey, said that some fifty new members had been elected since January and that a friendly invasion of our American allies and Dominion servicemen had overtaken Chaucer House, where enquiries, both in person and by letter, averaged forty a week [1525]. The total numbers for the year are unfortunately again not given in the Report. A note in the September 1944 Magazine put the number of American visitors at only thirty a week and less after the Normandy Landings. The Americans’ problems were the same: so few knew anything about the identity of their first migrant ancestor, let alone where he came from in England.
The American section of the library was, however, for a time the most in use and owing to the great demand it was decided to prohibit loans from its shelves [1526]. Over 800 books were borrowed in 1944, but the loan of outsize books by post was stopped early in the year, it being difficult to obtain adequate packaging and quite impossible to get damaged books repaired. In spite of the great reduction in the number of books being printed, the library received 318 books and it was decided to increase by fifty per cent its valuation for insurance purposes. The accessions of unbound register transcripts were again delayed because of the problems of getting them bound. A non-member, Miss Rosalind Pole-Stuart (died 1986), voluntarily typed a large number of registers at this time in spite of living on the front line at Folkestone, but the home of Mrs John Glyn, a member who was also typing registers, was destroyed by a rocket though she fortunately escaped unhurt and was able to salvage the work on which she was engaged [1527].
The Society’s staffing problems continued throughout 1944 in the face of the Ministry of Labour’s veto on the employment of people aged between eighteen and fifty in unscheduled occupations and this, coupled with the inadequate heating in the winter months, combined to oblige the Society to close for a while on Mondays though it stayed open all day on Saturdays. Members and staff could thus avoid the coldest day of the week, after Sunday when there was no heating at all. The heating system was designed to be on at all times but was on only in the mornings, which was all that was allowed by the fuel controller. As a result even the library bays with radiators were frequently below forty degrees, and never, even at 5 pm, above fifty if the weather was at all severe [1528].
The situation in Scotland was much the same, with many Canadian servicemen and Americans coming to make searches for their ancestors whilst on leave, and in 1945 the Scots Ancestry Research Society was founded on a non-profit making basis, supported by the Secretary of State for Scotland and with money in trust for the purpose given by a private donor. An article in The Scotsman said that, compared to the Public Record Office, the Scottish Record Office was starved of funds and that Scottish historical scholarship was thus impeded. Research into ancestries was only a 'frill' though successful search depended upon adequate indexing of the records. It might, however, the article concluded, have some economic value in inducing American tourists to visit the scenes of their ancestors' exploits [1529]. By 1972 it had investigated more than 26,000 enquiries [1530]. A Scottish member, the accountant Matthew Stirling (died 1981), had meanwhile given the Society of Genealogists a most valuable collection of works on Scotland [1531] of which 140 volumes were placed on the shelves and a large number of duplicates disposed of [1532] and he followed this up with a complete set of volumes published by the Stair Society [1533]. The Scottish Genealogy Society, 'an academic and consultative body', which did not undertake any form of research, was founded in 1953 and commenced a quarterly journal in 1954 [1534].
Back in March 1938 it had been agreed that searches for particular entries might be made in the Library at a charge of one shilling per entry per index, but more general searches could still be made for ten shillings a day, or about 1s 6d an hour [1535]. However, the Society, finding that there were an increasing number of small accounts that were not met, decided the following year that all orders for publications and research should be pre-paid [1536]. It was in 1938 that the highly efficient Miss Freda Podmore, BA (Cantab) (1895-1982), commenced work at the Society as a research assistant, a post that she retained until 1950 when she embarked on research on her own account [1537], then becoming a regular visitor.
In 1944 the Executive Committee increased the charges for searches in the library 'by a competent research assistant' to 3s an hour for members and to 6s an hour for non-members. Specific searches in some indexes such as Boyd’s Marriage Index or the Apprenticeship Index still being made for a shilling (two shillings for non-members), but the charge for typing index slips from the Card Index was increased to a shilling for the first page (about 30 entries) and six pence per page thereafter, all fees being payable in advance [1538]. However, the services of the Research Department were much in demand and there was an appreciable delay in carrying out the work [1539]. Perhaps as a result, in 1948 the charges for members were increased to 5s an hour or 35s a day, with only 'straightforward copying' at 3s an hour, non-members paying two guineas a day and pro rata [1540] In early 1951 the fees were reduced to the pre-War rates, a whole day’s research costing only 10s, shorter periods being charged pro rata, the 1s fee for specified indexes remaining and non-members paying double [1541]. However, these unrealistic fees were quickly increased in June 1951 to two guineas a day for members and two and a half guineas a day for non-members [1542].
The number of visitors at the Society continued relatively high into 1945 with 2,000 visits by members and 300 by visitors, as well as many day searchers. Sixty new members had joined [1543]. Again detailed comparative statistics rarely appear in the Annual Reports and those that do (and have been mentioned above) must be taken with a degree of scepticism. New members paid an entrance fee of a guinea and yet in 1943 we are told that there were 73 new members, whereas the Accounts show an income of only £59-6-6. In 1942 some 58 new members produced £43-1-0 and in 1941 some 34 produced £26-2-6. Perhaps Mrs Blomfield, with her dislike for statistics, thought such things of little importance. After I retired at the end of the century some entrance fees were waived but that was not previously the case so far as I am aware. Entrance or Joining Fees (then at £10) were wholly abolished (and that source of income lost) when the two tier membership of full and associate members was introduced in 2017, though no announcement was made to that effect.
Percival Boyd had suggested in his last 'Chairman's Page' in June 1940 that the annual subscriptions for new country members which remarkably had not changed since 1911 and those of town members, unchanged since 1921, ought to be increased to reflect the great growth in the value of the Society's collections. He recommended that Town Members should pay three guineas (instead of two) and Country Members two guineas (instead of one) and that overseas members be charged one guinea, the entrance fee remaining at one guinea. He also thought that the search fee levied on non-members for use of the Library should be 21s a month or 5s a day [1544].
Boyd had obviously followed the Society's financial affairs closely for some time and when he retired from the Chairmanship in the summer of 1940, although George Sherwood was technically the Honorary Treasurer, the hope was expressed that Boyd would 'continue to help look after the finances of the Society as in the past' [1545]. Boyd continued to press the Executive Committee about the subscriptions and at the Annual Meeting in May 1944 again spoke about his earlier suggestion for increases after the War and it was agreed to recommend them to the Executive Committee [1546].
As a consequence when the War ended the subscriptions for new members joining after May 1945 were increased to three guineas for the town and two guineas for the country members as Boyd had recommended [1547] and an appeal was made to the existing members to voluntarily increase their subscriptions to these rates, as some had already done [1548]. The subscriptions of new overseas members were allowed to stay at a guinea, thus creating a separate class of member [1549].
In 1941 Mrs Blomfield had warned members of the likely increase and said that anyone who resigned for the duration of the War and then joined again would not only have to pay the increased rate but also an entrance fee, whereas those who continued to subscribe would be able to do so at the pre-war rate [1550]. With the rules as they were this was correct, but it did not bode well for future increases and tedious arguments (and careful calculations!) as to whether it was worthwhile for a lapsed member to pay up the intervening subscriptions or to re-join at the new rates continued to waste much office time for many years.
Throughout the War the Society’s Annual Reports briefly mention the work of microfilming parish registers, the slow receipt of transcribed copies and the problems and cost of adequate binding before transcripts could be placed on the Society’s shelves. In 1945 Mrs Blomfield wrote, ‘Many enquiries have been received regarding the possibility of copies of Registers being made from the microfilms which were taken under the auspices of the Committee for Microfilming Parish Registers. We must emphasize that the Society has no rights whatsoever in these films, and that when things become more normal the Committee for Microfilming Parish Registers hopes to go forward with its scheme of transcribing from projected films. At the time of writing, however, there is no prospect of obtaining either a suitable projector or experienced workers to transcribe the film or type when transcription is complete. To carry out such would be a major undertaking and this must await more settled times’ [1551].
The Committee consisted of herself and Kendall Percy-Smith. Uneasy observers, and there were several, had cause for concern as to how this situation would develop. The Society’s own Parish Register Sub-Committee had been abolished. She had a full time job (though that had not hindered her from spending much time on the microfilming project previously) and Percy-Smith, although a charming and helpful man, was devoted to his Indian projects and as time passed not at all capable alone of the extended hard work that the problem needed if it were to be resolved.
Kendall Percy-Smith returned to London as a Lieutenant Colonel after six years in India 'in charge of the Indian Army's pay' [1552] and resumed his duty as Honorary Librarian to the Society in the autumn of 1945. The Annual Report in December says that the Library had greatly benefited by his return, his helpfulness in the Library and the confident expectation of an improved catalogue and shelf arrangement. With a small band of voluntary workers he began systematically to re-catalogue the library and by the end of 1946 had completed several counties [1553]. The wording of the Annual Report is exaggerated for large numbers of catalogue cards made by Bethell Bouwens and others were still very much in evidence ten years later.
Percy-Smith had had a ‘good War’ and he brought with him for the library over a hundred books dealing with Europeans in India and a number of typed volumes, compiled in collaboration with Brigadier Humphrey Bullock, containing 30,000 'Births and Deaths in India' [1554]. At some stage he started a card index to officers and others in India which was housed at the Society. Called the 'India Index', its ownership (rather like that of the Committee for Microfilming) was somewhat uncertain, particularly when whole drawers disappeared to be worked upon. In 1953 it was reported that he and others had recently added some 50,000 fresh cards [1555]. Earlier, in 1948, he had started to compile a slip index to the marriages registered in the India Office Records, 1698-1900, and he and Miss Goulding completed 12,000 slips which were kept separate, but the valuable project was unfortunately never completed [1556], the slips being much later interfiled with those of his main 'India Index'. He would have been appalled at the suggestions made in 1955 that the India Office Library and its records be divided and sent to New Delhi and Karachi [1557]. In later years Kendall Percy-Smith spent much time making additions to a card index at the National Army Museum of officers of the East India Company, 1600-1860, which had been started by his friend Major Vernon C. P. Hodson (1883-1963), also a Fellow of the Society and the author of the monumental List of the Officers of the Bengal Army 1748-1834 (4 vols. 1927-47), who had retired to Georgeham, North Devon. Working with Lieut. Col. Charles Barnard Appleby (died 1975), the first Director of the Museum, Percy-Smith extended the 'Hodson Index' to include India and Burma Government Services, 1861-1943.
Before the War the Society had helped many Germans looking for English ancestry as a result of Hitler's Ahnenpass requirements and now the Society found itself receiving even larger numbers of enquiries from many former servants of the Raj, often long resident in India or Burma and their descendants who wished to retain British Nationality after the passage of the 1947 India Act and who needed to establish British ancestry. In this they were greatly assisted by Percy-Smith and the collections he had built up and placed in the library. When these were not of help, he himself freely devoted his time to obtaining the evidence required from outside sources [1558]. The Society’s staff assisted in the work and even some ten years later I remember dealing with many such enquiries. By July 1949 Mrs Blomfield was able to say that 500 people had won British passports because of the Society's aid [1559] and the work attracted further publicity when the Evening Standard twice reported that people of mixed and British descent were asking the Society to trace their male-line ancestry and that others of 'pure British stock' who had lived in India or Pakistan for generations without establishing their citizenship were now keen to do so, some with the thought of going to Australia [1560]. In 1951 it was noted that there had been a falling off of research work in this connection [1561].
With the steady growth in the Society’s collections the space available for the Library was now becoming extremely cramped. Lord Mersey referred to the situation at the Annual Meeting in 1945, saying that 'the question of library space and seating accommodation was becoming very urgent' [1562]. At the next Meeting in June 1946 he made a plea that members enter into seven-year covenants so that the Society could claim the tax paid on their subscriptions, a scheme first put into operation that year and which usefully produced an extra £77 for the Society in 1947 [1563]. At that 1946 Annual Meeting, Lord Mersey had spoken about the Society’s salaries, saying how difficult clerical labour was to obtain and that salaries had almost doubled since 1939. Well-qualified staff were essential, he said, but had not previously been obtainable on the salaries the Society had been able to afford. There was apparently some discussion (not reported in the Magazine) which resulted in a break-down of the salaries being shown in the Income and Expenditure Account that year. The administrative costs were £572, the research staff cost £296 (against an income of £340) and transcribing, indexing and typing parish registers cost £170 plus £23 for stationery [1564]. I suspect that there was some underlying unease about the financial arrangements with the Committee for Microfilming, let alone about who paid Mrs Blomfield’s salary, and the Accounts show that the Committee, perhaps prompted by this discussion, made a grant of £100 to the Society towards the copying costs in 1946 and again in 1947. The sale of typescripts produced nothing in 1946, but £95 for the Society in 1947.
However, conditions in the year immediately after the war, Kathleen Blomfield thought, did not differ greatly from those in the late war years. Restrictions on paper for printing continued and there was a fuel crisis affecting heating and lighting, but ninety-five members joined as against sixty the previous year. The number of members using the rooms also increased by about a thousand and some three thousand signed the book. This, however, caused overcrowding on Saturdays and members were asked not to bring visitors on that day. The possibility of excluding day searchers on Saturdays was also discussed but it was found that on average only one came then [1565]. Only two issues of the Magazine were being published each year but it was at last possible to re-print the Articles of Association. The winter series of lectures was resumed, but without tea because of the rationing [1566].
Many overseas visitors, service and civilian, had found their way to the Society during and immediately after the War years, particularly Americans and Canadians seeking to confirm English ancestry, but the problems in helping them were considerable. Many American service men who had seen first-hand the research difficulties, wrote subsequently and commissioned research, the Society charging ten dollars a day [1567] or ten shillings if they came to do the work themselves. An article in The Spectator about lack of guidance drew a swift and detailed response from Mrs Blomfield [1568] and The Sketch under 'The dollar-value of an ancestor' provided an illustrated account of the Society's work, commencing 'Masses of Americans want ancestors; we want masses of dollars, and combined operations produces both', showing both an illuminated pedigree and a microfilming operator [1569]. The Spectator's suggestion that the British Travel Association should get involved was not, however, taken up until 1957.
In March 1947 because of the growing numbers using the rooms and the consequent overcrowding it was decided not to admit guests who were not paying search fees unless they were attending a lecture [1570] and at the AGM in July Lord Mersey again stressed that much more space was needed and that steps should be taken to look for new premises. The Honorary Treasurer, George Sherwood, in view of the loss that year, rather uneasily noted that some £250 had been spent on the purchase of books [1571]. The Annual Report, however, recognised ‘a pressing need to build up the capital fund’ and said that the Executive Committee was considering ways and means whereby larger premises might be acquired, preference being given to the purchase of a freehold with rooms for expansion which, in the first years, could be sublet [1572]. The number of new members fell back to sixty-eight in 1947 and those overseas visitors who had joined during the War were now letting their memberships lapse, though the number of enquiries by mail was now running at about five or six daily. Some 839 books were received in 1947 and the number received for review doubled on the previous year, from twenty-four to fifty-three. There was also a large accumulation of books that needed to be put through the accession process and catalogued. Tea was, however, once more available on the six lecture days [1573].
In 1947 Percy-Smith was singled out for praise at the AGM as devoting much time to the Library, though, as Viscount Mersey said, the Society's prosperity was largely due to Mrs Blomfield to whom it was difficult to express sufficient thanks [1574]. However, the expenditure had in fact exceeded income by ‘the moderately large’ amount of £192 that year. The situation improved in 1948 when a hundred new members joined and there was a net gain of forty-seven. There was a substantial increase in the number of visits made by members to 3,700 as against about 3,000 in 1947 and the numbers of books added to the library, taken out on loan and received for review, all increased [1575]. The improvement did not, however, last and there was a marked drop in new members (to 65) in 1949; the total membership at the end of the year being 989. It was the first time the Annual Report had mentioned the total figure for many years [1576] and twenty years earlier it had been 875.
However, the joint-praise of Mrs Blomfield and Colonel Percy-Smith for the 'tremendous amount of work and time which they devote to the well-being of the Society' was once more repeated [1577]. The long-standing friendly relationship between Dr and Mrs Blomfield and the Colonel was, however, the cause of much speculation, particularly after the doctor's death on 9 November 1948 [1578] and when, later, the two friends moved to neighbouring houses with an interconnecting door at Mayford near Woking!
In September 1942 a former long-serving judge in the Sudan and at Alexandria, Sir Wasey Sterry, CBE (1866-1955), had been prevailed upon to take over as Editor of the Magazine in succession to Bouwens, 'for the duration of the War'. He was much assisted with the twice-yearly publication by Mrs Blomfield and continued as Editor until June 1947, but the production of the Magazine was latterly seriously delayed owing to the fuel cuts.
However, in September 1947, Philip John Ryves Harding (1906-1972), a distinguished and well-connected journalist and a member since 1929, was persuaded to take over the Honorary Editorship, and, in spite of the increased cost of printing (by now £70 an issue when it had been £37 before the War) [1579] four issues were once more provided in that year. However, some £210 was recovered from Magazine sales and advertising. Harding had been Lobby Correspondent of the Financial News 1935-39 and after active service in the War he was appointed Diplomatic Correspondent of the Financial Times, 1946-48. He then joined The Times, writing on financial and commercial subjects, afterwards as deputy to the Diplomatic Correspondent and later as editor of Special Supplements.
It is interesting that at this time Anthony Wagner should have considered that 'the development of modern genealogical technique has consisted largely in the construction of special indexes and the development of the use of selected sources as indexes to others' [1580]. However, either Sterry or Harding was responsible for an interesting series of articles designed to show in a practical manner the procedures by which several members had researched their ancestries. They reveal in a fascinating way the sources that searchers were then using and the problems that they encountered along the way. The idea for the series probably came from Hugh Shellshear Pocock (1894-1987), a member from 1924 and Secretary of the British Record Society, who said in the first article that he had often thought it would be helpful to the less-experienced genealogist if he could learn through the Magazine how other beginners had succeeded in fitting together a pedigree of, say, four or five generations and the successive steps that this had involved.
Pocock's article 'Five Generations' [1581] had used the Middlesex Deeds Registry, and was followed by John Nissen Deacon, MC (1892-1959) with 'Twelve Generations' [1582] and its elements of luck in the records of the Excise and Duchy of Cornwall, then by Gerald Hamilton-Edwards, 'Six Generations' [1583], with its use of a wide range of sources for a middle-class family, and by Erik Chitty (1907-1977) [1584] with 'Nine Generations' [1585], stressing the importance of the Society's apprenticeship records. In 1948 Gerald Hamilton-Edwards also contributed one of the first major articles on the indexing and filing of genealogical material, including notes on pedigree reproduction and on reflex and photographic copying [1586].
Owing to the pressure of his newspaper work Harding sadly gave up the editorship of the Magazine after the June issue in 1952 [1587]. His short-lived successor as editor was Edward Stewart Gray (1913-1989), a Fellow of the Irish Genealogical Research Society and a member since 1931, but Gray gave up due to ill health after the March 1954 issue [1588].
Harding and Gray were not able to make any innovations to the Magazine owing to the general need for economy. They were greatly aided by the officers of the Society where all the administrative work, the make-up and proof-reading, was then done, the editors merely selecting material from that received, and making a final check of the proofs, any questions of policy being decided by the editorial committee [1589]. There was always some criticism of the Magazine and at the Annual Meeting in 1952 Dr T. Hare said that he thought that more space should be given to genealogical research, names, dates and places, but Cregoe Nicholson replied that the Magazine was principally intended as a news magazine and should not attempt to print records [1590].
An effort was made in 1948 to find volunteers to index the PCC wills, 1721-1730 [1591], but only Charles William Winstanley (1878-1954), of Chorley Wood, who had joined the Executive Committee that year, came forward. At his death in 1954 he had written slips from the old calendars for the years 1721-1725 only [1592]. For many years this short period remained the only one covered and it was not superseded until the indexing work of the Friends of the Public Record Office much later in the century.
Meanwhile the microfilming work of the Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU) had, after the War, revived somewhat and as early as December 1945 that Society had obtained permission to copy the collection of register transcripts in Newcastle Public Library. A local LDS church member, James Cunningham, obtained an old camera from a local bank and within two weeks he and Frank Smith had finished the work, having taught themselves how to operate the machine [1593].
In 1950, as mentioned, the GSU had filmed the registers of the Isle of Man and in 1951 permission was granted to film the Old Parochial Registers and Census Returns in Scotland [1594]. Permission to film church registers in England remained particularly difficult to obtain, but the GSU had more success with the civil authorities and in 1952 it commenced an enormous and highly important ten-year programme to microfilm the pre-1858 probate records at Somerset House and elsewhere [1595].
In March 1949 the Bishop of Norwich had found that the clergy in his diocese were again being approached by the GSU for permission to microfilm their registers and he put out a statement saying that apart from the questions of copyright this would mean the loss of future fees for searching and 'for this and other reasons he was strongly of the opinion that no incumbent will agree to the request' [1596].
In the following November, however, the Archbishop of Canterbury issued a statement confirming the arrangement with the Society of Genealogists (saying that it was 'set up just before the war') and warning against the filming of registers 'under any condition' by 'other bodies' [1597]. The statement received some publicity [1598] and an unsigned note printed in the Magazine at the same time said that the work was being done by the Committee 'under the auspices of the Society', that microfilms were still being made and that it would 'provide typewritten indexed copies of parish registers for the use of Incumbents so that wear and tear on the originals through handling may be reduced to a minimum'. The microfilms would be deposited in official repositories and not issued on any pretext whatever, but if the Incumbent could show that the original register had been destroyed then a copy would be made [1599].
At the Society of Genealogists many hundreds of registers were filmed on the promise that these indexed transcripts would be given to the churches concerned, but the ease with which something could be microfilmed greatly outpaced the work of typing and indexing and there began a stream of complaints and public criticism of broken promises. In 1946 and again in 1947, as we have seen, Mrs Blomfield and Colonel Percy-Smith gave £100 to the Society to facilitate the typing [1600], aiming to provide one new register a week [1601], and in 1948 the Annual Report spoke of the Committee, now calling itself the Committee for Microfilming and Copying Parish Registers, making itself ‘responsible for the payment of typists’, but no further donations appeared in the accounts and the Report again appealed for volunteer typists and indexers [1602].
The problem was exacerbated, as the two involved fully recognised in the Society's Annual Report for 1949, by the fact that although the Committee had provided the Society with a large number of transcripts, many of these were not reaching the library shelves. Some were awaiting indexes, whilst others were too small to bind, the heavy expense of binding making it imperative that only volumes containing the maximum number of pages be bound. The registers of small parishes in the same county were bound together when sufficient had accumulated but this sometimes took several years. Binding very thin volumes also aggravated the problem of lack of shelf space [1603]. These problems were very real and not always appreciated by the members. Temporary catalogue entries on pink cards were made for unbound transcripts and these were available on application to the library staff but the members were not always accustomed to using the library catalogue.
Unfortunately the transfer of funds to an independent group outside the control of the Executive Committee began to be questioned and at the AGM on 28 June 1950 it was announced that Mrs Blomfield had signified that she wished to retire at the end of the year [1604]. She would be 55 in July and it was said in the Annual Report that her retirement was ‘partly due to ill-health’. An unsigned note, probably written by William Edward Coode Cotton (1901-1961) [1605], Chairman of the Executive Committee in 1950-53, appeared in the Magazine immediately after the Minutes of the Meeting and paid a glowing tribute to her work, saying that she had served the Society with a rare combination of unselfish loyalty, administrative ability and wide knowledge of the genealogical field. In twenty years she had missed only one Executive Committee. Her dependability and inexhaustible energy were, indeed, for many years deeply missed [1606]. At a lecture by Michael Trinick on ‘A country house index’ in January 1951, with her successor in place, she was presented with a cheque from the Executive Committee 'in sincere recognition of her long and valuable service' [1607]. In an interview reported in the Belfast Telegraph on page 5 of its issue for 14 December 1950 she said that 55 was the best age for retirement, adding 'Go while you are still wanted instead of waiting to be wanted to go'. She intended to do some work on her Dutch grandmother's family which involved a visit to Holland, with a band of volunteers she was preparing a history of Isleworth, and as hon secretary of the Committee for Microfilming and Copying Parish Registers she 'would help to complete records which will be stored permanently in a place of safety and will make copies to enable the original historic documents to be preserved'.
Cotton's statement had also noted that Mrs Blomfield intended to devote part of her leisure to the work of the Committee for Microfilming Parish Registers [1608] with which she would ‘remain actively associated’ [1609] and in February 1951, at the request of that Committee, the Society closed the special account (then containing £205-17-6) and it was re-opened in the name of the Committee. Mrs Blomfield then became a member of the Society [1610] and at the AGM on 14 June 1951 she was proposed for election to the Executive Committee by two of its members, Geoffrey White and the professional genealogist Cecil Warburton Brand (1886-1982), but the much-respected Wilfred Sampson Samuel (1886-1958) [1611], another Committee member and a friend of Nicholson, said that this would not be fair to the new Secretary and Mrs Blomfield was not elected [1612].
The problem of the future extent of the Society's involvement in the transcription of registers remained, it having no typists or organisation of its own. At that June 1951 meeting a long-standing member Richard Dodson Cheveley (1887-1983) said that repeated reminders to the Society had not produced a register to transcribe and the Chairman, William Cotton, said that steps were being taken to clarify the functions of the Society and of the Committee for Microfilming in that connection. Herbert John Willis (1887-1979) of the Bank of England, just elected to the Executive Committee, said that when he copied registers he was not aware that he was doing work for the Committee and Cregoe Nicholson, in his general dislike for Kathleen Blomfield, urged the Society to continue its own work of transcription, not through another body, pointing out that years ago it received on average a typed copy of a parish register each week. Hilda Hooper (1880-1962) [1613], a forceful art mistress at the City of London School for Girls, thought that mistakes were made in transcripts and for that reason the work of the Committee for Microfilming should be encouraged, though by this time the filming work had in fact long since ceased and the films, in any case, would not be accessible.
A month after the AGM the Executive Committee set up a new 'Sub-Committee on Copying Parish Registers' to consider the means by which the flow of copies into the library might be increased and appealed for offers of help from amongst the members [1614]. Major V. W. B. Church, the new Secretary of the Society, then put out a statement that the Society had agreed to extend its work of transcription by setting up local committees. He hoped that interested persons might contact him, reverting to the idea in a letter to The Times the following year [1615], but his appeal fell on deaf ears.
Although the nominal Chairman of the Committee for Microfilming, Lord Mersey (died 1956), was also the President of the Society, and Mrs Blomfield and Percy-Smith were the Joint Honorary Secretaries, the whole affair had caused deep divisions within the Society and there were those who would not let the matter drop. At an Executive Committee on 11 February 1953, Cecil Brand proposed and Cregoe Nicholson seconded and it was agreed to set up a Fact-Finding Sub-Committee about the copyright of the National Index and the payments made by the Pilgrim Trust. Its members were William Cotton, Sir William Elderton, John Beach Whitmore and Sir Stanley Wyatt [1616]. Looking back over the Minutes it must have been clear to them that there was fault on both sides but the copyright undoubtedly belonged to the Society and the printers were so informed.
The Sub-Committee recommended that the Committee for Microfilming 'be asked to supply accounts showing how the sum of £149-11-4 (the balance of the original £300 unexpended in May 1940) and the proceeds of the sale of the remaining copies of the National Index have been applied'. The other £1,500 was 'undoubtedly a gift for copying or micro-filming parish registers'. When the report of the sub-committee was received by the Executive Committee, it was agreed that it be noted and no further action was taken.
The Society now distanced itself from the former valuable work of the Committee for Microfilming and there was a period of almost twenty years in which difficult and embarrassing telephone calls and letters from irate incumbents had to be dodged by the staff, gentle enquiries being occasionally made of Mrs Blomfield and Colonel Percy-Smith as to their progress with particular registers.
Such enquiries were generally dealt with, if sometimes rather slowly, by the ever-courteous Colonel, who for some years did his best to continue the organisation amongst his other interests, disgorging occasional transcripts to be typed, and apparently keeping on good terms with most of those involved. In 1957, whilst living at Old Isleworth, he was able to borrow for transcription by Kenneth Vaughan Elphinstone (1878-1963) the registers of All Saints, Old Isleworth, which had been severely damaged by fire in 1942, the Society making all the arrangements. I came also to know Kathleen Blomfield from her occasional visits to the Society though she did not involve herself in this type of enquiry. The Colonel was involved in the transcription of registers to the end of his life and four months before he died (at Woking on 3 June 1975) sent me a small donation for the Society in exchange for some lined copying paper [1617]. Later in 1975 I went with Brian FitzGerald-Moore (1914-1989), then Chairman of the Executive Committee, to have lunch with Mrs Blomfield, and she showed us a deep garage packed almost to the ceiling with crates and boxes of papers and books which she said, as the Colonel’s residuary legatee [1618], she was determined to deal with. She was employing solicitors in an attempt to recover some of his books loaned to Phillimore & Co and sought to sell others. The Committee for Microfilming's canisters of films had been distributed to safe areas and sixteen films for Oxfordshire parishes were found at Preston in 1976, but the master list could not be found [1619]. Other films passed through the hands of the British Records Association and were distributed to county record offices. However, despite offers of assistance from the Society, Kathleen Blomfield did not tackle the accumulation in the garage and it was not until after her death at Bramley near Guildford at the age of 95 on 1 November 1989 that its contents were sorted and despatched to their appropriate homes. Amongst them her nephew, greatly aided by the archivist Duncan Harrington, found various original registers, long thought lost. The microfilming scheme had been, in the Archbishop's words a 'wise precaution', but it needed much greater resources than were available at the time and it sadly turned into a most discreditable affair that cast a very long shadow.
As mentioned the Society had a large collection of book-plates and other heraldic illustrations and in 1950 it was completely reorganized and arranged [1620] in 68 files by Professor Robert Cecil Gale (1888-1975) [1621] who continued to send additions to it, as acknowledged in the Annual Report in 1959 [1622]. He was so pleased when John Phillips and I went down to see him at Eltham at that time. Professor Gale, who because of ill health rarely came to the library, had been Professor of Chemistry and Metallurgy at the Royal Military College, Woolwich, before the Second World War, and was a great benefactor to the Society. As mentioned below he had given a display unit for the hall in 1954 as well as money for binding and other improvements such as a photocopier and he was a regular donor of extremely valuable books, many foreign, including a long run of the Almanac de Gotha. His work on the book-plates was followed by his important Indexes to quartered coats in Harleian Society Visitation Series (£1-10-0; 1961) and Index and Key to the Armorial Glass in the Inns of Court (£2-12-0; 1962) [1623] both of which he compiled, typed and published himself, giving us 150 copies to sell in our embryo bookshop.
The latter part of 1950, with Mrs Blomfield’s pending departure, saw other changes and in December the Magazine announced that the Executive Committee had ‘decided to abolish the office of Honorary Librarian’ and to promote Miss Gwynneth Barbara Priddle (1923-1996) to be Librarian, and that future correspondence on library matters should be addressed to her [1624]. Kendall Percy-Smith’s name was strangely not mentioned at that time. Gwynneth Priddle, a practical no-nonsense lady, had been on the staff since 1947 and she served as Librarian until late in 1953 when she became a professional genealogist and record searcher, based at Shoreham [1625]. I remember her as a valuable member of the Executive and other Committees in the years 1963-70 [1626]. However, a tribute to Percy-Smith appeared in the Annual Report which said that his ‘whole-hearted service’ would continue to be available as Chairman of the Library Committee [1627] and he continued in that post until just after the move to Harrington Gardens in 1954 but taking little part in it, being obliged through illness to leave matters to others [1628]. In January 1953 he had written a most enthusiastic article about the Society for The Amateur Historian in which he described Sherwood as the ‘Grand Old Man’ of genealogy and paid a glowing tribute to Kathleen Blomfield, writing of the Society’s ‘rapid growth and expansion’ in her time as Secretary and of her need to retire ‘owing to ill-health’ [1629].
Miss Priddle's successor from December 1953 was Miss P. M. Jones who served as Librarian during the move but left later that year, her name last appearing in the September 1954 Magazine. History does not seem to relate whether she played any part in the organisation at the new building though she must have been involved to some extent. She was followed by Miss Margaret Eva Cohen, BA, FLA, Librarian from late 1954 to November 1956, whose handwriting later became quickly familiar to me. She had private means but was the first qualified librarian to be employed by the Society. She seems to have been hard working and industrious but was criticised ever-after by Cregoe Nicholson for wearing carpet slippers in the library! Neither was mentioned in the Society’s Annual Reports. Miss Cohen had been born at Leeds in 1898, the daughter of Julius Berend Cohen, and she died at Hounslow in 1986, aged 87, being buried with her parents at St Andrew’s, Coniston, Cumbria.
Kathleen Blomfield's relatively short-lived successor as Secretary, Major Valentine William Bland Church, OBE, MC (1890-1973), had until recently been Manager of the Bank of India at Bombay, it being rightly thought that his long administrative and financial experience would stand the Society in good stead [1630]. He took up his duties on 1 January 1951 [1631], and although he claimed not to know anything about his ancestry he is chiefly remembered for the growth in the Society's membership during his four-year reign, for successfully moving the Society to new premises and for a highly successful series of annual luncheons. Colonel Percy-Smith, who probably had a hand in his appointment, referred to Church (in his article in The Amateur Historian) as ‘an outstanding organiser … an ardent and indefatigable worker’. Why he left after such a short but successful period remains something of a mystery, though he was then almost sixty-five.
In September 1951 Major Church usefully persuaded the Library Association to allow the Society's members to use the Association's Luncheon Room on the ground floor of Chaucer House [1632]. The provision of lunches and teas for visiting members of the Association and its permanent staff made a small loss each year throughout the 1950s and was mildly controversial but it is said that it was considered no small honour to be invited to the ‘top table’ for lunch, where P. S. J. Welsford (1893-1968) the Secretary presided, ‘and the frequent companionship of senior librarians and visitors from overseas, made such occasions pleasures to be savoured and long remembered’ [1633].
Also long-remembered were the annual luncheons that Church initiated for the Society and which took place in the Venetian Rooms at the Holborn Restaurant, a large and well-known establishment at 218 High Holborn, always costing 17s 6d exclusive of wine. Lord Mersey, the Society's President, was personally responsible for inviting the Guests of Honour and always presided.
The first of these popular luncheons, attended by seventy members and guests, was held on Thursday, 14 June 1951 to celebrate the Society's fortieth anniversary when Lord Mersey relayed a message from the Patron, Queen Mary, expressing her great interest in the work of the Society [1634], and the speaker was Sir Hilary Jenkinson, a Deputy Keeper of the Public Records [1635]. Cregoe Nicholson described it as a brilliant success and it was agreed that it should be an annual event. The second luncheon therefore took place on 8 May 1952 when Leopold Amery, PC, CH, Secretary of State for India and Burma in Churchill's war cabinet, spoke on the genealogy of today's ideologies, tracing the origins of communism [1636], and at the third, held on 7 May 1953, the guest of honour Sir Ronald Storrs, KCMG, gave some personal reminiscences of his time in the Middle East [1637].
At the fourth and final luncheon on 16 July 1954, Lord Hastings spoke about his family as an illustration of the interest taken in genealogy in this country [1638] and among those present were Sir Walter Peacock, former Keeper of the Records of the Duchy of Cornwall, the Deputy High Commissioner for Canada, and Dr Arthur Adams (1881-1960) [1639], the distinguished editor of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register and a Fellow since 1925 [1640]. Major Church resigned at the end of 1954 and no more luncheons were held, the Holborn Restaurant being demolished the following year.
However, to mark the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 the Society's lecture programme contained four talks by major authorities that had a direct bearing on the event and were ‘brilliantly successful’ the rooms being crowded on most occasions [1641]. On 21 January, Geoffrey White spoke on 'The Great Officers of State', on 18 February, Lawrence Tanner spoke on 'The Coronation Ceremonial', on 11 April, Anthony Wagner spoke on 'The Ceremonial Duties of the Heralds', and on 20 May, Hugh Stanford London (1884-1959), Norfolk Herald Extraordinary [1642], spoke on 'The Royal Arms' [1643]. Notification of those attending was required in advance because of the catering difficulties, tea being served after the talks.
In the winter of 1953-4 the programme of lectures was discontinued owing to the Society's preparations for its removal to new premises but in November highly popular visits were made to the Guildhall Library and the College of Arms, the former having to be repeated the following week [1644]. There were then visits to the City of London Record Office in 1954 [1645], two to Westminster Abbey Library in 1956 [1646], to the House of Lords’ Record Office and to the muniments at Hatfield House in 1957 [1647], to the County Record Office at Maidstone and Knowle in 1958 [1648], to the Bodleian Library in 1959 [1649], to Friends’ House, Euston Road in 1960 [1650], to Penshurst Place in 1963 [1651], to the National Army Museum at Sandhurst in 1965 [1652], to Boughton Monchelsea Place in 1967 [1653], to Waddesdon Manor in 1968 [1654], to Greenwich Palace and the National Maritime Museum in 1969 [1655], to The Vyne at Sherborne St John in 1970 [1656], and to Chartwell in 1972 [1657], but the following year the number of applicants for a projected visit to Petworth was less than the required forty and no more visits were organised for a number of years.
Major Church, who immediately saw the Society’s need for publicity, wrote in the Annual Report for 1950 that ‘much greater use would be made of the services available from the Society if they were more widely known’ [1658], and was responsible in 1951 for the publication of a little sheet that set out the Society's facilities and which was widely distributed together with a membership application form and details of a new edition of The Genealogists' Handbook which he had organised and published that year (for 1s 9d). He also printed a sheet showing the Society's research charges, then ten shillings a day and pro rata (specific searches being made for a shilling), the non-members paying double these rates [1659]. The charges for research for non-members (limited to work before 1837) were shortly after increased to 7s 6d an hour or two and a half guineas a day. Those doing their own work, now greatly increased in number (many coming to London for the Festival of Britain in 1951), were charged 7s 6d for three and a half hours [1660]. In December 1951, following what had been a difficult year for many, not least because of the rise in the cost of living, a bonus of one month’s salary was paid to all the staff, this appreciative gesture costing the Society £1,118-6-8 [1661].
As a result, the membership, which had fallen by six in Mrs Blomfield’s last year, now steadily increased and at the end of 1951, as Lord Mersey proudly announced to the AGM in May 1952, it had for the first time passed the 1,000 mark and was 1,009 [1662]. Church’s hard work and enthusiasm paid off and the numbers continued to increase, to 1,062 in 1952 (when he got some good publicity in the Daily Express) [1663] to 1,247 in 1953 and to 1,423 in 1954. It was, as the Annual Report for 1953 acknowledges, this steady increase in memberships, entrance fees and subscriptions that encouraged the Society to agree to take on the purchase of 37 Harrington Gardens that year with its likely total cost of £8,100 [1664], something that would have been quite inconceivable only a few years earlier.
An article on civil and parish registration in Scotland by Gerald Hamilton-Edwards appeared in the Magazine in March 1951 [1665] and later that year Brigadier Henry Alain Joly de Lotbiniere (1891-1974) completed his initial sorting into 279 folios of a large collection on Scottish families purchased in 1949, which Hamilton-Edwards had brought to the attention of the Society [1666]. The collection consisted of the working papers and notes of the Revd Walter Macleod (born in Edinburgh in 1832, the son of a joiner), who was originally a teacher but after marriage in 1867 developed a name as a record agent and editor for the Scottish Historical Society, particularly in the 1890s when Minister of the Original Secession Church in Edinburgh and where his unmarried daughters acted as his amanuenses. He and his son John (born in 1873) had done research for the great Alexander Graham Bell (died 1922) and John continued to practise in Edinburgh until the outbreak of the Second World War.
Large parts of this Collection were in great disorder and when in 1959 the Genealogical Society of Utah gave the Society, at that time very short of money for binding, £200, this was used to start the binding of the collection, a further £100 being added by Mr Earl Douglas (died 1989), of London, Ontario, in 1960 [1667]. Cregoe Nicholson took on the difficult task of attempting to put the papers into better order before they were bound, but he delayed dreadfully over it and in 1966 an appeal was made for someone else to complete the work [1668]. That appeal was renewed in 1969 and again in 1972, and in 1973 the Committee agreed that token sums might be paid from the fund if a sorter could be found [1669]. At the end of 1974 it was reported that twenty volumes of the papers had been bound and the fund exhausted though the bulk of the Collection remained unbound [1670].
An interesting article on 'The Genealogy of the Poor' by the economic historian Muriel Florence Lloyd Prichard in the Magazine in 1951 reverted to Charles Bernau's Some special studies in genealogy (1908) in which Bernau had suggested that the tracing of a family in the lower strata of society might be easier than tracing one in the upper middle classes. Lloyd Prichard taught at University College, London but in 1959 emigrated to New Zealand and was subsequently Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Auckland. She thought Bernau's book inaccurate in its account of the Poor Law and coy in its examples. She showed, perhaps in some cases for the first time, the great value of the records of apprenticeship, bastardy, and settlement and removal [1671].
In September 1951 Cregoe Nicholson wrote to the Magazine suggesting that the Committee on Monumental Inscriptions which had functioned in the early days of the Society should be revived, the Suffolk genealogist and antiquary Charles Partridge (died 1955), who had copied 36,000 inscriptions in some 300 Suffolk churchyards [1672], having once more brought the urgent need for their transcription to the notice of the Executive Committee [1673]. Nicholson thought that a new committee should be entrusted with the task of awakening interest amongst the members and charged with compiling a record of the whereabouts of all known copies of inscriptions [1674].
The Annual Report for 1951 indicates that thought had again been given to increasing the subscriptions but because of the inability to alter the subscriptions of existing members, the suggestion had been shelved, it being thought that the best hope of improving the finances was an increase in membership. It was then suggested that interest ‘could be aroused by the formation, particularly in villages, of study groups or of groups to copy parish registers and monumental inscriptions’. It was said that lectures by experienced genealogists could be arranged on application to the Secretary [1675]. I am not aware, however, that any applications were made at this time.
However, at the Annual Meeting in May 1952 it was reported that two committees had been formed to encourage the copying of monumental inscriptions and to investigate the possibilities of co-ordinating work on the compilation of school registers and generally creating a clearing house for information on schools [1676]. The first one flourished but the second sadly died an almost immediate death and surprisingly has never been revived. In 1952 Peter G. Summers appealed for assistance with the great survey of armorial funeral hatchments that he had just commenced for the Bath Heraldic Society at Kingswood School [1677] and in 1955 John Stone (1910-1956), a housemaster at Brentwood School, outlined the work that his boys were doing in copying local churchyards and suggested that a comprehensive plan was needed [1678].
The increased level of interest in matters of local history was further displayed in 1952 by the publication of the first issue of The Amateur Historian produced as a speculative venture and edited by Terrick V. H. FitzHugh (1907-1990), of Shepperton, a maker of film documentaries whose father had introduced him to the family pedigree in the 1920s and who joined the Society of Genealogists in 1943. Towards the end of the war when stationed in his ancestral county at Henlow he had visited the Record Office at Bedford. The archivist, Miss Joyce Godber, offered to recommend him for the job of her assistant as soon as he was demobbed, but as he later wrote her mention of the salary brought that project to an end! [1679]. For two and a half years FitzHugh published in The Amateur Historian articles by a remarkable group of young archivists and local historians as well as established academics, and aimed at active members of the local community. A Standing Conference for Local History had been founded under the aegis of the National Council for Social Service to promote the interests of local historians at national level in 1948 and it took over his journal in 1961, changing its name to The Local Historian. The Standing Conference, as described below, was itself transformed into the British Association for Local History in 1982.
As already mentioned a Parish Register Sub-Committee had been newly created in July 1951 and some progress was made with the transcription of parish registers, the Annual Report for 1952 drawing special attention to the useful additions that were finding their way onto the shelves as a result of the activities of that Committee, though the heavy cost of binding remained a major problem [1680]. In December 1952 Herbert Willis, the member of the Executive committee above-mentioned and himself a transcriber, appealed for further volunteers and began to list those registers where permission to transcribe had been obtained [1681]. As a result the receipt of 87 parish register transcripts was noted in 1953, including 28 Suffolk copies in manuscript [1682]. A review of Archibald Bennett's A guide for genealogical research (1951) in the Magazine in 1953 expressed astonishment that the Genealogical Society in Salt Lake City possessed no less than 34,610 rolls, each 100 feet long, of microfilm records, including 3,400 rolls of records from Great Britain and Ireland, and asked 'How long will it be before our own Society follows suit?' [1683].
The opposition of many clergy to transcription and to access to their registers by the Mormons was, however, still considerable. A ‘Country Priest’ who wrote to the Church Times in 1954 had entertained an American searcher for much of a day and gone to the trouble of obtaining registers from two other churches for which he was responsible, as well as giving her lunch. He had not been offered a fee and concluded that ‘this business is fast becoming a “racket”, and the sooner we stop it the better’. The Vicar of Alfreton, Derbyshire, wrote that ‘a further hazard’ were requests from the Genealogical Department of the British Mission which was collecting information for the purpose of ‘baptizing the dead’. His practice was to ask the enquirer to provide a certificate, countersigned by the vicar of his or her parish, that the information was not required for any Mormon ceremony. He felt ‘the whole business of searching registers for genealogical purposes to be a monumental waste of time’ [1684].
In December 1951 the Magazine printed an early article by Cecil ‘Harold’ Ridge (1890-1957) on the importance of genetics to genealogy [1685] which was commented upon at some length by Dr H. Lesley White in March 1952 [1686] but the subject received little attention and some years later in 1968 the then Editor, Lornie Leete-Hodge, asked for the views of members on this new field in which genealogy could, she thought, become 'of immense importance' [1687]. Francis Leeson responded about finger deformations that had helped to prove relationships and appealed for genealogists to record the physical aspects and blood groups of the families in which they were interested [1688].
John Beach Whitmore's A genealogical guide, the second standard list of printed pedigrees, which had been published in four parts by the Harleian Society between 1947 and 1953 was published as a single volume in 1953. Whitmore gave copies to many of his friends, as he had generously done with the separate parts, and Cregoe Nicholson nicely wrote that, ‘to people like myself, who always live in terror that some client will discover a printed pedigree which has been overlooked, it will mean that we can sleep in peace in future’ [1689]. George Sherwood, who of course remembered the appearance of Marshall’s Guide fifty years earlier, thought it ‘a fine piece of work’ [1690]. The pedantic Guy Harrison wrote that ‘nothing so generally useful to those engaged upon biographical research has been issued by the Harleian Society since it issued Musgrave’s ‘Obituary’, some 40 years ago!’ [1691].
Two years later Arthur Willis produced the first of the modern series of guides to ancestry tracing, Genealogy for Beginners (1955), which was warmly welcomed by Whitmore as 'written by a man who has learned and learned successfully from actual experience' [1692].
A second edition of Bethell Bouwens' Wills and their whereabouts was published, this time by the Society itself in 1951, at 12s 6d. It consisted of a reprint of the original edition with six pages of notes by Helen Thacker (1892-1977) which gave details of the movements of probate records since the War [1693]. In view of later developments I might mention here that the Society believed that Bouwens's executors had given it the copyright of the book, and the Society advertised that fact in the December 1953 issue of the Magazine, but no formal assignment of copyright had actually been made and it seems that the Society was actually only given the reprinting and distribution rights.
Other major steps forward came with the publication of the second edition of W. E. Tate's The Parish Chest (1951), much enlarged from the 1946 first edition, and with the publication of the Blue Paper, Abstracts of arrangements respecting registration of births, marriages and deaths in the United Kingdom, and the other countries of the British Commonwealth of Nations and in the Irish Republic (1952) which remained the standard work for many years.
In the United States the year 1950 saw the publication of the first edition of Frederick Lewis Weis', Ancestral Roots of Sixty Colonists who came to New England between 1623 and 1650 (1950) which was reviewed by Anthony Wagner as a concise and useful key to the remarkable extent of the material then available. Wagner thought that more intensive and skilful effort had perhaps been given to the study of the English origins of these early New England settlers than to any other single class of genealogical problem [1694]. In England the first article about the nineteenth-century passenger lists of ships going to America, by the historian Dr Philip A. M. Taylor (1920-2003) of the University of Birmingham, appeared in the Magazine in 1956 [1695]. In 1965 when at Hull University he produced Expectations Westward: the Mormons and the emigration of their British converts.
In 1951, at the suggestion of the professional genealogist Cecil Warburton Brand (1886-1982), the Society re-started the old card index of 'Migrations' to include stray references to 'persons abroad, or in distant parts of the country' [1696], and to this Reginald Arthur Proctor Hare (died 1963) in South Africa contributed much material [1697].
In a different sphere, although the Business Archives Council had been set up in 1934, very few competent business histories had been published in England before the 1950s, but an important article on 'London Business House Histories' by the librarian Donovan Dawe (1915-1996) appeared in the Magazine in 1952, the second part drawing attention, I think for the first time, to the value of insurance records to genealogists [1698]. Also important was the publication by Burke's Peerage of Anthony Wagner's definitive The records and collections of the College of Arms (1952).
In 1953 Edgar Samuel (1912-1984), a bookseller in Finchley, wrote the first major article about Jewish sources in England [1699] and in March 1955 Susan Minet (1884-1976), the President of the Huguenot Society, gave perhaps one of the first talks specifically about 'Huguenot Records' [1700]. In another specialist field the major Commissioned Sea Officers of the Royal Navy 1660-1815 was produced by the National Maritime Museum in 1955 [1701].
A strain of more critical genealogy was also now raising its head. The year 1951 had seen the publication of the important Origins of some Anglo-Norman Families by Lewis C. Loyd (1875-1947), formerly of the Treasury Solicitor’s Department (as Harleian Society, vol. 103), and this had been followed by L. G. Pine's widespread excision of myths from the 1949 edition of Burke's Peerage. Although widely welcomed it, of course, caused great offence to the fifty or so families that saw several hundred years sliced off their pedigrees [1702]. The controversial Leslie Gordon Pine (1907-1987) had been appointed editor in 1946 [1703]. A few fables survived but further excisions in the 1953 edition wisely removed Lord St Davids claim to be ‘of the same tribe as Vortigern, King of Britain, paternally descended from Maximus, King of Britain and Emperor of Rome’, though his six generations of pedigree without dates still remains. However, the Wake family’s claim to descend from Hereward the Wake, rightly excised as nonsense in 1949, now re-appeared in a footnote as a mere matter of ‘controversy’. In 1953 an absurd prefatory article in the Peerage argued that it was open to the Queen ‘to bestow the titular dignity of King upon her consort, who would then become Philip II’ [1704].
On 9 April 1952, Pine as editor of Burke's Landed Gentry, gave a talk at the Society on 'The decline of the Landed Gentry' in which he blamed taxation and changing social conditions [1705]. More than half the families included in the 2,800 pages of the new 1952 edition, he said, were no longer 'landed' and he could not see new entrants as the products of the nationalized industries. However, there was great interest in the book, the first since 1939, and four thousand copies at eight guineas each had been ordered prior to publication. At the talk there was a display of book-plates by the two great collectors Charles Hall Crouch (died 1962) [1706] and Horace Edward Jones (died 1978).
Pine's little book Trace your ancestors was published at 8s 6d in 1953 and did much to popularise the subject. Cecil Brand, reviewing it in the Magazine, said 'For the production of a work calculated to lure the reader into that state of mind, known to us all, in which he will become a menace to his elderly relations and an object of suspicion to his friends, the Author is to be congratulated' [1707].
However, of Pine’s next book, They came with the Conqueror (1954), the Society commented that 'It is doubtful whether any genealogical work published in recent years has caused more controversy' [1708]. Anthony Wagner had reviewed it in the Times Literary Supplement in May and was answered by Pine saying that some of his statements were not true and that others were a perversion of the truth and appeared to be written in ignorance of the facts. Wagner replied in turn with some very acidic and damaging comments [1709]. It was unfortunate for Pine that this public dispute with Wagner partly revolved around a pedigree of the Marris family that Pine had included in the Landed Gentry and about which he had given interviews to the press [1710], but which was based on one registered at the Ulster Office which was demonstrably false [1711]. Pine’s journalism was no match for Wagner’s scholarship.
In 1955, somewhat late in the day, John Brooke-Little reviewed Pine's The Story of Heraldry (1952) for the Society, saying that many of his premises were untenable [1712] and thus once more drawing Pine’s considerable wrath [1713]. The bickering continued for some years. Every time a volume of Pine’s appeared, as with the 1956 edition of Burke's Peerage, Pine rose indignantly to rebut the slightest criticism [1714]. Many of his books, as Peter Spufford wrote of his Teach Yourself Heraldry and Genealogy (1957), unfortunately suffered from a haste-betraying carelessness [1715] and, I would add, a curious lack of sympathy with their subjects.
A surprising development of interest to genealogists and local historians in 1954, not envisaged when copyhold tenure in England was abolished in 1924, was the first sale in what later developed into a lucrative trade in the lordships of manors. Some sales have included extensive records and rights over manorial commons and wastes, but most have been little more than legal fictions evidenced by a fancy sale-catalogue, a typed conveyance and a banker’s receipt.
It all started with the sale of the ‘Beaumont Collection’ of lordships of manors formed by Joseph Beaumont (1827-1889) [1716] who, during an active life as a solicitor at Coggeshall in Essex, had acted as steward for many landowners and had begun to buy manors on his own account. At the time of his death he was the owner or steward of upwards of fifty, mostly in East Anglia. His son and partner, George Frederick Beaumont, F.S.A. (1856-1928) [1717], added to this collection until there were nearly a hundred. On 3 November 1954 the latter’s sons and executors offered twenty-seven lordships for sale by auction through Strutt & Parker Lofts & Warner in London and twenty-nine others by private treaty.
The sale of these ancient manors, their records and their owners ability to style themselves ‘Lord of the Manor of Blank’ (but not ‘Lord Blank’), gained considerable publicity, particularly in America, but the interest of many in the televised sale-room waned when it was announced to cheers and ‘not a few trans-Atlantic moans’ that the Master of the Rolls, who under the 1924 Act had the ‘charge and superintendence’ of the records, would not consent to any of them leaving the country [1718]. The archivists for Essex and East Suffolk urged their deposit in the appropriate record offices. However, the twenty-seven lots, relating to fourteen manors in Essex, eight in Suffolk and five in Norfolk, sold for a total of £9,760, the highest price paid being £525 for the manor of Beaumonds in Lindsey, Suffolk, the first to have been bought by Joseph Beaumont and now bought by a descendant who lived in Australia. The Times reported that most manors had been bought by interested local people but some were bought by agents acting for unknown persons. William Alfred Foyle (1885-1963), the Charing Cross Road bookseller, had bought five in Essex ‘to add to his collection of documents’ [1719].
A second sale of some twenty-nine manors mostly in the same counties took place on 7 December 1955 and included seven previously offered for sale by private treaty. Of the remainder all but two came from the Beaumont collection [1720]. An introduction to the sale catalogue said that the vendors were not aware of any ill results of the previous sale; it had stimulated public interest in old records and there had been some benefit to the communities involved as in one manor the greens had been tidied, in another a pavilion had been erected for the cricket club, and in another a village history had been written from the records. Only one manor had been sold by private treaty to an American.
There was a further sale of ten manors at Colchester by C. M. Stanford & Son in 1964, some again from the Beaumont collection, when the highest price paid (by the farmer of neighbouring land) was £1,275 for the Manor of Westhorpe Hall, Suffolk. The average price gained at the two earlier sales had been about £360, but on this occasion it was £1,042 10s. A single sale, that of the Manor of Lambourn in Berkshire, took place at Farringdon in July 1966 and achieved a record price of £1,400 [1721].
In 1964 the auctioneer had again to emphasise that these were not titles of honour or nobility and that they did not carry with them the right to a seat in the House of Lords [1722] but in March 1977 a Bill was introduced in the House of Lords by the 15th Earl of Kinnoull, the Vice-President of the National Association of Parish Councils, to protect village greens and ‘to put an end to the somewhat degrading spectacle of certain dealings in lordships’. One lordship, he said, that of Great Snoring had been offered as a raffle in Chicago. Lord Sandford agreed, saying that their transfer to absentees and outsiders ’was an affront to the dignity and pride of local communities’. The Bill was amended and had its Second Reading in May but was never introduced in the Commons [1723].
It was well known during the last years of Kathleen Blomfield's period as Secretary that the lease of the room on the first floor at Chaucer House, taken in 1933, would expire in March 1954 and that the rapidly expanding Library Association which occupied the rest of the building had decided that it needed the space. In any case, as the Association’s official history says, the building, ‘after twenty years of heavy wear and tear, accentuated by war strain and damage, was not only being outgrown; it was beginning to show its age” [1724]. As mentioned above the growth in the Society’s collections was similarly demanding that something be done.
At the Society a re-housing committee was formed early in 1948 and worries for the future began in earnest. Unlike those of the Association (for which the University of London provided alternative premises in 1965), the Society's finances were in a deplorable and desperate state. Investments held since before the War totalled £524 and to these had been added £200 in 1943 (when the printed Balance Sheet was incorrectly totalled), £100 in 1944 and £300 in 1947, so that they now totalled £1,117 [1725]. Any increase in the subscriptions of existing members was precluded by paragraph 22 of the Companies Act 1948 when it was found that of the members 525 were paying old rates: ten Fellows were paying one guinea, fifteen Fellows were paying two guineas, 144 Town Members (including Cregoe Nicholson) were paying two guineas and 356 Country Members were paying one guinea.
A Special Reserve Fund, instituted in late 1948 to meet the cost of acquiring and equipping new premises [1726], in May 1949 totalled only £88 [1727] and £103 in September [1728], but it was thought that ‘several thousand pounds’ would be needed just for the removal and installation of the library in any new quarters [1729]. The possibility of issuing debentures was debated at the Annual Meeting in 1948 but Lord Mersey was opposed to the idea, believing that this was 'really inviting members to make a present of any money that was so subscribed', and suggesting that the income from covenanted subscriptions (£376 in 1948, but including £96 unclaimed in 1946/7) [1730] be set aside to form the basis of a fund [1731].
However, it was optimistically reported in September 1949 that a possible building had been found and that a draft lease was being prepared, it being hoped that a move might take place in November or December [1732]. The proposed new premises were described as 'not far distant from the British Museum and the Public Record Office' but discussions dragged on into December when the property was further described as situated 'northwards from our present rooms, two miles by road from Euston Station' but very well served by road and underground transport [1733]. The name of the building was not given in the Magazine but it was later revealed in the Annual Report as, perhaps surprisingly, the picturesque Canonbury Tower with its adjoining King Edward's Hall [1734], described as Islington’s most famous historic building and dating largely from the sixteenth century [1735].
During the course of the protracted negotiations the Secretary had received 'many expressions of regret that premises lying north of our present rooms were in contemplation' [1736] but in any case it had become increasingly clear that the maintenance of the building and its unsuitable layout, which would have required increased staffing, were more than the Society could afford and early in 1950 negotiations were broken off [1737]. George Sherwood wrote dispiritedly to Beach Whitmore, ‘Why can’t the Minister of Education see the immense value of our work and relieve our distress?’ [1738]. Two years later the restored Canonbury Tower was leased to the Tavistock Repertory Company [1739].
At the end of 1949 the Special Reserve Fund stood at £466. Sherwood’s letter to Whitmore said that he was struggling with the manuscript accessions ‘as they threaten to swamp us’ and the lack of shelf space was now causing the Executive Committee dismally to discuss placing into storage the ‘less useful books and of those containing information which is duplicated elsewhere in the library’ [1740]. Although the Annual Meeting in 1950 was overshadowed by the impending departure of Mrs Blomfield, the Honorary Treasurer, Sherwood, again stressed that 'additional funds must be forthcoming if the Society was to go ahead' [1741]. It was an ominous comment and early the following year Sherwood, who must in any case have been embarrassed by the repercussions of the Committee for Microfilming’s separate account, resigned and was replaced by able Sir William Elderton. In March 1951 the search for new premises continued and it was reported that the Special Reserve Fund stood at £538-15-6 but, in anticipation of a possible increase in the cost of steel, thirty steel chairs with canvas seats at £1-7-2 each and twenty with upholstered seats at £2-6-3 had been purchased for use at lectures and it was hoped that the members would care to donate a chair each [1742]. Only £17-10-11 was received for this latter purpose! [1743 ].
At the Annual Meeting on 14 June 1951 the President, Lord Mersey, said that there were no reserves - or practically nothing, and that the Society did not have the resources to pay a good or increased rent, 'it was no good not speaking the truth' [1744]. The annual rent at Chaucer House was then £350. However, Major Church’s Annual Report played down the problems, saying that as the lease did not expire until 1954 and as there had lately been an increase in the number of properties for sale and on lease, ‘the question of acquiring new premises is not at present one of supreme urgency’ [1745]. In 1952, in spite of its cramped conditions, Lord Mersey reported that he had even asked if there was any possibility of an extension of the present lease and that a member, who it later transpired was Thomas William Catesby (died 1960) [1746], had offered to loan £2,000 at four per cent interest towards the cost of new premises against the security of the Society's assets, though at the previous Annual Meeting Lord Mersey, himself a book collector, had doubted that the books were the type of security acceptable to a bank [1747].
In order that there should be no doubt as to the security for loans from members the Committee had in fact meanwhile decided to obtain an expert valuation of the books, manuscripts and typescripts and George A. Warne of the booksellers Walford Brothers at 69 Southampton Row, WC1, had kindly undertaken the task [1748]. The figures that he came up with, £4,195 for the printed books and a 'safe figure' of £4,000 for the manuscripts and typescripts, together form the basis of the Society's present-day valuation for its Balance Sheet, additions since then being included at cost, though the valuation for insurance purposes is, of course, much higher. The latter was in 1952, £4,370 for the books and £16,380 for the manuscripts and typescripts [1749].
With the improval in the Society’s financial situation under Major Church, the search for alternative premises continued, some thinking that a freehold might be found of which part might be let to produce income, but which might later be taken over as the Society expanded. With that in mind Colonel Somerset Hopkinson, a member of the re-housing committee, drew attention to a large Victorian house with vacant flats on its upper floors at 37 Harrington Gardens, near Gloucester Road Station in South Kensington, which had been unoccupied for a year [1750], during which time the original glass door handles had all been stolen. The initial omens were not good. The area was zoned for residential purposes, the house was only available on a 16-year lease (to 24 June 1970) and its situation, relatively far from the British Library and the Public Record Office, was thought by some to be a great disadvantage. Some twenty-two months of negotiation followed, the initial talks being conducted by the Chairman, William Cotton [1751].
By the time of the Annual Meeting on 7 May 1953 the membership had further increased and the finances were consequently in a somewhat better shape. A Defence Regulation that prohibited possession of the house had been repealed and a refusal to allow occupation under the Town and Country Planning Act had been successfully appealed to the Minister of Housing. Two weeks later Sherwood wrote to Whitmore that he looked forward to the move to new premises and that it would be to Harrington Gardens, quite near to Whitmore in Coleherne Court, saying that it would mean a ‘big increase in membership and a great improvement in the amenities’. ‘Praise is due’, he wrote, ‘to our excellent Secretary’ [1752]. At the Annual Meeting, Dr T. Hare had said that he thought the proposed move 'retrograde and regrettable' as he considered South Kensington 'difficult of access'. Lord Mersey replied that if they stayed on a yearly tenancy at Chaucer House the rent would probably be £1,000 p.a. [1753] That was out of the question.
By the end of 1953 it was reckoned that in addition to the purchase price of £3,000 there would be the cost of converting the three upper floors into a flat and maisonette and the strengthening of a floor, improvements, repairs and repointing of brickwork totalling £4,300, as well as legal fees and the costs of removal, another £800, making a total of £8,100. At that time, if the loans promised by members were included, the Society had about £7,318 available [1754]. The ground rent would be £47-10-0 p.a. and the landlords had given an undertaking that they would renew the lease for sixty or seventy years in eight years' time.
In December 1953 the President (Lord Mersey), Cregoe Nicholson as Chairman of the Executive Committee and Sir William Elderton as Honorary Treasurer jointly signed a letter to the members saying that it had been agreed to buy a short lease on the house and setting out the Society’s requirements and the terms and servicing of the suggested loans. Perhaps to emphasise the urgency, the appeal letter was, surprisingly, sent from the Society’s new home.
To finance the move the Society issued 5% debentures to members in units of £50, repayable over sixteen years. By March 1954, £4,350 had been subscribed, though it was reckoned that another £1,500 to £2,000 was probably needed. The flats upstairs were an important part of the equation, they being let through local agents, that on the second floor on a repairing lease at £400 p.a. exclusive, and the maisonette with its many rooms in the high pitched roof similarly at £350 p.a. [1755]. The Society was paying £350 p.a. rent at Chaucer House but there would now be the extra cost of a ‘porter’, estimated at £320 p.a. The financial arrangements backing the move fell mainly on the Honorary Treasurer, Sir William Elderton (1877-1962), an actuary and statistician of world repute who had just retired from the Presidency of Equitable Life. He resigned once they were completed and was elected a Vice-President the following year [1756]. Cregoe Nicholson thought him 'the best Treasurer we have ever had' [1757].
The energetic and competent Major Church now found himself organising the move. The offices at Chaucer House closed at 5 p.m. on Saturday, 20 March (the day the lease ended) and opened at Harrington Gardens at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 23 March, but the library took a while to sort out and closed from 5 p.m. on Wednesday, 17 March, until 10 a.m. on Saturday, 27 March [1758]. The move and the genealogical value of the collections were the subject of a most useful report in The Times [1759] (inspired by Nicholson). The move itself, in fact, cost less (£125) than the dilapidations (£185) at Chaucer House, but an anonymous donor gave a welcome £500 to the Special Reserve Fund [1760] and the removal vans were provided by Marc Fitch’s firm. The members helped greatly in the packing and unpacking of 370 chests of books in 'Operation Backbend' and in their arrangement on the new shelves [1761]. Cregoe Nicholson, then Chairman of the Executive, who had planned the position and erection of the library shelving, used to say that he had himself carried the whole of the Great Card Index in its 800 trays on many trips from the vans to the first floor of the building. Colonel Percy-Smith, who had been unwell for some weeks, sent a telegram on 20 March, ‘Wishing secretary, staff and members success and happiness in new premises’. The library re-opened in its new home at 10 am on Saturday, 27 March; the office had only been closed for one day on Monday, 22 March.
Colonel Somerset Hopkinson (1899-1988) and his wife Josephine (nee Addison; 1902-1989) took the keenest interest in the building's furnishing and care. He had been a member since 1919 (when he and his mother Mabel both joined the Society) and was on the Executive Committee for many years. His wife, a keen genealogist and with administrative experience in the War, had been elected the first woman member of the Executive 'to represent the lady members', as proposed by Colonel Percy-Smith, in 1948 [1762], and they regularly drove to meetings in London from Llanvihangel Court in Monmouthshire. Other members of the House Committee were also greatly involved. The highly practical Air Chief Marshal Sir Christopher Courtney (1890-1976) [1763], a member since 1933, showed a surprising knowledge of soft furnishings. Marc Fitch's wife Ismini (died 1999, aged 93) chose a carpet for the Members' Room that lasted fifty years. Helen Thacker (1892-1977), a former searcher specialising in Sussex wills [1764] and now working at the Principal Probate Registry, also represented the lady members, and John Stone (1910-1956) [1765] the House Master at Brentwood School mentioned above, was also active.
Cregoe Nicholson, as Chairman of the Executive, had issued a separate appeal for money with which to furnish the members’ room in February 1954, suggesting that each member contribute ten shillings [1766]. It was an appeal noteworthy for a most dismal picture of the house, but by June 1954 it had raised £704-8-5 and the Society was buying Ismini’s carpet and the curtains, chairs and tables used for many years here and at Charterhouse Buildings [1767]. Another member, Captain Horace Charles Couldrick (1904-1956), FRIBA, of Sutton, acted as honorary architect in connection with the alterations and repairs to the house [1768], and although William Cotton had told the Annual Meeting in 1953 that it was sufficiently strong to take the weight of the library [1769], in fact the frame of the back section had to be strengthened by driving steel girders through the ornate plaster strapwork of the drawing room ceiling which was re-cast around them. London County Council insisted on a fire escape to the neighbouring building and, remembering the heating problems at Chaucer House, a new central-heating boiler was installed [1770], the old one, I was told, doing little more than heat the pavement in front of the house.
Number 37 Harrington Gardens had been part of the Alexander Estate, some twenty acres of market gardens developed between 1870 and 1883, which passed from James Brace Alexander to his only child, Sybil, the wife of Lord George Campbell (1850-1915), the fourth son of the 8th Duke of Argyll, and thence to their two daughters, both of whom had been sympathetic to the Society's needs: Joan (1887-1960) who was unmarried and Enid (1892-1964) who became Mrs Anstruther and later Mrs Holland. This particular house is one of a very handsome and picturesque pair, now Nos. 35 and 37 Harrington Gardens, which with others in the area, all separately designed, are said to 'represent the extreme point of late-Victorian architectural individualism'. They had been designed by Ernest George and Peto in a seventeenth-century Dutch or German style and built in 1880-3 for Walter Richard Cassels, a literary gentleman, art collector and sceptical theologian, formerly in the East India trade, at a cost of £13,272. No 37 passed in the 1890s to the Vaughan Morgan family, the occupiers until 1953. The neighbouring house, No 39, with 'a hearty flamboyance unexampled in previous town houses' was built for the dramatist W. S. Gilbert with money made, it is said, from Patience [1771]. The ship on the uppermost gable was not HMS Pinafore as many supposed but an allusion to the supposed descent of the family from Sir Humphrey Gilbert.
There was a forecourt behind handsome iron railings with parking, about which there was frequent argument, for two or three cars. Between the two wings of the red-brick building with its terracotta panels, high hipped roof, tall gables and rows of tall leaded casements, was a paved forecourt designed to hold myrtles and other plants in tubs (as it does today but did not in the Society's time), the entrance to No 37 being through an outer porch with heavy pillars, a mosaic floor and a long sgraffito panel depicting scenes of life in 'Merry England'. A small dark inner porch lit by a lantern led through double doors with painted glass panels into the oak-panelled hall, with a red, green and gold lincrusta paper above, with the receptionist's desk, a brass-bound mahogany telephone apparatus being to one side on the deep windowsill. A specially constructed display unit on which to show the very few books for sale, was given by Professor R. C. Gale in 1955, and filled a recess which matched the recessed door to the drawing room, it having space for the storage of books behind the display. Behind the reception desk was a ladies cloakroom, panelled in dark mahogany. An impressive staircase with richly carved wooden panels, the newel posts decorated with mythical beasts, occupied much of the central space of the house and was divided from the back stairs by an internal window from which the painted glass had been removed in the War and replaced with bombproof glass.
The long drawing room at the back of the house, overlooking the garden and panelled in grey-green with mauve silk above, we filled with high bookcases, library tables being positioned in the window bays. At one end the library catalogue stood in the hooded stone fireplace with the librarian's desk nearby; at the other end there was a small conservatory with a door into the garden. As mentioned above the lively strapwork ornament to the ceiling here was re-cast around strengthening girders. The main rooms of the house were now named after former Presidents of the Society and this became Room Raglan.
The only other room on the ground floor was the large dining room at the front, fully panelled in dark oak, with a gold panelled ceiling and a low gallery over the outer and inner porch. Here and elsewhere in the building the radiators were hidden behind ornamental copper repousse reliefs. This room, in which had hung Cassels' fine collection of paintings, initially became the Members' Room and the usual series of six winter lectures was held here, the green steel stacking chairs mentioned above (and not at all comfortable!) being brought out from under the stairs and the low arm chairs on each occasion being removed to the ends of the library bays. The first talk held in the room on 6 October 1954 was by Sir Hilary Jenkinson (1882-1961) [1772], late Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, who spoke on Jamaican records [1773].
On the first floor a large landing over the hall contained more bookcases, a section being initially shielded off with a screen to make an office for a research assistant and typist. The long runs of peerages placed here resulted in it being called, by the staff at least, 'Snobs Corner'. At the front of the building over the Members' Room was the former billiard-room. This room, called Room Tweeddale, contained the Document Collection and the Card Indexes. At the back of the house, originally Cassels' library but later divided into two rooms, the smaller one became the Secretary’s Office and the larger one Room Farrer, again with bookcases and library tables, around which evening committee meetings were normally held.
Down in the vaulted basement, reached only by the back stairs, the original kitchen with the new boiler became Room Stamp and housed the family histories. A large white cupboard here contained all the unbound parish register transcripts. The former housekeeper's room with its leaded sink and baize-lined safe became the Staff Room, the safe receiving the growing microfilm collection. Nearby a little bedroom with green and white wallpaper, perhaps by William Morris, became the Overseas Room and housed the microfilm reader. A central passageway had the Gentleman's Magazine and Notes and Queries on shelving given, after his death in 1957, in memory of John Beach Whitmore. The scullery was converted into a gentleman's lavatory and the former servants' hall and butler's room into a small flat for a resident housekeeper, Florence Moss, and her husband George, who acted as caretaker. There were various damp cellars under the forecourt and two large wine-bins.
The house had a decidedly club atmosphere, tea being served in the members' room every day at 4 pm when a bell was rung in the hall. Following a decision of the Executive Committee in February 1955, however, smoking was only allowed in the members’ and staff rooms. The tenants of the flats had access via the main staircase but the rooms were locked at night and the keys taken to the housekeeper. Apart from problems with the right to park cars in the forecourt, there were also squabbles about the keys to the garden behind the house (access to which was through the library), the garden to which the Society paid a rate being on the opposite side of the road. There was a post box outside the house, a post office a block away, and several banks and shops in nearby Gloucester Road.
Some eight months after the Society settled into its new home, in November 1954, the energetic Secretary, Major Church, unexpectedly resigned. He became a Member the following year and died at Stewkley, Buckinghamshire, in 1973. During his four-year tenure the membership had expanded considerably and his organisational skills in the move and with the popular luncheons had been much appreciated [1774]. In the difficult period immediately after Church's resignation Mr H. Hindley (I believe at the suggestion of Sir Christopher Courtney) was appointed Acting Secretary pending the appointment of a new person and was credited with overhauling the office administration. He continued to assist until the end of April 1955 [1775], the Annual Report saying that ‘his services were of great value to the Society’ [1776]. For two years the Society was in deficit and sadly short of staff and Sir Christopher Courtney worked many hours in the office helping to sort out the subscriptions and deeds of covenant [1777]. A gift of books following the death of Percival Boyd in 1955 and a further large consignment from Day Kimball accounted for the unusually large number - 847 - received that year [1778].
With a paid librarian the Society was now able to borrow books for its members through the National Central Library and some thirty books were borrowed in this way in 1956 in addition to the 721 other books borrowed that year [1779] though the wrapping of parcels was never a popular library task. In 1957 in addition to those books received through the NCL there were thirty more to be sent to other libraries, a quid pro quo that the deprived members did not always appreciate [1780]. In 1958 963 volumes were borrowed, of which 162 were sent by post [1781], those numbers being 1,002 and 107 in 1959 [1782]. It was fortunate that the Post Office was just at the end of the road. At Harrington Gardens the outgoing post was stamped by the receptionist but the parcels were always taken to the Post Office by the Librarian or his or her assistant.
The generous Professor R. C. Gale in 1955 had also presented a foolscap Contoura Portable Photocopier costing £20 10s, our first, for use in the Society's rooms. A battery-operated Contoura was being advertised at that time as 'admirable for taking extracts from parish registers' and could be had for £5 (including batteries) [1783]. The machine could, however, only be used in indirect or subdued light, the exposures took fourteen seconds each and the pages had to be developed later. It was consequently not often used and two years later, as I well remember, we were instead regularly taking books needing to be photocopied across London to the old firm of R. B. Fleming & Co Ltd, Technical Photographers, in the basement of Africa House, Kingsway, where Photostats cost three shillings each.
Major Church's successor was Major Gerald Hamilton-Edwards, TD, MA, FLA (1906-1987) [1784], a benign slightly portly figure, who took up the post of Secretary on 10 January 1955, giving up that of South-West Regional Librarian for Devon [1785]. He had been a member since 1942, having, as he once wrote, been 'caught upon the intriguing web of genealogy' by overhearing a chance remark of a student at the School of Librarianship at London University who was telling another student that one could trace one's ancestors through the wills at Somerset House [1786]. He had been born Gerald Kenneth Savery Edwards, the son of an officer in the Royal Marines, and assumed the surname Hamilton-Edwards in 1944 as a descendant of the Hamiltons of Muirhouse and Bardannoch. Educated at Brighton College and Keble College, Oxford, where he had taken a Diploma in Librarianship, he had travelled extensively as tutor to two American families and he had combined teaching and library work with free-lance journalism. He was a likeable man with a quiet sense of humour, interested in genealogical research, but unfortunately not at all business-like in the office. Decisive he was not. Indeed an obituary in the Daily Telegraph described him as a 'mild-mannered, rather bumbling bespectacled bachelor, very much in the mould of the old-fashioned schoolmaster'. As his later life showed he was much more at home in the congenial social atmosphere of clubs and colleges.
Hamilton-Edwards had, only in 1954, lectured at the Society on ‘Naval records and naval pedigree’. It was a subject that interested Nicholson who had also had West Country connections and together this probably accounts for Hamilton-Edwards’s appointment but the Annual Report said, ‘It is expected also that … greater concentration on research will result in increased income from that source’ [1787]. That expectation, perhaps unwise in the first place, was far from fulfilled.
Hamilton-Edwards had written two books about families in Plymouth and had already done some radio work when on 18 January 1955 the Society first featured in a television programme, 'Tracing your Pedigree', featuring the heraldic artist Claire Evans [1788] and Michael E. B. Leader (1915-1998) an actor who was also an authority on Irish genealogy. Gerald Hamilton-Edwards and Miss Evans then represented the Society in a further television programme on 1 February [1789]. Spending time on such things so soon after his appointment did not go down at all well with some at the Society! In April the Executive Committee decided that henceforth he should attend all sub-committee meetings. The publicity resulting from the television programmes unfortunately generated correspondence with which the staff were unable to cope and in May the Executive Committee agreed that the Secretary should not again appear on television. An edict then went out that no member of staff should communicate with the press unless they had the permission of the Chairman of the Executive Committee!
During the War George Sherwood had described himself on his letterhead as 'Record Searcher and Archivist (Family History): undertakes the testing, "vetting" and straightening out of the pedigrees of the middle class' and after the War he advertised 'Ancestors traced: descent and kinship proved', 'Shots at "Seize Quartiers", two guineas' [1790]. He was elected a Vice President at the Annual Meeting in 1947 [1791]. He resigned as Honorary Treasurer at the Annual Meeting in June 1951 when many tributes were paid to him. Cregoe Nicholson said that 'if anyone could claim to have made the Society' it was Sherwood, but he answered with great humility saying that genealogy had been his hobby and life interest and, therefore, there was no special credit due to him [1792]. He had, in 1949, printed a pamphlet, This is Genealogy, in which he had set out his ancestry in a long whimsical poem [1793] and earlier he had written of his Oxford relative the coach proprietor Richard Costar and 'the pleasure it is to recall old coaching days, ways and associations and the delights of the countryside before the days of steam and motor cars' [1794]. A certain whimsicality was always apparent in his letters and speech. He encouraged an enquirer during the First World War by saying, ‘Pursue a vigorous policy; waiting for something to turn up is no more successful in this than in any other spheres of human activity’, and to another about Town Depositions, ‘There’s fun in many of them, too. We must get our fun where we can’ [1795].
Sherwood had continued throughout to tend the Document Collection, latterly coming from his home at Brockley three days a week [1796]. He had his usual deep armchair in Room Tweeddale at Harrington Gardens in which he snoozed in the afternoons. His advertisement in March 1954 said that he was 'Informative, educative, sincere' [1797]. However, with increasing age after 1955 he rarely visited the Society and Mrs Sherwood took over all the work of sorting collections and filing documents in 1956 [1798] and she represented him when Lord Mountbatten was elected President the following year [1799]. I remember well how she would relay difficult questions to 'Mr Sherwood' as she always called him, sometimes to be answered with his well-known deep-voiced exclamation, 'Fools!' He celebrated his 90th birthday on 22 December 1957 when Cregoe Nicholson visited him and conveyed the congratulations of the Executive Committee [1800]. He died on 22 February 1958 in his 91st year [1801].
The years immediately following the move to Harrington Gardens in 1954 were very unsettled ones for various reasons and not always because of the shortage of money. Cregoe Nicholson was Chairman of the Executive Committee throughout the years 1953-56 and continued to have great influence well into the 1960s. He was a highly energetic man whom many outsiders considered the very embodiment of selfless interest in the Society, but following the removal of the strong personalities of Kathleen Blomfield and Major Church, personal vendettas and intrigue became his second nature. His influence, together with that of an inner circle of friends on the committees, was unfortunately paramount and there were consequently several changes of staff.
Cregoe Donaldson Percy Nicholson (1885-1968) [1802], the son of a Devon parson latterly 'without cure', had joined the Society in 1920 and, as has been noted, soon became active in many of its affairs, particularly with the Magazine, being elected a member of the Executive Committee and a Fellow in 1924. He had begun a career in life insurance but had become interested in its history and development. Making use of early newspapers, he was fascinated by their possible use for genealogy. In 1928 he spoke to the Society on 'The genealogical value of the early English newspaper' and in 1934 he expanded the talk and published it separately in a booklet with that name, leaving his profession and setting up as a private searcher specializing in newspaper research at 11 Lincoln's Inn Fields and maintaining a 'Newspaper Continuous Research List' [1803]. His usual reply to any genealogical question was, 'Have you looked at the newspapers?' and then more practically (having wasted much time which could not be charged to the client) echoing Horace Round, ‘Have you looked at the map?’.
Nicholson was also a spare time amateur archaeologist and had worked with Sir Mortimer Wheeler at St Albans in the 1930s. He had made a name for himself following the discovery of the important Roman villa at Lullingstone in Kent when in 1949 thousands of fragments of painted plaster were found in a basement room there, having fallen from the walls of the room above during a fire which had destroyed the building in the late fourth or early fifth century (and which incidentally sometimes changed the colour of the frescoes), and it was Nicholson who for many years worked part-time on this gigantic discoloured jigsaw puzzle and discovered its Christian significance [1804].
Now in his early seventies and with signs of Parkinson's disease, Cregoe Nicholson involved himself in everything at the Society. Nothing was done without his knowledge or consent. He would 'see to' all things but, in reality, was no longer able to do so. The wall-plaster was neglected. Staff came and went at his personal whim, letters remained unanswered, research was delayed, and the Magazine, of which he had taken on the editorship in June 1954, became long overdue. He came to the Society and was 'there nearly every day until quite late' [1805] having a share of the large office table and being a continual irritation and obstacle to those who tried to work around him.
However, for some years after the move Nicholson’s friends who regularly used the British Museum Library continued to meet fairly regularly for tea on Saturdays at a café in Museum Street which any chronicle of this period must mention. At this ‘tea club’, which I seem to remember was active until about 1960, Charles Hall Crouch and Horace Jones swapped and discussed book-plates. The generous Beach Whitmore with his ex-army satchel for his papers came regularly until his sudden death in 1957, Cregoe Nicholson and his friend Jack Bird were usually there and so was the eminent book-binder Bernard Middleton who had been appointed advisor to the Society in February 1957 and was responsible for the binding of the Society’s distinguished visitors’ book. He had earlier specially bound for presentation to the Duchess of Gloucester the Magazine articles on her ancestry [1806]. John Blight and others occasionally came. Later, of course, the cafes in Gloucester Road began to take precedence and several of us became particularly fond of Casa Cura or ‘Mary’s’ in Lenthall Mews next to the Station.
Unfortunately Hamilton-Edwards collected a good deal of research for which the fees were paid in advance but he seemed incapable of finalising any report, being, of course, it was said, far too busy with the press! The Annual Report for 1955 noted that there had been an intake of about 300 new cases but that the profit had been less than £200 [1807]. The profit improved to about £300 in 1956 [1808] but the large backlog that had been created was still being worked off two years later. The Honorary Treasurer who had taken the place of Sir William Elderton was Reginald Gaston Swann (1906-1995), Assistant Staff Manager of Lloyd's Bank, who was co-opted to the Executive in September 1954 [1809] and formally elected Treasurer on 19 October 1954 [1810]. By June 1955 he was extremely unhappy at the financial position and, not being able to give greater time to the Society's problems, was anxious to resign [1811], recommending that the research be put on a proper basis, that subscription rates be revised (to this Nicholson was much opposed), and that salary and magazine costs be cut and economy in small things enforced [1812]. There were some unpleasant scenes in the committees. In July 1955, after only six months, Hamilton-Edwards gave notice and left early in October [1813] and in September the Honorary Treasurer, Swann, resigned from everything, the Annual Report attributing his resignation to ‘pressure of business’ [1814]. The final straw with Hamilton-Edwards seems to have been that he had allowed members to become Life Members by paying ten times their annual subscriptions [1815], a figure that was considered far too low. The young Colin R. R. Bowden, BSc(Econ), born in 1931 and involved with the Institute of Historical Research, who started as a part time bookkeeper in the evenings at ten shillings an hour [1816], was appointed Secretary pro tem in October 1955 [1817] but after helping with the research he left early the following year.
The Executive Committee had given Nicholson 'full powers as Managing Director' and he set about cutting waste in the office [1818]. The situation for everyone else was intolerable. Not surprisingly he paid no tribute to Hamilton-Edwards in the December 1955 Magazine which merely noted that the Secretary had resigned and the Annual Report, whilst praising Mr Hindley for his assistance earlier in the year, merely said without comment that Hamilton-Edwards had left [1819]. The latter’s intervention at the AGM the following year to say that 'the late Secretary' (i.e. himself) had in fact given three months’ notice was given short shrift, though a very warm tribute was paid to Nicholson for working 'seven days a week' [1820]. The arguments as to whether genealogists can under any circumstances make good administrators or are always un-business-like that this period and the following six years epitomised continue to resound in my ears.
After Hamilton-Edwards, one of those who suffered most from the interference of Cregoe Nicholson was Francis ('Frank') Walter Bennett (1906-1970), the Secretary who succeeded him at the end of November 1955 [1821]. Bennett had a war record and only one arm. He had no pretence to be a genealogist but was a highly competent bookkeeper and the nicest of men. The Annual Report for 1956 credits him with having introduced considerable improvements in the management of the Society [1822] and he continued his careful work quietly in the background, latterly assisted by John Phillips, until 1959. The Executive Committee in January 1957 agreed that he was not obliged to attend all sub-committee meetings.
Sir William Elderton had quickly found a successor to Swann as Treasurer in the respected Victor George Charles Callaway (1905-1980), a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and Secretary to the University Life Assurance Company, who was co-opted to the Executive Committee on 20 September 1955 [1823]. By November 1955 he had compiled a memorandum and an urgent draft letter which he proposed be sent immediately to the members. These went before the Executive Committee in December but were opposed by the Chairman, Cregoe Nicholson, and not agreed. The memorandum had noted that the subscriptions had not been increased since 1945 and were currently three guineas for Fellows and Town Members, two guineas for Country Members and a guinea for Overseas Members. No Associate or Corresponding Associate Members had been elected since September 1928, but five survived from before that date. Callaway calculated that, allowing for deaths and resignations since the survey made in 1948, if the 'veteran' members could be persuaded to increase their payments to the current rates, the Society would receive about £500 a year in additional income. He also noted that of the current members only 250 had signed Deeds of Covenant and that if a further 250 with an average subscription of two guineas could be persuaded to do so, that would allow the Society to reclaim tax of about £400 a year. As mentioned an appeal for members to enter into seven-year covenants had been made by Lord Mersey at the Annual General Meeting in 1946 and it had been repeated by circulating the whole membership with the appropriate Deed of Covenant and Banker’s Order forms in November 1953 but with little result, by 1955 only 250 members had covenanted their subscriptions.
The Executive Committee took no action, though in April 1956 it agreed to set up a reserve fund. However, on 16 August 1956 there was a considerable argument about the Society’s financial position at the Annual Meeting, chaired by Russell Muirhead. Cregoe Nicholas told the meeting that three years before they had been 'within an ace of winding up the Society', its resources having been strained to breaking point, but they had come through and were now on the road to success [1824]. However, William C. Blackburn (1885-1973), of Staines, an insurance manager, said that the Society was not paying its way and he was supported by Sir Stanley Wyatt. Both emphasised the immediate need for a reserve fund to meet the likely costs when the lease came to an end in sixteen years. It was a point that Sir Christopher Courtney, elected to the Executive Committee in 1953, would return to again and again. The move had been ambitious and imaginative but there were difficult times ahead. Blackburn said that a fund to pay off the debentures and for the maintenance of the building was required and that about £500 a year would be needed, suggesting that the subscriptions be increased. Sir Stanley Wyatt agreed and so did Gerald Hamilton-Edwards but Peter Spufford said that the younger members would not be able to afford an increase and that the charges for research for non-members should be increased. He thought that it was not a proper function of the Society to do research for non-members [1825], a valid point but odd coming from one employed in the research department!
Again no action was taken but in October it was agreed [1826] that the search fees for those non-members who came to do their own work, strangely little publicised and not mentioned in the Magazine, should be increased to 10s 6d for half a day or 17s 6d for a full day, and that the Entrance Fee for new members should be increased from one to one and a half guineas, both as from 1 January 1957 [1827]. One hundred and ninety-four new members were elected in 1956, a net increase of 77, bringing the total to 1,638, and the salaries of the administrative staff were increased by £300 [1828].
However, partly because of the financial position Nicholson gave up the Chairmanship of the Executive Committee in 1956 and persuaded the wealthy businessman Marc Fitch (1908-1994), who had been co-opted to the Executive in 1954, to take on the task in his stead. Fitch had established the Marc Fitch Fund in 1956. He had a passionate interest in genealogy and had been a member of various committees, being a long-standing friend of Anthony Wagner. However, Fitch told me that he had been put forward by Nicholson merely to keep some other candidate out and knowing those involved this may have been Cotton. The letter which Callaway had drafted and which he intended should be sent to the ‘veteran’ members was now further considered. It said that the Committee 'did not think it wise' to increase the existing rates of subscription but it emphasised the great improvement in the facilities since the last increase. Fitch greatly altered the letter, emphasising instead the Committee's 'Three Big Worries', the need for money for the upkeep of the library, the importance of increasing the reserve fund (which then stood at £1,600) for the renewal of the lease in 1970, and the rising cost of salaries, printing and other expenses.
In the event the letter, topped and tailed by Fitch and approved in November 1956, lacked the urgency of Callaway's draft. It went to only 141 members, mostly country members who paid one guinea and had not signed a deed of covenant. The result of all this prevarication was dismal failure. Only 54 members replied. Five resigned. There were a few donations, but the net annual gain was £24-3-5. The tackling of the underlying problem was, however, thus put off for several years. The membership reached 1,561 at the end of 1955 but after a small increase in 1956 fell back to 1,540 in 1957 and 1958.
In December 1954 it was announced that arrangements had been made to keep the Society's rooms open on Monday evenings until 7 pm [1829] without staff present and at the Annual Meeting in May 1955 Nicholson said that he and other committee members were keeping the rooms open and that about a dozen members were taking advantage of the longer hours. Nicholson gave up supervising the scheme in 1959 [1830] when two members, George Frederick Eglesfield (1898-1975) and Herbert Shipman (1904-1971) [1831], took joint responsibility for locking up, continuing to do so for some years.
The Society had since 1911 been the only one of its kind in the British Isles but in 1947 the Heraldry Society, then pompously called the Society of Heraldic Antiquaries, was inaugurated at East Knoyle in Wiltshire 'to instruct and interest the young in Heraldry and Genealogy'. This was done without reference to the Society of Genealogists though its founder John Brooke-Little (1927-2006) had been a member since 1945. Its early work was first mentioned in The Genealogists’ Magazine in 1948 [1832].
In 1954, although there was already a Cambridge University Heraldic and Genealogical Society, some interested students formed a Cambridge University Society of Genealogists, the leading lights being its Chairman, Donald Steel (1935-2008) at Peterhouse, and its Secretary, Malcolm Pinhorn (1932-2018) at Fitzwilliam, both members of the Society of Genealogists. The former had joined the latter society when a schoolboy at Mitcham in 1948 and the latter in 1952. Lord Mountbatten agreed to be President of the Cambridge society and Cregoe Nicholson and the historian, Professor Denis Brogan (1900-1974), Vice-Presidents. That first year it had about thirty members and in 1955 they visited the library, having become the first organisation to be affiliated to the Society the previous year [1833]. Not to be outdone the Oxford University Heraldry Society also applied to affiliate itself and elected Cregoe-Nicholson a Vice-President [1834]. What, if anything, such an affiliation implied in a practical sense was not determined.
In the summer of 1955 with the Society in financial difficulties and Hamilton-Edwards thinking of resigning, Nicholson recruited two students from the Cambridge Society to help with research at the Society during their long vacations. They were each paid ten shillings a day. They were Donald Steel, already known as a member, and Peter Spufford (1934-2017) who came in June and joined the Society that year, returning also to assist in the summer of 1956 [1835].
Donald Steel, Peter Spufford and Malcolm Pinhorn all came down from Cambridge in 1956. Along with the young Jeremy Sumner Wycherley Gibson (born 1934), a member since 1953, and Nicholas Hugh MacMichael (1933-1985) who joined in 1957, these energetic young people, began then to take a lively interest in the Society. They were impatient with its slow development, its small membership, the consequent lack of money, the many staff changes and the inward-looking nature of the organisation. They blamed the older generation who monopolised the committees and who, it seemed to them, had been there for ever.
The first International Congress of Heraldry and Genealogy had taken place at Barcelona in 1928 during the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, but it had received no attention by genealogists in the United Kingdom. The second, in Rome and Naples in 1953, established an international institute at Madrid and decided to hold the third congress at Madrid in October 1955. Amongst the 300 who attended were L. G. Pine, the editor of Burke's Peerage, who wrote an enthusiastic account in the March 1956 Magazine and John Brooke-Little, chairman of the Heraldry Society and editor of its journal The Coat of Arms. The President of the Congress was the Marques de Desio, Spanish Ambassador in Rome, and the proceedings had much to do with questions of nobiliary status and orders of chivalry. Pine characteristically contributed a paper on the reform of the House of Lords, the only paper in English printed in the Congress's 720-page Comunicaciones y Conclusiones. Russell Muirhead, who as editor of the Blue Guides travelled about Europe a good deal, considered these interesting but 'of little practical value' [1836].
By 1955 the number of Fellows had fallen to thirty-six. After the War their original privileges of borrowing two books from the Library at one time and of having ten ‘interests’ reported from the Great Card Index were largely obsolete as no new slips were being added to the index. However, at the instigation of Cregoe Nicholson, who was running everything, a batch of fifty new Fellows, including several overseas and many old friends who had been recently active, was elected in February that year bringing their number to 86 [1837]. After this the Fellows did not meet for another eight years. Election to Fellowship (by show of hands and without prior detail) still entailed a higher subscription though I doubt that the resulting increase in income was one of Nicholson's objects. A standard letter was sent to new Fellows which merely said, 'I have pleasure in telling you that you were elected a Fellow at a meeting of Fellows held here this afternoon. As you know, this does carry with it a higher subscription but in any event it will not be operative until next year' [1838].
Marc Fitch was Chairman for only a year and did not find it congenial. He was succeeded from June 1957 until the summer of 1960 by the scholarly Lawrence Edward Tanner (1890-1979), a member since 1913 who for thirty years had been the Keeper of the Muniments at Westminster Abbey. Late in life he had married a niece of the great Lord Curzon [1839]. Unlike Fitch, Lawrence Tanner rarely came to the Society, but both left practically everything to their Vice-Chairman, Cregoe Nicholson, and the staff and financial situation did not greatly improve.
Nicholson used to say that the Chairman's appeal for funds with which to furnish the Members' Room had produced a surplus and that the balance was used to purchase the Society's first microfilm reader but a notice in the June 1956 issue of the Magazine makes it clear that the Executive Committee opened a fund specifically for that purpose that year, hoping to raise £200 for the machine and the nucleus of a film library, and that Sidney Cramer (1911-1996), the founder of the Scottish Genealogy Society and an eccentric genealogist who advertised research 'anywhere in Great Britain, Egypt, Illinois, and the World' [1840], had donated the first £2. A few spools of film had already been donated [1841]. The Genealogical Society of Utah having given £100 [1842], the required sum was subscribed in six months and a Recordak machine purchased in January 1957 [1843] and installed in the little Overseas Room in the basement. However, in June that year it was stated that the Society's few films were not available to searchers though members could bring their own films for use on the reader [1844]. It was a strange rule, quickly forgotten and a list of all the microfilms available, mostly of bishops' transcripts in the Diocese of Oxford, was published in the Magazine in 1960 [1845].
In 1956 the first volume of David E. Gardner and Frank Smith's important and influential Genealogical Research in England and Wales was published in Salt Lake City and reviewed by Patrick Montague-Smith as 'a very lucid and comprehensive guide to what records exist and how they should be interpreted'. He mentioned that the Genealogical Society of Utah was then filming the 1851 Census and that Wales and about half of England had been done [1846]. On the Isle of Man a copy of the returns was retained at Ramsay and was later the subject of project work by the local family history society but it was not until 1997 that it was found that it surprisingly differed in many respects from the official return sent to London and also filmed by the GSU [1847].
Meanwhile the GSU operators under the direction of George Cunningham had also been extremely busy microfilming the vast collection of early probate records at Somerset House and there had been some discussion about the future of the duplicate films which were normally presented to the custodians of the records that had been filmed. Cunningham explained that these films should be regarded as the master copies; an additional working copy would need to be made for day-to-day use and replaced as it wore out. He reckoned that the life of the working copy would be from ten to forty years according to use. Cregoe Nicholson, Marc Fitch and Anthony Wagner had attended exploratory talks about these master copies with Mr Newton at the Principal Probate Registry in February 1957 and the following month George Cunningham was present with them, when the possibility of the films being housed by the British Library, represented by Mr Nixon, was discussed but the latter did not want to take all the films and nothing was done, nobody being willing to face the likely expense involved [1848].
It may be noted here that since the War there had been a number of movements of probate records amongst the local registries and to the newly formed county record offices. In 1942 the Exeter registry was destroyed by bombing along with all the probate records of the dioceses of Exeter and Bath and Wells. By the end of 1950 the Welsh records formerly dispersed at Bangor, Carmarthen, Chester, Llandaff and Shrewsbury, had been centralised at the National Library of Wales. Those for Bedfordshire had been brought from Birmingham to Bedford. The Chichester records at Winchester were moved to Chichester and the Kentish records were brought together at Maidstone. All these transfers, it may also be noted, were made without the legislation that had been said, on so many previous occasions, to be required.
The situation at Somerset House had become serious, the great growth in modern records causing intense congestion. The south wing of the building had itself been damaged by bombing and some of the rooms along the Embankment, where the windows had been blown in, were in an appalling state, thick with grime, with unsorted documents piled in vast heaps on the floor or in sacks, some apparently untouched since the 1870s and with one room, I was told [1849], unable to be opened because the bookcases had collapsed inside against the door. The unsorted inventories in their rolls, Ida Darlington wrote, looked 'like half-smoked cigars' [1850]. The original wills of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury were no longer in any condition to be produced to the public and all the subsidiary records were in disarray, only the register copy wills and act books being available.
The county record offices, having created possible alternative places of deposit for these documents and the local interest in them having grown considerably, there commenced in 1955 a movement to have the records of the local courts sent back to the counties to which they related. That movement met with a considerable amount of opposition from some quarters in London. However, by a series of orders of the President of the Probate Division and with the approval of the Lord Chancellor the records, largely having been microfilmed by the GSU, were slowly sent away. The first distribution was made in 1956 and continued for some years until only the Surrey courts and the records of the Prerogative Court were, until 1970 (when I shall take up the story), left at Somerset House. In Surrey no agreement could be obtained as to whether the records of the Surrey courts should go to Kingston or to Guilford, and in London there was an unhelpful distribution of records amongst several competing record offices. However, in these local record offices throughout England and Wales the records were to receive the special care and attention that the officials of the registries with all their other duties had neither the opportunity nor the training to give.
Queen Mary, the Society's Patron since 1919, had died in 1953 and the usual wreath and message of sympathy [1851] had been sent by the President, Viscount Mersey, who himself was frail and elderly and unable to take the chair at the AGM that August and died at Bignor Park, Sussex, on 20 November 1956, aged 84 [1852]. The Society then began to consider who might agree to be its President. Malcolm Pinhorn, who had joined the Executive Committee that year, knew of the involvement of the First Sea Lord and former Viceroy of India, Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1900-1979), in the Cambridge University Society of Genealogists and suggested that he be approached. Anthony Wagner, a member of the Executive Committee for many years and then Richmond Herald, made the initial overtures. He had got to know Lord Mountbatten through Sir Iain Moncreiffe, the author of Blood Royal, when Mountbatten asked them for advice on the family history that he was writing and Wagner had quickly realised the depth of Mountbatten's 'passion for his own ancestry in particular, and genealogy in general' [1853]. There was an initial obstacle in that the prospective President was not, as required by the Articles, a member of the Society [1854] and an Extraordinary General Meeting had to be held on Wednesday, 22 May, to give someone elected President 'the privileges of Fellows'.
Wagner, like many others, myself included, found Mountbatten 'easier to admire than to like', but it was a brilliant idea from which the Society was to benefit enormously. Mountbatten jumped at the chance and, proposed by the Vice-President, Lord Wright (1869-1964) [1855], a former Master of the Rolls, he was elected President at a Meeting held in the large drawing room of W. S. Gilbert's old house, next door to the Society, on Thursday afternoon, 23 May 1957. He then gave to the hundred or more members present an account of how his interest in genealogy had arisen and the relaxation it had afforded over the years particularly when as Viceroy of India he had managed to snatch an hour or so late at night or on a Sunday afternoon to work on his family tables, ‘a web of relationships over several centuries, which every day grew more intricate as he sought for that comprehensiveness which is the genealogist’s dream’ [1856]. He now placed on loan with the Society a copy of the resulting Relationship Tables (1947) printed on the Viceroy's Press at New Delhi [1857]. The talk was quickly reported in the Sunday Express [1858].
Tea was served and Mountbatten was taken on a tour of the building. They took him down to the basement and showed him the Overseas Room, where Colonel Percy-Smith was presented and spoke about the work that he was doing to assist many former servants of the Raj and their descendants to retain British Nationality after the passage of the 1947 India Act [1859]. They went into the Family History Room, the old kitchen, not the most photogenic of places, where Mountbatten leant against one of the bookcases and asked may questions about the Society. They found it difficult to get him away. He told the meeting that he felt amongst friends and he had clearly greatly enjoyed himself.
Mountbatten had taken as his text at the Meeting Lord Raglan's book The Hero which he had read twenty years before and recently re-read and which had obviously had an effect on him, not realising, I think, that Raglan had also been President of the Society. He spoke about the usual problems with early Saxon and Norman descents, saying that he was working on an account of his own line which did not have these problems but went back to the eighth century. Mountbatten had been sending to Anthony Wagner (by special messenger from the Admiralty) fortnightly instalments of the drafts of this book, The Mountbatten Lineage (1958), for him to look over. Now in the latter stages of the work, Mountbatten began to send the extensive supplementary tables to the Society for checking and it was my pleasure to deal with them, though someone told Ephraim Hardcastle of the Sunday Express that ‘as president of the Genealogical Society, he prefers to carry on without the services of a professional genealogical consultant’ [1860]. However, he kindly expressed his indebtedness for the help that he had received at the AGM in 1959 [1861].
It was during this work that I noticed that the long accepted matrilineal descent ascribed to Lord Mountbatten (and, of course, to the Duke of Edinburgh, the Kaiser, and Queen Victoria amongst many others including Charles II, the Young Pretender and Catherine II of Russia), which had given him a descent entirely in the female line from a Mongolian Princess of the Kumans, was incorrect, a fact that, with some annoyance, he noted in a footnote to his book and about which, after further correspondence with him, I published an article in 1960 [1862], thus provoking letters that expressed gratitude and, foregoing the usual formalities, were addressed 'My dear Camp'!
No visitor had been allowed to attend the AGM at which Mountbatten was elected but free tea tickets were sent to members who applied in advance. The library was closed all day. Prior to the Meeting Cregoe Nicholson was in a nervous state about one of our more eccentric members, Princess Madeleine Gabrielle von Dembinska (died 1966, aged 57) [1863], who was threatening to disrupt the proceedings because, for some long forgotten reason, she did not approve of Lord Mountbatten. Her mother, a penniless lady calling herself the Princess Carmen de Tresca-Bates von Dembinska (who also died in 1966, aged 81), had spent years in legal battles about a vast inheritance that she believed had been kept from her [1864]. The police had to be informed but in the event Princess Madeleine did not show up. Her request to see the Relationship Tables was subsequently declined. She lived with her litigious mother and was the level-crossing keeper at Rodbridge in Suffolk where she had a little rent-free cottage and occasionally changed the points on the branch line for £3-15-0 a week! [1865].
Lord Mountbatten eventually settled into a pattern of coming every second year to chair the Society's annual meetings, but until he resigned to become Patron in 1978 he took a very considerable and active interest in its affairs. However, he came to the next annual meeting on 18 June 1958, a memorable one, held in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster Abbey, approached through the Cloisters in Dean’s Yard. At these meetings Lord Mountbatten loved to get his teeth into some problem or other and early saw the importance of the tax refunds on covenanted subscriptions to the Society's income and frequently stressed their importance. In 1957 a ruling by the Inland Revenue affecting many learned societies had deprived us of about £300 a year [1866] and the Society of Antiquaries was leading a fight to get the order reversed. This fortunately succeeded in 1958 [1867] and the arrears were credited to the General Fund in 1959 [1868].
In 1958 Lord Mountbatten also mentioned with evident concern and interest the controversial ruling of the Archbishop and Bishops (discussed below) that the clergy were to make no entry in their parish registers to indicate that an adopted child was not the actual child of its foster-parents. He then went on to say something about his work on The Mountbatten Lineage and talked about his time in India when he had found the change of mental occupation from Service work to genealogical research very restful. He had worked on the Relationship Tables sometimes at one or two o'clock in the morning. It was 'a great relaxation' and he recommended such research to all who were over-worked in their ordinary everyday jobs. In proposing a vote of thanks at the end of the meeting Lawrence Tanner gave a short history of the Jerusalem Chamber and the historic events that had taken place there [1869].
There were various assistants in the office after the move in 1954 but none of them remained for very long. However, John Whitfield Mackenzie Phillips (1927-2003),whom Nicholson had met at the excavations of the Roman villa at Lullingstone, came to help in the office in the evenings late in 1956 and full-time in January 1957. Nicholson had taken him to the Public Record Office and showed him the basic genealogical ropes and he spent time trying to reduce the backlogs which Gerald Hamilton-Edwards had created. He developed into a most careful and meticulous searcher, at the same time labouring hard to bring much needed order to the neglected membership system and the office filing.
The office equipment had fallen somewhat behind the times, but a duplicator had been placed 'on permanent loan' with the Society by Herbert Willis in 1951 [1870]. By the late 1950s we had about 1,500 members and the Society had at some stage acquired an Addressograph system for addressing envelopes which I often operated and remember well. The instruction manual was dated July 1929. The metal address plates for each member, which had to be specially made, were passed through this machine, its head being slammed down to make an impression of the plate through a carbon tape onto the envelope placed inside it. The regular updating of changes of address, the removal of lapsed members and the addition of plates for new members, with the annual checking of the plates against the cards on which the members' subscriptions were entered, needed care and attention. When the membership grew into several thousands, it was a backbreaking task that would be spread over several days, the steady thud, thud, thud of the machine reverberating throughout the building, a sure indication that the quarterly Magazine was about to be sent to members. Although an electric machine was often discussed the cost was thought too high and it was not until the computerisation of the whole system by Sue Spurgeon in the 1980s that the machine and its many thousand plates were eventually consigned to history.
My letter to the Society on 23 August 1957, mentioned in the Prologue, received a reply from Frank Bennett on 27 August asking me to come to see Cregoe Nicholson three days later. I was not to know that another research assistant, John Matthew, had left in May [1871], and that yet another protégé of Cregoe Nicholson would not necessarily be greeted with enthusiasm. I was a little nervous but kindly Florence Moss, the housekeeper, who served tea, apparently said that with a voice like that I should be in broadcasting or on the stage! [1872]. Nicholson put the possibility of temporary employment to the Executive Committee on 17 September and I had an interview at the College of Arms with Anthony Wagner, whom I had known and been in correspondence with for three years, that same day. The upshot was that with Wagner's support I started work at the Society on 24 September it being understood that if I went to university later that I might afterwards find employment with him at the College of Arms.
I was, of course, immensely lucky, but the pay was tiny. The Research Department then charged 7s 6d an hour and I received half that amount for the hours actually charged to clients, this being increased on new cases only, to 10s 6d in January 1958. National Insurance was deducted and I thus received about £3 or £4 a week, the situation improving to about £5 or £6 in 1958 when, in April, it was agreed that I should be paid a minimum of £7 a week. However at the end of 1957 we had made good progress in overtaking the research arrears and the staff as a whole were complimented for their willing co-operation in reducing expenditure and increasing the efficiency of the work of the Society [1873], something that was repeated in 1958 [1874] and again in 1959 [1875].
On that first day I remember meeting John Horace Blight (1918-2007) who, although often a critic of the way in which the Society expanded and changed its character over coming years and thus lost much of its former club-like atmosphere, remained a firm friend and supporter through many ups and downs. Quiet and scholarly he was a very shrewd observer of the foibles of his fellow committee-members and of the new breed of genealogists which was beginning to find its way to the Society.
When I appeared on the scene that September John Phillips and Nicholson both took trouble to take me around to the library at Somerset House for the nonconformist registers and the Public Record Office, mainly, at that time, for the 1841 and 1851 Census Returns, and to show me the ropes. This was a time when anyone wishing to inspect public records free of charge (fees remaining for specified classes of legal records until 1962) had to make prior written application for a Student’s Ticket and this had to be supported by the recommendation of a ‘person of recognised position’ with personal knowledge of the applicant. There was no provision for any day ticket or other temporary admission. The birth, marriage and death indexes at Somerset House I had used on day trips from Walkern.
Helen Thacker, who had been Superintendent of the Department for Literary Inquiry at the Principal Probate Registry, introduced me to her successor in Room 9, Geoffrey Moore Kirkwood (1906-1976), a former palaeographer at the PRO, and to the probate records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, sitting me down and dictating a letter to Lord Merriman, President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, to apply for a Reader's Ticket, before drafting out a sample will abstract for my future guidance [1876]. In a similar way Cregoe Nicholson introduced me to the Reading Room at the British Library. Here, being under 21, I had to make a special application supported by two references [1877]. I remember Nicholson remarking that he had been introduced there by his elder half-brother Henry Tinklar Nicholson, born in 1861, who in turn had been introduced by their relative the architect Thomas Leverton Donaldson (1795-1885) who designed the classical library at University College and the building which is now Dr Williams's Library. It was the sort of link that appealed to me greatly.
Most of our work was within the library, at the General Register Office, in census returns, parish registers and wills. In order to reduce the research backlog, cases were occasionally taken by members of the Executive Committee, in particular by Sir Christopher Courtney and Robert Garrett, the latter working on some major problems of early research and developing an expertise in early Chancery records. The business-like and ever-helpful Mrs Margaret A. J. Langford, JP (died 1965) [1878] had also been doing research for the Society for some years when I arrived, usually for three days a week and outside the Society's library, and continued so doing until 1959 when she moved to Brighton. At the AGM in 1958 it was said that 'the research position has greatly improved and that the overtaking of arrears has made considerable progress' [1879].
We did nearly all our own typing (on an old portable typewriter in the office and an Underwood – the ‘electric typewriting machine’ mentioned in 1935 was no longer in evidence) but a typist, Mrs Jefferson, came one day a week to assist Frank Bennett. May Sherwood worked on the document collection, there was a receptionist in the hall and a librarian, but that was all. The number of visitors could indeed on some days be very small. There were little signs hanging on the ornate light switches saying 'Please switch off when not in use', and the receptionist Mrs Rosalind Mallet (1904-1971), I remember in 1958, in black dress and a long string of pearls, could sometimes be seen doing a little embroidery on a frame. Mrs Sherwood or one of us relieved the receptionist at lunchtimes and the receptionist provided tea on the housekeeper's day off. As already noted the housekeeper then was Florence Moss, a kindly lady who provided tea in the Members Room and used to come up to polish the uncarpeted library floors in the evening, chiding me for staying late and frequently saying, 'This is no place for you, amongst all these old fogies. There's no future for you here'.
Miss Valerie S. Lawrence had followed Miss Cohen (of the carpet slippers) as Librarian in late 1956. Vivacious and industrious, she made the library a very happy place but sadly left in 1959 to marry and go to Canada. She had done much to foster relations with the members but, I believe, felt generally unappreciated for all her efforts, the pay being abysmal. The staff made their own tea and coffee in a room in the basement and some brought sandwiches to eat there at lunchtime. It was a haven to which Valerie Lawrence, John Phillips and I, all relatively new to the subject, would flee at these times from the vast variety of questions posed by the members.
In August 1958 the three of us were amongst the 76,000 who toured the new London Temple of the Latter-day Saints at Lingfield in Surrey, the first in the United Kingdom, prior to its dedication by the Church’s President David O. McKay on 7-9 September 1958. Three years later, on 26 February 1961, it was President McKay who also dedicated the Hyde Park stake chapel in Exhibition Road, specifically designed to serve a proselytising function in London itself, which I first visited with Archibald Colliard (1913-1966). Thirty-four years later, on 6 October 1992, I revisited Lingfield and was privileged to attend a tour and dinner given by the Genealogical Society of Utah prior to the re-dedication of the London Temple [1880] after considerable alterations and refurbishment. Six years after that, in May 1998, I visited Lancashire to see the beautifully appointed new Preston Temple prior to its dedication in June.
During Valerie's time as Librarian a frequent visitor, the Hon. Guy Strutt (1921-2008), seeing the same questions repeatedly asked of the staff, sketched out a draft for a beginner's guide to the Library which he called Using the Library of the Society of Genealogists. To this John Phillips and I made some additions and it was duplicated and henceforward usually given to new members and day searchers, steadily growing in size and developing into something of a best seller. The number of overseas visitors to the library was also steadily increasing and in 1957 the British Travel Association in New York published an eight-page booklet Tracing your ancestors in Britain which eventually went through many editions and had a wide circulation and in the revision of which the Society was always involved. It contained a list of twelve professional record searchers. It is interesting now to note that the words ‘county record office’ did not feature in that first year’s booklet. An advertisement for it in the National Geographic Magazine, which also mentioned the Society, helpfully said ‘the British adore old records and never throw them out’, adding ‘If you don’t have a British ancestor, why not invent one?’ After the Association produced a poster ‘Grand vacation project: how to find your great-great-great-great-great-grandfather in Britain’ showing an unlikely-looking ‘oldest inhabitant’, the popular magazine Everybody’s gave us a very nice write-up that even Cregoe Nicholson could not find fault with [1881].
I had been curious to find out what other professional genealogists were charging at this time and wrote privately to three that I had seen advertising, saying that I had done some work on my family but had found problems in the eighteenth century. The firm Deeny & Sword in Shaftesbury Avenue, run by J. C. Dennistoun-Sword (1916-1977), said that it would be prepared to do the equivalent of a week’s work on the problem for thirty guineas. Another firm, Ottley & Ottley in Fleet Street, run by Vivian Ottley-Ward-Jackson (1914-1992), said that it would devote one week continuously to it for twenty guineas which would include out-of-pocket disbursements. In 1967 it was reported that he was charging Americans ‘a not unusual fee for comprehensive research in his profession’ of $875 per case [1882] Alexander W. D. Mitton (1895-1977) at ‘The Dungeon’ in Earls Court Road told me that he was for some years Rouge Dragon Pursuivant of Arms at the College of Arms (he had, in fact, as a bankrupt been obliged to resign and had gone to Australia in 1922) but that he was ‘now working as a private genealogist, in conjunction with the College of Arms’, and as he only undertook work from the present day backwards, for which he required an initial fee of two hundred guineas, he was presumably unable to help. I was surprised to hear later that Mitton had subsequently telephoned the Rector of my home parish to know something about me. He would have been unpleasantly surprised to know how much I had already been told about him! [1883].
In 1959-60 Vivian Ottley-Ward-Jackson, by then in Lower Sloane Street, advertised in the ‘Businesses and Partnerships’ column of The Lady, ‘We will teach you Genealogy and Heraldry in three months and you will have an interesting and lucrative profession as a Genealogist. We will also include your pedigree researched for the inclusive training fee of £200’ [1884]. In reply to an interested lady he referred to ‘people we have already trained during the past years’ and wrote that genealogy is ‘a most interesting and lucrative profession which fortunately is not overcrowded … we are not restricted by any governing body concerning our fees’. I remember too that about this time Alexander Mitton similarly advertised for an apprentice. At Christmas 1960 it was noted that one genealogist, Rosemary Pinches (died 2014, aged 85), the proprietor of the bookshop ‘Heraldry Today’ in Knightsbridge and the wife of John Pinches the medallist, was even selling gift tokens with a family tree on the front: three guineas to see if the family had a coat of arms, ten guineas to start an investigation of the pedigree, and £400 to have the results ‘embossed, bound, or covered in gold-leaf’ [1885].
Forms and 'Family Group Sheets' were at this time becoming known in England and in 1957 the ingenious Family Tree Record designed by a member, John Stanley Gordon Clark (1903-1985), and Horace C. V. Jones was first produced and sold at the Society (as a successor to William H. Whitmore’s old Ancestral Tablets first published in America in 1885) and became a very popular way of recording in book form all the lines of one's ancestry for seven generations (for 30 shillings) [1886]. A few years later John Gordon Clark produced another most ingenious work which showed on drop-line pedigrees all the descendants of Samuel Pepys's father, and in which, by cutting away progressive amounts of the upper parts of its 85 pages and using a spiral ring-back binding, he was able to reveal at any opening the descent from the first ancestor of all those on the same generation of the family [1887].
Also in 1957 an indefatigable transcriber of parish registers on the Society's behalf, Harry Norman Peyton (1901-1968), produced the first of three volumes of a typescript Index of Stray Registrations taken from some 186 parish registers of baptisms, marriages and burials in which the person concerned was of another parish [1888]. A court clerk, Harry Peyton hand copied innumerable registers during court business and whilst waiting to record verdicts. His work became the forerunner of many 'indexes of strays' or 'out-of-area' persons later to be compiled by local family history societies and coordinated by the Federation of Family History Societies.
Developments in the study of etymology since the end of the nineteenth century had had little effect on works purporting to give the origin of surnames and a full advantage of recent developments in knowledge was not taken until 1958 when Percy Hide Reaney (1890-1968) produced his monumental A dictionary of British surnames (1958, 1961), undoubtedly the greatest step forward since Bardsley, its value lying principally in 'its careful listing of all the likely variants (or nearly all) of the British surnames that are included'. Commenting on some of the names omitted a review by Russell Muirhead recalled a little story of the marriage of a Mr Gotobed (a Cambridgeshire name) to a Miss Twisaday (a Lancashire name) only one of those surnames being explained! [1889]. Reaney later produced a general work, The origin of English surnames (1967) but died the following year, his dictionary being revised by R. M. Wilson as A dictionary of English surnames in 1991.
The 1959 review in the Magazine appeared alongside two other important works: L. C. Hector's The handwriting of English documents (1958) discussed by Miss O'Farrell and the new Burke's genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry of Ireland (1958) reviewed by Guy Strutt’s friend the frequent visitor Brian de Breffny (1931-1989).
A matter of great importance to genealogists arose in Janauary 1958 when the Dr Geoffrey Fisher, the Archbishop of Canterbury, used his final presidential address to the Convocation of Canterbury to call for urgent legislation on the ‘deliberate deception’ of artificial insemination by donor (A.I.D.). A week earlier the Court of Session in Edinburgh had decided that A.I.D. was not adultery though, in the case then under consideration, the couple had parted in March 1954 and a child conceived with the assistance of a third-party donor, had not been born until sixteen months later. The judge involved had, however, said that a married woman who by this means had a child ‘who would not be the child of her marriage had committed a grave and heinous offence’ against the contract of marriage. The archbishop referred to the report of a commission published in 1948 which said that A.I.D. was wrong in principle, contrary to Christian standards and should be made a criminal offence. The commission had believed that the husband would always be a consenting party, but in this case the husband knew nothing until the child was born. Dr Fisher said that an honest and moving case could be made for A.I.D., but it was not a private matter, it was an offence against the social and legal implications of marriage, done in secrecy. He said that ‘the institution of marriage is meant, among other things to give to children the security of knowing who their parents are, and to give to society the same security’. He said that A.I.D. destroyed that security at its roots and the child was the lifelong victim of deception. The law, he thought, ‘should not allow the standing and integrity of the family and the parentage of children to rest upon a deliberate deception, deliberately concealed’. If A.I.D. was not a criminal offence then every instance should be registered, the name of the donor should be recorded and the register should be available for inspection under safeguards. The donor’s share in this business was, he said, the most secret, the most responsible, and the most hard to justify [1890].
In spite of the Archbishop’s plea for urgent legislation it was not until July 1982 that the Warnock Committee was established to consider the implications of recent and potential developments in this field. That Committee’s report, proposing the establishment of a regulator, was published on 18 July 1984 and an Interim (Voluntary) Licensing Authority was established in 1985 but it was not until 1991 that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority came fully into force with, from 1 August 1991, its centralised record of all births resulting from assisted conception treatments in fertility clinics licensed in the UK. The story of the Society’s further involvement in this matter is taken up below.
On another but related question the Archbishop recalled that in January 1956 the bishops had agreed to recommend that the names of adoptive parents should, with certain specified exceptions, be entered in a church’s register of baptisms, without qualification, as though they were the natural parents of the child baptised. This recommendation had led to considerable correspondence with the College of Arms, which argued that this would destroy the evidential value of the baptismal register. The Canon Law Steering Committee now agreed that if an entry was to be made in the baptismal register it should be factually correct and if those named as the parents were not the natural parents of the child the register should give some indication of that fact. Garter King of Arms had written to The Times, not knowing that there was a division of opinion which had yet to be discussed by the bishops [1891].
Garter King of Arms Sir George Bellew’s letter had appeared in November 1957 saying that there was reason to believe that some clergy had entered the names of the adoptive parents in their registers in the place where they were required by law to enter the names of the true parents. This the Chapter of the College considered ‘deplorable’ and he drew attention to the Hurst Committee’s recommendaton that ‘a duty be laid on the court to satisfy itself before making an adoption order that the adopters have told or intend to tell the child of his adoption’ [1892]. A subsequent letter to The Times from Elizabeth Hirst, of Clacton-on-Sea, argued that Bellew’s points were anti-social and against the basic principle of adoption that once adoption had taken place the child became, for all legal intents and purposes, the child of the adoptive parents. She believed that the true facts should not be publicised but known to the parents and the child alone [1893]. E.A.F. Fenwick, of Belford, countered by saying that ‘omissions or insertions likely to or intended to deceive, mislead, or obscure are inexcusably wrong in any event, as well as being absolutely contrary to public policy’ [1894].
The matter was discussed by the Executive Committee of the Society of Genealogists at its meeting in February 1958 and the Chairman, Lawrence Tanner, wrote to The Times expressing the committee’s relief at the archbishop’s change of mind but asking that the bishops’ recommendation now be withdrawn as wholly anomalous since it appeared that compliance with the bishops’ recommendation ‘would not only be illegal but also disapproved by the Archbishop’ [1895]. I am not aware that any formal action was taken along those lines. The Society’s later objective, until the law was changed in 1975, as discussed below, was to allow adoptive children to see their original birth certificates, and then later for that right to be extended to the adopted child’s descendants.
The Society’s difficult financial position continued and on 15 October 1957 the Honorary Treasurer, Callaway, frustrated at every turn by the Executive Committee, resigned. An overdraft of £8,000 was negotiated with the Bank and it was agreed to discontinue binding copies of parish registers for incumbents. Only then was it decided that in the new year the members should for the first time pay an extra £1 a year for the Magazine, the high cost of which was a particular burden, and that from the March issue a charge of a shilling a line would be made for the insertion of Readers' Queries, the minimum fee being five shillings [1896]. The Chairman, Lawrence Tanner, wrote to all the members on 11 December saying that the possibility of restricting the number of issues of the Magazine or of suspending publication altogether had been discussed and that 'for the present' this extra charge must apply to all who took the Magazine.
It was not a wise decision and quite a number of members decided not to take the Magazine (or to tell the Society of their decision) and for two years the Secretary had to write to many members to whom the Magazine was still being sent because they had not altered their banker's orders for the extra £1 and their intentions were not clear [1897]. Life Members were now denied the Magazine unless they also paid the extra £1 and that also caused friction. From now on the subscription a member paid depended not only on where he or she lived but on the year in which they had joined (unless they had voluntarily increased it at some stage) and whether they took the Magazine (the price of which could, of course, be increased). From the point of view of the office administration it was all highly unsatisfactory.
Non-members who subscribed to the Magazine saw the cost increased from fifteen shillings to £2 and subscribing libraries from 12s 6d to fifteen shillings a year, the latter small increase being made in the hope that libraries would continue to subscribe [1898]. All were told in a circular from Nicholson that it was assumed that they would wish to continue to subscribe at the increased rates and, just to complicate matters a little further, copies of the Magazine continued to be sent.
As Editor of the Magazine since 1954 Cregoe Nicholson had continued on traditional lines, attempting to provide news of current genealogical developments and relying greatly on reviews. Back in March 1955 he had begun publishing there 'Some Early Emigrants to America' containing his abstracts of 758 indentures (then in Middlesex Guildhall) of persons willing to serve in the plantations in 1683 and 1684 [1899]. As only about eight abstracts could be printed to a page, everyone, including Nicholson himself, became very bored with the project long before publication concluded in the December 1960 issue. He used to make his abstracts at the last minute before publication and latterly I was drafted in to assist in the abstracting process. Some years later, in 1976, the Magazine printed a further 70 additional indentures from that same series which had been found by John Wareing at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington (having been bought from a London dealer in 1957) and in the West Indies Reference Library at Kingston, Jamaica [1900].
In the summer of 1959 there was a prolonged printing dispute, lasting nearly two months [1901], and, of course, the Magazine was dreadfully delayed, and events that had taken place in January and February 1960 were commented upon in the December 1959 issue [1902]. Writing to members about the extra £1 owing for the Magazine in February 1960, the Secretary, John Phillips, unfortunately had to say that the previous September's Magazine was still not available [1903]. Of course this was not altogether Nicholson's fault but the complaints about his editorship continued to grow and at the end of 1960, having completed his 'Emigrants to America', he decided to resign and Peter Spufford, by now a member of the Executive Committee, was appointed editor in his place.
Unfortunately at this time, the Secretary, Frank Bennett, unhappy at home and, with Nicholson always in the background, unhappy at work also, began to spend too much time in the bars of the neighbouring Hotel Eden and on Gloucester Road Station. We were all very fond of him, but he resigned without notice in April 1959, and after he had gone we were deeply upset when a major irregularity with regard to the income from one of the flats upstairs was found in the accounts and the possibility of legal action had to be discussed [1904].
In February 1960, we were told that Bennett had died but it seems now that the story of Bennett's death was designed to draw a quick veil over the matter, for he did not actually die until 1970. Much later, when I was Director, I bought back for the Society the uneasy correspondence that the Chairman, Lawrence Tanner, had had with our relatively new President, Lord Mountbatten, attempting to explain this unfortunate and embarrassing incident, and which, after Tanner's death in 1979, had found its way into the hands of a dealer in autographs.
The diligent John Phillips had been appointed Assistant Secretary on 17 September 1957 [1905] and worked well alongside Frank Bennett who did the book keeping. Following the latter's flight, John was himself appointed Secretary in May 1959, the position being confirmed in September, but Nicholson's continual interference and criticism was a perpetual trial. John Phillips always referred to Nicholson as 'Nikolaievich' and that name, with its aura of habitual intrigue, suited him well.
When Valerie Lawrence left early in 1959 I asked to be made Librarian and as I was taking the examinations of the Library Association that was agreed and I served in that capacity for about six months until going to University College London in late September. I remember in particular the work of catching up on the cataloguing, of dealing with the many periodicals that had been received since the move, and of sorting out some of the collections that had been received at that time and hurriedly placed in cupboards in the old kitchen. In the evenings I spent some time with Cregoe Nicholson going along the shelves and making notes of his comments about the main manuscript collections. One large collection received that year under the will of Percy Charles Dryden Mundy (1879-1959), related to the Lincolnshire families of Massingberd and Mundy and included many original documents and the personal correspondence of the Massingberds of Ormsby in the 18th and early 19th centuries. These were sorted and catalogued by Lawrence Tanner’s wife Joan (died 1971) and subsequently, whilst I was Director, passed to a more appropriate home at the Lincolnshire Archives Office.
The amount of research undertaken by the Society had now to be curtailed to some extent and a form letter, the first of many similar, was devised saying that the Research Department was at present fully booked up and could not undertake any fresh work. Sent with the letter were details of the Society and its few publications, together with a list of recommended professional searchers and a note that their charges were about three and a half guineas a day plus out-of-pocket expenses.
When I left the Society in September 1959 I had no idea, of course, that I would be returning to work there three years later. On 18 October 1959 I wrote a long, difficult and perhaps overly frank letter to the Chairman, Lawrence Tanner, which must have given him considerable cause for thought [1906]. I think one would call it excoriating where Cregoe Nicholson was concerned! I said how impossible the situation had become with his 'pestering presence', he causing 'so much unpleasantness and the resulting frequent changes of staff'. His unreasoning antagonism, I wrote, was now directed against John Phillips and I paid tributes to his work and to that of Valerie Lawrence and May Sherwood who had both been so kind to me. I wrote about the staffing of the library, the members' willingness to help, but the generally negative attitude to new ideas, the lack of open discussion in the committees and the Society's 'lack of cooperation with bodies having similar aims to our own'. Tanner responded at some length in an open and friendly manner [1907], but in the long run little if anything changed, and many of the points that I had mentioned were at the root of the criticisms brought up again in the upheavals following Philip Blake's dismissal as Director of Research in 1962.
Of course I could not keep away from the Society and although supposed to be at University continually came there, particularly in the first two years of my course. In December 1959 the Society gave me a quite unexpected honorarium on this account and the Annual Report said that I had been ‘giving valuable help’ during my vacations [1908]. I was glad, however, to see the outside of the building painted in 1960 and a slight increase in salaries that year. Consideration was then being given to acquiring an extension of the Society’s lease which was due to expire in 1970, but as a first step an extension of the user permit (which expired at the same time) had first to be obtained [1909]
I had been succeeded as Librarian late in 1959 by Miss Margaret E. Goodliffe who suffered my many intrusions with calm good humour. One of the most exciting things that happened almost immediately was the opening of parcels from Salt Lake City and the finding of the first ten volumes of the new Second Miscellaneous Series of Boyd's Marriage Index, 1626-1725, which had been typed from Boyd's remaining slips and which we decided to have bound in blue [1910]. The main volumes had been bound in green and the First Miscellaneous Series in red. Also received from Salt Lake City in 1960 was the most valuable typescript of the Gloucestershire Marriage Index which had been typed from slips written by Eric Archer Roe (1906-1977) [1911]. These were also bound in green and arranged with Boyd’s Index, the final 21 volumes appearing on the shelves in 1963 [1912].
Another marriage index which was being compiled in the background was that by Thomas Frederick Allen, of Hertford, a member since 1951 and an industrious typist, which eventually covered all the marriages in Hertfordshire before 1837. His first transcripts of 33 parishes were received in 1960 [1913]. He would make searches amongst his slips for any given marriage in return for small fees and this service to members was conducted through me at the Society. I remember his justified indignation at a lady member interested in the surname Hailey who only wanted those spelt with an ‘H’.
A bequest of £25 from Edward Albert Bytham who died in April 1959 and other gifts totalling £35 enabled us to have some books bound, in particular the parish register transcripts which had waited for some years [1914]. A bequest of £100 from Major F. E. H. Bostock (a member since 1919), received in June 1955 specifically to assist with the work of parish register transcription, was also important and was slowly being used [1915]. At this time a young member, Charles William Southcombe (1932-1999), who was a binder at the British Library, volunteered his able assistance and for several years until 1967 repaired and rebound a very considerable number of books on the Society’s behalf [1916]. The binding of the first volumes of the Macleod collection is mentioned above.
The Society’s limited programme of lectures at this time continued the practice of having just three in the autumn and three after Christmas. The lecturers in 1959 included Sir Gyles Isham, Sir John Summerson, Maurice Bond from the House of Lords’ Record Office and George Squibb, Norfolk Herald Extraordinary, all with a large attendance [1917]. On Saturday, 6 February 1960, I spoke in an overflowing Members' Room on the 'Special Collections in the Library of the Society of Genealogists'. Like other lectures at that time it had been advertised in the personal column of The Times two days’ earlier. My talk formed the basis for my article in the special Jubilee issue of the Magazine in June 1961 and then for the central section of the revised Genealogists' Handbook published that year.
Way back in 1935 Thomas Blagg had nominated Cregoe Nicholson a Director of Phillimore & Co, the old publishing and research firm, and together with Harold Ridge he had sustained the business into the War years, Nicholson being eternally optimistic whilst Ridge was equally pessimistic about the future of the company [1918]. However, Nicholson resigned in 1941 and Ridge continued his involvement until 1951 when the solicitor-genealogist Beach Whitmore became chairman with the active genealogist William Cotton as managing director. The latter did his best, but he was also chairman of the Society's Executive Committee at the difficult time of Kathleen Blomfield's resignation and he was obliged to resign in 1953 to look after a devoted wife who had become unwell. The over-burdened Kendall Percy-Smith, who had become ‘Director and Secretary’ of Phillimore in 1951 and had been joined on the board by Kathleen Blomfield, now became chairman of Phillimore and a period of stagnation followed.
Ridge, living at Penzance and rarely coming to London, had continued to keep in touch with developments and wrote uneasily to Whitmore in May 1953 that he was sorry to find that Percy-Smith was now alone at 120 Chancery Lane [1919]. The office was still the registered office of the British Record Society and housed its set of the Index Library of which Harold Ridge (who died in 1957) was the General Editor.
The Phillimore business now became extremely poor (the profit in 1955 was £6!) and there was much talk of liquidation. In 1957 Nicholson had discussed a possible purchase of shares in the company with Whitmore, a man of considerable means, and he subsequently represented Whitmore's interests when the latter died later that year. Nicholson thus had fingers in many pies. The Phillimore board met at the Society in December 1958 and Nicholson wanted me to be involved but that was a clear impossibility from a financial point of view and early in 1960 the interested parties agreed to sell out to Marc Fitch (then Chairman of Council of the British Record Society and, in essence, Ridge’s successor as general editor), Malcolm Pinhorn becoming the firm's Director.
The offices at 119-120 Chancery Lane, just across the road from the Public Record Office, consisted of three rooms on the second floor but they had hardly been used for seven years and everything was covered with black dust. Peter Spufford, who visited them in Cotton's day, recalls that he was 'appalled at the grime and chaos' [1920]. Harold Ridge had been a Director of Mead Makers Limited and under the main desk there were still several stone jars for mead! In the long vacation between July and September 1960 I worked for Malcolm Pinhorn and after opening the windows and giving the filthy rooms a spring clean, I enjoyed going through and listing the books and papers and dealing with the mail that still arrived in surprising quantities. There were even occasional callers (and telephone calls from breweries about the mead!). At the same time I did some paid research and went at least one day a week to the Society.
Phillimore’s lease in Chancery Lane came to an end that year and Malcolm Pinhorn moved the company to East Street, Farnham in December 1960 [1921] and then to Bridge Place, Canterbury, in January 1962 [1922]. I continued to do occasional research for Malcolm and remember work on the Protestation Oath Rolls in the House of Lords Library in September 1962, following searches in the Association Oath Rolls at the Public Record Office that August. William Cotton's wife had meanwhile died, leaving him in a most depressed state and he sadly took his own life at home in April 1961. He had, I am told, always been a most difficult man to work with on the Society’s committees but he had been a great servant of the Society since long before 'the Move' and was a frequent visitor and a kindly and solid supporter of the staff through a most difficult period and his death was a great blow to us all.
The last volume of The Complete Peerage, described by Anthony Wagner as 'the greatest genealogical work of our generation' [1923], was published in 1959 [1924], providing a history of the House of Lords and all its members from the earliest times to 1938. The first volume in the series had appeared as long ago as 1910 and the series editor, Geoffrey White, had been elected a Vice-President of the SoG in 1958 [1925]. George D. Squibb appointed Norfolk Herald of Arms Extraordinary in 1959, wrote an important article evaluating 'Visitation Pedigrees and the Genealogist' for the Magazine in 1960 [1926].
An interesting suggestion by Kenneth Rutherford Davis in the March 1961 Magazine that there was a desperate need for a reference-book giving skeleton pedigrees for say 200-300 of the foremost mediaeval families [1927], sadly went without comment, and no such work has since been compiled.
Following the publication of the National Index of Parish Registers in 1937 a card index of corrections and additions had been maintained at the Society and in 1944 Kathleen Blomfield had foreseen a time after the War in which a new National Index of Parish Registers would be published giving 'all the known information of the registers of each ancient parish, the dates of the original registers still extant, particulars of copies, notes of destruction or loss of originals, together with space to register additional information' [1928].
Similarly Jeremy Gibson, coming on the scene in 1956, wanted to publish a new edition in one volume arranged by county which might incorporate all the information from the two previous volumes and bring them up to date. However, he found that the card index contained material from only about six libraries and he therefore appealed for additional information [1929]' In 1958 he began to make a name for himself by producing a little volume, Monumental Inscriptions in Sixty Hampshire Churches [1930], before moving to Oxfordshire and publishing the 54-page Marriage Register of Chelsea, Middlesex, 1704-1760, in which he broke new ground by producing 65 copies for six shillings each by using multilitho from typed duplimats [1931].
The number of register transcripts coming into the library was now again steadily increasing and in 1958 some 82 were added to the collection [1932]. In 1959 there were letters in the Daily Telegraph from Stanley Holloway of Hounslow and Ian S. Wordsworth of St John’s College, Cambridge, both urging the transcription of parish registers and the creation of county-wide indexes of their entries and another letter from B. Gledhill of Mickleover saying ‘away with the drudgery of copying out lists of burials’ and urging instead a study of the civil records of a parish. As a result Jeremy Gibson as Chairman of the Parish Registers Committee wrote about the work that Percival Boyd had done and which was on-going in Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire and Sussex. He feared that unless massive financial support could be found the more ambitious schemes would remain impractical and he urged the copying of complete local registers and, in particular, of the marriage registers, at the same time as asking for details of recent copying for the new edition of the National Index of Parish Registers which he was preparing [1933].
Helped by the Hon. Guy Strutt (1921-2008), Gibson began to revise the entries in the card index and in August 1959 he raised the matter at the AGM again appealing for the help of members in the checking of the transcripts in the Society's library and in other London repositories. Encouraged at the meeting by Lord Mountbatten, nine members came forward. Jeremy Gibson then made a similar appeal, linking it to the need for further register transcription generally, in the September Magazine [1934]. Already by July 1959 cards had been written for all the English parishes and the known copies entered and drafts of the finished texts for seven counties had been completed [1935]. Gibson also got some basic Recommendations for copying parish registers printed at the London School of Printing and Graphic Arts and this urged that everything be copied up to 1840 if possible. Unfortunately for any intending transcribers in Somerset the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Dr Harold Bradfield, decided that this was the time to order all the clergy in his diocese not to allow church documents out of their possession for any reason and in particular not to allow their microfilming by the Mormons. His Prebendary Hugh Parnell was quoted as saying that anyone with complete microfilms of the church registers could ‘start up in business and make very big profits indeed’ and that the Mormons were using these films ‘in the revival of a rather primitive and not very desirable practice – the baptism of the dead’ [1936].
The Church of England’s disapproval seems to have been more financial than theological. The legal committee of the Church Assembly had advised the clergy to charge a search fee for each entry that was photographed and in December 1960 it was widely reported that the ‘eager’ LDS missionaries seemed willing to pay. As a result the Association of (Anglican) Bishops’ Legal Secretaries and Registrars warned its members to be on their guard against the Mormons, Robert Money the diocesan registrar at Truro in Cornwall, where more than half the registers had been filmed, proclaimed that photographing the registers was ‘undesirable’, but Mr H. L. Douch, the curator of the county museum at Truro, said that this was ‘pig-headed and unkind’ and that the Anglicans were for some reason afraid of the Mormons and tried to suggest that they were evil which was a lot of eyewash [1937]. Mr Money was quoted as saying that the suggested charges were designed to discourage the missionaries [1938] but The Times reported that Mr T. Bowring-Woodbury, the LDS British Mission President, said that there was a gross misunderstanding of the work done by the Mormon Church which was intended ‘to preserve the genealogical records of the world’. He said that his Church had not met with any opposition when attempting to carry out that work, permission had always been readily granted and it was accustomed to paying the normal fees [1939]. A few days later Cyril Aynsley, writing in the Daily Express, protested against Mr Money’s niggling intolerance and wrote that the Mormons were men of zeal and burning faith, not mischievous, nor ignoble, ‘How monstrous that their work should be impeded by petty officialdom, prompted by misunderstanding and plain uncharitableness!’ [1940]. One of Aynsley’s main points was that many registers were mouldering in damp cupboards in dank vestries in remote villages and would, by microfilming, be preserved before they were irretrievably lost.
At this juncture Jeremy Gibson, who had become active in Oxfordshire, passed over the work to Colin Walter Field (1927-2016), a great transcriber of registers in Sussex who had been helping since May 1960, and Donald Steel (1935-2008) became involved. In September 1960 Steel sent out a questionnaire with the Magazine (in connection with his projected 1961 Register of Members) which had resulted in a great increase in the number of volunteers indexing parish registers [1941] and in 1961 the Parish Register and Monumental Inscriptions Sub-Committee appointed him, Field and Gibson as joint editors of the Index [1942], Steel being the chairman. Colin Field circulated all the libraries in the country and entered up the additional information on the cards, typing from them provisional county lists. The idea was to limit the publication of the proposed National Index of Parish Registers and Parish Register Copies to registers before 1812. The intention was to complete the work in late 1961 or early 1962 with publication following in late 1962 or early 1963 [1943]. In March 1962 it was again said that it was hoped that the National Index 'will be completed by the end of the year' [1944] and I was unwillingly co-opted to the Editorial Committee, the Annual Report saying that our task would be completed ‘early in 1964’ [1945].
Unfortunately, the obsessive and impractical Donald Steel, who never knew how to draw a line under any project, decided that he would include details of bishops' transcripts in the proposed National Index and passed the work of organising the transcription of registers to Malcolm Pinhorn so that he could concentrate on a survey of these transcripts. Although the Society had a basic county listing of the whereabouts of bishops transcripts made in 1952 and a slightly more detailed one had appeared in the second volume of Smith and Gardner's Genealogical Research in England and Wales (1959), bishops transcripts were still not widely used by genealogists and were in many cases only now being made available and catalogued in detail.
The likely size of the resulting National Index volume thus grew apace and Steel began to think in terms, not of one volume, but of a series of volumes arranged in groupings of counties [1946]. Sadly, although many volunteers worked on various counties, no group of counties achieved completion at the same time and publication was continually delayed. Francis Maxwell Barrell (1892-1972) [1947] had responded to Steel's 'urgent' appeal in 1961 [1948] and he made a notable contribution by checking all the copies at the Society. Colin Field himself extended the listings to include the Welsh parishes and Donald's mother, Alice Steel, worked full time on the project but, as will be seen, the first regional volume did not appear until 1966 and the whole project became a major irritation to those at the Society who had to explain the delays to members whose need for a basic list of copied registers remained unsatisfied.
At the Annual Meeting in July 1960 Cecil Humphery-Smith asked if the Society intended sending a representative to the Fifth International Congress to be held at Stockholm in August and it was noted that Peter Spufford, a member of the Executive Committee, would be attending [1949]. He gave a report on it in the September Magazine, describing not only the formal dinners and receptions but also the talks on the theme 'Genealogical problems posed by emigration' and an exhibition 'The Ancestors' put on by the two Swedish genealogical societies. The talks included Dr Nils William Olsson from Washington on 'Source materials on emigration in the US Federal Archives', Gerard de Villeneuve on the microfilming taking place in France, and the noted Rosalie Fellows Bailey (1908-1991) from New York Public Library on the problems of 17th century immigration into New York, noting that one major movement was frequently preceded by a shorter one, either from one European country to another or from the country to a city. Invitations had been extended to hold the next congress in the United Kingdom, either in London or in Edinburgh [1950].
The same Magazine included a report from R. S. Kirk, a medical student, who had spent time in America in 1959, describing his month-long experiences of societies, archives, libraries and court houses and his visit to Salt Lake City where David Gardner showed him the amazing library with its seats for 400 people, a staff of 250 and a research department dealing with inquiries in sixteen different languages. He found 'an enthusiasm for genealogy throughout America' and was envious of the amount of money available, he not being charged for searches anywhere [1951].
In July 1960 one of the group of younger members, Malcolm Pinhorn, a little older than the others, was elected Chairman of the Executive Committee, a post he held only for eighteen months, but the period coincided with the Society's fiftieth anniversary in 1961. Unfortunately, the keen and conscientious John Phillips, fearing that nothing would change for the good and receiving a wretchedly low salary, resigned as Secretary on 27 May 1961 to work at Middlesex County Hall [1952], and, as described later, the impossibly difficult Philip Blake was appointed in his place, commencing work on 12 June 1961.
Whilst Miss Goodliffe was librarian the library was closed for cleaning, 16-28 January 1961, and an opportunity taken to make a much-needed check of a large part of the library stock, several members assisting in the process [1953].
John Phillips had had as his Assistant at the Society from 25 January 1960, the dapper and quietly amused Commander Edward Fleetwood McNeil-Smith, R.N. (1898-1987), a remarkable character. He had passed into the Royal Naval College, Osborne, from the Grange preparatory school at Stevenage (later part of Alleyne's School where I was educated) in 1911 and was Paymaster on HMS Hermes when the Japanese sank it in 1942. Although quite badly burned he had had various jobs as a cashier at the BBC Television Studios and with BUPA since leaving the Navy in 1947. Hardworking in the office he was quite terrified of being asked difficult genealogical questions by the members and avoided contact with them as far as possible! A few days after Blake's appointment in June 1961 he gave up his 'year of struggle', as some twenty years later he described his time at the Society, and went to work for three years at the Business Archives Council where his work was described as ‘invaluable’ [1954]. There important new initiatives in education and training in the care and conservation of business archives were taking place [1955].
Both Phillips and McNeil-Smith had been mentioned in the 1960 Annual Report for their hard and conscientious work [1956] and it is almost shocking now to look back and see that none of the subsequent staff changes in 1961, including their resignations, were mentioned in the Reports. Indeed, no further mention of any member of staff, coming or going, was made in the Reports until 1965. Nicholson, then Vice-Chairman, had turned against Phillips but at least Malcolm Pinhorn was able to express his regret at Phillips’s resignation after four years as Secretary at the AGM in May [1957].
As already noted the Honorary Treasurer Callaway had resigned in 15 October 1957 and he was eventually replaced in January 1958 by the well-connected chartered accountant, Archibald Robert Cecil Fleming (1899-1969) [1958], but he too resigned in July 1960 [1959] and was succeeded by the highly practical and realistic Sir Christopher Courtney who only served for a year but was instrumental in tackling the subscription problem.
Early in 1961 the Executive Committee at last agreed that as from April 1961 the subscriptions of new applicants for membership should be increased from three to four guineas for Town Members and from two to three guineas for Country (and Overseas) Members, these amounts once more including the Magazine for which since 1958 there had been a separate subscription of £1 [1960]. That extra £1 some did not wish to pay and it was causing problems to administer. Existing members were once again invited to increase their subscriptions in line with these changes and to covenant for the increased amounts.
The membership stood at 1,658 at the end of 1960 [1961] and there was a vigorous campaign to obtain new members throughout the Jubilee Year, the September and December issues of the Magazine together listing some 250 applicants [1962]. It was hoped that the total membership might reach 2,000 by the end of 1962 [1963] but it did not quite do so [1964], only reaching that number the following year.
At this time the Executive Committee had eight sub-committees: Finance, Library, Lecture, House, Parish Register & Monumental Inscriptions, Documents, Jubilee, and Magazine & Publications [1965]. Nicholson was on five of them but at the start of the year he gave up the editorship of the Magazine and Peter Spufford took over and hoped, as he wrote, for a 'vigorous looking forward' in the Jubilee Year.
In his first editorial Spufford said that for the first time since before the war a Register of Members that included details of their interests would be published in May, a special number of the Magazine and a new edition of the Genealogists' Handbook in June, a new edition of Wills and their Whereabouts later in the year, and that there would be a Jubilee Meeting which would include a talk on the history of the Society with a Jubilee Exhibition at Westminster Abbey in July [1966]. Not all these happy prognostications actually came about! There was no Jubilee Meeting as such, the Exhibition took place at the Society, the Register of Members like everything that Steel touched was considerably delayed, [1967] and Wills and their Whereabouts, for reasons that were never explained (to the compiler, at least!), did not appear until 1963.
However, in June 1961, Spufford edited a special number of the Magazine containing a note from the President, details of the Jubilee Appeal, listings of former Presidents, Chairmen, Honorary Treasurers and Secretaries of the Society, a poor essay by L. G. Pine on 'Genealogy since Horace Round' limited entirely to the peerage and landed gentry, my long article on the 'Collections and Indexes of the Society of Genealogists', notes on 'Work in Progress' and an article by T. D. Tremlett (1905-1972) on the long awaited 'New Dictionary of British Arms'. There were photographs of the Society's former homes in the centre fold [1968]. Henry Wilfrid Gray, of Hatfield, a distinguished artist at the College of Arms and a friend of Pinhorn's, designed a special cover for this issue which incorporated the arms of the Society's six Presidents and this was used for the next ten years [1969].
In September Spufford announced that in 1962 an 'Official Section' of the Magazine, with the names and addresses of new members and accessions to the library, would be published separately 'once, or perhaps twice, each year' [1970]. Spufford wrote in March 1962 that he regarded the Magazine as firstly a magazine for genealogists 'concentrating on the interests of genealogy at large' and secondly the house journal of the Society and his intention was to divide the journal along those lines [1971]. I never cared for that distinction, believing that the Society should embody and represent the 'interests of genealogy' in every respect and I have several times criticised the present editor for frequently describing the Magazine as merely the 'house journal' of the Society. In the event a cheaply printed 'Official Section' was inserted in each quarterly issue of the Magazine but abandoned after two years. The idea was partly revived again by my successors in March 2001 and again abandoned in March 2003.
Peter Spufford was also very keen to improve the appearance of the Magazine and went to some trouble in 1962 to get proofs for a possible new cover design which would have featured an outline of the Disney scroll pedigree at Essex Record Office in pale blue or pink on a white or grey paper, overprinted in black. The committees were lukewarm and the Treasurer was firmly opposed to the idea and in February 1963 the Executive Committee put an end to the discussions by declaring that the March issue should revert to the pre-1961 cover [1972]. Sensibly, however, the new editor continued with the Jubilee design.
In December 1961 the Magazine had published a particularly unfortunate review by Cecil Humphery-Smith in which he said with regard to the Great Migration to America in the 1630s that 'the greater numbers of settlers were made up from the outcasts of British society sent from these shores for their offences against society to help boost the man-power of the English settlement' [1973]. The remarks caused no little offence and drew considerable correspondence, starting with Sir Anthony Wagner and Rodney Armstrong in New Hampshire, both rejecting the view and stating that there was no evidence to support it [1974]. Earlier that year I had contributed a note to the New England Register about the very few transported from Hertfordshire and I now drew attention to that [1975]. As our poor editor, desperately trying to pour oil on troubled waters, wrote of Humphery-Smith's reply [1976], 'This is not enough to hang the ancestors of a whole nation!' [1977].
Peter Spufford had only intended to be the editor of the Magazine for three years and in December 1962 he announced that the Executive Committee had agreed that John Sims, the Society's Librarian since February, would succeed him in the post [1978], which he did in September 1963, meanwhile assisting with the editorship of the Official Section [1979]. The Hon. Guy Strutt had also helped by editing the reviews. In his first editorial John Sims said that, 'The emphasis of the Magazine, as hitherto, will be on general genealogical techniques and sources rather than individual families, except in so far as these illustrate a particular aspect of the broad subject', and he hoped to publish as many as possible of the lectures given to the Society which were inevitably only heard by a small number of members [1980].
One aspect of the Magazine that frequently caused problems was the compilation and printing of its index. From 1938 to 1950 the indexes had formed integral parts of the Magazine, being printed instead of the last issue in each volume, though that for December 1946 did not appear until 1948 [1981]. In 1939 Mrs Blomfield had said that the printing of the index as the last part of a volume ‘has met with universal approval as it eliminates waiting in order to bind a volume’ [1982].
The index for volume 10 thus came out on time in December 1950 but this entailed preparation in advance and the writing of index slips as each issue appeared. In the chaos of the early 1950s no slips were written and the December 1954 issue contained no index. Libraries and members who wished to bind their sets complained loudly and the problem dragged on into the 1960s, no indexes being compiled. Through the generosity of the Marc Fitch Fund an index to volume 11 (1951-54) was produced in 1962 [1983] for ten shillings including postage, but in two years, of the 1,200 copies printed only 52 were sold [1984]. The Fund also paid for the separate publication of indexes to volumes 12-14 (1955-64) [1985] but that for volume 15 (1965-67), compiled by Isobel Mordy [1986], was published as part of the December issue in 1968 [1987] and from then on we made sure that the last issue in each volume was devoted to the index (even if new members complained that they did not want it!) and for several years they were compiled most efficiently by that painstaking lady [1988]. A name and place index, 1998-2000, compiled by Neville Taylor, was published in 2001 and a main subject index, 1925-2000, compiled by F. L. Leeson and C.R. Webb, in 2002, but no later volume indexes were published, our Founder Fellows turning in their graves until late in 2016 when digitised versions of the Magazine from 1925 to 2006 were published on DVD and partially recovered the situation.
In celebration of the Society's Jubilee the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Malcolm Pinhorn, hosted a reception at Harrington Gardens on 8 May 1961. The President, Lord Mountbatten, and over a hundred members attended (at 7s 6d each) and the guests included the Registrar General, the Deputy Keeper of Public Records, the Secretary of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, and representatives of the College of Arms, Guildhall Library, and the Essex, Hertfordshire, London, and Middlesex Record Offices [1989].
I remember that it was at this reception that I first met the chirpy Kenneth ‘Peter’ Townend (1921-2001), who had just succeeded L. G. Pine as Editor of Burke's Peerage and who with his remarkable memory materialised at every conceivable party or function [1990]. The strange Pine who, as he admitted, did not really approve of peers, had failed in an attempt to get into Parliament and was now editing The Shooting Times though, as he said, not approving of hunting, shooting and fishing either! [1991]. However, I was called out of the Society’s crowded Members' Room to speak to Lord Mountbatten in the hall. To our amusement he turned me in the direction of Sir Anthony Wagner whom I knew already and in view of my recent rather unsympathetic review of his great book English Genealogy (1960, £3) [1992] was not particularly anxious to see, Mountbatten cheerfully saying tp me, 'Here's someone you should know'.
In his book Wagner had seen humanity and the past as one single growing entity in which every individual was connected to every other and he had shown how extraordinarily close the classes are together [1993], but I had protested at the omission from his book of 'a good, solid, well-documented, but thoroughly labouring-class pedigree', something that Hartley Thwaite, FSA (1903-1978) [1994] who welcomed my comments, thought (in his article 'Simple Annals') not easily attainable as the documentation would be 'relatively scanty' [1995]. However, Philip N. Dawe (1910-2005) in 'Memorabilia' in Notes & Queries wrote that my criticism seemed a fair one and that one had only to peruse Hoskins's and Finberg's Devonshire Studies to see what I had in mind [1996]. I had unkindly written that such things had no meaning for Wagner who 'would rather a gateway ancestor through fifteen women to Edward III than a seize-quartiers of humble farm-workers'.
I was, however, much influenced throughout my later campaigning career by Wagner's stress that his first 'Desiderata Genealogica' was the institution of 'a form of registration of births, deaths and marriages, which would lead from one to another'. He wrote that, 'If entries which link marriage entries with the parties' baptisms or births, baptismal or birth entries with the parents' marriage, and death or burial entries with the deceased's birth and parentage have been feasible in France and Germany for three centuries or more and in Australia for one, they should by now be possible in England' [1997]. It was a simple point to which he and I returned again and again.
In the Long Vacation that year and prior to an extended trip to visit archaeological sites in Greece and Italy, I organised in connection with the Jubilee a special exhibition in the Members' Room from Monday, 17 July, to Saturday, 29 July, to illustrate some of the means by which any person could trace a pedigree, and especially the particular value of the collections of the Society [1998]. Lord Mountbatten gave it a nice puff at the AGM in May [1999]. I was responsible for the selection of items and the layout, exhibition cases being borrowed (courtesy of the County Archivist, William Le Hardy) from the Record Office at Hertford and tables from the Victory Club (courtesy of its Chairman, Sir Christopher Courtney) and I decorated the high panelled room with illuminated pedigrees and Grants of Arms and Title from the Society's collections. Admission was by a catalogue (price 2s 6d), which I also wrote and which was nicely designed by Malcolm Pinhorn. The exhibition was advertised in What’s on in London [2000] and opened by the comedian and broadcaster Gillie Potter (1887-1975), well known for this eccentric radio monologues commencing, ‘Good Evening, England’. As mentioned above he had joined the Society during the First World War when known as Lieutenant Hugh William Peel and had been on the Library Committee for a short period. The exhibition attracted nearly 400 people.
It also attracted some valuable press publicity, Philip Blake having composed a useful ‘Note to Editors’. Henry Fielding writing in the Daily Herald, and generously describing me as 'a remarkably learned young man', highlighted the fact that the base pedigree shown was that of a 60-year-old farm labourer at Walkern in Hertfordshire which had been taken back nine generations [2001]. His article was copied in the Johannesburg Star [2002]. Elsewhere the writer E. S. Turner contributed the amusing 'A convict for every man' to Punch [2003] and Donald Gomery said in the Daily Express that 'in half an hour yesterday I learned more about my family than I have known all my life'. He reported Gillie Potter's opening talk that had stressed that this was not a Society of snobs and quoted Sir Christopher Courtney saying about genealogy, 'its just a bug that bites you' [2004]. Gillie Potter's comment that genealogy could provide 'a great deal of good, clean family fun' was widely quoted [2005]. It helped, of course, that Gillie Potter had done a deal of work on the ancestry of Anthony Armstrong-Jones back to Cumberland in the thirteenth century and that Anthony Wagner had recently contributed an article to The Genealogists’ Magazine tracing Armstrong-Jones back to King Edward I [2006].
The Jubilee Lecture by the now Sir Anthony Wagner, Garter King of Arms [2007], Genealogy and the Common Man, was given in the Meeting Room of the Society of Antiquaries at Burlington House after tea on Friday, 15 December 1961, and subsequently printed [2008]. I had been at Somerset House all afternoon (it being the last day of term) and, unusually for me, I went after the lecture for drinks with Malcolm Pinhorn, Philip Blake, Don Steel and Nicholas MacMichael, the problems at the Society being high on our agenda! Wagner's talk outlined a projected 'Survey of English Surnames' to be funded by the Marc Fitch Fund and based on transcripts of the returns of the Subsidy of 1327-32, the Poll Tax of 1377-81, the Subsidy of 1524-25, the Protestation Returns of 1642, and perhaps the Hearth Tax of 1662-74 and the Census of 1851 or 1861. Sir Anthony wrote about his project in the Sunday Times saying, 'The simple fact is that the possession of ancestors is the universal birthright of mankind, while the possibility of knowing who they were is the special privilege of a large proportion of all Englishmen' [2009]. The Guardian, however, said that some would regard the whole idea 'with feelings ranging from amusement to outright distaste' [2010].
Wagner's idea was not a new one, a similar suggestion having been made by Oswald Greenwaye Knapp (1859-1947) in an article, critical of Guppy's Homes of family names in Great Britain (1890), in 1930 [2011], but this time the idea was backed by the wealth of Marc Fitch. In spite of what was said to be an overwhelming response from the public [2012] the ambitious project was slow to get off the ground. In June 1962 it was reported that Dr W. G. Hoskins and Dr P. H. Reaney were helping and that a start had been made with a grant of £50 from Essex County Council with which to photograph and transcribe the Essex Subsidy Rolls, Francis Steer, the Secretary to the Marc Fitch Fund, acting as provisional co-ordinator [2013]. In January 1963 I was interested to see that they were offering £1,000 a year for someone aged between 25 and 35, experienced in archive work, to start the initial listings in London [2014].
It was not, however, until 1965 that the scheme was established within the Department of English Local History at Leicester University. Since then a fair amount of transcription and indexing of the early returns has slowly taken place. In 1969 the first monograph, on Norfolk surnames in the sixteenth century, appeared, and in 1973 the first volume, on West Riding surnames by George Redmonds, followed by Norfolk and Suffolk surnames in the Middle Ages by Richard McKinley (1975), the surnames of Oxfordshire (1977), Lancashire (1981) [2015], Sussex (1988), Devon (1995), and Leicestershire and Rutland (1998) [2016]. This important work has not generally involved the Society though I later took a direct interest in it whilst a member of the Council of the Marc Fitch Fund.
Also in 1961 Peter Spufford and I produced a revised edition of The Genealogists' Handbook (1961) which had last appeared in 1951, doubling its size. It was so warmly received that I issued a Corrigenda of changes in 1963 [2017] and it sold out following a mention on the BBC [2018]. We produced revised and enlarged editions in 1967 and 1969, the first of these being described by Gerald Hamilton-Edwards as 'probably the best concise guide to genealogical information' available [2019]. For the September 1961 Magazine I compiled a list of the Society's collection of Poll Books showing in bold type those that were additional to the previously published list of March 1939 [2020].
In the autumn of 1961 Donald Steel produced for the first time since 1936 a Register of Members that contained a 'List of families in which members are interested' (June 1961) which had been compiled as a result of his circular in November 1960. Such an index, in card index form, had in fact been suggested to the Executive Committee by Gerald Hamilton-Edwards in February 1956 but Frank Bennett, the Secretary, no doubt prompted by Cregoe Nicholson, had then said that there had been one but it was found impracticable and could not be restarted [2021]. Indeed, the vast remains of the pre-1936 Index continued to take up valuable space in the Card Index Room and caused much fruitless inquiry for people long dead until I took a firm decision, about this time, to dispose of it.
Only a month before his death on 28 December 1961 Charles Bernau had made arrangements for the transfer of his vast index of Chancery and other proceedings to the Society [2022]. For a nominal sum the Society then sold the index to the Genealogical Society of Utah on condition that it receive a positive microfilm of the slips within twelve months [2023]. The original slips, Bernau’s notebooks and the ‘correspondence’ volumes were subsequently purchased by Malcolm Pinhorn [2024].
The Society's Annual Report said that the index contained over a million slips [2025] but in reality there were about four and a half million references to Chancery material in the Public Record Office, mainly Chancery and Exchequer Court proceedings, including every litigant in Chancery in the years 1714-58. The slips, alphabetical by surname only, were contained in 1,356 cardboard boxes, each 15" long, and there were also 426 notebooks containing extracts of the suits in the C.11 series, 1714-58. The Library already possessed the valuable A Topographical Index to Chancery Depositions taken by Commission 1714-44 compiled from Bernau's notebooks by the Norwich Record Society.
The microfilms did not begin to appear in the Library until 1966 when most of those to letter 'H' were received [2026]. They were, however, not greatly used until after the publication of a useful descriptive article by Mark Hughes in 1975 [2027]. The remaining five boxes of miscellaneous notes arising from Bernau's genealogical correspondence, the majority of which was destroyed at Bernau's request, were given to the Society by Malcolm Pinhorn in November 1992. They were sorted and indexed by Isabelle Charlton (1920-2016) in 1995 and are not to be confused with Bernau's 'Correspondence' (microfilms 578-593 at the Society and indexed in his main index) described in Hilary Sharp's excellent guide, How to use the Bernau Index, which we published in 1996 [2028].
The Chairman, Malcolm Pinhorn, had launched a Golden Jubilee Appeal Fund by letter dated 11 April and through the Magazine in June 1961, aiming to produce £20,000 of which £10,000 might be used to purchase a long extension of the lease on 37 Harrington Gardens and the remainder on the library, the acceleration of parish register copying, and the building up of a fund for publications [2029]. In the event the sum received was very disappointing and had reached only £1,200 by the end of the year when, together with £500 from the year's surplus, it was transferred to the Leasehold Reserve Fund created in 1959 [2030], which then stood at £3,200 [2031].
In 1961 the owners of the house offered reasonable terms for an extension of the lease to 2030, but before accepting the offer it was necessary to secure an extension of the user permit (already held until June 1970) for the same period. The London County Council refused to grant this extension, but an appeal to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, followed by a public enquiry, was successful. The appeal was heard at Kensington Town Hall on 28 June 1961, the Society being represented by counsel, assisted by Sir Christopher Courtney and the Society's solicitor, Douglas B. G. Gabriel (1915-1988) [2032]. As he mentioned at the AGM in May, Lord Mountbatten had written a letter in support of the Society [2033].
Unfortunately, whilst all this was going on the ownership of the house changed hands and the offer of a new lease was withdrawn pending the settlement of difficult estate duty matters [2034]. For some time the situation remained quite unclear. In the years 1962-64 the whole of the Campbell Estate in South Kensington, apart from W. S. Gilbert's former house next door to the Society, was sold to cover death duties, many of the original 90-year leases being then about to expire [2035]. With the growth in membership and other factors, including research, however, the Leasehold Reserve Fund had increased to £6,000 by the end of 1963 [2036] and to £10,000 by the end of 1965 [2037].
The stock of Helen Thacker's additions to Bethell Bouwens' Wills and their whereabouts sold out whilst I was working at the Society and when at University in 1960 I began to collect material for a completely new edition which would reflect the many movements of probate records since the War, provide up-to-date details of the records and their published indexes and abstracts, and extend the book's coverage to include Scotland, Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. In this major task I managed to obtain the cooperation of the majority of archivists in the British Isles and of a wide variety of persons with specialised knowledge, corresponding with some seventy-four individuals, but the work involved was very considerable, all the published volumes and articles mentioned being carefully scanned for possible additional information. I remember the Irish genealogist Michael Leader saying that he was surprised that some of the archivists in his native country could write!
There was at that time no clear idea as to who would publish the book but I was much encouraged in the project by Russell Muirhead, the editor of the Blue Guides and a director of Ernest Benn Limited which was about to publish a new edition of Arthur Willis's Genealogy for Beginners under the title Introducing Genealogy (1961). However, Muirhead was unable to persuade his co-directors to take the book and members of the Publications Committee at the Society involving themselves we drifted into a loose arrangement with Malcolm Pinhorn at Phillimore & Co that the firm would publish it on behalf of the Society. I was told that I would receive a royalty of 6d and the Society of 1s on a book of unspecified price [2038].
I took the proofs to Blandford for a week in September 1961 to check them through with John Phillips and they were returned in November. It was then said that the book would be ready early in 1962 [2039] but the page proofs did not come until July and the book itself did not appear until the autumn of 1963 [2040]. I was sent a copy whilst unwell for two months at home. It was nicely produced and extremely well received, selling at twenty-one shillings.
In view of the later allegations by Phillimore & Co it is worth saying here that Peter Spufford wrote about my book, 'In fact it is an entirely new book. The work is now conveniently arranged by counties ... Mr Camp has made a fresh survey of all the testamentary records of the country. It is invaluable' [2041]. Gerald Hamilton-Edwards described it as 'an invaluable guide' [2041]. Cecil Humphery-Smith wrote, 'This well produced and systematically ordered work must be immediately to hand to all genealogists and record searchers ... the concise and readable introductory text, the very complete index and county sections leave little to be desired in this most useful work' [2042] and Peter Walne, County Archivist for Hertfordshire, wrote, 'This book can confidently be recommended as indispensable' [2043]. William Filby later described it as, 'The best book of its kind' [2044].
However, no agreement had been reached about a discount for the Society when it sold copies through its bookshop, a point several times raised by me, and it took the forceful intervention of the Honorary Treasurer and of the Chairman, countering some unpleasant letters from Phillimore's solicitors, to obtain a 20% discount on 'home' sales. The Society then generously agreed to pay me half its royalty, so that I eventually received a little money (about £80) from the book, some 2,000 copies having been printed. They had all sold by October 1968 [2046].
I learned then that this was not a way in which to earn a living! I also learned that the future enthusiasm of any volunteer author is greatly diminished by unexplained delay and that the Society should, if at all possible, keep control of any future such publishing ventures itself. Unfortunately the committees did not learn those lessons.
Apart from Wagner's idea for a 'Survey of English Surnames' another grandiose scheme was announced in 1961 with the foundation that year at Canterbury by Cecil Humphery-Smith of an 'Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies', its stated aim, according to a note in the June Magazine, being 'to index by surnames and chronologically every original and transcribed entry from the parish and non-parochial registers in this country ... beginning by decanal units in various parts of the country', that might, when the work gained momentum, be extended to archdeaconries or counties, though 'much financial and practical organisation has yet to be made' [2047]. The cost of microfilming the English registers alone, for this 'British Vital Records Index', was said to be going to be £15,000,000 [2048]. In spite of the claims made for this ambitious plan over the years and the impact it is said to have had on other schemes [2049], I am not aware that a single 'decanal unit' was actually completed. The mere mention of such a sum was a considerable deterrent to any prospective donor though frequent appeals for money were made.
The parish maps devised by Reginald Glencross had long been a valuable aid in our library when the Institute first advertised its Parish Maps of the Counties of England and Wales in the Magazine in 1966 [2050], extensively revising them and publishing them in a useful composite volume in 1978 (£7.50)[2051], the forerunner of the Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers, first published in 1984 (£25) [2052].
As mentioned above the organisation of the Society's parish register transcription work had been taken over from Donald Steel by Malcolm Pinhorn in 1962 and late that year a long list of the registers being transcribed was published in the Magazine [2053]. Other incumbents then came forward with suggestions that their registers be copied though not all would allow them to leave their parishes for the purpose [2054]. However, the number of persons willing and able to transcribe early registers was always small. It was generally a labour of love and any suggestion that people be paid for the work was always resisted by the Society, as was the reimbursement of expenses to any volunteer except in very exceptional circumstances, though paper (and very occasionally a battered typewriter) was provided. Thus many eyebrows were raised when Malcolm Pinhorn was allowed to take on the task of Honorary Secretary to the Parish Register Sub-Committee but on the condition that Phillimore & Co, of which he was Executive Director (1961-66), could publish any of the Society's transcripts, provided the permission of the incumbent was obtained [2055]. Although this arrangement had the approval of the Executive Committee it was bound to cause difficulties with the transcribers and Archibald Colliard, a Latter-day Saint who was particularly active in the field, borrowing and copying registers, was completely opposed to the idea. Colliard had been adept at persuading incumbents to part with their parish registers for transcription and brought many to the Society for that purpose, members of the staff helping to get them copied and returned as soon as possible. Colliard made it clear that he would not give permission for the publication of the registers with which he was involved and he believed, quite rightly in view of past experience, that no incumbent would agree to his registers being copied if publication were envisaged and the search fees lost. In October 1962 he arranged to borrow the large registers of Frome Selwood in Somerset but on condition that they were not re-copied without his and the incumbent's permission [2056]. Ledbury in Herefordshire was another parish whose registers he obtained in this way.
The arrangement with Malcolm Pinhorn was further discussed by the Executive Committee in November and it was agreed that although the Society welcomed the possible publication of parish registers, in cases where authority was denied by the incumbent or transcriber, the Director of Research, i.e. me, would make the arrangements and not Malcolm Pinhorn and that I would keep the Sub-Committee informed [2057]. Colliard sensibly did not bother to ask the incumbents involved, knowing full well that the mere mention of publication would be a deterrent [2058]. Sometime earlier Colliard had asked Eleanor Cottrill (1903-1992), the County Archivist for Hampshire, about the possible loan of a microfilm of the calendars of the Archdeaconry of Winchester and Hampshire Peculiar wills and administrations, and five reels of microfilm were sent up in April 1963 for volunteers to transcribe [2059].
With my interest in Hertfordshire I had naturally given the Society's assistance to Thomas Frederick Allen [2060] in his great scheme to transcribe all the marriage registers in Hertfordshire before 1837. He volunteered to keep an eye out for particular entries for members, charging them very small fees to the benefit of the Society, and I conducted the correspondence involved. In June 1963 it was announced that he had completed his objective, a remarkable achievement in so short a time, and that there were typed copies at the Society and a card index at the County Record Office at Hertford [2061].
The death in 1963 of Kenneth Vaughan Elphinstone (1878-1963) [2062] deprived the Society of one of its great transcribers of registers. Before the War he had been a volunteer in the Muniment Room at Westminster Abbey and was an expert palaeographer. I remember taking registers to his flat at Artillery Mansions in Westminster where he took enormous pains over his work, a notable example being the registers of Isleworth, Middlesex, which had been damaged by fire in 1942. Another indefatigable transcriber and a typist of other people's transcripts and indexes who died this year and who I also remember with affection was Allan Joseph Winsbury (1889-1963) [2063]. In 1964 the Catholic Record Society placed on loan with the Society its collection of unpublished manuscript copies of registers [2064].
Malcolm Pinhorn gave up the post of Hon-Secretary to the Committee in 1963 and Cecil Humphery-Smith at Canterbury then, in theory, took over the organisation of the transcription work [2065], nominally continuing until March 1966 [2066]. However, Mrs Doreen Sybil Grant Briscoe (nee Dallas; died 1972)[2067], a volunteer who had helped with the boxing of documents in the Library since 1961 [2068] (as she had done previously in the archives of the Hudson's Bay Company), joined the staff in 1962 and, working one day a week, soon took over the organisation of the transcribers, much of which, in any case, was being done by the librarian in order to speed things along. It was a much more satisfactory arrangement. She set to with energy and enthusiasm and served the Committee with devotion, giving help and encouragement to all her volunteers, but died quite suddenly on 7 April 1972 [2069], having been at work less than a fortnight before her death. Mrs Margaret Duggan helpfully took over the parish register work until August that year and subsequently assisted in the office (November 1973 – January 1974) when her young son Christopher and his school friend Jonathan Flint most kindly wrote index slips for my Wills and their whereabouts (1974).
Following the resignation of John Phillips as Secretary in May 1961, Philip Haslewood Blake (1907-1994) who was known to some members of the Society as a member of the Council of the British Record Society and for his interest in Kentish gentry families, was appointed Secretary. This was on the warm recommendation of the level-headed committee member Litellus 'Russell' Muirhead (died 1976 aged 79)[2070], formerly editor of The Blue Guides. Philip Blake, who had some private means and sometimes drove up to the Society from his home near Canterbury in his Bentley, was the son of an analytical chemist in Belfast. He had previously had a varied career which surprisingly, in view of his inability to type, included, or so he claimed, work for the British Information Services in New York, 1939-43 [2071], for the Encyclopaedia Britannica and for ENSA, and being 'in charge of visual publicity at the Ministry of Town and Country Planning' [2072]. He had latterly been press officer to the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors, 1954-60 [2073].
Philip Blake was a hugely controversial and disruptive figure. He started work at the Society on 12 June 1961. Five days later I heard that Commander McNeil-Smith had given notice. Three days after that I noted in my diary, 'Blake in a mess', and that Margaret Goodliffe, the efficient Librarian, was looking for another job. She left on 12 August. Miss Goodliffe's successor, a pleasant young lady who could not stand up to Blake was reduced to tears on several occasions and left after only a few weeks.
Everything Blake did had to be handwritten or dictated but he treated his typists so badly that the Society was blacklisted by the local employment agency and it refused to send more. One day, as a volunteer, I found myself taking dictation from him direct onto a typewriter. It was said that Blake rarely opened his mail at home. At the Society each day's group of letters was placed in a separate pile around the office floor. Cregoe Nicholson, elected a Vice-President at the Annual Meeting in May 1961, who had known Blake for some years and disliked him intensely, found that his papers too had been removed from the office table and placed on the floor, making it very clear that he was no longer welcome in the office! There was a particularly unpleasant scene when Blake accused a lady of perjury because of what she had said on her illegitimate child’s birth certificate. Blake shook up the whole Society and I don't doubt that it was to some extent in need of it, but with the wretched salaries that were paid it was difficult enough to attract staff without all this. Long term the Society was never quite the same again.
It was at this time that some new tenants in one of the Society’s flats, Nicholas and Nina Shoumatoff, just arrived from America, suggested that the wallpaper on the stairs, which some believed was a William Morris design, be painted over or replaced, Mrs Shoumatoff offering to pay for the work involved. Nicholson and others on the Committee were appalled, but Philip Blake involved the poet and writer on architecture John Betjeman (1906-1984) who visited the Society on 10 October 1961. Betjeman wrote enthusiastically about the possibility of restoring the hall to something of its original splendour and of obtaining a grant to do so. He suggested that an interior stained window between the staircase and the first floor former billiard room which had been plastered over be opened up and that the gloomy shatter-proof glass inserted in the Second World War which concealed the back stairs be replaced with leaded lights, lit from behind [2074]. Unfortunately the Society’s relationship with Mrs Shoumatoff was not good and deteriorated further when water from her bathroom several times overflowed, coming through the ceiling into the room which housed the Document Collection (as some stained boxes still bear witness!). Her son, the writer Alex Shoumatoff, who was fourteen at the time with no interest in genealogy and it seems the main culprit, wrote later that the Society’s staff were ‘a brusque, desiccated lot, conscious of their roles as the ultimate arbiters, the keeper of the lineages’ and ‘particularly long-suffering towards the Americans who provided much of their business’. As he confused me with Anthony Wagner he may have been confusing the Society with the College of Arms and he was himself to become fascinated by his family history and mixed Russian and Jewish ancestry. Somewhere or other he was told the unlikely story that, ‘One afternoon a man who had come from Ohio expressly to find out which duke he was descended from – his family had a story about a ducal forebear centuries back – collapsed and died in front of the building after discovering that his people had actually been the village chimney sweeps’ [2075].
The matter was not then taken further and towards the end of 1961 Blake forgot about the staircase and began to look for alternative premises, engaging a firm in Kennington Lane to look for possible suitable buildings in that area [2076]. Nothing could have been calculated to annoy Nicholson more!
Philip Blake's initial appointment had been by ballot of the Executive Committee and was for a three-month trial period, but his confirmation in the post was postponed until January 1962. On 16 January Cregoe Nicholson telephoned me to say that Blake had been given the sack. That was not quite correct but in February it was agreed that he should be demoted to be Director of Research and a new Secretary appointed. This was Mrs Cecil Mackay who was immediately thus placed in a most difficult position.
Philip Blake, now working as Director of Research alongside the new Secretary, continued on his disruptive path and there were rumours of frequent violent quarrels in the polarised committees about his activities. In March 1962 the editor of the Magazine, Peter Spufford, wrote asking Blake, 'Has any division of duties been worked out between Mrs Mackay and yourself as yet? On what occasions do I correspond with you and on what occasions with her, or do I always correspond with you and will you pass on the relevant parts of my letters to her?' [2077]. These were very obvious questions but the rather basic paper that was supposed to set out the division of duties between the two made no mention at all of the Society’s publishing activities other than to say that the Secretary handled advertisements for the Magazine. The Director of Research was to be responsible for any enquiries involving genealogical matters, the direction and control of research (part of which he was to do himself), contact with other learned societies, record offices and the like, the furtherance of the Society’s genealogical interests, and any correspondence relating to the above. Borderline matters were to be referred to the Chairman and the two were to share a shorthand-typist. The Secretary was in charge of the Librarian and the Documents Assistant. Both officers were to attend Executive Committee meetings but not both were to be away from the rooms during working hours, the Secretary working on alternate Saturdays with the Librarian and the Director of Research with the Receptionist [2078]. I was not there at the time but I have the impression that very few thought that the arrangement would last long. At an Executive Committee in April 1962 the Treasurer, Arthur Noble, openly called Blake a liar and, as Cregoe Nicholson wrote to me, things were undoubtedly 'warming up' [2079].
This turbulent period was, however, not altogether unproductive. Since the release of the 1841 and 1851 census returns immediately after the foundation of the Society no further returns had been released. With preparations for the 1961 census questions began to be asked about the 1861 returns for England and Wales which were housed by the Registrar General who would undertake searches in them in limited circumstances for fees. The returns were held to be of a 'confidential' nature and there was pressure for them to be destroyed, particularly in view of the space now needed for the 1961 returns.
Philip Blake on behalf of the Society urged that the 1861 Returns be preserved and made available at the Public Record Office. He persuaded Christopher Chataway (1931-2014), his local MP at Lewisham North, to raise the matter in the House of Commons on 12 February 1962, Chataway asked by what criteria the Registrar General granted or refused permission for historians and genealogists to consult the 1861 Returns. He pointed out that many researchers had assumed that as soon as a hundred years had passed that the Returns would be opened to them. The question provoked a further review and on 16 March 1962, Edith Pitt, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health was able to tell Chataway, 'you will be glad to know that it has been decided that for 1861 the returns can be transferred to the Public Record Office' [2080]. They were made available there in November 1962. The returns for Scotland from 1861 to 1891 had already been accessible in Edinburgh for some years.
Philip Blake was keen to wage other wars on the Society's behalf and in November 1961 he had again raised with the Principal Probate Registry the question of the master films of probate records made by the GSU which had been the subject of discussions in 1957. He was told that the British Library did not want them and that the PRO was still debating the matter but his request that the films be handed to the Society or made available for public inspection elsewhere, met with a stern response. The Senior Registrar's view, Blake was told, was that 'the film is a very valuable piece of public property, and he proposes to have it preserved in official custody and not, for the present, made available for public inspection' [2081]. And so it remained though, of course, copies were available in Salt Lake City.
Although it was not a new idea, sometime earlier in November 1959, the Congregational Historical Society had formally written to the British Records Association enquiring how it would view an application from the Congregational and other nonconformist historical societies that the non-parochial registers in the care of the Registrar General at Somerset House be transferred to county record offices. A small committee had looked at the registers and noted the difficulties involved [2082] but negotiations were already in progress with the Public Record Office and on 9 June 1961 the Non-Parochial Registers were moved from Somerset House to the Public Record Office and there made freely available to searchers [2083]. No legislation was amended in order to make the transfer and it seemed to me a sensible precedent for the removal of other material from the Registrar General’s uncaring and mostly uninterested office.
In 1962 Faber and Faber published Nancie Burns’ Family Tree: an adventure in genealogy which I reviewed and thought a very good book to interest and inform the beginner though she regarded the subject as the pastime of cranks and advised her readers not to write up their findings, a sentiment with which no serious genealogist (except, of course, Michael Gandy!) could agree [2084]. She was an established author of short stories and the curious thing is that in an advertisement in the Magazine in June 1958 she had offered to 'compile and write family histories'.
At a meeting of the Executive Committee on 17 April 1962 it was agreed that since the majority of overseas visitors can visit this country but rarely, they should be allowed to nominate proxy searchers to undertake work for them, these searchers being permitted to enjoy all the facilities provided by the Society during the time of their searches. The member had to write to the Society giving details of the nominee and the latter had to provide identification when visiting the Society [2085]. It was not clear from the notice which appeared in the June Magazine, however, that the nominee had also to be a visitor from overseas and those who thought that a simple letter from someone overseas would give them unrestricted access to the collections had then to be disappointed.
The announcement that Mrs Mackay had been appointed Secretary in succession to Blake was made in June 1962, the entry in the Magazine saying that she 'has had wide administrative experience in Government service and privately, both in this country and elsewhere in Europe, and recently taught in Spain' [2086 ]. Cecil Margaret Mackay (1910-1998), who held the post for fourteen years, was the eldest daughter of Francis Wentworth Bere, of Tavistock [2087]. After attending a secretarial college in London she had worked at the Advertising Association, in the building and decorating trade and as an assistant to the theatrical designer Oliver Messel. Knowing French she had joined the French Military Mission in 1939, moved to Military Intelligence, rising to be head of section, and then joined the Counter Intelligence Bureau for Germany. She had married firstly in 1932, Robert Henry Thomson (a paint manufacturer, of whom nothing was ever said!) and secondly in 1947, Stephen Mackay. They lived at 20 Nevern Square in Kensington and from 1955 she ran a girls' hostel at 34 Harrington Gardens, just across the road from the Society, but he died in 1958 and she gave up the hostel two years later to teach English in Spain.
One of her first tasks was to prepare the papers for the Society’s Annual Meeting, chaired by Lord Mountbatten on 27 June, and that she did by setting out in detail exactly what would happen, and obtaining in advance the names of all the proposers and seconders of the various motions that needed to be passed. Duplicated copies of this aide memoire were given to everyone present and greatly expedited the meeting, much to Mountbatten’s appreciation, his aim being to get through the formal business as quickly as possible. It was a plan that I copied and developed over later years, the President always being given a copy in advance so that he knew exactly what to expect, unless, of course, a member fell asleep at the appropriate moment as sometimes happened!
Meanwhile, with my final examinations approaching, I had been going to the Society much less frequently, but I continued with my weekly visits on Wednesdays as far as I could. There were almost six months in which the Society had no librarian, but an active new man, John Merriman Sims, with an Honours Degree in Modern History from Hertford College, Oxford, had started work on 5 February 1962 and soon gave every indication that the Library was in good hands. I took my finals early in June and in spite of my neglect was greatly relieved to hear on 28 July that I had an Honours Degree in Ancient and Medieval History. Meanwhile I had been doing some private research for Sir Stanley Wyatt and Malcolm Pinhorn.
My correspondence with Anthony Wagner had continued and we had talked about my working for him during the vacations. In April 1960 he had offered me ‘five shillings an hour, plus such expenses I might put you to, if you were working for me in London, while if you went away on searches in the country with one of my staff, I should simply pay your expenses’ [2088]. However, I was then given to understand from my meetings with his assistant Thomas Woodard (1904-1995), on whom Wagner relied for most of his research, that the greater part of the work would entail searches outside London and I was obliged on financial grounds (and with some annoyance as my position was well known to him) regretfully to decline the offer [2089].
Even before I had my final results I had been asked through Cregoe Nicholson if I would go to see Air Chief Marshal Sir Christopher Courtney (1890-1976), a member of the Society’s Executive Committee, at his flat in Bryanston Court near Marble Arch. Sir Christopher had entered HMS Britannia as a Naval Cadet in 1905, joined the Royal Naval Air Service in 1912, and had a distinguished career (including service in Kurdistan and Iraq) ending as Air Member for Supply and Organisation on the Air Council, 1940-45 [2090]. Having talked about the situation at the Society he asked, in confidence, whether, if Blake were to leave, I would accept his position and, of course, I had little hesitation in saying that I would. The situation seems to have been known to others and in August I had a private letter from Malcolm Pinhorn urging me to take the post but only 'if the salary is a good one' [2091].
However, most of August was spent on a tour of archaeological sites in Italy and in September I was employed by the executors of John Beach Whitmore, who had died in 1957, to go through and itemise his large collection of papers and indexes which Nicholson had lodged at the Society [2092]. It was not until Wednesday, 19 September 1962, the day after the monthly Executive Committee had agreed its strategy, that I went to see the Chairman, Robert Garrett, at his office near Bond Street Station, and was formally offered the post of Director of Research. I had a few lingering doubts as to what I was taking on and it was not until 3 pm on Thursday that I telephoned to say that I would accept. On Friday Philip Blake was told that he was no longer needed and resigned [2093], being given three months’ salary in lieu of notice [2094]. An upbeat interview that he had just given to The Guardian, a newspaper with little time for genealogists, was published a month later. The article said that ‘what genealogists have had to say in the past about genealogy has often met with the scepticism, if not downright disbelief, usually reserved for astrologers or weather forecasters’, but it recognised that there was undoubtedly an increase in the demand for professional genealogists and the genealogical bug bit hard, those bitten being driven by curiosity to continue the search. Blake mentioned attempts by a group of members to get the subject accepted as a course at one of the new universities and said that the Society, heartened by its success in obtaining the release of the 1861 census returns, was now pressing for parentage to be added to death certificates. On the latter point he was ‘confident of victory’ [2095].
I started work as Director of Research immediately on Monday, 24 September 1962, having tea that day, not in the basement staff room, but in the Members' Room with Sir Stanley Wyatt (1887-1968) who lived nearby and was an almost daily visitor [2096]. Philip Blake later teased me a little but surprisingly bore no grudge against me personally, though in 1963, as we shall see, was instrumental in fomenting considerable criticism of the Executive Committee, for some members of which he had, perhaps not surprisingly, developed an almost obsessive dislike. The elderly Sir Stanley Wyatt, I might add, amused me in that he was still winding up the debts of the Ottoman Empire! At Addis Ababa in 1907 when working for the National Bank of Egypt he had seen the Emperor Menelek II being taken for his first ride in a motor car and in 1914 he was present when the Tsar read the declaration of war to a kneeling crowd at St Petersburg. Three years later, he heard Lenin speak there [2097].
I was twenty-five and the Magazine said, 'already well known to many members' [2098]. The dutiful Douglas Gabriel drew up a formal service contract (the first time that that had ever been done) for three years by which I was to receive £700 a year, rising to £750 at the end of six months and £800 after a year if the profit from research justified an increase. It was expected that I would devote half my time to actual fee earning research [2099]. I expressed surprise that such a formality was deemed necessary and got Gabriel to agree to an opt-out, providing I gave a month's notice, if the research income did not increase in the manner suggested [2100].
The Annual Report for 1962, without mentioning any names, merely said, ‘During the year staff was increased by the appointment of a Director of Research; his salary is now included in the Expenditure of the Research Department’. The Annual Accounts show that the research income was £1,471 and the expenditure £1,682, thus making a loss of £211 as against a profit of £242 in 1961. I was fortunately able to turn that into a profit of £458 again in 1963. On Saturday, 8 December 1962, I provided an all-day exhibition of pedigrees and a lecture at 2.30 pm on ‘Pedigree Layout’ at the Society [2101]. I do not remember if I used it then but one of the Society’s nicest pedigrees, that of Hawtrey, was received from Brigadier H. C. Hawtrey that same year [2102] and often used in subsequent exhibitions.
Anthony Wagner wrote in April 1963 congratulating me on my appointment as Director of Research but I replied saying that although I had signed a contract for three years I had doubts that the Society would survive that long as we were working ‘on the top of a volcano’ [2103]. As a result he encouraged me to have further talks with Woodard, but after meeting Wagner again on 25 September I had to say that I was not willing to give up my present role for one ‘without immediate prospects and little freedom of action’ [2104]. Nicholson and others had warned me that Wagner often employed persons who, unlike myself, had private means and who hoped and believed that they might later obtain official positions but who had eventually gone away disillusioned. Wagner denied this, saying ‘the bias at the present time is very much in favour of appointing people who have already worked here’ [2105] but I was far from convinced. However, as described below, Wagner now most unpleasantly tried, in correspondence with the Society’s Chairman (which was eventually referred to the Honorary Solicitor), to prevent the Society from undertaking research. In June 1967, when he wrote asking if I could recommend anyone for the two vacant Pursuivants’ places at the College, I did not feel able to reply. It is interesting that he then reckoned that someone should ‘after a few years, be able to earn something between £1,500 and £5,000 a year’ and might later improve substantially on the latter figure [2106]. At the Society my salary did not reach even £3,000 until 1975.
For some time there had been a growing dissatisfaction with the Society's original Articles of Association and a perception that some modernisation was needed. In February 1962 a sub-committee was set up to consider their overall re-drafting and the vexed question of the composition fee for life-membership. The original Articles allowed the Society to charge incoming new members higher rates of subscription than the existing members, these new rates being determined by resolution of the Executive Committee (under Article 10), but Company law held that once they had been elected at a certain rate their future subscriptions could not be increased. By some further oversight there was also no provision for any increase in the composition fee for life membership which was fixed in 1911 at seven times the original annual subscription, i.e. seven guineas, an absurdly low figure by 1962.
The sub-committee found that as long ago as May 1920 the Executive Committee had approved a draft revision of some of the Articles (as is mentioned above; in 1962 its exact wording could not be located) and in November 1920 had agreed, without making the necessary amendment to the Articles, that the life membership fee be increased to twenty guineas. The Committee at that time had clearly believed that it was entitled henceforth to vary the Life Membership fee and from then until 1962 it was the practice for the fee to be ten times the annual subscription.
Realising the irregularity of the situation the Executive Committee then began to make plans to amend the Articles at a future Annual Meeting. However, one member, becoming aware of the weakness, insisted on his right to compound for life membership at seven guineas, which, under threat of a writ expressed in a most uncompromising manner, the Committee was obliged to grant. Another member who had also applied withdrew, and the Committee refused to grant life membership to seven other existing members who tendered ten guineas, something it technically had no right to do. By yet another curious oversight in the original Articles those members who took out life membership were actually still liable to an annual subscription of one guinea, and although this had never been sought, these seven members were now offered life membership for ten guineas provided they continued to pay this additional guinea annually, they also being invited to make a donation to the Society if they felt that they were gaining an advantage over their fellow members.
At the same time the rejected Philip Blake, who was not a member and resided some sixty miles from London, applied to become an Associate Member and was asked to pay a guinea a year. He, however, tendered half a guinea, claiming he was entitled to pay this reduced fee under the Articles. There were further threats of writs which the Committee this time decided to ignore, it being fully entitled to fix the subscriptions of new Associates in the same way as it did those of new Members and believing that, as Country Members paid two guineas, that one guinea was a fair rate.
There was now a rush by the Committee to close the loophole as regards Life Membership. Not waiting for a revision of the Articles as a whole it called an Extraordinary General Meeting on 4 April 1963. The Society's Solicitor, Douglas Gabriel, went to town with notes of what was required and Counsel devised a highly complicated Special Resolution to put to the Meeting. Its purpose was to give the Executive Committee powers (a) to fix the cost of life membership providing it was not less than ten times the annual subscription, and (b) to remove the rule that asked life members to continue to pay the original yearly subscription of one guinea. It was stressed in an accompanying explanatory letter written by Mrs Mackay that the Resolution would not affect the annual subscriptions of existing members. However, after a lengthy and acrimonious discussion, although this composite Resolution obtained a majority of votes (48 to 21), it did not obtain the support of 75% of those voting as was required by the Companies Act, and therefore did not pass.
The arguments had meanwhile come to an unpleasant head on 25 March 1963 when a group of six members, concerned about the Society's future at 37 Harrington Gardens and its administration in recent years, circulated a highly critical memorandum to many members saying that the Society's 'direction is wanting in a true sense of its responsibilities and the administration shows serious deficiencies'. The six members included the recent chairman of the Executive Committee, Malcolm Pinhorn, the former Secretary and Director of Research, Philip Blake (whose prolix style is recognisable in much of the wording), an eccentric regular visitor Peter Reid (died 2004, aged 70) who later made a name for himself as an architectural historian [2107], and Nicholas MacMichael who had been on the Lectures Committee since 1958 and was elected to the Executive Committee this year.
The group had much to say in this wide ranging document about the Library, the lack of a proper classification, the gaps in the collections, its small annual grant (said to be £100 when in 1962 it was actually £262), the neglect of the document collection (little attempt being made to obtain new material and the Sherwood Collection having been turned away), the self-perpetuating Executive Committee, the problems with Life Membership and Associate Membership outlined above, the lack of a long-term financial policy, the manner in which the accounts were kept, the need to raise the subscriptions of long standing members who paid very low rates, and the need for larger accommodation, claiming that an excellent alternative building had been dismissed out of hand. The Memorandum ended by saying that 'since 1950, the Society has had no less than six Secretaries. Of these four felt compelled to resign because of the circumstances under which they worked which made the proper execution of their duties towards the Society impossible' and concluded that in the opinion of its sponsors it constituted a serious indictment of the Society's affairs. On hearing that the Executive Committee intended to reply to the charges in the paper the group wrote to the individual members of the Committee on 23 April 1963 deploring the possibility.
The task of replying to the Memorandum fell to the Chairman of the Executive Committee, the conscientious Robert Garrett, who, although (as he wrote to me) the Committee was accused by Philip Blake 'of a hundred villainies' [2108], was anxious to avoid mud-slinging and put together a reasoned reply which, after a further meeting of the Executive, was eventually distilled down by the new Secretary, Cecil Mackay, and sent to the members on 21 May 1963. Robert Edmund Francis Garrett (1910-1982) was the modest but highly competent Chairman of the Film Finances Company and lived conveniently nearby in Gilston Road [2109]. He was a relative newcomer to the Society, having become a member in 1955 and joined the Executive Committee in 1959. An able genealogist, he developed a considerable one-name study for the surname Garrett and its variants and was Chairman of the Executive, following the resignation of Malcolm Pinhorn in January 1962, until the summer of 1964.
Although tempers had become frayed there were, of course, some underlying truths in the Memorandum with which those closely involved in the Society were perfectly well acquainted. For twenty years the finances had been in a precarious state. Deficiencies in the Library were mainly attributable to lack of money. Of the library allocation of £200 in 1962 about half had been spent on binding, the rest on new books and subscriptions to periodicals [2110]. In its reply the Committee said that the task of re-classifying 27,000 volumes was 'quite beyond the power of one librarian'. It was a point with which I could not agree [2111], a basic classification already existing, and John Sims was in the process of proving the point having introduced a simple shelf-numbering system linked to the catalogue which already covered the county shelves. Nicholson's close friend Jack Bird (1920-1988), the Chairman of the Library Committee, and his committee of professionals, had been arguing about it in a desultory manner for years [2112]. In the reply the refusal of the Sherwood Collection was glossed over, the Society being 'compelled to have regard for the limited accommodation available however regrettable that may be'. In later years I generally took what was offered in the way of collections and worried about where to put them afterwards.
That the Executive Committee was 'almost self-perpetuating' was said (in the reply) to be 'quite untrue', thirty-nine of its members having retired or died and been replaced in the last twenty years, but it was agreed that 'a larger turnover would be desirable' and that reform along those lines had been agreed in principle before the Memorandum appeared. The history of the unpleasant correspondence about life membership was recited and the reasons for calling an Extraordinary Meeting on 4 April explained. As regards associate membership the Committee did not intend to be deterred by the threat of a writ. The Committee believed that 'the present satisfactory rate of increase in membership would be likely to decline if subscriptions were again to be raised' and pointed out that under the Companies Acts it was not possible to raise the subscriptions of existing members which 'must remain inviolate'. It was noted that because of the turnover in membership only 66 of the 523 Town Members and 98 of the 840 Country Members, or about 12% in all, paid less than the current rates of subscriptions. That the system was thought by many to be grossly unfair and a nightmare to administer was, of course, not mentioned.
The Committee explained that its financial policy had been governed by the fact that the lease of 37 Harrington Gardens was due to expire in 1970 and that no alternative accommodation had been found which was suitable and affordable. 'Whether we stay or move', the reply said, 'it is quite certain that a very substantial premium will be required. It is precisely for that reason that the strictest economy has been exercised with a view to the accumulation of reserve funds'. The reply was particularly scathing about the 'excellent alternative building' that the five complainants had seen. The five had written: "New accommodation was sought a year ago. It was found near the Imperial War Museum in a scheduled building offering twice the floor area and enabling the Society's entire collections to be arranged on the ground floor. Although the premises were available at an extremely low rent, the Executive Committee turned them down because of their poor state of repair, quite ignoring the fact that what the landlords were prepared to spend combined with the proceeds from the sale of the Society's present lease, would have been adequate to put them in first-class order ... The value of this improvident act can be measured in thousands of pounds".
In reply the Committee wrote: "The Committee, besides viewing this property, which is in Southwark [it was in Kennington Road], themselves, also took the advice of the managing director of a well-known firm of Surveyors and Estate Agents who estimated that it would be necessary to spend at least £10,000 to put it in order. The so-called ground floor which it was suggested might have housed the Society's collections, consisted of a temporary shed with a corrugated iron roof which would have required complete reconstruction. The whole project involved a highly undesirable risk and our surveyors advised us to have nothing to do with it. Nevertheless an enquiry was addressed to the landlords' agents asking among other things to what extent they would be prepared to undertake reconditioning work and what rent they would require. No answer was received".
Stories about the desirability of this building continued to circulate for some years and were dredged up by Donald Steel in an attack on the Society in 1974, when he said that it was 'never seriously considered' [2114] and was challenged by Robert Garrett who then described the building as 'a sort of hut ... of the most flimsy construction, already falling to pieces and extremely damp' [2115]. I regret not having seen the building, described by Cecil Mackay as ‘a large Nissen hut in the backyard which was falling apart at every corner and had large holes in the roof’ [2116], but I immediately thought of this 'shed with a corrugated iron roof' when many years later Philip Blake remarked, after I had expressed surprise that he was buying a castle in Ireland which had no roof, that a roof was of no consequence, but 'you've gotta have walls', he repeating, 'You've gotta have walls'!
In the conclusion of its reply the Committee wrote about the previous Secretaries when it had been hoped to combine the administration and research in one person, saying that this did not work out and it was found that one or the other, or both, suffered. For this reason, it concluded, 'it was decided last year to employ an Administrative Secretary and a Director of Research, each with clearly defined responsibilities'. This system, the reply said, was working well 'and we now have an efficient and contented staff which gives members greatly improved service' [2117]. It interested me some fifty years after these events to see a letter that the novelist Anthony Powell, a member since 1926, had written to Peter Reid on receipt of the memorandum, saying that although he was ‘substantially in agreement with most of what is said’ he considered that the Society’s difficulties ‘appear to be largely this question of money’, but adding, ‘I am prepared to remain on as a member at a low subscription, and do not take up any room there’ [2118]. It was a view that many shared! He was later, however, a most generous donor to the Society’s funds.
Not a word about this unpleasant episode or about the abortive Extraordinary Annual Meeting appears in the Society's Annual Report for 1963. Another Extraordinary Annual Meeting (also not mentioned in the Report) was rapidly called for 20 July 1963 and chaired by the solicitor Douglas Gabriel at the School of Our Lady of Victories off Kensington High Street. At this it was agreed, this time unanimously, to accept Life Members for a fee of not less than ten times the current annual subscription. A further resolution, limiting the Executive Committee to sixteen members elected for four years and forcing them to retire for a year after two terms (or eight years), was the subject of considerable argument but in the end, after Nicholas MacMichael said that he thought it a fair compromise, was passed by a majority of 86 per cent [2119]. This new system was on the whole a fair success and worked well for many years.
At the ordinary AGM that followed this meeting there was a secret ballot for members of the Executive Committee and seven were elected, including several newcomers who were to become prominent in Society affairs. These were Charles Kingsley Adams (1899-1971) [2120] the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, who had been proposed by Kathleen Blomfield and Colonel Percy-Smith, Nicholas MacMichael the Assistant Keeper of the Muniments at Westminster Abbey and Secretary of the Harleian Society, David Bedford Groom a Chartered Accountant, Hugh Pocock a member since 1924, Gwynneth Priddle the former Librarian and Major Ynyr Probert an active transcriber of parish registers [2121].
As mentioned a sub-committee had been working on a complete revision of the Articles and on 20 May 1964 the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Robert Garrett, circulated the members saying that a draft had been prepared but, because of the cost, copies would not be sent to every member but were available in the office and would be sent on application to any interested member. He explained that apart from a general updating the main alterations proposed were that prospective members would no longer need to be proposed and seconded by existing members, that the subscriptions of future (but not existing) members would be liable to increase, that members might borrow books (long the practice, but a privilege limited to Fellows by the old articles), that the Vice-Presidents need not be members of the Society, and that membership certificates be dispensed with.
The approval of the Board of Trade having been obtained to these proposals, Cecil Mackay on 12 November 1964 convened yet another Extraordinary General Meeting for 8 December to confirm their adoption. The Meeting, at which Douglas Gabriel again took the Chair, this time at the Society itself, was extremely badly attended with only 26 members present. Gabriel again stressed that under Article 22 of the Companies Act (1948) the subscriptions of existing members could not be raised. Gerald Hamilton-Edwards and John Blight criticised many of the proposed minor changes. John Blight was concerned at a perceived reduction in the privileges of Fellows, though in reality the Fellows by now had no privileges at all other than the election of other Fellows. Josephine Fletcher (died 1967) [2122] thought the suggested abolition of proposers and seconders for new members quite wrong. As a result the proposed Articles were rejected by fifteen votes to eleven [2123].
Douglas Gabriel had to go away and have a further hard look at the problem, taking into account the various points raised. And so yet another Meeting was called and held after the Annual Meeting in the Council Room of ASLIB in Belgrave Square on 15 July 1965 when 42 members were present. This time the more forceful and decisive Sir Christopher Courtney was in the Chair and by Special Resolution the new Articles were at last adopted by 38 votes to four. The legal costs had been £466 [2124].
These new Articles transferred the power to fix the subscriptions of new members from the Executive Committee to future Annual Meetings. The relevant Article was so worded that (for the first time since 1911) any future new member might from this date forward have his or her subscription increased. Until any such future increase the rate would be four guineas for town and three guineas for country members. Members might now become life members by compounding at amounts that ranged from £42 to £70 according to their age and as set out in the Articles. The old requirement that new members have proposers and seconders was retained, but the Board of Trade now insisted that they be members of the Society. The number of members needed to requisition an Extraordinary Meeting, a question that had taken up much time at the earlier meetings, was now reduced from the previously suggested ten per cent to ten [2125]. These Articles remained in force until the next major revision after I became Director in 1979. At the Ordinary Annual Meeting held earlier that day it had been announced that the Executive Committee had decided that the few life members who had compounded by paying ten times their annual subscriptions but had no right to the Magazine would be given it from 1966 onwards [2126].
Philip Blake, as we have seen, had been elected an Associate Member (the last elected) which meant that he could not speak at Annual Meetings. After leaving the Society he sought no further employment but later, as I shall mention, played an important role in the foundation of the Association of Genealogists and Record Agents. By then all knew that this impossible man might sometimes have excellent ideas but was always completely impractical. He died in 1994, aged 87.
I had not been long in post when in November 1963 Sir Anthony Wagner saw fit to again raise the question of the Society undertaking research, writing to the Chairman, Robert Garrett, and saying that there appeared to have been a substantial change of policy in recent years. He claimed that there had been a lengthy correspondence between his predecessor, the then Garter King of Arms, and the promoters of the Society at the time of its foundation. Garter and the College were, he said, unhappy about certain things then proposed and secured modifications to the proposed Articles of Association which enabled the College to support the Society. Wagner expressed himself as 'far from happy' on two fronts, saying that it was doubtful that 'this activity' was covered by the Society's Articles and might affect the Society's tax position, and secondly that, 'in a most undesirable way', it put the Society into competition with those of its members who were professional genealogists.
Robert Garrett had denied that there had been any substantial change of policy over at any rate the last ten years and wrote: "From 1946-53 the records would appear to indicate that research was probably limited to the Society's own library, either on behalf of members or non-members (the latter paying a higher fee than the former). From 1954 onwards, however, research was carried out both in the Society's collections and elsewhere. In practice however, outside research was usually limited to work that could be done at the Public Record Office, Somerset House and the various other repositories of records in the London area. When these were exhausted and the hunt led elsewhere, the enquirer was usually left to make further arrangements himself, although the Society was always ready to put him in touch with searchers on its lists or to supply the addresses of the local record offices, incumbents, etc. There was a break in these arrangements in 1960 when the Committee decided that temporarily no more research would be taken on for non-members. This was principally due to the lack of personnel to handle such matters and the need to use the limited resources we then had to mop up the backlog of cases still outstanding. In 1961 with the appointment of a new Secretary with genealogical experience, research on behalf of members and non-members was resumed and continues. If research now has to be done outside London it is farmed out to a local agent but the general guidance and control remains with the Director of Research".
Garrett explained the changes to the staffing arrangements in 1962, saying that the creation of the post of Director of Research did not imply that the Society could or would necessarily take on any more research than it had done in the past, although it was hoped that it would be carried out in a more efficient and business-like manner. He added that for the last year the Treasurer had been producing a separate financial statement dealing with the work of the Research Department, so that the Committee should always know if research was paying its way and, more important still, that output was keeping pace with enquiries coming in, and that no dangerous backlog was building up which could prove an embarrassment to the Society. He added that in addition to supplying a useful supplement to the Society's somewhat exiguous income, it was found that membership was encouraged by the Society undertaking investigations [2127]. There was more than enough genealogical work to go round and it was often difficult to get enquiries dealt with competently and promptly [2128].
I wrote to Garrett saying that his first letter was a perfectly frank and certainly correct statement, so far as I was aware, of the research position over the last ten years [2129]. Thinking of my own position I was anxious to get the matter cleared up [2130]. Wagner, however, was obviously concerned at the possibility of research money being deflected from the College of Arms and continued to press his points and the solicitor, Douglas Gabriel, had once more to be consulted about tax and the Articles. He, it seems, thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie. My personal friendship with Anthony Wagner was, however, as a result at a pretty low ebb.
Although I had an extremely cordial relationship with the new Secretary, Cecil Mackay, and the other members of staff, the stresses and strains of that first year, with Blake always in the background and so many things that needed doing, all took their toll. My keeping very irregular hours probably did not help. I was lodging at Golders Green during the week and returning to Walkern at the weekends. Anyhow from mid-June 1963 I was quite unwell for two months at Walkern. I had an amusing letter from Barbara Scrope, Cecil Mackay's assistant, to say that they were coping well and that at the most recent meeting of the Committee 'the Air Force' (i.e. my friend the Air Chief Marshal) had 'effectively squashed poor Mr Nicholson every time he started a new hare'. Nicholson was not that squashed, however, that he did not toil all the way out to Walkern by train and bus and return again later with Jack (‘Dicky’) Bird to see me ('Nicky and Dicky' as she described them); Cecil herself was in Munich buying a hausfrau hat with which, she said, to terrify the Annual Meeting [2131].
I had inherited from Philip Blake the research assistant George Eglesfield (1898-1975) and he looked after my mail whilst I was away. They sent down the cover of my new Wills and their whereabouts, published during my absence, and W. S. B. Buck's daughter, Pamela, and Erica MacFadyen came forward to help with the research, which was very necessary as my problems dragged on into August. I got back to find that as a result of some misunderstanding about the fees charged to day-searchers a short note had appeared in the magazine Woman's Own (in reply to someone asking ‘How do I go about finding out something about my family tree?’) saying that for a fee of two guineas the Society would make ‘a one-day search among its six million records, and give a preliminary report to help you decide whether it’s worth going on’! Many dozens of letters and cheques poured in and the money in most cases had to be refunded [2132] our charges at this time being £6 a day, though a little business did come our way as a result [2133].
For almost ten years until he retired early in 1969, George Eglesfield gave regular daily assistance in the Research Department. He had earlier worked in the Post Office and on retirement had been a volunteer in the Society's rooms, having joined the Society in 1954. He was recruited for research by Philip Blake and in his first years, when needed, had gone to the General Register Office and the Public Record Office and occasionally out to consult original registers 'in the field', but he developed an unrivalled expertise in the Society's collections [2134]. He was a patient, careful worker and his helpful presence throughout the period of Blake's 'troubles' did much to add stability to the Society. His place was never really filled and I found that I did many more of the internal searches than previously.
Another recruit of Philip Blake was Alan William Rolfe (1908-2005) who took on a limited number of London cases, at which he excelled, and who for the next thirty-six years came weekly on Mondays to discuss his findings or to bring his carefully typed reports and pedigrees. Alan Rolfe, who had joined the Society in 1960, was an established character actor with a solid office training. As a professional London guide he had an intimate knowledge of its streets and churches and this had been further developed by his own family research. An amusing raconteur and a splendid letter writer he waged an unceasing war with the Registrar General about the department’s inadequacies. Alan Rolfe was for all those years a mainstay of the research department and a delight to work with, reliable and painstaking in everything he did [2135].
We also had the occasional assistance of some members of the Executive Committee, in particular of Robert Garrett who liked to take on major early searches. In addition the former Secretary, John Phillips, towards the end of 1962 and for some years thereafter worked for me during his lunch hours and on Saturday mornings. Further assistance with searches at the General Register Office and in the Census came from a series of students working in their long vacations, initially recommended by Peter Spufford when at Cambridge University and then others when he went as a lecturer to the University of North Staffordshire. One of the latter, Stella Colwell, came first in 1965, and appeared to hate every minute of the work, continually complaining, but she surprisingly returned the following year and then became a searcher at the College of Arms, writing ‘eulogistically’ about me to Peter! [2136].
In 1965 it was reported that the Research Department had dealt with 410 cases including 115 for members of the Society. Of these, 169 came from enquirers in the British Isles, 140 from America, 41 from Australia, 25 from Canada, and the remainder from 17 other countries. That year apart from the usual straightforward work on pedigrees the work had ranged from the identification of American immigrants and Arms on furniture, and from work for the Medical Research Council to legal and biographical research [2137]. In 1966 the work of the Department ranged from the identification of arms on antique furniture and other objects and of subscribers to the 1742 edition of Chippendale’s Director for a local antique dealer and on the biographies of former members of the Port of Bristol Authority, to work on a Peerage Claim and, as the Annual Report said on the pedigrees of ‘a well-known group of Pop singers’ [2138]. For some time a member with many friends at the Society and an excellent typist (particularly of very large pedigrees), Bridget Lakin, had been helping in the Research Department, and her greatly appreciated assistance continued for some years.
The Peerage Claim involved the obtaining of certificates of events abroad (no charge being made for the time involved) to prove that Frederick Hobart-Hampden, a former corporation gardener, was rightfully 9th Earl of Buckinghamshire, he being a distant cousin of the previous Earl who had died unmarried in 1963. In this case the family of the intervening Admiral Augustus Hobart-Hampden (died 1886), known as ‘Hobart Pasha’, had to be proved extinct. The new Earl himself died without issue in 1983 and was succeeded by another distant cousin, a pension consultant in the City.
The reference to ‘a well-known group of Pop singers’ was to the Beatles and to the work which they had commissioned after hearing the fourteenth Earl of Hume’s jibe about the fourteenth Mr Wilson, and wondering if they were the fourteenth of their name. We shared out the work and Bridget Lakin, Alan Rolfe, John Phillips and I each took one family to work upon. The research was not easy, taking us from Lancashire into north Wales, the Isle of Man and Ireland, and the results were not particularly rewarding. Meanwhile Achievements Ltd at Canterbury had produced an attractive Up the Beatles’ Family Tree (1966) illustrated by John Bainbridge, but showing only the first few generations in each ancestral line. Some years earlier I had worked for a television company which had offered the prize of a pedigree to the winner of one of its competition, and had learned then that this was not always a good idea, the expectations aroused being quite unrealistic!
In 1967 we said that the research had been of a wide range and included some interesting work on the Romantic authors, Eleanor Sleath and Janetta Norwebb [2139]. In 1970 we mentioned work on the biographies of some eighteenth century painters (in the circle of Samuel Scott), the relations of Matthew Boulton and the descendants of the British participants in the Greek War of Independence [2140]. I particularly remember the research on Matthew Boulton for Eric Delieb, the author of The Great Silver Manufactory (1971), a lavishly and beautifully illustrated book in which the 'fine pedigrees' were mentioned in a review in our Magazine [2141]. In 1969 we set out a pedigree of the characters in a historical novel for the end-papers of a well known novelist’s latest work and in 1971 we claimed a small record when reuniting childhood friends who had last met in 1907 [2142]. There were infrequent trips out for research and I particularly remember those to Edinburgh in 1964 for work on a large family of coalminers and to Bath in 1970 in connection with the biography of Samuel Scott.
Something else that I inherited from Philip Blake was a large correspondence with officials in England and Africa in connection with a proposed Register of British Graves in Africa, the idea for which had been suggested in 1961 by Kenneth Vaughan Elphinstone, formerly Resident in Northern Nigeria, and which had been taken up with the Colonial Office. The suggestion had been seized upon by Blake with an eye to future publication [2143], but it unfortunately needed much more time than we were able to give to it. However, correspondence on it continued into 1965 [2144] and some useful material was collected from Basutoland, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Nyasaland, Sierra Leone and Uganda which was eventually sorted out by Lydia Collins, bound and passed to the Library in 1982 [2145].
On 2-4 July 1965 I lectured at one of the first weekend courses on genealogy to be sponsored by a local education committee in England, ‘Trace Your Ancestors’, held at the beautifully situated neo-Gothic Missenden Abbey in Buckinghamshire [2146]. Organised by the Warden, G. Talbot Griffith, J.P., the opening talk was by Cyril Hankinson of Debrett’s Peerage, the other speakers including the local County Archivist, E. J. Davis, Dr W. O. Hassall from the Bodleian Library, and K. R. Hedderly from the General Register Office. On the Saturday afternoon a coach brought us to Harrington Gardens for a tour of the Society’s library and tea hosted by Cecil Mackay.
Between March and June 1969 I had the very able assistance in the research department of Alan Roger Dickins, of Horsham, then training to be a Solicitor (he was from 1986 a Research Assistant at the College of Arms and appointed Arundel Herald Extraordinary in 1998) and then later that year I agreed with the professional genealogist Brian Brooks (whom I had got to know through the work of AGRA) to jointly employ a young man known to him, Raymond Vincent Foster, of Ruislip, to undertake searches at the General Register Office and Public Record Office. Raymond first came to the Society for a batch of cases on 10 October and then came regularly about every two weeks to report progress. He proved a very careful and painstaking worker and remained with the Society for fifteen years.
A volunteer who knew the library well was the Australian member Joan Mary Masters who in 1967 did a search through the whole of the Apprentice Registers at the PRO 1774-1810 for five surnames making extensive notes from the 26 volumes involved. She then helped in the research department for very small payments until May 1973 and her particular dedication to the great PCC Wills project described below, on which she spent many patient hours, was greatly missed. Less research was then done and qualified assistance was difficult to obtain, but the number of searches made at reduced rates for members then increased [2148].
One great help in these years was the Accountant, Herbert F. C. Chadband (1908-1984), who came to work at the Society in September 1961 and remained with us until he retired in 1976, a painstaking and pleasant man who never seemed to take time to eat, but who worked extremely well with the Honorary Treasurers, Arthur Noble and Arnold Hawker. As mentioned elsewhere Herbert Chadband played a major part in the acquisition of the freehold of the building and Arthur Noble, when retiring as Treasurer in 1971, paid warm tribute to him at the Annual Meeting. Arthur Noble had himself served as Honorary Treasurer for ten years since 1961, a period in which the income had never failed to exceed expenditure and he had overseen the acquisition of the freehold with all its related problems and uncertainties [2149]. He was never seen without his pipe and at the Annual Meeting he was presented with a bunch of flowers and a pound of pipe tobacco [2150]. Arnold Hawker, who succeeded Noble in 1971 and served until 1980, was another highly conscientious and competent businessman who, like Noble, visited us every week and took great interest in the welfare of the staff and, as mentioned, introduced the pension scheme in 1974.
A visitor who came first in 1967 and then regularly until his death in 1994 and whom I remember with particular affection was the extraordinary Devendra P. Varma (1923-1994), Professor of English and Gothic Romance Literature at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He had made a name for himself with his book The Gothic Flame: being a history of the Gothic novel in England (1957) and he spent the remainder of his active life in discovering and re-editing these long-forgotten and excessively rare works. In 1967 he was editing the seven ‘horrid novels’ recommended by Isabella Thorpe to Catherine Morland in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and I helped to try to identify the author of one of them, Eleanor Sleath who had written The orphan of the Rhine (1798). The seven were published as a set by the Folio Press and Dr Varma, a great Anglophyle, dedicated a specially bound first set to the Queen as ‘Most Gracious Sovereign of The Blessed Land of Exquisite Jane Austen’. His first book had been dedicated to Prime Minister Nehru in India and he now asked me to give a set to Lord Mountbatten, hoping that he might obtain permission to dedicate his next book to him, but Lord Mountbatten who, as he admitted, was ‘not a great reader of the classics’, passed the set to his son-in-law Lord Brabourne who was related to Jane Austen. The number of Varma’s publications grew apace. In 1972 he published a major work on circulating libraries, The evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge. The following year he was particularly pleased when I managed to get him two interviews with Lord Clark (1903-1983) the author of The Gothic Revival (1928). In 1976 he gave his ‘Gothic friend in England’, as he called me, his beautiful edition of Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and then in 1987 a set of Mrs Ann Radcliffe’s novels which he had dedicated to Princess Diana, followed in 1988 by his Voices from the vaults: authentic tales of vampires and ghosts, and in 1991 a collection of William Beckford’s poetry, The transient gleam. Widely travelled, his command of gothic English made him a most popular speaker but he sadly died suddenly at the end of a lecture tour in America in October 1994.
One day in December 1969 I opened, with some curiosity, a letter addressed to a former owner of 37 Harrington Gardens, Gwyn Vaughan-Morgan, who had died in 1945, and was amused to find that it was from three college students in De Land, Florida, who were in the process of restoring a Rolls-Royce Saloon which Vaughan-Morgan had bought in 1936. They were intent on finding something of the car's story. I sent them the history of the house which I had compiled for the appeal the previous year and later, with the chassis number and the help of Rolls Royce and Hooper Motor Services, was able to tell them that the car had been exhibited by Hooper's at the Motor Show at Olympia in 1936 and bought by Glyn Vaughan-Morgan for £1,827-3-6.
The publication in three volumes over seven years (1965, 1969 and 1972) of the new eighteenth edition of Burke's Landed Gentry, the first since that edited by Pine in 1952, did much to inspire prospective entrants to brush-up their pedigrees and the Society helped some to this end. Two thousand families were covered, including a good number of new entrants [2151], the basic criterion now being ‘an authentic, full and reasonably antique genealogy that would be of genuine interest to those outside the family itself,’ past or present ownership of land being of ‘considerable importance’ and registered arms ‘an advantage’ [2152]. Peter Townend, who edited the first two volumes, paid tribute to the assistance of David Williamson (1927-2003), who had helped with the 1952 edition [2153], and to Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd (1946-2007), his assistant since 1968. However, just prior to the appearance of the third volume in 1972, Townend was replaced as Editor by the latter, then aged twenty-six [2154]. The two had not worked well together, Townend’s gushing manner and his obsession with ‘titled-folk’ contrasting with the introverted and immature Montgomery-Massingberd’s hatred for the social scene and his obsession with the landed gentry. Montgomery-Massingberd had been to Harrow School, but was surprisingly unable to type. When his landlady in Chelsea invited the shy Sir Anthony Wagner to dinner and she asked, ‘are you going to give this clever young man a job?’, Wagner replied coldly, ‘He would need to be clever enough to have a good university degree’ [2155]. Montgomery-Massingberd’s bete noire Peter Townend, who had successfully produced three editions of the Peerage, concentrated then on his work as social editor of Tatler with which he had already been involved for three years.
Montgomery-Massingberd’s projected ‘New Genealogical Series’ optimistically envisaged triennially published Peerages and Baronetages, a Landed Gentry in regional volumes, revised Dormant and Extinct Peerages, a Guide to the Royal Family, a work on the Presidential Families of America and a Guide to Country Houses [2156]. Not all appeared and the New Extinct Peerage, surprisingly edited by Leslie Pine, was published, not by Burke’s but by the bookshop Heraldry Today, in December 1972 [2157].
Montgomery-Masssingberd was at that time reported as saying that he had ‘escaped from the prevalent amateur genealogist’s megalomania by becoming interested in other families beside his own’ [2158]. Such familes, as befitted the later ‘Massivesnob’ of Private Eye, came, of course, entirely from his own class. Interviewed after ten years editorial work with Burke’s in 1977, he named a few of the problems encountered with contributors as, ‘suppression of facts, overweening vanity, folie de grandeur, the obsession that one’s own family is the only pedigree of any significance among the 20,000 or so published’, ‘whitewash and eyewash’ being, as he put it, the staple diet that many families wished to see included. He admitted that the arbitrary selection of families for the Landed Gentry had caused most problems and he had found that ‘to accuse someone of not being armigerous is tantamount to questioning his virility’. He concluded that ‘Genealogy attracts more than its fair share of lunatics and I am always being pestered by those who have least to contribute and not hearing nearly enough from the people who have most’. Work on Presidential Families of the USA in 1975 had attracted innumerable false claims and that on the first volume of the Royal Families of the World in 1977 had been ‘constantly disturbed by sabre-rattling threats of legal action, excitable noises, obsessive ramblings and generally tiresome behaviour’ [2159]. Such, however, is the world of genealogy.
Those who owned or financed Burke’s at this time have been rightly criticised by Hugo Vickers as ‘seldom inspired by true love of the science of genealogy’, the staff being ill paid and the costs sometimes considerable. The author’s corrections to the proofs of the important Burke’s Irish Family Records (1976, reprinted 2007), which owed much to the labours of Charles Kidd, Mark Bence-Jones and David Williamson, amounted to £38,000 [2160]. Importantly, however, a revised edition of the peerage itself was delayed and in January 1980 its rights were sold to a separate company. The proprietors of that company, Burke’s Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, decided to issue a fourth reprint of Townend’s last 1970 edition, taking nearly £30,000 from potential advertisers therein (at £784 a page) who believed that this was a new edition whereas, as an advertisement in the Genealogists’ Magazine had said, the family histories had not been revised since 1969-70 though ‘the successions, extinctions and new creations’ were to be included up to July 1980 [2161]. The aggressive marketing and lack of clarity led to much unfavourable press publicity [2162] and a court action in 1982 [2163], but now following the fragmentation of the original company, Montgomery-Massingberd resigned from Burke in 1983. He was appointed obituaries editor to The Daily Telegraph three years later and there for the next eight years, as Hugh Massingberd, ‘he found the perfect fulfilment for his gifts’ [2164].
An extreme example of the problems that he had faced shows that little changes. Charles Spencer’s The Spencer Family (1999) suggested that his family, which first emerged from obscurity as wealthy graziers towards the end of the fifteenth century, actually descended from Robert Despencer, steward to William the Conqueror, a concoction that even as long ago as 1916 the worthy editors of the Complete Peerage had thought was ‘now incapable of deceiving the most credulous’.
Late in 1976 for the centenary of the St John Ambulance Association a lavish Grand Gala Cabaret was held at the Talk of the Town on 13 December and attended by a remarkable number of crowned heads and other royalty [2165]. The programme was televised and I was asked by the TV Times to draw out a pedigree which they published showing the photographs and relationships of the twenty-one living European heads and claimants who all descended from Frederick V the Elector Palatine and King of Bohemia who died in 1632.
At the other end of the social scale I did a little research in the Kingston, Surrey, Poor Law records for Ralph Atherton (who worked at the UK Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell) and his important article, 'Beyond the Workhouse: an Edwardian mystery', which appeared in 1973 and showed for the first time the problems that can sometimes be associated with the tracing of a modern family, he not then being able to trace his family beyond 1906 [2166]. The publicity that the article gave revealed further astonishing secrets and should have convinced everyone, as the editors wrote, that in genealogy nothing can ever be taken for granted [2167].
Bogus claimants to titles of every description were not uncommon but Margaret Dorothy Butler, born in 1899, claimed to have been switched over 'in the cradle' with the later King George VI (born in 1895), and, conveniently overlooking various points, was thus rightfully Queen of England [2168]. I am not sure if this was the same lady but a 'rightful Queen of England', wearing a faded light green coat with a white fur collar, was at this time to be seen in the Department of Literary Enquiry at Somerset House day after day reading the registered wills of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.
Perhaps as a result of an interview which appeared in the New York Times [2169] and was syndicated in a great number of American newspapers in January 1974, I appeared in four radio programmes, being interviewed by William Hardcastle in ‘PM’ on 23 January; answering questions for half-an-hour on a live phone-in hosted by Dennis Rookard, on 31 January; talking for fifty minutes with Donald Steel and Lawrence Taylor and a group of school-children about family history in schools on ‘Shindig’ on 9 February; and being interviewed by Jane Finnis in ‘You and Yours’ on 27 May, the latter in a feature ‘Back to the Apes’!
As the work of the Society became better known requests to speak on the subject became more frequent. With the creation of the local family history societies in the 1970s the number of talks became a major feature of my work. It meant that one had to keep up-to-date with the developments and practicalities of research in the major repositories but the practical experience of research in these places had an added value and was particularly useful when lobbying about them.
However, I had a growing unease about taking on some types of research, particularly that for the ancestry here of emigrants to America when their places of origin were not known, as was most frequently the case. That concern was, I hope, reflected in the form letters which were sent out in their thousands, but I have little doubt that other genealogists seized on such cases and cheerfully accepted funds from overseas clients. Whether the majority of these clients had any idea of the limitations of the surviving records it is difficult to say, but the lack of real possibilities became a regular theme of my articles and later of my talks in America. I doubt, however, that I made the slightest difference for I frequently heard complaints that the professional had merely duplicated work that had already been done (probably, I fear, because the client had given no proper account of it).
As mentioned below, it was some years until we put out a leaflet on this latter subject, but as already indicated the problems of Americans coming to the British Isles to do research without having done their ‘home work’ on their emigrant ancestor’s place of origin was something that the library staff had daily to deal with. I am not sure that this was the first but in 1969 the P & O Line advertised that the Oriana, sailing from San Francisco to England on 4 June, would have on board Mrs Nadine Shields, who, equipped with eighty-feet of genealogical reference books, was offering to provide such persons a head start before they began delving into British records [2170].
In the early days of the Society the regulations about election to Fellowship were minimal. There was no proposal form for new Fellows and the names of candidates were put forward and discussed at the meetings of current Fellows, but attendance was often, as now and always, very small indeed. Some members were elected Fellows when only three or four people were present.
With the growth of the Society and the involvement of new people (membership passed the two thousand mark in 1963) I became anxious that the Fellowship should reflect the best of their work and in March 1963 I wrote to Cregoe Nicholson, who had acted as Chairman at the last Fellows' Meeting, listing twenty-nine people whom I thought were worthy of Fellowship [2171]. At their meeting on 4 April they elected eleven Fellows [2172], eight of whom were on my list.
As the Fellows have no powers other than the election of further Fellows they have always spent a good deal of time arguing about their self-imposed rules, but as we have seen, because of the wording of the Articles, the rules adopted at one meeting might be dispensed with at the next. After involving myself in their meetings I began to take an interest in the Fellowship as a whole and attempted to make it more representative and to have candidates properly vetted by a steering committee, but of course that was quite unacceptable to those (like Donald Steel, one of my twenty-nine names!) who always knew better!
After 1963 the Fellows did not meet for a while and it was not until a meeting on 23 July 1968, when concern was expressed that their number had again dwindled to forty-nine, that we got them to adopt some basic rules and have annual meetings. These rules, drafted by Jack Bird, John Blight and Jeremy Gibson and giving useful guidance on the reasons for which Fellowship might be awarded (making it clear that it was not a certificate of professional competence), were adopted at another meeting on 8 January 1969. Only nine Fellows attended the meeting, with Mrs Mackay and me in attendance [2173]. Later that year on 2 July 1969 of the twenty-one new Fellows proposed, nineteen were elected, though Gerald Hamilton-Edwards again raised 'the functions' of the Fellows and, refusing to accept that they had none, said that he would write a memorandum on the subject, and, of course, 'some dissatisfaction was expressed' with 'the present system of election' [2174].
By force of habit the rules adopted were not always adhered to and the recommendations of the steering committee appointed in January 1969 were disputed. In 1970 Donald Steel proposed that the election be by proportional representation rather than the simple majority required by the Articles and Gerald Hamilton-Edwards raised the question of the eligibility of the staff for Fellowship [2175] which, in turn, raised the matter of their being members of the Society in the first place (with the right to speak at Annual Meetings), a long disputed matter. In 1971 it was agreed that any objections to the candidates should be forwarded to the steering committee who would take them up with the proposers and seconders (at this time the proposal forms were being circulated in advance and elections took place at the meetings) [2176] but this immediately brought some Fellows into conflict with the Steering Committee. In 1973 that Committee invited the members at large to put forward names for possible consideration though any formal proposals would still have to be made by the Fellows themselves [2177]. Later that year the veto of the steering committee on some nominations was challenged (by Donald Steel) and set aside and a further self-inflicted rule that nominations had to be made two months in advance of a formal meeting was questioned [2178]. At a meeting in November 1973 at which thirteen Fellows were present it was agreed that a quorum should be seven and that nominations could be received at any time except for the six weeks immediately preceding a Fellows’ meeting. It elected three of the four names about whom details had been circulated but rejected the fourth on the grounds of ‘insufficient evidence’ [2179]. In June 1974 it was reported that the steering committee had resigned and was now suspended [2180].
At the request of the Executive Committee the first full list of Fellows for some years, with the dates of their election, so that they might be better known, was printed in the Magazine in 1976. There were eighty-seven, the name of Thomas Woodard being accidentally omitted [2181]. The list was repeated in March 1978 when there were 90 names [2182].
At a meeting of the Fellows in January 1978 there was some discussion about the ways in which the Fellows 'could initiate and assist with genealogical projects' and the then Chairman, David Hawkings, with Alice Stanley and Robert Massey agreed to try to organise voluntary workers. They also noted that, as they were to meet on Saturday afternoons, they needed a Secretary [2183]. At further Meetings that year they agreed to award an annual prize for the best genealogical work compiled by a Member of the Society, Fellows and professionals being excluded, intending to present the first prize at the Annual Meeting in 1980, and they discussed the possibility of filling the gap in the PCC will indexes 1701-1749 and appealed for further volunteers [2184]. At the Meeting in September, Alan Reed agreed to act as their Secretary [2185]. In March 1979 the Fellows continued to discuss projects and a possible prize [2186] but three months later they agreed not to consider further the establishment of a prize fund (the raising of money was never their strong point), though there was support for a special prize for volunteers [2187]. As fellowship was itself 'a special prize for volunteers' and those Fellows who were inclined to volunteer were already volunteering, these meetings were to me little more than an annoying waste of time.
It was not until the complete re-drafting of the Articles later that year (1979) that the Fellows were forced to adopt Standing Orders which, in theory, they could not tinker with. However, they continued to invent rules and to look for roles for which they were never intended, usually driven at the whim of one forceful newly elected Fellow or another. Fellowship is an honour. The only role of the Fellows collectively is to elect other Fellows. In this they have failed and the fact that they have for years been quite unrepresentative of that which is best in the Society seems sadly to have escaped their notice.
Although Fellowship is not a certificate of professional competence, the membership and world at large generally assumes that it is. The 1979 Articles tried to clarify the position by saying that members of at least five years' standing could be elected to Fellowship 'having rendered distinguished services to the Society or to genealogy'. The total number was then limited to 100 or such other number as might be prescribed in newly introduced General Regulations. These new Articles also allowed for the election of up to ten Honorary Fellows 'for their very distinguished services to genealogy'. Honorary Fellows, who did not need to be Members of the Society, received all the privileges of life membership without liability. Nominations for both classes of Fellow were to be received by 1 May and signed by four existing Fellows. Election required a total of votes from not less than one quarter of those eligible to vote and not less than two thirds of those voting. Fellows were allowed to use the letters 'FSG.' or 'FSG(Hon)' after their names but no Member or Fellow, as the Articles said, 'shall use the fact of Membership or Fellowship to imply competence or proficiency in genealogical or associated skills nor to derive professional or financial advantage' [2188].
The latter restriction caused me much trouble. I took it to mean that a member could not say that he or she was 'FSG' in an advertisement and as a result - prompted by other professionals who were not Fellows - I was frequently obliged to write to professional genealogists pointing out the error of their ways. When they had gone to the expense of printing 'FSG' on their writing paper their reactions were not always pleasant. I took particular exception to professionals, however competent, who spelled out the words 'Fellow of the Society of Genealogists' in advertisements, considering this a blatant breach of the spirit of the rule but again I did not always win the day.
As Fellowship is merely a class of membership, another problem is caused by those Fellows who resign their membership but continue to use the letters 'FSG' after their names. Dr Thomson, a Fellow who allowed his membership to lapse in 1938, became a Life-Member in 1958, and was re-elected to Fellowship in 1974. One particular Fellow who lapsed and some years later re-joined, apparently so that he could mention his Fellowship in a forthcoming book, found that he had to be elected to Fellowship again and some of his fellow Fellows were not at all keen on that idea.
In March 1963 the famous bookshop W. & G. Foyle Ltd in Charing Cross Road asked me to write for their Foyle's Handbooks series a little book called Tracing Your Ancestors and I naturally jumped at the chance, mainly because there was a payment of £125, though that was for the world rights, something that I later rather regretted. There were over two hundred handbooks in the series, edited by Christina Foyle (1911-1999). I received my first copies on 12 May 1964 and the book sold at four shillings.
I never knew the exact number sold but the first two printings were each for three thousand copies and the book was generally considered a great success. In a review in the Magazine, Arthur Willis said that 'this book gives a clear indication of what to look for and is excellent value for money' [2189]. Cecil Humphery-Smith called it 'quite well written' but an 'unnecessary publication' [2190] whereas Peter Spufford thought it ‘beautifully written’ [2191] and Claire Evans, who wrote the pedigree which I used on the cover, wrote that the 'wording is so simple and friendly - it carries one on - and the content is so worthwhile. It's just the book for a beginner'. Cregoe Nicholson admonished me, saying 'you should not give all your knowledge away'. It was reprinted in 1966, revised in 1970, and reprinted in 1972 and 1979, selling thousands of copies. By then of course it was quite out of date, but I having sold the rights there was nothing that I could do about that.
The book did a great deal to publicise the Society and I was particularly interested in the comments of the Belgian genealogist and demographer, Joseph Jacquart (1892-1969), in a review in the newspaper Le Phare Dimanche. He wrote that modern genealogical manuals were rare in England, where the majority of genealogists were, he thought, in spite of Christina Foyle's statement in the preface of my book that "'ancestor hunting' is popular at all levels of society", still bogged down in 'pure' genealogy and medieval heraldry [2192]. That was not altogether true, as the 1961 exhibition had shown, but the 1960s certainly marked a considerable watershed in the development of the subject, though the demography that interested Joseph Jacquart, who had written La Genealogie Moderne [2193] was, in England at least, still some years away.
With the industrious John Sims as Librarian, between February 1962 and August 1965, a more active programme of publications was commenced. The practical Cecil Mackay greatly enjoyed the work involved: cutting stencils, duplicating and collating pages, designing covers, stapling them together with an enormous long-arm stapler, and finishing them off with coloured binding tape, all on the large office table.
Percival Boyd's old list of the parishes covered by his marriage index, A marriage index on a new plan, published in 1928 and with various supplementary pages, had for many years been far from complete, and with the addition of the Second Miscellaneous Series and the Gloucestershire volumes typed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, was now desperately in need of revision. I went over the various lists as far as they could be found and early in 1963 we published my second edition, revised and enlarged, called A Key to Boyd's Marriage Index. It was produced by Cecil Mackay from stencils, for 5s 6d post-paid, and had at my suggestion a cover design of emblematic intertwined serpents taken from the sixteenth century marriage register of Stevenage in Hertfordshire.
As further information came to light, particularly following the production from Boyd's notebooks by Frank Smith (1917-1990) in Salt Lake City, of a list of the parishes covered by the Second Miscellaneous Series, the book went through a surprising number of reprints, with new editions as A list of parishes in Boyd's Marriage Index in 1974, 1980, 1984 and 1987, the later ones owing much to the careful checking of Edith Pritchard. From the 1974 edition by Robert Wood Massey (1917-1985) they also contained details of the parishes covered by the marriage indexes of Eric Archer Roe (died 1977) for Gloucestershire, Reginald Churchill Couzens (1889-1974) for Oxfordshire, 1537-1837, and John Alan Readdie for Northumberland, 1813-1837 [2194].
In view of the dreadful delays with the National Index, John Sims produced in October 1963 a new edition of the Catalogue of Parish Register Copies in the possession of the Society of Genealogists (10s 6d post-paid) [2195] which was again the product of Cecil Mackay's typing, duplicating and binding skills. He saw it as filling the gap until the National Index, 'now nearing completion', was ready and we hoped that it would be the first step towards publishing a complete catalogue of the library [2196]. In fact it had a flourishing life of its own, going through many eagerly awaited new editions in 1968 (when it was duplicated for us by Mr D. C. Avondale Kimberley assisted by Kenneth Walker) [2197] in 1970 (with updated impressions in 1972 and 1975), 1978, 1980 (edited by Edith Pritchard and the first of the Society’s publications to be revised using the text of a previous edition composed on a memory typewriter), 1983, 1985, 1987 and 1991, but not since revised, the last two re-arranged by county for greater usefulness and ease of revision, its extraction in that form being one of the first products of my newly learned computer skills.
These new publications were warmly welcomed by the members and Richard H. G. Leveson-Gower (1894-1982), a member of 35 years' standing, mentioned them at the Annual Meeting in 1964, when Gerald Hamilton-Edwards said that he was glad to see such use made of the duplicator with 'two inexpensive and well-produced catalogues during the past year', he unrealistically suggesting that the index to PCC wills 1720-25 be produced in the same way [2198].
As noted elsewhere John Sims had also started a simple shelf-numbering system for the Library and he had completed the county shelves in 1963, going on to do the Schools, Irish, Welsh, Wills and Marriage Licences sections in 1964 [2199] and continuing in 1965 [2200]. Considerable amounts of binding and re-binding were also taking place, Charles Southcombe continuing to assist. Sims’s work on the county shelves enabled him to produce the basic A catalogue of Directories and Poll Books in the possession of the Society of Genealogists (1964) which sold for 4s 6d post-paid, and was again typed and duplicated by Cecil Mackay. This was revised by Lawson Edwards ten years later (1974) [2201] and again by him in 1979 (being typed by Christine Gerken) [2202], 1984 and 1989, and by Nicholas Newington-Irving in 1995.
My frustrations with the arrangement of the Document Collection came to a head in late 1963 [2203], when working over one Bank Holiday weekend, I commenced a scheme to integrate the various overflow files into the main series, having bought new boxes to take the place of the dusty webbing-strapped and string-tied parcels, the webbing straps having the added hazard of sharp rusting buckles. This re-organisation and re-classification of the whole series of files took much longer than I had expected but in April 1964 the kindly volunteer William Stucley Beresford Buck (1903-1966) [2204] came to my assistance. He had joined the Society in 1955 when an Administrative Officer in Sarawak and after his retirement in 1957 lived nearby in Coleherne Court, often helping about the library [2205]. He completed the re-arrangement of the Document Collection in January 1965 and as a bye-product compiled A list of names in the Document Collection of the Society of Genealogists, another duplicated text, which we published that year at 12s 6d post-paid. Although the files were in alphabetical order he had amused himself by starting many boxes with unusual and staff surnames and these labels remained unaltered for many years and always reminded me of this dear man and his labours.
Buck also undertook the transcription of the large first volume of the Frome Selwood parish registers, compiling and 'delineating' from it his Examples of English Handwriting 1550-1650, and giving the manuscript to the Society in 1965 [2206]. This we advertised as An alphabet of the sixteenth century but published in its original title in 1966 at 12s 6d [2207]. It was a bestseller that also went through several editions [2208]. Buck’s early death on 20 May 1966 was a great blow to his many friends at the Society for he was an extremely hard worker and had also commenced the daunting transcription from microfilm of the Winchester will calendars that Archibald Colliard had borrowed and which Florence Eva ‘May’ Toop (1907-1984), another volunteer who lived locally, eventually completed.
Buck also encouraged the idea of a members' necktie, something that Lord Mountbatten had suggested at the Annual Meeting in 1964, and in March 1965 Cecil Mackay produced a circular saying that it would have 'a discreet design of trees and shields on a navy blue background', the likely cost being 15s 6d in terylene or £1-1-0 in silk, a minimum order of 400 being required. That proved impossibly optimistic and a further sixteen years passed before a tie was actually produced.
Also in 1964 Cecil Mackay thankfully persuaded the Executive Committee that several modern typewriters should be purchased (one had a 28” carriage for pedigree work) and at the same time a useful and profitable photocopying machine was acquired together with an ultra-violet lamp for reading faded manuscripts. This was not all. In view of continual problems with the Society's boiler, night-storage heaters were installed throughout the offices and library [2209]. Although not pretty, they contributed greatly to the warmth of the building (except in the evening, that is). Things were certainly improving on many fronts!
In January 1963 the Revd Godfrey R. W. Beaumont (1908-1977), then Rector of Teston in Kent, who had joined the Society in 1959 and was active in the transcription of parish registers in his area, had spoken to the Society about ‘Parish Registers and the Clergy’ and there was considerable interest in the subject at the time.
Later that year James R. Cunningham spoke on 'The genealogical work of the Latter-Day Saints' and his talk was published in the Magazine, he outlining the growth of the library in Salt Lake City and describing the Church's microfilming work [2210], some fifteen of its forty-three cameras operating outside the United States being located in the United Kingdom [2211]. At that time and early in 1964 there were discussions with the Genealogical Society of Utah about the possibility of acquiring for the Society some of the source material that they had microfilmed and agreement was reached that the GSU would provide copies of its films to the Society in exchange for the right to microfilm such of the Society's records as might be approved by the Executive Committee. The permissions of those bodies where filming had taken place would need to be obtained and the exchange would be on a reel-for-reel basis. The Society exempted parish registers from the agreement and gave due regard to questions of copyright and the views of donors where known. It had been agreed that a copy of the material filmed at the Society would also be made available, if required for deposit elsewhere, as a precaution against loss [2212]. At the AGM in June 1964 it was noted that the first instalment of the microfilms of the Bernau collection had been received and that the Latter-Day Saints were offering to give the Society a part of the microfilming that they were carrying out in other parts of the country [2213].
This was, of course, in the midst of the arguments about the Society's constitution and some members were much concerned that the extent of the microfilming might well diminish the value of the Society's library in the view of prospective members and also affect the Society's relationship with the Church of England in connection with the transcription of parish registers. John Blight, supported by six other members, attempted to oblige the Executive Committee to hold a public discussion of the matter by requisitioning an Extraordinary General Meeting of the members (Blight and I operating the Addressograph machine one evening in the library) but the Executive Committee considered the interference unjustified and the Chairman, Kingsley Adams, wrote to all the members of the Society just five days before the meeting was due to be held (on Saturday, 28 November 1964) saying that because two of the signatories had been persuaded to withdraw, the notice of the intended meeting was invalid [2214]. He had set out the Society’s intentions in detail, something he might just as well have done at the proposed meeting if there had been less ill-will on both sides. In any event a number of people came to the Society for the proposed meeting and the matter was discussed at some length. There was considerable apprehension that our relationship with the Church of England would be adversely affected by the agreement and that the uniqueness of the Society's collections, and thus its ability to attract new members, would be much diminished.
In the event Cecil Mackay told The Times that the Society had decided, to avoid controversy, that if microfilming were permitted, only secular records would be made available [2215], and that was the line that henceforward was normally taken. At the AGM the following year (15 July 1965) Douglas Gabriel again questioned the validity of the requisitioned meeting and Kingsley Adams said that its minutes would be considered when received [2216] but I do not think that any were ever prepared.
Meanwhile I had taken on the task of organising this microfilm exchange, theoretically with the assistance of a small sub-committee but in practice aided only by Robert Garrett. The Society allowed the filming of specific sections of the library, commencing with the Trinity House Petitions, in exchange, in the first place, for microfilms of the pre-1858 calendars of wills and administrations from some local courts, starting with those farthest from London. We were, of course, looking for things that would have a wide geographical coverage and interest. The positive copies of films taken at the Society were placed in the bank for safekeeping [2217]. Cecil Mackay, perhaps anxious to keep the members informed, put out a note about the exchange at the same time as appealing for transcribers of the most used films, particularly the will indexes which were proving very popular [2218], but this had little result, though May Toop, another volunteer who lived locally, was continuing Buck’s major plan to transcribe the calendars of the Winchester Court Wills [2219].
The first list of the films received, some 99 reels, appeared in the September 1965 Magazine, together with two further lists of the many films of Yorkshire parish registers received at that time, and of the films of early Virginia records given by Lewis Kirby (through Noel Currer-Briggs) [2220]. In 1968 we appealed for members with specialised knowledge of the Society's county holdings to go through the Library Catalogue from Salt Lake City, which had been given to us on microfilm, in order to suggest items that might form part of the exchange [2221]. Little came of that but Garrett and I continued to select items and in 1970 we received further local will calendars and the calendars of marriage licences issued by the Vicar General 1706-1839 and Faculty Office 1707-1845 of the Archbishop of Canterbury [2222] and in 1971 some useful mid-nineteenth century directories [2223]. In 1972, having received the highly important indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths in Scotland, 1855-1920, on 153 reels of microfilm in June [2224], we obtained 154 more containing the actual entries for the year 1855, unique and especially valuable for the amount of information then registered [2225]. Also in June we had received films of Sir William Betham's abstracts of the Prerogative Wills for Ireland and of some other Irish material. The loan of microfilms as well as books by the Society now became frequent. In 1973 we obtained, under the exchange, films of Gerish's copies of Hertfordshire monumental inscriptions (filmed in the British Library), Thorpe's Collection of Church Notes for Rochester diocese and a collection of Kentish pedigrees (from the Society of Antiquaries). A microfilm of the important Oxfordshire Marriage Index 1537-1837, initiated by Jeremy Gibson and slipped by Reginald Churchill Couzens (died 1974) [2226], was also received at this time and much used as a supplement to Boyd's Marriage Index [2227]. The slips had been sorted, typed and microfilmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah.
The availability of all this material was an enormous asset to the Society and undoubtedly helped to attract more members. In the event it had no adverse effect on our relationship with the Church of England, the exclusion of parish registers from the agreement having ensured that result.
Work on the National Index of Parish Registers had meanwhile been 'nearing completion'. The Annual Report for 1963 said that work had continued and it was hoped that it would be completed by the end of 1964 [2228]. The Report for 1964 said that the work 'has now been completed with the exception of the non-parochial registers, and the drafts of two counties are already with the printers awaiting estimates', tributes again being paid to Don Steel and his mother 'for their tremendous work' [2229].
However, in 1965 Donald Steel in yet another escalation of the initial idea of a National Index of Parish Registers began to circulate nonconformist chapels and other bodies and then to collect yet more information on marriage licences, regimental registers, pre-1837 newspapers, publishing societies, other local societies and bibliographies, for the introductions to each county. In April that year all Roman Catholic parishes were circulated for the first time, it being said that work on the Anglican registers was complete [2230]. Work on the marriage licences continued into 1966 when Steel was thinking in terms of a change of book title and I and others on the staff at the Society were driven to helping him to bring the thing to a conclusion [2231].
Only in January 1967, after the most unpleasant series of arguments within the Society, was the first group of six counties, 'South Midlands and the Welsh Border', completed and published in what was called volume five [2232]. Steel made the arrangements with the printers and saw it through the press, a cheap unjustified typeface being used which was copied in subsequent volumes. The Chairman of the Executive Committee, Charles Kingsley Adams, had applied to the Pilgrim Trust for funds with which to publish the series and the Trust had put an interest free loan of £4,000 at the Society's disposal in 1965 to cover the costs of typesetting, printing and binding. The material for the first two volumes was 'almost complete' and it was estimated that there would be ten volumes in all [2233]. I wrote a short article welcoming the arrival of this 'landmark' volume for the Magazine [2234].
Unfortunately, the situation was now further complicated by the unsatisfactory appointment of Phillimore & Co Ltd as the Society's publishers. That firm, after Malcolm Pinhorn sold out in 1966, was mainly in the ownership of Marc Fitch and had moved from Bridge Place, Canterbury, to Shopwyke Hall at Chichester in 1969, where it became much more active under the direction of Philip Harris (1930-2005) [2235] a forceful career publisher [2236] who had formerly worked for the Pergamon Press and the arrogant media tycoon Robert Maxwell (1923-1991). Later in 1969 Harris recruited the genealogist Charles Tucker to develop Phillimore’s moribund research department and the firm was appointed Publisher to the Society of Genealogists and took over the printing and distribution of the Magazine and of the Society's other publications [2237]. As is described below a period of almost total chaos ensued. Where the National Index was concerned Phillimore was unwilling to provide the capital and accept the risks of publication and the Pilgrim Trust money was made available to them through the Marc Fitch Fund which accepted the risk of Phillimore defaulting. The intention was that the loan would be repaid when sufficient revenue was available from sales. However, after a few years it became clear that in practice it represented an addition to Phillimore's capital assets for other purposes [2238]. That £4,000 loan was carried forward on the Society's books for many years but, with the heavy costs of the move to Charterhouse Buildings looming, the decision was taken in 1983 to clear the decks a little and to repay it, though the National Index was, even then, far from complete [2239].
Donald Steel had meanwhile turned his attention to the production of what the Society's committees had been persuaded would be a single 'slim' introductory volume to the whole series and late in 1966 it advertised as 'ready shortly', Volume I, containing 'about 400 pages', at £1 12s 6d [2240]. Having received the go-ahead, however, Steel had other ideas and after even more protracted arguments and unpleasantness, in which I was involved in trying to find a compromise, he came to the Publications Committee in October 1967 with a proposal to print, not 400 pages but more than 600 pages, in not one but two volumes. About 500 pages had, in fact, already been set. He said that an index would form part of the second volume and, if this were agreed, that the first volume could appear by the end of the year. Subsequent volumes, he said, would need to be re-numbered. I argued unsuccessfully that one volume would suffice and that the material that he had proposed to include on Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the overseas countries be hived off and published later with the relevant lists of registers for those areas. Steel said that it was too late but subsequent developments showed that it was nothing of the kind [2241].
Having got a measure of agreement Steel then produced, not in 1967, but in 1968 the first part of his two-volume introduction [2242]. It was extremely well reviewed as 'in reality, an entirely new textbook on genealogy' [2243] but, as Mr J. Newland rightly said at the AGM in 1969, it was the county volumes that everyone wanted [2244]. Behind the scenes the Society's Secretary, Cecil Mackay, was literally having nightmares about Steel's antics and, as I wrote to Peter Spufford about the National Index in June 1969 when working on the revision of the fifth edition of the Genealogists' Handbook, I was 'heartily sick of telling people that it is expected at a certain date only to find that it comes out five years later'. Donald Steel, of course, had other ideas and went off at a tangent, seizing on my argument about the Scottish material, to produce a quite separate volume of introductory material for Scotland (1970) which did not contain a list of the Scottish registers [2245] but which allowed him, of course, to put more nonconformist material in the second introductory volume.
Early in 1970 this tireless but extremely tiresome man, in an article on 'Genealogy and Demography', had turned his attention to the want of accurate information about nonconformist congregations, and was urging family reconstitution (about which Dr E. A. Wrigley had lectured to the Society in April 1966), from Quaker and Catholic registers [2246]. For some time he had been involved with interesting projects to teach family history in schools, something that Josephine Fletcher had urged at our AGM in 1965. In 1968 he had produced a booklet on the subject with Lawrence Taylor and in September 1970 they contributed an article to the Magazine that developed their philosophy [2247] and organised a three-day conference, 'Family History in Schools' at the Berkshire College of Education [2248] which was attended by fifty primary and secondary school teachers. Some reservations were expressed about applying the difficult and time-consuming techniques of family reconstitution to school work, but there was a great enthusiasm for the idea that children found history more relevant if approached through a study of their own ancestors [2249]. He had meanwhile, in 1969, devised a popular genealogical simulation exercise called ‘The Trout Game’ which might be used in classes or groups of 12-30 to illustrate the main genealogical sources and the problems that players would encounter in their own researches [2250].
In April-May 1971 Steel organised a residential weekend conference on family history at the University of Bristol [2251], in theory to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Society, and followed it with others in January 1972 [2252] and June 1973 [2253]. His book Family history in schools, written in conjunction with Lawrence Taylor, was also advertised in June 1973 [2254] and provides a fascinating insight into the subject at the time and of the energy with which it was being promoted. The book was ecstatically reviewed by John Fines, the Head of the History Department at Bishop Otter College, but the revolution then foretold [2255] sadly never transpired.
Only then, in 1973, did Donald Steel produce the second introductory volume for the National Index, greatly extending the material on nonconformist sources [2256]. The two volumes together contained 800 pages and even this second one, again to everyone's dismay and after considerable argument, had to be further sub-divided, and a third volume covering Roman Catholic and Jewish sources appeared in 1974 [2257]. None of the 332 pages that I had suggested be omitted from the introductory volumes in 1967 actually appeared there and the 'slim' introductory volume had, eight years later, become three volumes, together containing 1,058 pages.
The publication of Volume 5 in 1966 had itself caused problems as people had naturally meanwhile asked for the previous four volumes. Donald Steel had said in 1968 that future volumes would follow at three monthly intervals, but the sad truth is that, although he was already talking about similar volumes for Ireland and was seeking volunteers there [2258], he had lost all interest in the county sections. He had in fact resigned as General Editor of the National Index even before the third volume of the Prefaces came out, and when he spoke at the AGM in June 1974 he was still saying that volume 11 'would be the next to appear' [2259]. In reality he was now far too preoccupied feuding with the Society and the Institute at Canterbury in connection with the creation of the Federation of Family History Societies and the 1976 International Congress.
Jeremy Gibson had nominally taken over as General Editor and in June 1974 was more realistic, stressing the problems of finding reliable local sub-editors but hoping for assistance from the newly formed family history societies [2260]. In March 1975 Patrick Palgrave-Moore, with a special interest in Norfolk, agreed to co-ordinate the East Anglian volume and in June 1975 he took over as General Editor. In December that year it was reported that the texts of Northumberland and Durham were proceeding apace and that Yorkshire was complete, all thanks to the work of Charles Philip Neat (1906-1976) [2261] who had taken the three counties in hand back in 1970 [2262].
Although the report in December 1975 spoke of negotiations to transfer the work on the remaining volumes to the various local groups that again proved highly optimistic and work on the county sections was further delayed. The changes to local government boundaries in 1974 did not help. When the work was re-commenced in 1979-80 further volunteers had to re-do most of the initial surveys, practically all the notes being by then out of date and needing revision [2263]. If the whole process had been designed to alienate volunteers it could hardly have achieved more. Charles Neat wrote sadly in 1974 that the National Index seemed to be 'the Cinderella of genealogy' [2264] and died in 1976 without seeing his work in print [2265]. Donald G. Mason (died 1997, aged 55) then took over Northumberland and Durham, he editing and I typing the drafts in London, but Yorkshire remained unfinished and we decided to publish the two counties as Volume 11: Part 1. This appeared in December 1979 and sold well and when it was revised in 1984 I re-typed the whole volume into a word-processor in the evenings just to make sure that it appeared quickly.
In June 1970 when reviewing the Concise Repertory of Dutch Parish Registers, Lawson Edwards wrote that a 'concise' list 'is something of which we would gladly see an English equivalent while awaiting our own National Index' [2266] and, because of the latter's annoying delays, towards the end of 1970 the Society produced a new edition of what we called Parish Register Copies: Part One: Society of Genealogists Collection (1970), the intention being to produce a Part Two which would be arranged by county and list copies in other libraries. Taking the lists compiled by Donald Steel and his helpers and typed by Colin Field for the National Index ten years earlier, I organised this interim publication called Parish Register Copies: Part Two: Other than the Society of Genealogists Collection (1971), the work of extraction from the old lists being done by Doreen Briscoe, Joan Masters, Meg Reeves, Lawson Edwards, Robert Massey and myself. Both volumes were published for the Society by Phillimore & Co Ltd [2267]. An updated revision of Part One was published in late 1972 [2268].
Volume 1 of the National Index was slightly amended in a reprint put out by Phillimore in 1976 (at £6), when for the first time all three of the introductory volumes were available in print together. Volume 5 was also reprinted that year (also at £6), details of the main record offices only being revised [2269]. However, the services of Phillimore as publishers to the Society had meanwhile been dispensed with and a predictable and lengthy dispute then arose as to the ownership of the printed volumes [2270].
Partly in frustration that no guide existed to the complicated situation in London the Society’s member Norman Henry Graham (died 1987, aged 76) compiled and published The genealogist's consolidated guide to parish registers in the Inner London area 1538-1837 (1976, £2), followed in 1977 by a similar guide for the Outer London area (1977). His guides covered original and copy registers in the Guildhall, Greater London Record Office and at the Society, but excluded the nonconformist registers at the Public Record Office unless copies existed. All the copies and indexes made by the Genealogical Society of Utah were initially omitted but detailed in a Supplement included in reprints of the first Guide made after December 1978 and were available separately [2271].
The parishes listed in Norman Graham's badly typed volumes were curiously divided into groups according to the starting dates of their registers and sub-divided by area but there were good composite indexes of parishes and the information was extremely useful. Donald Steel chided him for not allowing his details to be included in the National Index series [2272], but that was not his intention and Graham scorned Steel's delays. That Norman Graham, 'a kind, industrious, smiling man' [2273], was encouraged by Mildred Surry, Lawson Edwards and me, was not appreciated by Steel, but the London and Middlesex section of the National Index did not appear until almost twenty years later, in 1995.
In 1963 the Genealogical Society of Utah had launched a computer-based Pedigree Referral Service (PRS) aimed at promoting research and avoiding duplication. People were invited to register details of the families on which they were working and enquirers were charged a small fee. Details were published in the Magazine [2274] but the scheme received surprisingly little support, probably being ahead of its time, and was abandoned in 1969 [2275]. The need to coordinate research remained and was later addressed, in Utah at least, through the Family Registry and Ancestral File.
In 1962 the Publications Sub-Committee had discussed the possibility of publishing a new Register of Members later that year and Steel had typically suggested that it be extended to include members of the societies in Scotland and Ireland and their interests and be called a Register of British Genealogy [2276]. Nothing happened and in July 1965 he circulated the members saying that a new register would be printed 'within the next few weeks' [2277], but of course the advertised price had then to be increased. This new Register and Directory of Members (10s 6d) actually appeared in mid-1966 and, although the Annual Report called it ‘the outstanding publication of the year’ and it contained five sections classifying the members by localities and listing their special interests and skills [2278], it did not sell at all well and was quickly reduced in price to 7s 6d [2279]. Steel had expressed the hope that the section of 'Members arranged by Localities' ... 'will encourage the formation of informal local groups of members and make the practice of exchange searches more widespread'. After two years, as the March 1968 Magazine noted, this hope seemed largely unfulfilled, though a few members were finding the lists extremely useful [2280]. The next year the price was further reduced to five shillings [2281].
In the next (June 1968) Magazine, Derek John Sawyer, of St Albans, who had joined in 1965, wrote to say that as a comparatively new member he was 'extremely disappointed to find that the practice of Exchange Searches is so infrequent' as they ought to be 'one of the principal aims of the Society'. He thought that the Magazine should show a lead in this respect, publish fewer 'recondite articles' and give more space to Readers' Queries. He suggested 'that the Committee look into the possibility of forming local groups of the Society, after the manner of the National Trust' [2282]. The National Trust, of course, had nearly half a million members, the Society had less than three thousand.
However, the letter provoked considerable correspondence and support, in particular from Fred Vincent, of Findon, near Worthing, who thought 75% of the 'recondite' articles were of 'extremely little interest to the vast majority of the members'. He had visited the library of three occasions but 'there appeared to be no member of the staff who could or would give me any assistance', he was not asked for proof of his identity, and he thought the library 'of the greatest possible value to professional researchers but of little value to the average member' [2283]. Margaret Cairns in Cape Town, however, thought the articles 'meat and drink' and wrote that the staff went out of their way to be helpful, saying that if Mr Vincent had done a little more 'homework' before attacking the library he might have found it of more value [2284]. Dr M. H. Hughes, a 'fairly new member' paid tribute to the help that he had received from other members and John Rayment (1923-1991), of Ongar, Essex, who had joined as recently as February, welcomed the suggestion of local groups [2285]. In 1969, Ronald Leonard Denyer (1925-2005), who had joined early that year, invited members to hear Colin Rogers speak about medieval records at the Manchester Genealogical Society (founded in 1964), of which he was Chairman, in October [2286]. Four years later Ronald Denyer announced that he had completed a 35-minute film in colour and sound - probably the first of its kind - on his investigations into his Denyer ancestors in Surrey, showing the various sources that he had used. He called it 'Skeletons in the Cupboard' and was glad to screen it for selected audiences [2287]. It became quite popular with local groups and he showed it to the Society of Genealogists on 12 January 1974 [2288].
In June 1970 Jeremy Gibson made a plea that genealogists, instead of suggesting setting up independent local groups, join their local historical societies and work for the formation of genealogical sub-committees through them. He pointed out that such societies are what their members make them and that their officers would welcome offers of positive help. He hoped to see some initiative from genealogists but not yet more specialised splinter groups [2289]. Leslie Collins noted the comparative lack of interest in Wales and thought that the Magazine could be used as a forum for the exchange of information helpful to Welsh genealogists [2290] and Michael Faraday doubted that people living in the same area necessarily had genealogical and archival interests in common. He thought that their interests would be centred elsewhere and he doubted the wisdom in attempting to dissipate their energies, saying that what was really needed were groups of members who were interested in particular counties or districts rather than of those who lived in them [2291].
Donald Steel, however, wrote that as genealogists were not primarily interested in the areas in which they lived they were unlikely to join the local historical societies and what was needed were local groups of interested persons. He thought that the Society was in danger of degenerating into a subscription library and called for 'the development of strong local groups [within the Society], which will organize their own meetings, develop their own esprit de corps, give beginners the help they are so often crying out for, and sponsor local transcription and indexing work'. The real future of the Society, he wrote, lay in such groups as they would campaign locally for new members by arranging local classes in genealogy. Such groups were likely to be formed in any case, two already existed, and he would much prefer them to be the supports of a strong central society [2292]. That the two that existed had no formal relationship with the Society and would have rejected any such idea was not mentioned.
The Society had, in 1969, set up a sub-committee to examine the feasibility of forming local branches, the members of which were Denis Burton (the Chairman of the Executive), Jack Bird, Donald Steel and Derek Sawyer. A questionnaire was sent out with the Magazine in December 1969 as a result of which the group recommended and the Executive Committee approved the formation of experimental groups in Hampshire, Herefordshire and Sussex. Although opinion was divided on the desirability of such groups, the Members living in these three areas were invited to possible inaugural meetings to be held in September 1970 [2293]. The matter was, however, not mentioned in the Society's Annual Reports for 1969 or 1970. Societies were eventually founded in Hampshire and Sussex in 1973 and in Herefordshire in 1980. None had any formal connection with the Society of Genealogists.
In December 1970 Eunice Wilson (died 16 January 2021) asked if there were members interested in forming a Northern Group within the Society which would meet in the Library, suggesting that other similar county groups be formed for mutual help and the avoidance of duplication [2294], and the same Magazine contained a report of a meeting of nine members at St Albans in September when it was noted that all had joined the Society in order to benefit from the library and that all wanted more information about current members' interests and about the current state of provincial record offices. They also thought that I should 'compile some kind of standardized system for the recording and storage of information' that might be used when giving material to the Society's collections. This latter group, which also suggested that the Society would benefit from a Members' Bar, did not wish to set up a permanent branch organization but would meet perhaps in a year's time [2295]. Support for the Northern Group took off and it met monthly at the Society on late-opening Thursdays, progress being made in the first year with exchanges and the listing of interests [2296]. By 1975 this group, with Malcolm Howe as secretary, was meeting monthly in the Society’s rooms and had thirty-five members, each paying £1 annually [2297].
However, many at the Society's headquarters for quite valid reasons did not welcome the suggestion that it have local groups around the country. It had, after all, only just purchased the freehold of its building and there was a £12,000 overdraft. Some years would elapse before all the loans were paid and the Society was on a reasonably sound financial footing. The salaries of the library and office staff were shockingly low and they were under great pressure from the daily piles of letters received in the office. The thought of the correspondence, work and cost involved in setting up a network of local societies from such a relatively small membership, the modifications that would be needed to the Society's constitution, and the duplication of effort that would inevitably arise, all caused great unease whenever the idea was discussed. However, the Society consistently gave publicity to the new groups and the Chairman of the Publications Committee made it known that the Editor of the Magazine would welcome further news of 'the activities of other genealogical societies in the British Isles, especially those in provincial cities such as Birmingham and Manchester sponsored by Society members' [2298].
To those new members who knew little or nothing of the situation or of what had gone before, the foundation of local groups may have seemed an obvious development, but the sad truth is that the majority of genealogists then as now are basically interested in their own families and not in much else, and the bodies of individualists that came into being in the 1970s showed almost no inclination to work with other historical societies in their areas and even less inclination to work with other genealogical societies through the fragile Federation which was created in 1974. The history of the Federation for the next thirty years was one of appeasement to its members, no firm lead being given in anything for fear of offending someone somewhere. By then, however, the Society's initially lukewarm, and sometimes quite hostile, attitude resulted in the groups being formed independently and without any formal relationship to the Society, something that at the time, however much one regretted it, largely because of the personalities involved, was almost inevitable.
In September 1968 Charles J. L. Elwell wrote to the Magazine suggesting that someone should compile a volume of 'genealogies of genius' that would develop information about the descendants of famous people in the past [2200], and at the same time the Editor said that she hoped to publish a series of short genealogies of leading political and world figures and appealed for contributions [2201] but nothing was forthcoming.
However, in the 1970s it began to be said in America that the way to have your pedigree traced without charge was to 'run for office'; in the United Kingdom it had for some time been to marry into the Royal Family. Perhaps the pedigree of Antony Armstrong-Jones created most interest and various articles about his ancestry appeared in the press and elsewhere, several written by Patrick Montague-Smith, the assistant at Debrett’s Peerage, who sat up until 4 in the morning when the engagement to Princess Margaret was announced and worked for sixteen days on Armstrong-Jones’s ancestral links with the Queen Mother and his future wife, two articles making a feature in the Daily Mail [2301]. That the ancestry was not entirely Welsh was amply demonstrated by Gillie Potter, writing as ‘A genealogical correspondent’, on the Stagg family in the Daily Telegraph [2302].
The foundation of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure was noted in the Magazine in 1965. With a grant from the Gulbenkian Foundation, Dr Peter Laslett at Trinity College and Dr E. A. Wrigley at Peterhouse, who both joined the Society that year, were enabled to put in hand a ground-breaking study of the history of population and social structure in England from the mid-sixteenth century to the early nineteenth century [2303]. Their work, which made extensive use of parish registers, was of considerable interest to genealogists. They initially appealed for volunteers to analyse the numbers of entries in the registers and later to attempt family reconstitution from them. Many members of the Society were involved, a good example being Hartley Thwaite who for several years at the end of his life worked on the large parish of Birstall in Yorkshire, an important Dissenting stronghold with five chapelries and four townships. Having transcribed the 110,000 entries in the parish registers for publication, Thwaite set about a family reconstitution project for the period 1600-1800, producing some 8,000 family group sheets [2304].
Many questions about the size and structure of families in the past were posed in Laslett's most accessible The world we have lost (1965) which was immediately followed by Wrigley's An introduction to English historical demography (1966). Steel called the latter 'essential reading for all genealogists interested in the historical implications of their work' [2305]. One wonders what proportion that would have been then or, of course, today.
Members of the Cambridge Group were from the time of its foundation concerned not only with access to parish registers but with access to the closed records of civil registration, drawing attention to the ‘ridiculous situation that Cabinet and Foreign Office papers are opened to historians after 30 years, but births, marriages and deaths never’ and saying that Family Reconstitution was largely forced to come to a halt just about the time the urban Englishman out-numbered his rural forebears because of the intransigence of the Registrar General [2306]. Members of the Cambridge Group proved to be amongst the genealogists’ strongest allies in their campaign for access to his records.
The most important publication of the Group came later with E. A. Wrigley and Roger Schofield, The population history of England, 1541-1871: a reconstruction (1981) the conclusions of which were reflected and examined in Laslett's The world we have lost: further explored (1983). The results of the very considerable work of family reconstitution that had taken place were then summarised in E. A. Wrigley, R. S. Davies, J. E. Oeppen and R. S. Schofield’s English Population History from Family Reconstitution 1580-1837 (1997). Few genealogists will have read the latter work but the more committed may have been following developments through the quarterly journal Local Population Studies which had been founded in 1968.
As we have seen the Society began in 1966 to publish a revision of the National Index of Parish Registers in many volumes and the question whether the Executive Committee was doing everything possible to urge the deposit of parochial records in county record offices was raised by Alexander Sandison at the AGM in June that year [2307]. By now every English county but two had a proper record office [2308], the majority created in the last fifteen years.
In 1967 R. E. Vine described, probably for the first time in England, the possibilities of indexing and printing parish registers by computer, and looked forward to a time when a register might be read aloud into a computer thus 'reducing enormously the chance of error' [2309], a somewhat debateable statement! An impractical idea to transcribe parish registers by reading them into tape-recorders was put forward in the Magazine by N. H. Mackinder in 1971 and discussed by Steel, who thought that it might appeal to girls who were taught audio-typing at school, but it seems likely that neither had more than a superficial experience of such a scheme [2310]. Much work was fortunately being done using traditional methods and in 1969 the Society's Honorary Treasurer, Arthur Noble, an indefatigable indexer of registers using paper slips, had appealed for transcribers of registers to index their work as they went along [2311]. Looking back it is interesting that R. F. Hunnisett, then an Assistant Keeper at the Public Record Office and an expert on indexing, should in 1972 have taken the view that it was ‘not yet clear what part, if any, the computer can usefully play in this field’ but he thought that the ideals to aim for when indexing would remain the same [2312].
In 1969 Francis Leeson noticed that an original parish register from West Heslerton in Yorkshire for the years 1561-1701 was being offered for sale in the American quarterly, The Genealogical Helper, it having apparently been taken to America during the War. Leeson wrote to the incumbent who said that he already had a copy (!) but got more sense from Norah Gurney (died 1974, aged 52) the Archivist at the Borthwick Institute who took up the matter with the Archbishop of York and his Chancellor. The original register was eventually bought back at a cost of £165 but the story greatly helped to highlight the problem of the security and preservation of these ancient documents [2313].
Mrs Gurney, like other archivists at this time, was becoming increasingly concerned about the deterioration in the condition of the bishops’ transcripts in her care. In 1972 they formed the only class of document in the Borthwick Institute that was used over and over again, often by the same searchers, and she believed that this constant handling had to be reduced if the records were to survive for the future. Search fees had recently been introduced and the receipts used to pay for extra help in the flattening, sorting and boxing of the transcripts and for the parchment needed in their repair. She had approached the Genealogical Society of Utah which had agreed to microfilm the collection when sorted, but with 760 parishes and chapelries in the diocese of York, something approaching 150,000 documents was involved. Microfilms were easy to store and relatively cheap to make and to take copies from but she intended to experiment with Xerox copies of the transcripts for one parish, though concerned at the time and cost involved, in the hope that libraries and institutions might buy copies of all or some parishes [2314]. It was a problem that only the filming of the records was eventually to solve.
In October 1969 Donald Steel drafted a lengthy (eight pages foolscap) memorandum for the Parish Register Committee which was intended for circulation to county and diocesan archivists throughout the country urging the compulsory deposit of all pre-1837 parochial documents at the appropriate diocesan record office and free access for bona fide historical researchers [2315]. The reaction was generally quite unenthusiastic, the majority of archivists being against any form of compulsion. His draft letter had also mentioned the possible deposit in their offices of the pre-1900 Local Registrar’s copies of birth, marriage and death certificates and their accessibility without fee, something that Dr Emmison thought would be welcomed by some archivists [2316], but even Steel had begun to realise that this (and the number of genealogists that would descend on their offices) was unlikely to be welcomed by the majority of archivists and the Executive Committee wisely thought this highly sensitive point best not included.
In 1970 the Librarian, Lawson Edwards, drew attention to a transcript of all the Wesleyan, Primitive Methodist and Lady Huntingdon's Connection registers for Herefordshire which Michael Faraday had given to the Library, urging members to transcribe other nonconformist registers in the collection at the General Register Office. He himself was contemplating the transcription of the sixty-four for Cornwall [2317].
An interesting point was made in an editorial in the March 1973 Magazine that 'the thought must sometimes cross the minds of genealogists busy transcribing or indexing parish registers or other records that the work they are doing might well be done again in the future, many times as quickly and possibly even a lot more accurately, by a computer. A sense of futility may thus be engendered'. The editors went on to say that there was no need for any work done by hand to be discarded provided it was presented in a manner that facilitated computerisation in due course, and the Parish Register Committee had recently laid down standard formats, some of which were set out in the editorial [2318]. The Committee had not been quite so clear in its intentions and the editors were forced to quickly back-track and to say that 'insofar as any standard is recommended at present, members are referred to Appendix I, Chapter 6, of the National Index, volume 1' [2319].
The 1965 Magazine article 'Genealogy and Biography' which stressed the importance to biographers of knowledge of the sources used by genealogists, showed the interests of Gerald Hamilton-Edwards [2320] and the following year his major book, In search of ancestry (1966), was published by Michael Joseph and very well received in spite of Steel's lengthy but lukewarm review in the Magazine [2321]. However, his initial sales were disappointing [2322] and in 1968 the book was put in the National Book Sale but it eventually went through four editions with another, not altogether satisfactory, for the American market [2323].
In 1968 he produced in conjunction with the artist Joan Harris a most amusing and whimsical board game, 'Snakes and Ladders to Genealogical Success' [2324] and in 1972 he broke new ground with his In search of Scottish ancestry. This was warmly reviewed by Donald Whyte (1926-2010) as 'brim-full of information', organised with skill and grace [2325], and he subsequently produced In search of Army ancestry (1977) which was also the first book in that field. However, his In search of Welsh ancestry (1985) lacked the personal experience of his other books and was damned in Wales in what the Daily Telegraph later called 'the acrimoniously hypercritical world of genealogy'. His projected work on naval ancestry unfortunately never appeared. He had moved to Oxford in the early 1960s where he took a great interest in university life and where he died in 1987. His engagingly readable series of books had done much to popularise family history.
An article of some importance that appeared in 1965, based on a lecture given in February, was that by Robert Garrett on 'Chancery and other Proceedings' [2326], but it was too early to point out the value of the Bernau Index until revised and published separately in 1968 [2327]. In March 1969 Lieut.-Commander M. Godfrey contributed an important article on military records to the Magazine [2328]. Other standard articles about that time were two by Reedham Frederick Monger (1913-1971), an Assistant Keeper at the PRO, on the records of emigrants and immigrants in the Public Records [2329].
The March 1965 Magazine reported the receipt of the collections of Charles Hall Crouch with its extraordinary number of pages from Family Bibles bought over the years in the street market in Farringdon Road, together with copies of monumental inscriptions and other material which he had collected [2330]. Also reported in that Magazine was the receipt, via the professional Mrs Violet Heddon, of the manuscripts of William Arthur Caffall (1883-1964) who had worked for many years at the College of Arms. The following year the Society received a valuable collection of books on Cornwall bequeathed by John Percival Rogers (1897-1966) [2331], formerly the Town Clerk of Helston, together with his fine manuscript Cornish pedigrees in seven volumes which caused considerable interest [2332].
In 1967 we published details of the marriage index for Sussex which Francis Leeson had commenced to compile as a supplement to Boyd's Marriage Index [2333] and in 1969 did the same for Michael Burchall's projected Surrey Marriage Index [2334] and A. J. Farrington's projected index of births, marriages and deaths in India, 1698-1947 [2335], though the latter never really got off the ground.
John Sims, who was the first librarian to have an Assistant, sadly left the Library to take up a post as Humanities’ Bibliographer in the Library at Michigan State University in August 1965 taking with him his Assistant, Heather Pollard, whom he had married that month [2336]. As the Annual Report said his departure was ‘much to the regret of members and staff’ [2337]. He was succeeded by Wyn Kelson Ford (1927-1998), FRHistS, and at the same time Miss Beryl M. Marsh (1926-1989), who had come to the Society as a Receptionist in 1959 and who knew the library and many members very well, was appointed Assistant Librarian [2338]. Wyn Ford had a hard act to follow and although knowledgeable in local history matters, he was a very slow man and often out of his depth. As editor of the Magazine [2339] he introduced useful lists of the major articles seen in other periodicals [2340] but he and the Society parted company just a year later and we had not benefited from his stay. John Sims’s plan to produce a new Catalogue of Family Histories, for which he had prepared material as far as the initial ‘J’, unfortunately as a result made no further progress.
George Sherwood's widow, May, who had begun to work regularly at the Society in March 1958, continued to travel up from Brockley and to tend the Document Collection and be relief-receptionist until 1966, when she decided to retire and move to Woodsford Castle, Dorchester, to live with one of her sons [2341]. She died there after a short illness on 26 September 1975, aged 83. She was a very dear lady and had been absolutely devoted to 'the Society' and, as her obituary by Cecil Mackay says, took a warm and friendly interest in everyone with whom she came in contact, having a genuine desire to help others. Her lively nature and robust sense of humour had made her a most enjoyable companion at all times [2342].
May Sherwood had been particularly anxious that her late husband's collection of manuscripts and indexes should pass to the Society but she had been left with very few resources and Cregoe Nicholson advised her to attempt to sell the papers, the Society in any case not really having sufficient space to house them. She did not care for the idea but eventually was persuaded to sell them to the Genealogical Society of Utah. Nicholson also tried to thwart her attempt to present a large bookcase to the Society in George's memory by inventing a rule that the Society did not accept gifts from members of staff, so one of her sons gave it instead. The six and a half tons of George’s collection were shipped to Salt Lake City where in the years 1966-68 it was carefully catalogued as 'The Sherwood Research Collection' and microfilmed on some 500 reels. The index, on two-by-one inch slips (to save paper),was found to contain two million entries. His notebooks were written on the right-hand page first and then the left-hand page, backwards through the books [2343]. Just before leaving the Society in 1997 I heard that, after microfilming, the collection had been disposed of by the GSU. It had passed on the death of a member, Dr Louis Marks, to the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania in 1993 and now that Society, because of the collection's size, was seeking an alternative home [2344].
Another considerable break with the past came with the death of Cregoe Nicholson in the West Middlesex Hospital on 19 April 1968, aged 82. He had continued to visit the Society almost daily until a few months of his death, dying much 'in harness' as he would have wished [2345]. Jack Bird wrote a heartfelt obituary at the death of an old friend, outlining his many services to the Society and his involvement in other organisations, but saying that to him genealogy and the Society always came first. He spoke of his steadfastness, 'that looked like obstinacy' and his helpfulness and inspiration to others, particularly to new young members, qualities that no one could deny. Sadly, however, I remember him, not for his great assistance, generosity and kindly attachment to me, but as the scheming 'Nicolaeivitch' who had made life so difficult for so many others but who undoubtedly also had the best interests of the Society at heart.
At the AGM in the Great Hall of Westminster School on 14 June 1966 Lord Mountbatten mentioned the Mountbatten Library Fund which had been generously sponsored by John J. Bowater and had reached £270. Bowater had at the same time presented the Society with a large framed portrait of the President by Karsh of Ottawa which now replaced that of Queen Mary over the fireplace in the Members' Room. Lord Mountbatten had himself contributed to the Library Fund and it eventually raised £470. After the meeting Mountbatten gave a memorable talk about the Arms of Henry I of Hesse and of Conrad of Thuringia, reproductions of which he had brought with him, the originals of which in Marburg Museum dated from about 1220 and 1292 and were reputed to be the earliest surviving examples of actual shields [2346]. At the end of the talk the members crowded forward to see a reliquary containing a fragment of the wedding dress of his ancestress St Elisabeth of Hungary who had died in 1234 and was canonised for her charitable acts towards her husband’s harshly treated subjects. Lord Mountbatten told the story of how on one occasion in deepest winter, to save her from her husband’s wrath, on being ordered by him to reveal what she was carrying out of the castle in her apron, that God had answered her prayer and changed the bread to roses.
It was about this time that Mountbatten also encouraged the interest of his son-in-law, the well-known interior decorator and designer David Nightingale Hicks (1929-1998), in his pedigree and we carried out some work on his Nightingale ancestry the results of which I remember taking to his house in St Leonard’s Terrace. A few years later (in 1969) Mountbatten brought the Society to the notice of millions when he mentioned his Presidency and interest in genealogy in the peak time and immensely popular twelve-hour television series The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten which was, as Philip Ziegler later wrote, not only skilfully written and made, but contained ‘a rich harvest of fascinating historical photographs and film’, whilst also being consistently entertaining [2347].
Following May Sherwood's retirement, the Society had in September 1966 advertised the post of Documents Arranger or Archivist, suggesting that the applicant might work two or three days a week, 'hours and salary by arrangement', and Geoffrey Savile Yates, MA (1922-2000) [2348], formerly Assistant Government Archivist in Jamaica, was appointed in November. It is no coincidence that his friend Philip Wright's lecture on 'Materials for family history in Jamaica' had been given in February and was published in the same Magazine as the advertisement [2349] and that the Society published at that time, with the assistance of grants from the Marc Fitch Fund and the Jamaica National Trust, Philip Wright's important Monumental Inscriptions of Jamaica (1966) [2350], the stock of which was exhausted only late in 1982 [2351]. However, after only a year Geoffrey Yates resigned in the autumn of 1967 to take up professional genealogical work and the document collection then became for the next thirty years the responsibility of one of the Library Assistants [2352].
In October 1966 the enthusiastic Peter John Simmonds Trigwell (1938-2017) had been appointed Librarian in succession to Wyn Ford [2353]. Peter Trigwell was a trained librarian and had worked as a professional genealogist, having been a member for five years, and the Annual Report expressed the hope that his considerable experience ‘should render his services of exceptional value to all members and to others using the library’ [2354]. There was much to be done as the Society had been without a librarian for three months that year.
At the AGM in June 1967 the problem of finding suitable bookbinders was mentioned, there being an immense backlog [2355]. As a result the Mountbatten Library Fund containing £482 was transferred to Library expenditure [2356] and the following year Marc Fitch gave £500 to help with the binding costs [2357]. Together the two funds were quickly used to make considerable inroads into the backlog of unbound parish register transcripts [2358]. On 19 July, David Ensign Gardner visited the Library with sixty students from Brigham Young University in Utah and I spoke to them about the Society's collections and with the library staff put on a little exhibition, Alan Rolfe helping with their many questions [2359]. That year we were able to add sixty-seven feet of shelving to Room Farrer and to make space for 544 reels of microfilm in a cupboard, originally used for billiard cues, on the backstairs [2360].
However, Beryl Marsh, the Assistant Librarian since 1965, had unfortunately left in March 1967 [2361]. Her successor, Cherry Stephenson, who had earlier been the receptionist, succeeded Beryl as Assistant Librarian and was placed in charge of the document collection. She married Peter Trigwell in the spring of 1968 but he was plagued with ill-health and was frequently absent and his employment was sadly terminated in May 1968, she not surprisingly leaving at the same time. With all the changes of staff involved it had been a most difficult few years.
At the AGM in 1966 Alexander Sandison said that he wanted to bring to the attention of the Executive Committee the Registrar General's Department, the state of its records and the attitude of the staff, all of which contrasted most unfavourably with the similar department in Scotland. English records were woefully inadequate in comparison with those of Scotland, Australia and New Zealand, and the simplest questions could not be answered without the payment of a full certificate fee, despite the fact that many of the records were more than a hundred years old and should be available to the public without charge.
At the request of Lord Mountbatten I said then that the Society had been approached by the Registrar General and asked for its observations on the points raised by Mr Sandison, particularly in regard to a change in the form of certificate and the freeing of the earlier records. A long and detailed report had been submitted that also contained a plea for better working conditions in the search room and improvements to the dreadful indexes [2362]. Lord Mountbatten undertook to raise the matter at the highest level and asked that members send specific complaints to the Society for inclusion in the report [2363]. In September 1967, the Registrar General having said that it might be possible to put some of the Society's suggestions into effect a summary of my report was published in the Magazine. I proposed a linking system of birth, marriage and death registration, considered the major desiderata genealogica by Anthony Wagner [2364], improvements to the indexes, the release to the public of the records prior to 1866 (when the printed indexes commenced and ages first appeared in the death indexes), and urgent improvements to the overcrowded and badly ventilated search galleries at Somerset House [2365]. A letter from George Draffen in the next issue of the Magazine said that the article showed the quite striking contrast between the two Government Departments in Scotland and England [2366].
In November 1967 some further recommendations were made to the Registrar General's Committee reviewing the registration and marriage laws [2367] and in 1968 we were particularly glad to note that some of our recommendations on the registration of births, marriages and deaths, had been embodied in the Family Law Reform Bill and the Registration Regulations announced at the end of the year [2368]. The indexes were also now made available without charge but the cost of certified copies was greatly increased.
.Meanwhile Donald Steel had written to The Times pointing out the anomalies mentioned by the Cambridge Group that other classes of historians could consult the country’s most secret records up to 1938 but that demographers suffered under a hundred and thirty year rule inflexibly observed. He had recently applied to the Superintendent Registrar at Reading on behalf of one of his students engaged on a study of Victorian naming customs and the matter having been referred to the Registrar General, but the latter had ruled that ‘an exception cannot be made in this case’ [2369]. Steel took up the matter through his Member of Parliament, William van Straubenzee (1924-1999), who wrote to the Prime Minister and subsequently to Julian Snow, Minister of Health, the Minister responsible. The latter had replied on 3 April 1968 to say that the Registrar General ‘was not unsympathetic to the difficulties experienced by research workers and others who have an interest in these records and was considering what steps could be taken to allow public access to them on an extra-statutory basis’. Some registers having been deposited in county record offices, he was also considering how far that practice could be extended. He was about to start microfilming the registers and he was exploring alternative ways in which he might be able to provide facilities for researchers in conjunction with this programme. The deceitful insincerity of these hollow promises echoes down the decades [2370].
On 19 July 1971 I went with Denis Burton, Alan Rolfe and Alexander Sandison to see the Assistant Secretary to the Registrar General about the conditions in the public search room and discussed the overcrowding of the galleries, the poor ventilation and the deteriorating condition of the indexes. We also brought up the recent statement [2371] of the Secretary of State for Social Services, Sir Keith Joseph that information would no longer be provided from census returns less than one hundred years old because of the public concern expressed earlier in the year about the confidentiality of the information provided to the 1971 Census. Information would now only be given in cases of extreme hardship, such as the need to establish entitlement to a legacy [2372]. Sir Anthony Wagner took up the matter, suggesting that age and place of birth should be supplied to bona fide enquirers from censuses up to 1901 [2373].
The high cost of postal searches at the Public Record Office and the provision of copies from the older census entries (£5 per household per address) became the subject of a further protest in 1972 [2374] when Daphne Pipe wrote frankly on the Record Office's behalf to say that the charges were meant to be prohibitive and were in fact an uneasy compromise between doing no searching and providing some sort of service for people who could not get to London [2375]. Only a few local record offices and libraries had at that time bought microfilms of the censuses for their areas and the publication in 1973 by the West Midland Public Libraries of a list of the copies available locally was the first of its kind [2376]. At that time a name, street and occupation index for Birmingham was in progress but within a few years the newly created local family history societies with few exceptions would be vying with each other to index all their local returns, particularly those for 1851.
From 1 October 1972 the cost of certificates, increased only recently, was almost doubled from eight to fifteen shillings [2377] and when the increase was announced there was a rush by members, as an editorial in the Magazine put it, 'to fill the principal lacunae in their 19th century pedigrees by tracing and drawing certificates before the task became prohibitively expensive' [2378]. In November, following the representations made earlier, the Registrar General agreed to release from the 1881, 1891 and 1901 census returns, the age and place of birth of named persons, provided that their written consent or that of their direct descendants was produced [2379]. The fee would be based on the time involved, with £2 a minimum [2380].
Meanwhile the publication of Sir Henry Hardman’s Report, The Dispersal of Government Work from London (1972; Command 5322), accepted by the Government, had recommended that the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys be dispersed to Central Lancashire New Town, ‘reasonably near to Southport’, but that up to a hundred posts and the search room of the General Register Office should be retained in central London. Indeed, the professional record searcher, Lord Teviot, obtained an assurance from the Government Minister, Lord Sandford, on 13 September 1972 that London would be its permanent home. This was the first appearance of Charles (Kerr), 2nd Lord Teviot, who was destined to play an active part in genealogical matters for many years. Lord Teviot had succeeded his father in 1968 and had a varied career before embarking on genealogical research with his wife Mary (nee Harris) and working professionally from 1969. He was appointed to the Advisory Council on Public Records in 1974 and elected a Fellow of the Society in 1975.
There had for some time been a growing lobby to have the civil servants removed from Somerset House and in November 1971 Simon Jenkins and the Evening Standard launched a major campaign to have at least the Inland Revenue expelled, to grass over the courtyard and to use the building as a National Gallery of British Art [2381]. Many of the rooms, however, as The Times had already pointed out, were purpose built as offices and quite unsuitable for gallery use. The Registrar General indeed was making good use of the basement with its nine miles of shelving [2382].
Many years of uncertainty and much discussion followed as to the future use of the building [2383] but meanwhile late in 1973 it was announced that the General Register Office was to move across the Strand from Somerset House to a modern office building, St Catherine's House, at the junction of Kingsway and the Aldwych, and that the public search rooms for births, marriages and deaths would all be sited on the ground floor there, promising vastly improved conditions for users [2384]. The indexes of births, marriages and deaths from 1837 and of adoptions from 1926 were opened to the public here on 2 January 1974. Those to the Miscellaneous Returns remained for some time at Somerset House but were eventually also transferred, initially only being seen on application.
The new search rooms were open at the same hours as previously (i.e. from 9.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m., Mondays to Fridays, and from 9.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. on Saturdays), but the Saturday opening was discontinued from 1 July when the rooms opened at 8.30 a.m. instead of 9.30 a.m. during the week, a change that suited some professionals but was by no means universally popular [2385]. This Saturday closing was a serious inconvenience to many genealogists who were also concerned at the crowded and quite unventilated conditions found in the new search rooms. The latter were highlighted in a report under the heading ‘Concern over picnickers at new “Somerset House”’ in The Daily Telegraph on 8 July 1974 and followed the publication on 4 July of a letter from the authoress and playwright, Lady Clanmorris (died 1988), which was strengthened by another from John Barrett on 10 July.
In October the Society decided to take up various points with the Registrar General and after preliminary correspondence I went with Alan Rolfe, Alexander Sandison and Donald Steel to St Catharine’s House on 23 October, meeting the Deputy Registrar General, Frank A. Rooke-Matthews, with T. B. West and Mr Williams. Although Rooke-Matthews lectured on his records he had little knowledge of the practical needs of genealogists and had earlier told an enraged Alan Rolfe that the centralised indexes were unnecessary as everything could be done by correspondence with local registrars (though in retirement he was himself often seen searching the centralised indexes for which he had formerly been responsible). I wrote after the meeting to confirm our points about the ventilation and the use of sloping desks instead of tables, and at the same time emphasised that much more urgent attention needed to be given to the transfer of the older records to public repositories. We had been assured that they were working towards such a transference and that they would be discussing with us the cut-off date to be adopted. We were also assured that early consideration would be given to the transfer of the Miscellaneous Returns prior to 1837 and of the records of graves and tombstones and we noted the hopeful sign that some of the older records of District Registrars had already been transferred to county record offices [2386].
However, our deputation was told that the adoption records and postal enquiries for certificates prior to 1865 were already being dealt with at Southport and that, in spite of the Hardman Report, the Registrar General now considered that for the proper functioning of his office it was impossible for the public search room to be separated from the other offices and that consequently the indexes would eventually also be moved to Southport. In that event, we said, it was absolutely imperative that a duplicate set of the indexes, other than on microfilm, should be made available in London.
The intended closure of the search rooms met with a heated response not only from the Society and from professionals in the London area, but also from genealogists worldwide. In view of the assurances he had received in 1972, Lord Teviot wrote to The Times and on 28 November asked in the House of Lords about the Government’s intentions, and was told that the Registrar General was working out which sections of his office would be transferred. The Minister, Lord Wells-Pestell, also said that he was in discussion with the Society of Genealogists and the Law Society and that he intended to speak to other interested parties [2387]. Lord Teviot again raised the ‘essential need’ to keep the search room in London in a further question in the House on 16 December 1974 and was warmly supported by Lord Platt, Baroness Young and Lord Mowbray and Stourton [2388].
Regular users of the search room, however, believed that the decision to transfer everything to Southport had already been taken and as the discussions which were said to be taking place did not involve any organisation with which the Society was in contact, we invited representatives from some thirty-four likely bodies to a meeting at the Society on 13 January 1975. At the same time members of the Executive Committee wrote to Members of both Houses of Parliament to enlist their support and a note in the December 1974 Magazine requested members of the Society to take similar action [2389]. Miss Jan K. Reid had meanwhile provided information to Michael Moynihan for an article in the Sunday Times (8 December) and a letter from Erik Chitty was published in the Daily Telegraph (2 December).
Fourteen people came to the meeting which was chaired by Alexander Sandison. I gave a report and it was agreed to write a joint letter to The Times stressing the wide interests of the many users of the indexes. This I subsequently drafted [2390] and on the understanding that The Times would print an unspecified number of signatures I collected an extremely impressive list from nearly thirty organisations [2391]. Publication was, however, delayed until 1 February and then on the condition that the list of signatories be reduced to six. Those representing the Salvation Army, the Royal Historical Society, the Society of Antiquaries, the College of Arms, the Workers’ Educational Association and the Society of Genealogists were selected. However, the full list was sent to the Registrar General with a copy of the letter on 31 January 1975 and meanwhile I had handed it in at a deputation to the Ministry of Health and Social Security (the Minister responsible for the GRO) on 22 January.
The deputation had been organised by Lord Teviot who as early as 8 December had written to the Minister, Mrs Barbara Castle, asking her to receive representative users. In her reply on 11 January she said that her colleague Lord Wells-Pestell would be willing to receive a group but that it should be made clear that ‘the Registrar General and I accept that inconvenience, possibly serious inconvenience, will be caused to genealogists and similar regular users of the records … what we have to decide is whether the inconveniences and loss of efficiency which might be caused by the removal of this work is more or less acceptable than that which would be caused by removal of other parts of the work of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys’.
In view of these comments the delegation which I joined at Alexander Fleming House on 22 January was not hopeful but we made a good show, the other members being Rodney Dennys from the College of Arms (who stressed the numbers of overseas visitors who used the records; about half the 5,000 enquiries each year needing searches in the indexes), Anthony Johnson from the Holborn Law Society (with 900 solicitors in the Borough who acted as agents for country solicitors where exact facts were not known), Brigadier George Gretton from the Missing Persons Bureau of the Salvation Army (undertaking about 4,000 searches a year, about 75% of which needed access to the indexes) and Richard Wall from the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure (with a staff of ten engaged full-time on the work). Lord Teviot introduced the subject and we each spoke about our work and the ways in which the records interlocked with others in the Probate Registry and at the Land Registry building. Richard Wall stressed also the need for the transfer of the older records and I described the multifarious ways in which genealogists, both amateur and professional, aided other research, none of which could be done by correspondence. Lord Teviot described the importance of having the indexes in London from the point of view of the ordinary public, many of whom found it difficult to express their needs in letters and who very often had complicated and difficult problems to unravel. He also questioned the scope of the consultations which had taken place, the Metropolitan Police not having been approached. Lord Wells-Pestell, the Government spokesman in the Lords, was assisted by Rooke-Matthews from the GRO and Alec Jones, Joint Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State. A short report on the deputation appeared in The Times for 23 January. A few days later Cranley Onslow, MP, asked for a statement in the Commons but was told that the various representations were being considered.
On the day that this announcement was made (27 January 1975) a further meeting of representatives took place at the SoG when the need for additional press coverage was emphasised. As a result a long report, based on information from Anthony Johnson, appeared in the Daily Telegraph [2392] and another, based on my information, appeared under the headline ‘Row builds up to keep records in capital’, in early editions of the Evening Standard. Whilst word spread the Society was making approaches to numerous further bodies and individuals, several of which took active steps to support us, including the British Tourist Authority, the Cultural Attaché at the American Embassy, the Genealogical Society of Utah, the Law Society and the Company Search Department at Barclays Bank (which put us in touch with the Committee of London Clearing Bankers). Many individual members also made representations, including the officers of several local family history societies and of the Catholic Record Society and Huguenot Society. Garter King of Arms, Sir Anthony Wagner, and our President, Lord Mountbatten, both wrote forceful and detailed letters.
All this activity was rewarded on 18 February 1975 when Lord Wells-Pestell announced in the Lords that the Government had yielded to the many protests received and that the public search room would remain at St Catherine’s House. He added, ‘the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, deserves a great deal of credit for this situation because of his persistence which we have experienced over nearly the last twelve months. …we have been much assisted by him and his friends in reaching this decision’ [2393]. The Society’s appreciation of Teviot’s work was expressed in a resolution of the Executive Committee that evening and later conveyed to him by the Chairman. The Editor of the Magazine then expressed the hope that renewed efforts would be made at St Catherine’s House to provide more congenial working conditions, particularly with regard to the overcrowding in some parts of the rooms [2394].
The move to have the Registrar General’s older records transferred to public repositories had meanwhile received impetus by a further meeting at the General Register Office on 14 January when four of his staff met representatives of the British Records Association, the Society of Archivists, the Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Open University, the Cambridge Group and the Social Science Research Council. In a note of this meeting written by the Deputy Registrar General on 24 January he said that they had discussed ‘the possibility of depositing the older central records with the Public Record Office. The immediate hurdle is the provisions of the Public Records Act 1958 which at present specifically excludes the records of births, marriages and deaths from being classed as public records. I have now written to the Keeper of Public Records to see whether he is prepared to receive the older records and to propose amendment of the Public Records Act to make this possible. In our references to the older records we have in mind those more than 100 years old but the precise cut-off point will need further discussion’.
In my account of the campaign that appeared in the Magazine for June 1975 [2395] I was able to say that in reply to this letter the Record Keeper had indicated his willingness to consider accepting responsibility for the older registers and indexes when the new Record Office building at Kew was ready at the end of 1976. Transfer of the custody of the registers to the PRO and provision for them to be subject to normal PRO procedures would, he said, require amending legislation. He recognised that this would take time but both the GRO and the PRO were studying the issues involved and they hoped soon to have discussions with their legal advisers. The Society watched developments closely. Unfortunately, now more than forty years later, we can say that this was the first of several occasions on which the GRO seemed about to make history instead of hindering the writing of it, only later to do nothing.
At the AGM in June 1975 the Chairman, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, said that he felt the Society could congratulate itself on the part it had played in supporting Lord Teviot and paid me a warm tribute for having 'master-minded the campaign with tremendous zeal and skill’ [2396]. It was a generous comment in what had been a difficult period and I was particularly annoyed when a few years later an ill-informed Colin Rogers wrote that our campaign had been to 'prevent the Registrar-General moving the national indexes to the provinces' [2397]. There was never any suggestion that the indexes would be available to public search at Southport or anywhere else in the provinces and it was quite wrong of him to give that impression. As the Chairman said at that AGM the closer relations built up with other bodies during this campaign was by no means without importance for the future. Afterwards the small Ad Hoc Committee chaired by Alexander Sandison did excellent work in keeping that collaboration alive, the committee later developing into the Record Users Group.
In an article in the Magazine in September 1975 Eva Beech of Stoke-on-Trent once more argued for much longer opening hours at St Catherine's House and suggested that microfilms of the indexes be made available at all the District Register Offices and charged for at £3 for up to six hours, the rate charged to search the local indexes, and that, in addition, microfilms of the census returns should be available on loan to local libraries and record offices from the Public Record Office [2398]. However, as from 1 October 1975 the fee for full certificates of birth, marriage and death, which had been increased from 40p to 75p in 1972, was now increased to £2.50 to personal searchers or £4.50 by post. The fee for 'checking' entries against known details was restored at £1.25 a time. A note in the Magazine considered the increase punitive and probably designed to reduce the demand [2399]. In 1976 the Magazine published a letter from the Registrar General defending the general search fee of £3 at local offices and explaining how this had come about as a deterrent in 1968 [2400]. As from 1 January 1978 the fee for postal applications was increased from £4.50 to £6, the fee for personal applications remaining unchanged, though checks against known information were now to cost £1.50 each. Postal applications for certificates to the local Registrars remained at £2.50 [2401].
In September 1976 a member and frequent critic of the Society, Flt.-Lt. Ian R. Harrison, then living at Bideford and working in the Aircraft Control Branch of the RAF, as though these things had never been said, wrote to the Magazine provokingly asking, 'Is the Society pressing for improved search facilities at St Catherine's House? There is surely no legitimate excuse for failing to prohibit entry to children and babes in arms. Is there any good reason why indexes and microfilm copies of records more than one hundred years old could not be made separately, conveniently and freely available to authorised readers? A few days ago I overheard an American lady complaining, quite reasonably I thought, that she was being asked to pay £2.50 and wait for four days for a document which, because of the inadequacy of the indexes, was questionably the one she sought. For indigenous searchers conditions are merely frustrating, for visitors with limited time available they must be absolutely intolerable' [2402].
At New Register House in Scotland, owing to the great increase in persons wanting to see certificates with references from the birth, marriage and death indexes (often obtained from the microfilms at the Society), were restricted as from 9 June 1976, to a period of thirty minutes at a time, without guarantee of access at all. Access to the Old Parochial Registers and the census returns 1841-1891 was unaffected [2403].
A note in the Magazine in March 1977 drew attention to an article that had appeared in the spring 1976 edition of Local Population Studies which included a report by Wigan Record Office appearing to demonstrate that the Registrar General had himself powers to authorise the transfer of the older civil registers to the local archivists' custody. It also noted that every registrar must, by law, on payment of the proper fee, 'allow searches to be made in any register of live births or death and register of marriages in his keeping'. The article also noted the statement in Halsbury’s Laws of England that there is authority for saying that the right to search includes the right to make extracts as distinct from the right to obtain certified copies on payment of the appropriate fee. As our Magazine commented, all this was in striking contrast to the actual use of the registers as a source of income by keeping the public at arms-length from them [2404].
The Annual Report for 1976 noted that the problems connected with the transfer of the older records of the Registrar General (or of microfilms of them) continued to be the subject of much correspondence and discussion. The Advisory Council of Public Records showed sympathy with our aims and the Registrar General reiterated his intentions with regard to the transfer of the non-statutory miscellaneous records more than thirty years old. For the transfer of the other records it was said that complicated amending legislation was required. The Society took the view, however, that no legislation was required to transfer microfilms of the records and to make them available elsewhere. A detailed memorandum on the needs of historians with regard to the GRO records prepared by Dr Roger Schofield on behalf of the Record Users’ Group was submitted to the Advisory Council of Public Records in November 1977 [2405].
An interesting letter from Michael Faraday in the September 1978 Magazine drew attention to the high number of errors in the GRO's more recent indexes, there being no statutory power to compel church ministers and others to make their returns in capital letters for legibility. The root of the problem, he thought, was that the certified copies were not open to public inspection and that one had to rely on the unreliable indexes. He stressed also that the divorce indexes at Somerset House, in which general searches were tedious and expensive ought to be as accessible as the marriages themselves [2406]. The latter point had, in fact, been made by Charles Beddington in a letter to The Times as long ago as 1938, saying that the decrees of nullity should be registered in the same way as marriages and endorsed on the marriage certificates [2407].
Early in 1978 searches by GRO staff in the closed census returns 1881-1901 were suspended due to economy cuts and staff shortage but the service was, later that year, restored at a cost of £9.72. For this fee (and as previously had been the case) only the age and place of birth of named persons at a specified address would be given and even that was conditional upon the production of the written consent of the person sought or his/her direct descendant [2408].
Following the discussions in 1977 the Advisory Council on Public Records, of which Lord Teviot was a member, had set up a working party to look at a draft Bill to amend the Public Records Act 1958 so that the records of the births, marriages and deaths at the General Register Office more than one hundred years old might be made Public Records and transferred to the PRO, something that the GRO had agreed in principle following representations by the Society ten years earlier. On 2 June 1978 the Records Users Group, on which I represented the Society, met the Working Party to discuss the Bill and I then wrote to its Chairman stressing additional points of interest to genealogists.
At the SoG’s AGM on 19 June 1978 Lord Teviot announced to applause that he would be introducing a Bill in the House of Lords in the next Session of Parliament which would enable the older records of the Registrar General (including those of events at sea and the Foreign Returns) to be transferred to the Public Record Office [2409]. The Bill's intention was to make the records in the custody of the Registrar General into public records so that as they became a hundred years old they could be seen on microfilm in the PRO. A few days later, on 27 June 1978, acting as Honorary Genealogical Adviser to the Association to Combat Huntington’s Chorea (which I had been since 1974), I had met the All-Party Disablement Group at the House of Commons and explained the situation about the Bill, the Association being anxious to secure free access to the records of civil registration for those tracing their ancestors for medical purposes [2410].
The Bill’s unopposed Second Reading took place on Thursday, 23 November 1978, and Lord Teviot's speech was printed in the Magazine [2411]. Teviot was supported by Lord Lyell and Viscount Barrington. In the debate the Lord Chancellor, Lord Elwyn-Jones, cast considerable doubt on the future provision of funds to make the records available, saying that the Government could not support a Bill which it could not afford to implement [2412], but the Bill was not opposed at its Third Reading on 14 December when it went to the Commons. However, all this was unfortunately happening in the middle of the 'winter of discontent'. The Government was defeated by one vote in March 1979 and with the dissolution of Parliament the Bill lapsed. The Society had stressed to all the parties involved that if the records were to be transferred to the new Public Record Office building at Kew, duplicate indexes would need to be made available in central London [2413].
After the election on 3 May 1979 the Bill was re-introduced in the House of Lords and at the time of our AGM on 27 June was again approaching its Second Reading, the overly optimistic hope being then expressed that it would go through in the longer session of the new Parliament [2414]. However, at the Bill’s Second Reading on 3 July, it was withdrawn by Lord Teviot, the Lord Chancellor having again warned of the extra expenditure of public money needed to implement it [2415]. The Bill sadly went then into oblivion but a working party was set up to explore the further possibilities, it being always borne in mind that the Registrar General had in 1967 agreed in principle to the ultimate transfer of his records.
Some years earlier I had, when compiling the new edition of Wills and their whereabouts, noticed a statement in the Public Record Office Guide that, 'Extracts of Wills from every Court were under Statute of 42 George III, c.99 (1802) sent to the Legacy Duty Office'. These copy wills, arranged alphabetically in years from 1812 to 1852 in 7,678 parcels, were deposited at the Public Record Office but were not open to public inspection. In 1961 the Lord Chancellor had approved their destruction but as it was realised that they contained abstracts of many Cornwall, Devon and Somerset wills which had been destroyed by bombing at Exeter in 1942 these were sorted out and preserved, being eventually sent to the appropriate county record offices in the West Country.
At that time I had pointed out that these bundles of will copies, coming from 'every court', might well contain wills of which no other copies were then known, since the records of about fifteen peculiar courts, extant in 1832, are now missing. I was given permission to search the indexes of these wills for such abstracts, the Secretary of the Public Record Office having stated that if this could be shown to be the case, steps would be taken for their preservation. Unfortunately, as no calendars survive of the now destroyed peculiar wills, this proved an impossible task. In 1962 the Society offered to house the copy wills which were scheduled for destruction but this and a later request that we be allowed to microfilm the indexes, was refused.
The indexes struck me then as being particularly valuable for they formed a consolidated index to the majority of the wills proved in England and Wales between 1812 and 1858. Being in lexicographical order at least to the second or third letter of the surnames they were easy to search and they gave the names of the testators, their residences, the names of the executors, and the courts of probate. Some indexes for individual courts started in 1796. Further representations were made to the Board of Inland Revenue and in 1964 these valuable indexes were made available at the Public Record Office for the first time. Mr C. E. C. Townsend compiled a schedule of the indexes and this I published, with an explanatory note, in the Magazine in 1967 [2416].
It had not been fully realised at this time that extracts from the copy wills had also been entered into a long series of volumes and that the notations in these made by the taxation officials were particularly valuable for their additional information about ages and relationships, particularly when trusts had been created. For some time although the indexes in 429 volumes (1796-1863) were available at the Public Record Office, the registers remained with the Office of the Board of Inland Revenue [2417]. Our member David T. Hawkings gave further details of the surviving records and of these volumes of will abstracts, which at the time were only being released to the public as they became more than 150 years old, in the Magazine in 1970 [2418] and I described them in my new edition of Wills and Their Whereabouts in 1974. Following representations by Lord Teviot the delay of 150 years was reduced to 125 years in 1977 and the abstracts up to 1851 then became available, a very useful advance [2419].
Another change this year was that after the resignation of Wyn Ford the Society decided to pay fees to an external Editor of the Magazine and in April 1967 appointed Miss Lorna (‘Lornie’) Leete-Hodge (1927-2008) [2420], a freelance writer for several publishers with magazine experience, who took over in September 1967 [2421]. She immediately showed how useful it was to have someone slightly away from the Society and not directly involved in its politics and she published a good number of letters and comments about the Society, some far from favourable, which prompted much useful discussion. Her second number contained an interesting article by Peter Spufford about 'Genealogy and the Historian' and developed a criticism of Wagner's English Genealogy as not addressing the questions in which historians would be interested [2422].
A pioneer article by Francis Leeson on one-name studies, 'The study of single surnames and their distribution', had appeared in the Magazine in 1964 [2423] and produced many interesting comments about the value of such work [2424], leading to a much greater appreciation of one-name studies generally. One comment by Eric Urwin mentioned perhaps for the first time the value of telephone directories for surname distribution [2425]. Another important article contributed by Leeson, who was particularly interested in surnames generally, was that on 'Aliases' in 1968 [2426].
Taking advantage of the suggestion that many members wanted more information about their fellow members' interests Malcolm Pinhorn and Francis Leeson decided to produce a new version of Charles Bernau's International Genealogical Directory (IGD), giving it the same name, which they intended to publish in June 1971 and annually thereafter, for small fees listing people and the families in which they were interested [2427]. Denis Barber thought that this might more effectively be done by keeping a slip index to the names on the members' birth-briefs and of any additional names that they might care to submit [2428] an idea to which he reverted later when recommending that the Society sponsor a standard layout for such slips, a suggestion much discussed at the time [2429]. Hartley Thwaite, however, thought that many were not encouraged to extend their areas of co-operation because enquirers rarely enclosed stamped addressed envelopes and still more rarely bothered to acknowledge replies [2430]. However, a second edition of the International Genealogical Directory was published in 1972/3 [2431].
There was now pressure from the many new members of the Society to have a revised edition of the 1966 Register and Directory, but it was revealed in 1973 that although two thousand had been printed, less than a hundred had actually sold. An un-named writer in the Magazine said in explanation: "Although many do not like to recognise the fact the average genealogist is basically a lone wolf. He does not want to share the information he has so carefully collected and is not interested in corresponding with others on the subject. He regards with horror the writer of enquiring letters, most of which (when legible) will not be of the slightest interest and more often than not will want something for nothing, but he will take any details offered in such letters and use them to his own advantage without acknowledgment. He does not in any case have any faith in the ability or knowledge of any genealogist other than himself. He does not submit a birth-brief to the Society, and would not dream of copying his information, let alone an outline pedigree which would give his secrets away, for deposit there. In all this may probably be found some part of the reason for the Register's lack of success. Those who are willing to correspond and exchange information are certainly a minority in the Society" [2432]. Norman Crabtree agreed, writing that 'most people have learned from sad experience to steer clear of information exchange ... Second-hand genealogical information is usually of no value whatever' [2433].
However, since January 1968 the details of the 2,000 interests of about 700 newer members had been collected in the Society’s office and in 1972 these were put in order, indexed and duplicated for sale (at 50p) by Cecil Mackay as the Catalogue of Members' Interests, 1968-1971 [2434]. She sensibly circulated the membership to get an idea of the number of copies to duplicate [2435] and some members then complained that the whole of the membership had not been re-circulated and the 1966 list brought up to date [2436] but in view of the financial failure of the earlier list there was naturally a great reluctance to embark on another full-scale list with all the work which that would entail. The out-of-date 1966 list was still available for 5p in 1974 [2437]. It was reported in 1977 that a volunteer, Christopher Assheton-Stones (died 1999), was making a slip index of Members' Interests taken from the forms completed by Members when they joined [2438], but the Society's experience with the earlier list did not encourage its publication and the need for such an index was soon taken over by the national directories. The surnames on the members' birth-briefs were still, of course, being published in the Magazine and indexed there every three or four years.
A regular and active volunteer at this time was Leslie William Lawson Edwards (1927-2005) who had become a life member in 1958. He was helping in the Library by the end of 1967 [2439] and after Peter Trigwell’s departure he was appointed Librarian in August 1968 with Miss Doreen Thomas as his assistant [2440]. Educated at Greenock Academy, Lawson Edwards (as he preferred to be known) had read history at Glasgow University and had later taken parts of the examinations of the Library Association, but he never fully qualified. He had held various public library posts and was Deputy Librarian at Cannock, 1960-64.
At the Society he was librarian in a period of great growth and involved in many of its activities, helping to produce a number of the early printed catalogues of sections of the library. He had an excellent memory and an abiding interest in genealogy, heraldry and the peerage, being especially active in the development of the Society's collection of directories, poll books and parish registers, and his colour coding of new bindings became a noticeable feature of the county shelves. On his days off he transcribed all the Cornish nonconformist registers at the Public Record Office into six typescript volumes (16,500 baptisms and 500 burials, 1769-1857) [2441], privately publishing an index to them in 1976 [2442], and then commenced work on those for Devonshire, but fearing for his eyesight (he had suffered a detached retina in February 1974) [2443], was obliged to discontinue the work. He held the post of Librarian until taking early retirement because of poor health in 1990.
Lawson Edwards had an interesting ancestry in that his father Leslie William Henry Edwards, who was in the Royal Navy, had Devon ancestry but descended in the male line from Edward Donaldson, a fisherman born about 1752 at Unst in the Shetland Islands. Edward Donaldson's son was baptised Daniel Edwardson in 1781, but his son Robert, who began life in the surname Edwardson, joined the Royal Navy in 1838 in the surname Edwards and retained that name. Lawson's mother's family, which gave him a link to the Chief of Moffat, came from Denny in Stirlingshire and provided a perfect example of Scottish naming patterns which was used by Gerald Hamilton-Edwards in his In search of Scottish ancestry (1972).
I should perhaps mention that in 1968 also Mrs Mackay lost to America her office assistant the popular Andrea Waters who had been with her for four years, she being replaced by Janet Bailey, whilst Miss Valerie Scammell was appointed Receptionist [2444]. The volunteer Miss Marie (‘Meg’) Reeves (1905-1994), formerly a member of the Library Committee, was first mentioned in the Annual Report this year for her many voluntary services around the Library with her friend May Toop [2445]. The library was, of course, increasingly busy and we noted that in 1969 the number of non-members paying a search fee had increased to 1,536 in the year, some 35% more than in 1964, and three times the 1960 figure of 510 [2446]. The position of guests, of which there were a growing number, was therefore clarified, members being welcome to show their guests around the library, but if the guest wished to use the collections he or she had to pay a search fee or remain in the Members’ Room [2447].
Miss Scammell left in the autumn of 1969 and there was a period when we were without a receptionist, Janet Bailey from the office and Doreen Thomas from the library taking it in turns to man the desk, they being assisted by the young microfilm operator from the cellar. I wrote indignantly to the Chairman in October protesting that this young man’s salary was more than that of most of the staff (and only 5s 8d less than mine) and that my agreement with the Society, quite forgotten, had stipulated that I should share the Office Assistant’s time [2448].
However, it was not until the end of December that Mary Chapman was appointed Second Assistant to the Librarian and Receptionist [2449]. Work on the shelf-numbering and classification of the library now gained pace and Lawson Edwards revised the classification in September 1970 [2450], the letters and numbers now being marked on the books’ spines in a way that had previously been resisted. That year Max Adler in Zurich generously gave us a set of the valuable 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica [2451].
Both Doreen Thomas and Mary Chapman left the Library staff in 1970 and were replaced by Mrs Eileen Laffan and Anders Verner Larsen from Copenhagen. The Annual Report said with regard to these and earlier changes that ‘it cannot be denied that repeated changes have been detrimental to the work of the Library … the chief cause being the poor salaries offered, it is to be hoped that increases will improve matters in future’. That year in the office, Janet Bailey was unwell and left, being replaced by the welcoming Mrs Elizabeth Gibson and a friend of Mrs Mackay, the elderly Mrs Haidee Reid (nee Grass; 1895-1991), who was also an expert typist [2452] but seemed quite unable to remember my name! Michael Houghton joined the Library staff in 1971 [2453].
In 1971 the use of the Library by 1,836 non-members was an increase of 13% on the previous year and some 666 reels of microfilm were produced for use there as against 452 in 1970 [2454]. In 1972 the annual number of non-members using it passed the 2,000 mark for the first time [2455].
In June 1967 when the agents, Messrs Cluttons, communicated the owners' intention to sell the freehold of 37 Harrington Gardens, the situation was grave as it had become clear that alternative premises would be almost impossible to find. Charles Kingsley Adams, the Chairman, wrote to all the members on 31 July 1967 to say that negotiations had commenced and that they would be kept informed [2456]. The original asking price was £39,500 but the negotiations reduced this to £31,000, though £1,300 would be needed to meet the fees involved and a further £5,000 for the necessary work to make the best use of the building, particularly in the basement. With the aid of a bridging loan from the Midland Bank, the sale was completed on 25 March 1968. The agent's and legal fees and immediate repairs brought the cost to £33,392. To help cover this, investments worth £9,050 were sold, the remaining 5% debentures of the old issue being repaid at a cost of £943 [2457]. The Society had for some years previously had its account with the Westminster Bank but the Bank declined to provide us with a bridging loan and I remember the happy day when Herbert Chadband, our excellent accountant, went to see the Manager at the Midland Bank, also in Gloucester Road, and he agreed a loan provided that the Society transferred its account.
In the interim between the exchange of contract and the completion of the purchase, a Freehold Appeal Fund was launched, the Chairman again writing to every member [2458], and a discussion meeting was held at the Society on 24 April at which details of the negotiations which had taken place and an outline of the Society's plans for raising the £25,300 required were given [2459]. A fund-raising firm had been employed (costing £445) with no great success and to bring the appeal to the interest of members I wrote a short history of the building, its occupants and neighbours, which was published together with a photograph in the centre-fold of the March Magazine, and then made available separately. Remembering Nicholson's great interest in the house and his kindness to me, I made a contribution to the fund in his name, he having died on 19 April [2460]. At the Discussion Meeting Alan Rolfe suggested that an appeal be made to some of the satisfied clients for whom the Research Department had worked and this was also done though I did not myself care greatly for the idea. Questions were also raised about the possibilities of extending the library into the adjoining house No 35 and serious consideration was given to the idea in May and June 1971 when it was offered for sale by tender [2461], but it was in a poor condition (its warren of rooms had for ten years been let as bedsitting rooms [2462]), a central staircase occupied much of its floor space and, although designed as a pair, its floor levels were quite different from those in No 37.
By the end of the year the appeal had obtained £14,500 of which £5,000 was a 6% loan, later converted into a debenture [2463]. Lord Mountbatten had himself entered into a seven year covenant for £10 from which the Society would receive £120 and he wrote an encouraging letter which was used in the appeal. In September 1968, through the good offices of a member, Mr F. A. Davies, the offer of a mortgage (of £12,000 for fifteen years at 8% with no capital repayment in the first three years) was received and accepted from the Eagle Star Insurance Company so that the bridging loan from the Midland Bank with its heavy interest payments (initially at nine and a half per cent), might be discharged. We then reckoned that a further £9,000 would be required for repairs and improvements [2464]. At the Annual Meeting in 1969 a tribute was paid to the Society's Accountant, Herbert Chadband, who had been so instrumental in all these negotiations [2465].
Using her duplicator and some large yellow cards Cecil Mackay successfully produced an eye-catching poster to advertise the Society. It had been drawn by Margaret, Mrs Arthur Noble (died 1978) [2466] and based on some words of Oliver Wendell Holmes which I had quoted in Tracing Your Ancestors, 'We are all omnibuses in which our ancestors ride'. The poster was sent, a few at a time, to all the public libraries in England in the spring of 1967. Alexander Sandison, in a way associated with this difficult man, annoyingly asked at the AGM why it had not been sent to the record offices as well [2467]. However, it aroused much interest and in 1968 the membership passed the 3,000 mark and continued to rise.
At this time the library was open from 10 am to 5 pm, Monday to Saturday, but in August 1967 we began an experiment to see how many members would come if it remained open until 9 pm on two evenings a week and if this would relieve the cramped conditions which had become a problem on Saturdays [2468]. The results were so encouraging that it was decided to revise the opening hours completely from the beginning of 1968. The library was closed altogether on Mondays and to compensate for this it opened from 10 am to 6 pm on Tuesdays and Fridays, from 10 am to 9 pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and from 11 am to 5 pm on Saturdays. The later opening on Saturday mornings caused considerable annoyance and later that year the old opening hour of 10 am was reinstated. It was found also that few people stayed until 9 pm on the late evenings and early in 1971 it was decided to close at 8 pm instead. The Monday closure remained a bone of contention for many years, a stream of people coming to the door on that day and going sadly, and sometimes angrily, away.
Throughout the winter of 1967-68 we had been watching with some concern a slight crack which had opened up in one of the large brick piers in the outer lobby of the Society and we then noticed that other cracks had appeared in the wooden pillars in the gallery of the Members' Room which ran above the lobby. Although the pillars were ornamental and not load bearing, above them was the immense weight of the Document Collection and the Great Card Index and our surveyor thought that together they were probably weakening the structure of the building and that it would be prudent if they could be moved. The Executive Committee on 18 April 1968 was advised that the situation had become urgent and it was consequently agreed to take the Document Collection and Indexes downstairs and to house them in the Members' Room on the ground floor (which although smaller was above the vaulted kitchen and capable of supporting the weight) whilst Room Tweeddale above became the members’ room. It was done at short notice and was not a very satisfactory arrangement but it fortunately did not last long.
After some considerable thought by the House Sub-Committee, led by the Chairman John 'Denis' Burton (1902-1984), former Assistant Director of Supplies to the Greater London Council, a plan was put to the Executive Committee on 28 November 1968 [2469]. It was decided to utilise to the best advantage the whole of the basement, including the housekeeper's flat and the staff room, where the floors could carry an unlimited amount of weight. The large flat on the second floor with four main rooms and two bathrooms was at that time vacant and had previously been let for £450 p.a. exclusive of rates. It was thought that this flat could easily be divided into two self-contained flats. One of the rooms in the largest flat could be further divided into two bedrooms so that when let the income from that flat alone would be 'not much less than' that which had hitherto been obtained for the flat as a whole. The housekeeper might then have the smaller flat and her rooms in the basement be used for the major part of the document collection. All this was agreed, as was the plan that when the Members' Room had been restored to its original use, Room Tweeddale should be converted into a suite of offices for the Secretary and Director of Research, thus releasing their rooms (which could carry a substantial weight of books) for library use.
The cost of the conversion of the flat was estimated at £1,206-3-9 and the opportunity was taken to completely re-wire and install fluorescent lighting on the ground and first floors at £354-10-0. The work was to be done by Cecil Mackay's friend Mr A. J. Green and his firm Flatfurn Ltd which had offices at 32 Harrington Gardens. The Hon. Guy Strutt provided some of the fluorescent fittings [2470].
Much of the summer of 1969 was therefore taken up with the work and removals required by the proposed alterations [2471]. Florence Moss had retired to Eastbourne some years earlier and a resident housekeeper was now completely dispensed with, the cleaning being done by Mrs Norris who came in from Essex and later (from 1978) by contractors, and the second flat was let. The flat in the basement was re-decorated and converted in 1970 [2472], one room to house the heavy card indexes and the other, to be called Room Mersey, to house the overseas material from Room Raglan and the second microfilm reader. The microfilm reader there was replaced in January 1974 when it was still necessary to book its use in advance, particularly on Saturdays [2473].
The Members' Room on the ground floor had thus regained its original use and Room Tweeddale above was partitioned to form three offices (Membership and Accounts, Secretary, and Director of Research, each with desks for two workers) as well as a staff room with a little kitchen made from the gentleman's lavatory which had served the former billiard room, and an outer office (with that very large table) which could double as a meeting room.
The basement flat was not large enough for the Document Collection and this was moved across the landing to fill the large room formerly occupied by the Secretary which had girders underneath and the small room that had been partitioned off the landing for the Director of Research. It all worked fairly well except that there was almost no privacy in the low-level glass partitioned offices. The two flats on the second floor were let furnished by the autumn, providing a substantial addition to the Society's income [2474]. The Chairman, Denis Burton, greatly enjoyed all the work involved and was never happier than when donning a carpenter's apron to assist, converting a billiard-cue rack on the back landing into a convenient store for microfilms and turning the dumb-waiter into further cupboards. He retired from the Executive in 1977 after fourteen years of dedicated service [2475] though he was out of his depth in the convoluted arrangements which had been set up with Phillimore & Co.
The maintenance of the Society's premises included, in the autumn of 1973, the re-papering of the hall and staircase. The original 1880s lincrusta wallpaper had many years earlier been varnished and was now very dark as well as being badly chipped on the stairs. Back in 1961 John Betjeman had thought that the wallpaper might be cleaned but in 1973 we were unable to find anyone who thought that a possibility. I was determined that it should not just be painted over or replaced with something modern as was being suggested and with the support of Cecil Mackay and the active and expert help of an old friend, John Oliver, who specialised in hand printed wallpapers, I took considerable pains to re-create the rich pattern of red and green flowers on a gold background. With a rubbing that I had made of the old paper Ian Logan and Dennis York formulated a slightly simpler design which retained the richness and colouring of the original and was eventually printed specially for us (at £8.50 per roll) and put up in November 1973. It was, I thought, a great success.
Frank Leeson wrote that we had restored the entrance to something of its former glory [2476], though of course some members thought it a waste of money. Unfortunately the large internal window onto the back-stairs remained an eyesore and a suggestion by Barbara Batt that members might like to see the ugly panels replaced by stained glass displaying their arms unfortunately came to nothing. However, the smaller internal window between the stairs and the former billiard room was, as Betjeman had suggested, opened up again at this time.
In 1974 we cleaned and restored into use various cellars that reached out under the forecourt [2477] and in July the Surveyors succeeded in obtaining a reduction of £650 in the gross rateable value of the building, something we considered a ‘disappointing result’ [2478]. The following year we were able to redecorate one of the flats but there were problems with the roof and some urgent repairs had to be carried out [2479]. The hope of finding larger premises had not meanwhile been abandoned and in 1974 Cecil Mackay had discussions with a group of engineering societies about the possibility of sharing joint catering and lecture facilities in a larger house. With that in mind the House Committee visited a large former hostel at Nos 22 and 24 Harrington Gardens, opposite to No 37, but judged the warren of rooms unsuitable for our purposes [2480].
The overcrowding at lectures, normally held in the Members' Room, was mentioned by Mr R. F. Oakman at the Annual Meeting in June 1971 and Cecil Mackay said that she was actively seeking more spacious accommodation nearby [2481]. The autumn 1971 talks were conveniently held next-door at No 39 in the picturesque and spacious drawing room of W. S. Gilbert's old home, Iolanthe House, by kind permission of the Director of the Central Midwives' Board, and this added considerably to the pleasure of these occasions [2482]. The door to this room displays the curious motto, 'And those things do best please me, that befall preposterously'. Opposite, the dining room door is inscribed, 'All hope abandon, ye who enter here'.
We continued to meet here for the next two lecture seasons but for that beginning in October 1974 an arrangement was made to hold the talks in St John's Lutheran Church House at 8 Collingham Gardens, another fine Victorian house just at the end of Harrington Gardens, tea still being served afterwards in the Members' Room back at the Society. Many a time a blackboard had to be carried to the meeting, but fortunately there was no shortage of chairs. However, the number of members passed the 4,000 mark that year [2483] and continued to rise and eventually we had again to look for a larger room. In October 1982, when I spoke on sources for 'Farm Labourers', we went for the first time to the unusual meeting room of the Royal Entomological Society at 41 Queen's Gate, a fair step from our Society [2484], but we continued to meet there until the move to Charterhouse Buildings in 1984.
As a result of the steady increase in membership and day searchers, the finances recovered well with careful monitoring, though in 1969 a large batch of deeds of covenant worth about £700 went astray in the post. With staff changes in the office there had been problems with their regular administration and it did not look good at the Annual Meeting in June 1970, when Lord Mountbatten, a warm advocate of covenants, took the chair. Mountbatten had himself given £150 to the Building Fund in 1968 and he gave a further £50 that year. In reply to suggestions from the professional genealogist Brenda Perks (1910-1993) and the illustrator and glass artist Barbara Batt that further funds might be raised by an auction at the Society or the use of his garden for a garden party he said, amidst much laughter, that he had just given them £50 in order to avoid suggestions of that nature [2485].
At that 1970 meeting Lord Mountbatten had encouraged the idea that the annual subscriptions be raised and later in the year an Extraordinary General Meeting was held at Harrington Gardens on 3 November 1970 and the subscriptions were increased without difficulty and for the first time in more than ten years to £6 p.a. for Town Members and £4.50 for Country and Overseas Members as from 1 January 1971 [2486]. Herbert Shipman, who died just two months later, suggested, without support, that the area for Town Members be reduced from a twenty-five to a five-mile radius, but the Chairman agreed with a proposal by Mignonette Packman, who had joined in 1969, that the introduction of retired, family and student memberships be investigated [2487].
These proposals were brought to an Extraordinary General Meeting before the AGM held in Caxton Hall, Westminster, on 28 June 1972, when it was agreed by 31 votes to 3 that students aged 25 years or under engaged in full-time study at a recognised educational establishment should pay £3 p.a. as Town or £2.25 as Country Members and that retired Members over 65 years of age and no longer in full-time employment should pay £4.50 or £3.50. These concessionary rates were to include the magazine. However, a proposal that husbands and wives (who would pay two subscriptions but receive only one magazine) should pay £10 or £7.50 was defeated as not being sufficiently clear [2488]. The meeting, which as can be seen was not well attended, was told that the majority of members who had joined before the alteration of the Articles in 1965 had agreed voluntarily to the new rates and that students formed about 7.5% of the membership. Cecil Mackay, having received only four letters on the subject, thought it unlikely that a very great number of pensioners would apply for the reduced rates, though naturally in due course all without exception did. Some thought it would harm the Society's finances but others believed that it would lead to an increase in membership.
Due partly to the increase in subscriptions the previous year, the excess of income over expenditure in 1971 had been a record, amounting to £3,614, in spite of the higher salaries and additional staff [2489]. Perhaps with that in mind Cecil Mackay bought, in October 1972, a greatly cherished new Gestetner to aid her duplicating work. I was away at Walkern at the time and she wrote one day, after a ‘plushy’ lunch with the Chairman, to say that ‘the only positive result of today’s labours is the mending of the members’ teapot lid with a piece of cork and a nut and bolt. The ironmonger gave me the nut & bolt and I supplied the cork from my own private collection so the Society has done well, it will help to offset the cost of the new Gestetner (£400 odd) which has arrived and has already been used!’ [2490]. With new electrically cut stencils she produced a much better version of the leaflet about the Society and dozens of different notes, lists, agendas, minutes, and so forth on different coloured papers.
At the end of 1972 the excess of income over expenditure was more than £4,000, prompting a young Stella Colwell (minuted as 'Colwill') to ask, at the AGM in June 1973, how that £4,000 was to be spent, adding that the organisation of a genealogical conference should be one of the duties of the Society. The Chairman, Colonel Somerset Hopkinson, replied rather sharply that it might well be, but far more important was the repayment of the mortgage and the maintenance of the Society's premises [2491]. A heavy increase in rates had been appealed against but at least the members' subscriptions would not be liable for VAT. At that meeting Eric Whittleton (1912-1992) suggested that membership cards, not issued for many years, be re-introduced.
The saga of the Society's initial problems with photocopiers continued for some years and at the Annual Meeting in 1969 the Chairman, Denis Burton, explained that a good machine was too expensive to buy and the estimated number of copies did not make the hiring of a machine economically viable [2492]. However, later that year a 'Docustat' was installed in the reception hall on a six-months trial, reproducing white on black at a shilling a sheet [2493]. The Annual Report called it a 'somewhat mixed blessing'! [2494]. The growing and heavy use of a machine that needed to be coin-operated meant at that time, when technology was only beginning to develop, that our photocopying problems were many and continuous. In 1970 the ‘Docustat’ was replaced with a ‘Copycat 220’ which proved very popular with members and visitors [2495]. In 1973 the charge was still 5p per copy including VAT [2496].
Ever since my introduction to the records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury at Somerset House by Helen Thacker I had taken an interest in their indexing by the British Record Society and I joined its Council in 1967. Almost every week in the Research Department we needed to search the old Calendars of the Prerogative Court between 1700 and 1858 for some surname or other, going over the same ground again and again, for they were arranged only in chronological order by the initial letters of the surnames. A search in the larger letters, like letter 'S', might well take many hours if a date of death was not known or all the entries of a certain surname were required. It all seemed a shocking waste of time that a little joint effort in indexing might easily overcome.
Going regularly to the Probate Registry I had got to know well the Superintendent of the Department for Literary Inquiry in Room 9, Alice Stanley (1908-1993), and her assistant William Ernest Hathaway Cheape (1897-1973) [2497]. 'The Literary', as Alice Stanley always referred to it, was now depleted of all its local records except for those of Surrey, but was fundamentally unchanged from the room known to generations of previous students. Alice Stanley, however, although without previous experience of ancient documents, could not bear to see the original wills and the other documents that remained in the storerooms at Somerset House in such a terrible state. She asked for some boxes and heard an official say, 'Give her fifty or a hundred. She will make a fool of herself and shut up' [2498]. Over the next few years, however, going early before work and in all that dust and grime, she and William Cheape sorted the original wills, 1484-1858, into some 7,000 boxes [2499]. It was a quite remarkable achievement.
Professor Robert Halsband (1914-1989), the authority on eighteenth century English literature, paid Alice a fine tribute in The Times Literary Supplement in 1968, unknowingly illustrating how much things had changed, saying that when looking for the will of Lord Hervey in 1743 'the official transcript was put on my desk within ten minutes; I wanted to see the original document (for its alterations and corrections), and after I paid a fee of one shilling it was on my desk within ten minutes; I wanted it photocopied (cost: two shillings a page), and the copy was in my hands within ten minutes ... The lady in charge of the search room is the most gracious and cheerfully helpful person I have ever encountered in a long career of exploring archives' [2500].
Alice Stanley had joined the Society in 1964 and was awarded the MBE in June 1966 [2501], but in September 1969, for reasons that remain obscure (just as with Challenor Smith in 1893) she was removed from her position in the Literary. She was devastated. Quite by chance in November that year Lord Denning (1899-1999), the Master of the Rolls, mentioned her work at the British Records Association’s AGM, holding up an issue of Archives with her photograph and an account of her activities and saying what an excellent example it was of the outstanding things that archivists were doing. After the meeting I spoke to Lord Denning, a Vice-President of the Society of Genealogists, about Miss Stanley and a few well-chosen words were delivered behind the scenes, but it was too late. In May 1970 the Surrey records were sent to the Greater London Record Office (there being still no agreement as to where in Surrey they should go) [2502], the remaining records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury were transferred to the Public Record Office and the Department for Literary Inquiry closed its doors for ever on Friday, 22 May 1970 [2503]. Alice Stanley was found alternative employment within the Probate Department and in 1973 elected a Fellow of the Society.
I have said little in general about developments at the Public Record Office but one cannot leave its receipt of this vast accumulation of records without paying some tribute to Dr J. Conway Davies who oversaw their transfer and to Jane Cox who spent ten years 'armed with a vacuum cleaner and an industrial mask' sorting and cataloguing them so that they could eventually become available for public use [2504].
It was Alice Stanley who drew my attention to a series of rather worn parchment calendars of the wills and administrations of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury from which those in use in Room 9 had been copied in the nineteenth century. With the permission of the Senior Registrar I was allowed to borrow those for the years 1750-1800 with the idea of making index slips so that a fully alphabetical index might be compiled and in June 1968 I appealed through the Magazine for volunteers to take single volumes, each covering about half a year, and to write index slips or help with the slip sorting, they being allowed to work on the volumes at home [2505].
About thirty-five members came forward and by March 1969 ten volumes had been completed. Dr John Frost (died 1992), of New York University, made a most useful donation of £40 to help cover the cost of the thousands of slips which were needed and the shoe designer Eunice Wilson kindly provided a ready supply of shoe boxes in which to store them [2506]. By September a further seven volumes had been slipped and twenty-four were being worked on [2507]. In March 1970 it was reported that 25 years had been completed and that 19 were being worked on; Dr Frost had given a further $125 for slips [2508]. By September that year a further 34 years had been slipped and a further 14 were being worked upon [2509]. In March 1971 I reported that five further years were complete and that Dr Frost had again given $125 towards the costs of the slips [2510]. Finally in September 1972 I reported that all fifty years had been indexed onto slips and that the long task of sorting them had commenced.
The slips were, of course, already sorted into chronological order by the initial letters of their surnames and our old friend the genealogist Dr Joseph L. Druse (died 2004), from Michigan, who had been staying in one of the Society's flats and was the author of Through parish & probate to your English ancestry (1965), spent many hours making an initial sort to their third letters of the slips for surnames A-F [2511]. Dr Frost had made yet another donation of $125. I reckoned then that about a third of a million slips were involved [2512] but once the sort to the second or third letter of the surnames had been made the slips were usually much more manageable. Michael J. Wood, Joan Masters and I did most of the remaining sorting in the evenings and at weekends. Many thousands of entries which had been marked with paper clips as doubtful readings were checked against the duplicate calendars by Michael Wood and Joan Masters.
The sorting of the will slips having started, the Society agreed to commence their publication, and the first volume, covering only A-Bh, was published early in 1976 at £6, a ten per cent discount being offered to those who agreed to take the whole index, though at that time we reckoned it would take about fifteen or sixteen volumes of 400-450 pages each [2513]. In the Acknowledgements I paid tribute to the enormous energy and patience of Joan Masters who had written the index slips for ten of the years covered and had checked eight others where the slip writers had clearly had difficulties with the writing. George Squibb wrote that the published volume had 'minimum readability coupled with maximum genealogical value' [2514] but I was not at all happy with its production, in which a number of people had been involved.
Michael Wood had done an enormous amount of work with the sorting and checking and he subsequently went through the whole of the remaining slips (including the administrations) before they were typed and their accuracy owes a very great deal to his labours. The second printed volume, which covered surnames Bi-Ce, was typed by Deborah Jackson and published at £5 in 1977.
After the close of business in May 1970 the register copy wills and other ancillary records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury had meanwhile been transferred to the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane and they became available there on Monday, 8 June [2515]. A very steep rise in the cost of photocopies followed, from two shillings a page to ten shillings an opening together with a handling charge of five shillings. The usual representations were made but without result [2516]. The post-1858 records of the Principal Probate Registry remained at Somerset House.
My interest in probate records and the Society led to my lecture, given to the Society on Saturday, 20 January 1979, 'The Society of Genealogists and Probate Records', that sketched out the history of the subject and drew attention to the various little known manuscript collections of abstracts and indexes which had been gathered over the years. Extended and updated it was published in 1984 [2517].
Whilst working at the Society in the early 1960s Philip Blake had been in touch with a wide circle of local genealogists and record agents and he conceived the idea of forming an association which might represent their particular interests. His attempt to involve the Chairman, Malcolm Pinhorn in the creation of some formal body early in 1962 failed because the latter was newly involved in Phillimore & Co and too busy [2518], but Blake began to put together a list of practising people by area and subject of expertise which was further developed and refined when I took over the research department from him later that year, we gaining practical experience of their ability (or lack of it!) by employing many of the people mentioned.
The continued and growing interest in the subject, as a note in the Magazine said [2519], had encouraged many persons to put themselves forward as genealogists and to solicit work in all branches of genealogy and record searching. Although some were doing excellent work, others had little general ability and did not recognize their limitations or lacked the breadth of experience to cope with the enquiries received. Consequently complaints about the quality of their work and their charges were not uncommon. The Society received a fair number of these and it seemed imperative to me that some organisation be formed to provide a list of recommended persons.
Blake had not let the idea drop and involved me and a few others in a lengthy series of meetings which eventually led to the inaugural meeting of the Association of Genealogists and Record Agents (AGRA) at the Stationers' Hall on 24 June 1968, the initial members being recruited by invitation, mostly from the lists of persons of which I and the Society had practical experience. Its purposes were to protect the public, to promote and maintain professional standards of practice and to establish minimum scales of fees and charges. It was also intended that the Association should represent and promote the interests of professional genealogists and record agents and to give them a voice in questions concerning the use, preservation and availability of records, and related matters. Blake was particularly keen that the organisation should be quite separate from the Institute emerging at Canterbury. He kept up the pressure to promote the Association at every opportunity and never hesitated to write acerbic letters when necessary. Already in March 1969 he thought it dying of inertia and wrote complaining to me that it was 'really disgraceful the way in which this new venture is being piloted' [2520]. On 13 December 1969 I had much to say about it when I spoke to the Society about ‘The professional genealogist and his client’ [2521]. The support of local searchers in the provinces was critical and in that we were extremely fortunate, practically all the best searchers with whom we were in regular contact joining.
The first President was Sir Gyles Isham (died 1976), the Chairman of the Council was Brian G. C. Brooks of Brooks and Simpson Ltd, and the Secretary was G. B. Greenwood. I was a member of the Council until 1976, being Chairman from 1973 to 1976 [2522], and was elected a Vice-President in 1980. For the next twenty years the Council meetings took place in the Society's rooms and I gave the new organisation every possible support, providing regular reports of its activities in the Magazine, selling the List of Members in the bookshop and eventually only accepting Magazine advertisements for professional services from AGRA members, at the same time phasing out the Society's own list of recommended searchers. Peter Dewar was Secretary 1971-3 and succeeded by the active and diligent Isobel Mordy [2523]. In 1974 the Association had 63 members [2524], a figure which had risen to about 80 by 1978 when the number of enquiries had greatly increased and Miss Mordy gave up her post [2525], Mary Gandy being appointed in her stead [2526].
Meanwhile, on 5-8 August 1969, the Genealogical Society of Utah had celebrated its 75th anniversary with an enormous 'World Conference on Records' in Salt Lake City which was attended by some 7,000 people. There were talks on aspects of British genealogy by various professionals and archivists from this side of the Atlantic including Noel Currer-Briggs, F. G. Emmison, Felix Hull, Sir Iain Moncreiffe, Brian Redwood, Peter Spufford, Donald Steel, Peter Walne and Donald Whyte, and an exhibition stand was provided by Phillimore & Co [2527]. Lord Mountbatten, as President, had been invited to represent the Society but it being Cowes Week he could not go and suggested that somebody else be invited in his place [2528], eventually asking me to stand in for him, by which time, with the uncertainty as to who would pay, it was unfortunately too late for me to go.
In 1969 I made the long-standing problems with L. G. Pine much worse by savaging his perfectly dreadful so-called 'international guide', The Genealogist's Encyclopaedia (1969), a highly inaccurate, rambling and gossipy account of the subject in which the coverage of source material was negligible and from which the major Commonwealth countries had been omitted [2529]. He flew into a rage and involved Lord Mountbatten saying that my review was 'grossly unfair, cowardly and mendacious' and that he had nothing but contempt for the writer [2530]. We published his letter as he requested but, of course, it only drew further condemnation of the book. Thomas Gurney Stedman (1883-1975), a member since 1929, thought my review 'scholarly, truthful and impartial', calling Pine's book 'slovenly' and a 'miserable production', whilst the Hon Guy Strutt (1921-2008) wrote that my review was 'factual, justified and moderate', Pine's letter 'irrelevant and abusive' and his book 'deplorably slipshod' [2531].
I had first met the aggressive Philip Harris, newly appointed general manager of Phillimore & Co, at a meeting after lunch on 10 December 1968 when I was bombarded with questions for five hours. However much the Society might benefit from an association with a commercial publisher, as was at that time being discussed, I knew from the length of this interview alone that any relationship with this particular firm would never be an easy one. I found out some years later that Harris had already formed the opinion that the Society's committees were run by ‘elderly traditionalists’ and after the meeting he told the Phillimore Board that ‘the scene seems set for an effective take-over [of the SoG], to the benefit of genealogy and genealogists alike, not to mention Phillimore!’ [2532].
Philip Harris was appointed managing director of Phillimore in January 1969 and in spite of very considerable doubts as to the wisdom of what they were doing, but reassured to some extent by the names of Phillimore's team of editorial advisers, those at the Society entered into a formal agreement with him by an exchange of letters in October 1969 (Denis Burton being then Chairman of the Executive Committee) in which Phillimore was appointed publishers of The Genealogists’ Magazine and the Society's other publications for a trial period of two years [2533]. The Annual Report said that there was ‘every reason to hope that this revival of a former close connection [something of an exaggeration] will prove a fruitful one’ [2534] but although the agreement proved obscure and difficult to operate, with repeated discussions in the Publications and Executive Committees, the contract was renewed.
In January 1974 the Honorary Treasurer, Arnold Hawker, attempted to unravel the tangled correspondence which had taken place but crucial variations in practice had not been set out clearly in writing or had been left entirely verbal. There was considerable dissatisfaction at the Society with the delays in correspondence and payments. By 1975 the financial chaos had become quite impenetrable and negotiations were started for a new agreement by which Phillimore would be demoted from its role of 'publishers to the Society' to being merely the 'principal agents' for the distribution of its publications. Francis Leeson, the Magazine editor, wrote in October that 'only by by-passing Phillimore editorially has it been possible to achieve reasonable regularity of appearance' of the Magazine [2535] but there was a particularly annoying delay in the circulation of the December 1975 issue and there was great relief when the old agreement was terminated in March, the new one taking effect on 1 April 1976. The Society was then charged by Philip Harris in his usual high-flown style with 'despicable intrigues' and 'rather vague and contemptible charges of mendacity' [2536].
In all the circumstances it is not surprising that in June that year the Society decided to give notice to terminate the whole agreement. Donald Steel argued against it, being worried about his royalties from the National Index and typically writing of 'a completely new edition within a few years' [2537]. but Jeremy Gibson, former editor of the Magazine and of the National Index, dismayed by the 'interminable wrangles', expressed the opinion that Phillimore's involvement 'has caused much greater troubles than benefits' to the Society [2538]. Philip Harris appealed against the decision in a five-page letter [2539] described by Alexander Sandison, the Chairman of the Publications Committee, who had spent hours trying to sort the financial chaos, as 'typical in its assembly of misleading and inaccurate statements presented with an air of authority', and in October 1977 the Publications Committee unanimously recommended that the decision to terminate the agreement with Phillimore be confirmed. The recommendation was accepted by a special meeting of the Executive on 7 November 1977 [2540]. I breathed a considerable sigh of relief and wrote in my diary that there was 'a great feeling of anti-climax'.
Sandison wrote then that the Society's year of experience as publisher and distributor of the Magazine since the termination of the contract had given no cause to regret the decision. Experience with other publications, such as Leslie White's Monuments and their inscriptions and the first volume of the PCC Will Index had, he thought, shown that professional help might have improved standards but that both were usable and in print and it was very doubtful that higher standards would have increased their sales or justified the twenty per cent of net revenue that would have been charged by Phillimore [2541].
Meanwhile at the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane the quiet and unhurried rooms that I had known in the 1950s were witnessing considerable change. Back in June 1952, following the great increase in the number and size of the records being received, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Master of the Rolls had set up a committee on departmental records under the chairmanship of Sir James Grigg, a former Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the War Office. The conclusions of its final Report, published in May 1954, were largely accepted by the Government in July the following year, and led directly to the Public Records Act of 1958. This repealed the 1877 and other earlier Acts, transferred responsibility for public records from the Master of the Rolls to the Lord Chancellor (the Master of the Rolls becoming Chairman of a newly created Advisory Council on Public Records) and gave the public a legal right of access to the records after fifty years.
The Grigg Committee had found that the system for selecting records for preservation devised in 1877 and still in force was hopelessly inadequate, the application of historical or other academic criteria for preservation, which should have been the responsibility of the PRO, was almost entirely in the hands of the originating departments. Now, as a result of the 1958 Act although responsibility for the initial selection and sampling of records was delegated to the departments of origin, newly appointed Records Administration Officers and Inspecting Officers from the PRO were given a statutory duty to co-ordinate and supervise the work. Each department’s reviewing officer was to be ‘a senior officer of the Department’ and would firstly ask not later than five years after its creation whether a record’s active ‘use’, in its widest possible sense, had ceased. This review was expected to permit the early destruction of between 50 and 90 per cent of a department’s papers. It was thought that anything of lasting historical value would survive this process. After twenty-five years each department was to look again at the residue in conjunction with an Inspecting Officer from the PRO who would apply the historical criterion. After this second review the remaining files were to be sent to the PRO unless they were still needed for administrative purposes. The growing number of ‘particular instance papers’ (PIPs), each relating to a different person, body or place, some of which went back into the nineteenth century, was to be exempt from this process and a committee of the PRO was to decide to what extent such files should be retained and in what quantity. The Grigg Committee envisaged that most would be reduced to a statistical sample. They included the vast bulk of the service records of the First World War.
Unfortunately the consultations of the Grigg Committee with users had taken place at a time when the Society of Genealogists, with Major Church as Secretary, was busy with its many internal problems and the Grigg Committee came to the unpleasant conclusion that ‘no attempt should be made to keep in the Public Record Office records that would not otherwise be preserved, solely because they contain information which might be useful for genealogical or biographical purposes’. As for the service records, the Committee’s Report said, ‘The Society of Genealogists has informed us that it considers it would be unreasonable to ask for the retention of service records on genealogical grounds. The genealogist would find useful those service records which record dates of birth and parentage prior to the introduction of the compulsory registration of births in 1836 and also records of a later date relating to men in Scottish and Irish regiments. But, in general, the Society has told us, genealogists make little use of records in the Public Record Office, their main sources of information being the records in the General Register Office’ [2542]. Whoever wrote this on the Society’s behalf was seriously ill-informed and had much to answer for. Hamilton Edwards, the Society’s Secretary in 1955 and active in 1954 told me that he had been quite unaware of the work of the Grigg Committee or of any such statement [2543].
The PRO search rooms were now becoming much busier. Large numbers of students were brought in by the increased budgets for postgraduate research in the 1960s and there were growing numbers of genealogists following the release of the 1861 Census Returns. The small search rooms designed in the mid-nineteenth century were now quite inadequate for the numbers of visitors and long early-morning queues outside the building became a daily feature.
In January 1963 the Lord Chancellor, Lord Dilhorne, appointed a Committee consisting entirely of lawyers with the Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning, as Chairman, ‘to consider the classes of records existing or accruing in the various offices’ of the various central and local courts ‘and those transferred to the PRO and to advise which classes of those records should be permanently preserved and for what purposes and to recommend the periods for which the other classes of those records should be retained’ and furthermore ‘to advise whether, with a view to saving storage space, any arrangements should be made for the microfilming of any of the above-mentioned legal records’. The Denning Committee’s terms of reference were extended in May 1964 so that they covered, as its final Report says, ‘nearly all the legal records of the realm’. The Society of Genealogists received the Committee’s draft report for comment in September 1964 and I replied with the Society’s observations on 1 January 1965 [2544].
The draft Report proposed that a quite horrifying array of records, mostly of the ‘Particular Instance’ type, be destroyed (sometimes after sampling or the removal of cases considered to be of historical importance – ‘H’ cases). These included the General Chancery Affidavits and many other groups of Chancery records since 1875, the Depositions in the Queen’s Bench since 1875, the Registers of Wards of Court, the Original Wills and Act Books in the Principal and District Registries since 1858, the Companies (Winding Up) files, the County Court Summonses, the records of the Patents Appeal Tribunal, the Individual Case Files in Matrimonial Causes (including orders registered under Indian and Colonial Jurisdiction Acts) since 1858, the Admiralty Case Files, the Bankruptcy files and Companies ‘winding up’ files, the adoption case papers in the Official Solicitor’s Department, the records of the Court of Protection, the Bankruptcy Files and Adoption Files in the County Courts, the Acknowledgments of Deeds by Married Women 1848-1900, and much else.
The writers of the draft Report considered that there was a large and ever increasing flow of record which lessened the importance of legal records but the Society said in response that although that might be true for the political and economic historian it was not true for the biographer and genealogist. For the latter the non-‘H’ cases of the Report (which were scheduled for destruction) would be of value and not necessarily the ‘H’ ones (which were scheduled for preservation); for us everybody is or was or was likely to become ‘of inherent personal interest’. There was no provision for the preservation of ‘H’ cases amongst those files already created and we urged that all the records in which ‘H’ cases had been singled out, should be kept in their entirety. These, of course, included the Chancery Affidavits and the Original Wills (of which only those of ‘particular interest’, not defined, were to be retained) and we listed a considerable number of other classes of record including the case files in Matrimonial Causes which we believed should also be preserved. The Society had been asked in particular about the possible preservation of some records by transference into private hands (the Society’s member Philip Blake having himself offered to take and make available the Chancery Affidavits) and we said that preservation in any form was preferable to destruction, so long as the PRO did not think that the records should be kept at public expense. The Draft Report concluded, as the Grigg Report had done, that there was no advantage in microfilming anything, there being ‘no big demand, either for inspection or for copies’ for these records. We said that there must be many classes of record, including some of those we had listed, which could be safeguarded against possible future interest by microfilming. However, the lawyers only saw that under the 1958 Act the duty to preserve selected material was subject to the over-riding duty to destroy everything else. The Committee took the view that ‘either records were worth keeping … or they were not’, though as Philip Blake wrote, ‘that attributes to records an absolute value capable of determination, which is nonsense’ [2545].
Altogether some seven hundred different types of record had been considered and in spite of a statement in the Report itself that ‘representatives of the historical profession and others likely to be familiar with the value of these records as sources for research’ had been invited to comment, only the Institute of Historical Research (IHR) at the University of London and the SoG had seen the draft. The Institute had set up a sub-committee which not only submitted a memorandum but was interviewed by members of the Denning Committee. However, as the BRA’s Annual Report says, ‘hardly any of the points made were noticed in the final Report’. In the event Lord Denning’s Committee received written comments only from this group, from the University of Cambridge Institute of Criminology, from H. J. Hanham, Professor of Politics in the University of Edinburgh and from the Society of Genealogists.
We were, of course, wasting our time. The dreadfully superficial 55-page final Report of the Committee on Legal Records appeared in August 1966 and differed little from its first draft. It made clear, in its proposed orgy of destruction that it could not agree that modern legal records were of any interest to the historian or that they should be preserved for genealogists merely because they ‘might contain personal details of the lives of individuals’ [2546]. The Grigg Committee’s belief that ‘the making of adequate arrangements for the preservation of its records is an inescapable duty of the Government of a civilised state’ was now to be subject to considerations merely of space, bulk and weight. The Council of the BRA, as its Annual Report said, ‘immediately found itself deeply perturbed, not only by the Report’s sweeping proposals for the destruction of important classes of records … but also by the Committee’s apparent almost total rejection of the advice which it had sought from a limited range of historical bodies, and by … its inadequate regard for the needs of future historians’ [2547].
Philip Blake wrote a particularly scathing and powerful letter to Lord Denning about the superficiality of the Committee’s work, the lack of qualification of those involved and the absurd brevity in the lists of the records appended [2548]. I also received copies of concerned letters, particularly about the proposed destruction of the Original Wills, from Peter Spufford on behalf of the British Record Society (of which Denning was also President) repudiating the views originating in the Grigg Committee as ‘wholly wrong and opposed both to ancient and modern doctrines of historical value’ [2549], from Gerald Hamilton-Edwards with a lengthy plea for the genealogist and biographer [2550], and from Dr Leslie White questioning inter alia why usage was thought to be a guide to value and why microfilm could not be more widely used [2551]. However, only the proposed destruction of six miles of original wills at Somerset House obtained real publicity [2552].
On publication of the Report our then Chairman, Charles Kingsley Adams, who was also Director of the National Portrait Gallery and much interested in biography, wrote in some detail to the Lord Chancellor setting out the Society’s concerns about the proposed destruction of the Original Wills and querying the situation of the Act Books, Oaths and Bonds, about which we were also worried and the loss of which, he wrote, ‘would be a greater loss from many practical points of view than the destruction of the Original Wills’ (for which the Register Copies would survive) [2553]. In reply the Lord Chancellor said that in view of the many comments received in the Report he had decided to refer it to the Advisory Council [2554]. In November we were told that the Advisory Council would be discussing it at its March meeting and that it would welcome oral evidence from a SoG representative [2555] and in December, at the BRA’s AGM at the Guildhall, I was able to speak to Sir Robert Somerville (died 1992), BRA chairman and a member of the Advisory Council, who seemed quite hopeful of the outcome, mentioning the strength of all our representations.
The Institute of Historical Research, having been given such short shrift earlier, had meanwhile taken the initiative to call a ‘Conference’ of representatives of the historical world and three representatives each from the Institute, the British Records Association, the Royal Historical Society and the Historical Association, met on 16 January 1967 to comment on Lord Denning’s Report. The group’s lengthy and fierce Observations were handed to the Advisory Council in February 1967. It took issue on many fronts, particularly over the Report’s readiness to abandon the age-old principle that the main records of the Courts and of the cases tried in them should be preserved in perpetuity. The group believed that this was a well-founded right which it was the State’s duty to preserve. Moreover it profoundly disagreed with other of the Report’s basic assumptions: that the existing PRO accommodation should be made to suffice and the records pruned to fit it; that if records had been ill-kept and rarely used, the proper course was to destroy them; that records must ‘earn their keep’; and that the officers of the courts in which the records originated are proper persons to select those of historical value. The Conference entirely disagreed with the ‘H’ method for selecting documents, considering it a method which could only result in the retention of the exceptional or the curious. In many instances it found the Report’s description of documents inadequate and meaningless [2556].
The Advisory Council used parts of two ordinary meetings to discuss the matter and had the one special meeting on 15 March 1967. A comment by the Secretary to the Council that our concerns were ‘primarily about Wills’ did not bode well and was rejected by me [2557] but the Agenda for the two-hour meeting in March limited the discussion to four questions: (1) Should all original wills be kept? (2) Should the main legal records be kept in perpetuity? (3) Is the recommended system of selection correct in principle, and in particular in regard to Chancery matters? (4) How far should records be preserved for genealogical and biographical purposes? The meeting was frequently pushed along by the gently smiling Lord Denning with his disarming west-country brogue and assurances that everything would be taken into consideration, and it seemed wholly superficial. Sir Anthony Wagner came to give verbal evidence but there was only time for him to make a few acidic comments about the possible destruction of the First World War soldiers’ documents and for me to disown the evidence formerly given to the Grigg Committee by the Society of Genealogists.
A copy of the Report of the Advisory Council (dated 21 August 1967) was sent to the Society on 17 November 1967, the Lord Chancellor having announced his acceptance of its recommendations in the House of Lords on 14 November [2558]. It went only a limited way to modify some of the original proposals and began by saying that it was satisfied that they were ‘in the main in accordance with the principles laid down by the Grigg Report’. Although most witnesses had favoured a greater degree of preservation the Council thought that this was ‘symptomatic of discontent with (or misunderstanding of) the Grigg Report’ and that the critics presupposed ‘too great a rigidity’ in its application and took ‘insufficient account of the knowledge and experience of the officers of the Courts and of the PRO’, it being safe to leave ‘many of the minor points’ to their discretion. It had therefore concentrated on the wills after 1857, the Chancery Division records after 1875 and the records of the Criminal Courts and Coroners. The Original Wills in London would be preserved up to 1934 (and up to 1952 in the District Registries) when photostats were introduced but after that date would be destroyed when fifty years old. Dr Conway Davies had said that the post-1857 Probate and Administration Act Books contained ‘certain information not to be found elsewhere’ and the Council recommended that they be looked at again by the responsible officers of the Principal Probate Registry and the PRO. The Council thought it ‘difficult to defend the wholesale destruction’ of the post-1875 Chancery Affidavits and agreed that they should be retained out of London but might be ‘weeded’ at some future date. In future the Chancery Masters should mark for preservation any cases ‘of intrinsic and enduring interest’ and those ‘likely to continue for an unusually long time’ and recommended that these should be retained together with a random statistical sample of all cases. For the records of the Criminal Courts and of the Coroners more detailed guidance on those to be preserved would be provided. No attempt was made to answer the wider criticisms of the historians which, if taken at all seriously, would have meant the re-consideration of the whole of Denning’s Report.
We all felt greatly let down. The British Records Association noted that many of the changes urged by the historical societies had been completely ignored and in March its Council felt it necessary to place on record, in a letter to the Lord Chancellor (and in its Annual Report), its disappointment and regret. Destruction schedules implementing the proposals with regard to Quarter Sessions, Coroners’, and Petty Sessional Records had already been circulated by the Home Office, though assurances had been given that the original Report would be interpreted ‘in a generous spirit’ [2559]. I doubted it and had much sympathy with the anonymous reviewer who wrote of the public records in 1991 as a place where ‘in unholy alliance with parsimony, philistinism and institutionalised vandalism, the sources are weeded, plundered and destroyed’. That reviewer’s interests were not those of the family historian and the latter had to wait until 1981 and the Wilson Committee for some formal recognition of their interests and a statement that the implementation of the Grigg Committee’s Report had been ‘seriously defective’. The unease of many contemporary historians was shown by the late A. J. P. Taylor’s comment about weeding that it ‘meant pulling up the prize specimens and leaving the weeds’ [2560].
As mentioned the August 1967 Report of the Advisory Council had discussed the Probate and Administration Act Books at the Principal Probate Registry and Dr Conway Davies’ concern, but in October 1968 we were shocked to hear that all those over a hundred old were to be destroyed. I wrote immediately to the Lord Chancellor protesting at the decision [2561]. In the previous week I had spent several hours in the Registry comparing the first one hundred Administration Acts for letter ‘B’ in 1858 against the printed calendars and I had prepared a schedule showing that thirty per cent contained important additional information which would be lost if they were destroyed. This included renunciations by family members, ages of minors, details of next-of-kin, lack of issue, parentage, deaths of relatives since an intestacy and marital status; in one case an administration to a creditor was particularly informative. I sent copies to the Registry’s Records Officer, Mr W. I. Martyn, who seemed intent on destroying the records and to the Senior Registrar, Mr J. F. Compton Miller. I had been in touch with Sir Anthony Wagner and he also wrote to the Lord Chancellor with a copy of my list [2562]. The Lord Chancellor’s office replied that no decision had yet been taken but that the books had been removed from the Registry to enable it ‘to check the number of enquiries for them and to find out the reasons why people wish to examine them’. As the Registry clerks habitually told enquirers that they contained no additional information, this was a bizarre situation. Martyn had already told me that those who wanted records preserved should make sure that the family retained copies. I was therefore not surprised when on 19 December 1968 the Senior Registrar told me that a decision had been taken to destroy the books, but that the delay in doing so and ‘the reaction of various persons’ had resulted in ‘steps being taken to give further consideration to the matter’. I wrote again to the Lord Chancellor’s office which confirmed the latter point and the Senior Registrar assured me that the records ‘are safe for the time being’. Some authorities believed that legislation would, in any case, be needed to destroy the Original Wills and Act Books.
In March 1969 it was formally announced that only the Original Wills filed since 1934 would be destroyed as they became fifty years old. Hamilton Edwards asked about them at our AGM in June when I said that the news seemed more hopeful [2563], as indeed it proved to be, the Original Wills from 1858 to 1965 being moved to the PRO repository at Hayes that summer. There were 150,000 between 1858 and 1900 and there they could be stored relatively cheaply [2564]. However, in view of the general lack of sympathy with our concerns at the Principal Probate Registry I remained very apprehensive about the eventual fate of the Act Books and it was not until March 1971, following some confusing correspondence with a local District Registrar, that I obtained an assurance from the Lord Chancellor’s Office that the Act Books in the Principal Registry would be permanently retained (and the duplicates held locally destroyed) [2565]. The Will Oaths and Bonds were destroyed after fifty years [2566].
Some years later Jane Cox wrote, ‘With the advent of the quantitative approach to history, the counting of cases and the compilation of statistics, there has been a need for vast masses of evidence and an increasing demand for long runs of records to be preserved which might have no intrinsic value in themselves’ and the growth of interest in family history had exacerbated the problem [2567]. An excellent example had been provided in May 1966 when The Times reported that the county archivists of Devon and Cornwall were protesting that the full stories of the seafaring decline of their counties would never be told, if plans to destroy almost 95% of shipping records for the second half of the nineteenth century were approved. It had been compulsory since 1835 to draw up crew lists and agreements for every voyage made by ships, but there were nine million and the records took up 30,000 feet of shelf space. It was now proposed to keep everything before 1856 but only a 5% sample of the surviving records from 1857 to 1913, though ‘interested organizations and institutions’ might ask to have anything outside that five per cent. The sample was said to ‘amply provide for the needs of general research’. The County Archivist for Durham subsequently wrote that the way in which the matter had been handled was ‘open to serious criticism’, either the 5% sample was sufficient or it was not. Those who wished to receive the records from a medium-sized port within their area would be charged about £700 for their selection and transport [2568]. In the event the PRO retained a larger sample, some complete years of the records were taken by the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich and the balance went to the Maritime History Group in Newfoundland, a most unsatisfactory arrangement [2569].
There were many further pressures on the building when the Public Records Act 1967 reduced the period after which most public records were opened to public inspection from fifty to thirty years. The Act came into force on 1 January 1968. There was no initial rush, the ‘crunch’ being expected when the American visitors came in May, but Alan Bullock, then Master of St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, and a member of the Advisory Council on Public Records, took the opportunity to say that more accommodation was needed close to Chancery Lane, but that ultimately the Office would have to be divided into two sections. One, he opined, could cater for the older historical records and ‘would have to be in Chancery Lane’, the existing building being extended. The other, built elsewhere, could cater for records created since 1914 [2570]. At the time this was a widely held view and genealogists took some comfort in the belief that the records they used would mainly stay in central London. By 1969 some sixty per cent of all research in the PRO was in records of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The lack of pressure that January (1968) had been brought about by providing forty further seats at Chancery Lane in the summer of 1967 and by transferring the census records for the three years 1841, 1851 and 1861 to the ground floor of the Land Registry Building in Portugal Street where space for another fifty seats was available and where, as related below, the returns remained until 1991. The original census books were here no longer produced and the uncertain pleasures of census searches on microfilm were now first encountered by many searchers. Recalling that time Stella Colwell later wrote that the ‘Census overnight became remote, clinical, and curiously inaccessible. No longer could you flit from page to page, turn them backwards and forwards for more information, and thus the personal and intimate involvement with history was lost, at least to me’ [2571]. However, having learned to cope with the simple machines the great advantages of speedy self-service with the microfilms on open shelves soon became apparent.
In February 1968 an editorial in The Times recommended the building of an annexe to the Chancery Lane building on the vacant land that faced Fetter Lane [2572], a possibility which had been supported by the historian Geoffrey Elton and others [2573], but in 1969 the Lord Chancellor gave approval for the building of an Office for departmental records on a site owned by the Crown at Ruskin Avenue, Kew. It was thought that the first stage of the new building at Kew would be completed in the mid-1970s and in July and August 1970 a survey was consequently conducted on the likely needs of users at Kew and on the facilities that they would like to see. The Chairman of the Executive Committee, Denis Burton, made some general observations on the Society's behalf and in reply an outline of the proposed division of the records was provided. It was learned that those most used by genealogists would be retained at Chancery Lane where a 'microfilm search room' would be provided for the census returns 1841-1871, the returns in future being produced on microfilm because their physical condition was deteriorating. It was hoped to open the search rooms at Kew, where good refreshment and car-parking facilities would be available, on one or two evenings a week.
The Society had asked for the Chancery Lane building also to be kept open at least on one evening and all day on Saturdays, the Land Registry Building not even being open on Saturday mornings, and on 30 April 1971 it was announced that the Land Registry Building would open on Saturdays from 9.30 am to 1 pm for the production of the census returns and, if requisitioned in advance, the non-parochial registers [2574], something which we warmly welcomed [2575].
In a debate in the House of Lords in March 1972 the Lord Chancellor re-stated his decision to move the bulk of the modern records to Kew and was criticised by Professor L. S. Pressnell in The Times for ‘the obscure economic rationale underlying this desperate venture’ [2576], but as the historian John Sainty wrote, ‘in the absence of any satisfactory site in central London the implementation of this decision, however regrettable it may be in principle, must now be accepted as inevitable’. He regretted that a permanent division in the records would arise, the bulk going to Kew and the medieval records and state papers remaining at Chancery Lane, and he urged that everything be brought together at Kew [2577]. That view was opposed by Professor R. B. Pugh [2578] but supported by several other historians [2579]. The Annual Report of the PRO for 1971 (published in May 1972) noted that attendances had risen by nine per cent in the year to 85,000 and the number of documents produced increased by 6.4 pe cent to 306,000. Construction work on the new building began in 1973 and it was eventually opened in October 1977.
One of our better-known members in America was an Englishman, the likeable Percy 'William' Filby (1911-2002), a man of great energy who had worked at Bletchley Park and Berkeley Street during the War [2580]. He had joined the Society in 1961 when Librarian at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. Later, when Librarian and Assistant Director of the Maryland Historical Society, he was often asked to identify the best books in the Institute's extensive genealogical collection and somewhat in 'self-defence', as he later wrote, he prepared the first edition of American and British Genealogy and Heraldry: a selected list of books (1970).
Prior to publication and when I hardly knew him he had sent me a draft of the British section and I had the cheek to cut it into strips and to re-arrange it according to my own notions (but based on the Society's library catalogue), making many changes, but all this he accepted with great good humour and later wrote gratefully that without me 'the British section would have been a mess'. The book, published by the American Library Association, was a considerable success being the only one of its kind to attempt in a systematic manner to list and evaluate the best available books by subject. Jack Bird, librarian at the Association of Special Libraries and Information Bureaux (ASLIB), thought it 'on the whole happy in what it omits as well as what it selects' [2581]. The book went through three editions, Charles Evans called the much larger second edition 'an invaluable reference source' [2582], and it gained several awards, being selected by Library Journal as one of the best reference books of 1983, and bringing Bill Filby many invitations to lecture, to review and to consult.
Some years later I fed Filby lists of the Society's Fellows and of the officers of the local societies for his Who's Who in Genealogy and Heraldry (1981, 1990) and he then became world famous for his great series of books about immigrants, the Passenger and Immigration Lists Bibliography 1538-1900 (1981) and the Passenger and Immigration Lists Index (1981) with its many supplements listing millions of people who entered America prior to 1900.
Bill Filby, who was elected a Fellow in 1983, was a world-renowned calligrapher and a shrewd businessman. He had a heartfelt sympathy for the problems of administering the Society and its library (but, unfortunately, little time for the sometimes abrupt Lawson Edwards) and was a generous donor to our funds, frequently assisting with the costs of fiche readers and photocopiers.
At the Annual Meeting in June 1970, Miss Evelyn Gore-Symes (1919-1998), a regular visitor, had remarked that she found it exceptionally difficult to find her way around the library and Major E. H. C. Davies suggested that during the winter months we run a series of evening classes specifically related to its contents so that beginners could get a better idea of the resources available and where to look for them [2583]. He raised the matter again the following year and was told that the Lectures Committee had delayed a decision but that a note would be sent out in September 1971 [2584]. There were to be six general talks, the charge being £3, with numbers limited to twenty-five. I did the first three talks in January 1972, the librarian (taking a tour of the library), Clifford Webster and Alexander Sandison the other three, the classes being held at 6.30 pm on Tuesdays after the Library had closed. There was an overwhelming response and they had to be repeated the following month [2585]. I had found myself another task, organising one or two sets of classes and doing much of the talking every year for the next twenty years. A second series, at the same rate, followed in February 1973 and a third in February-March 1974. Another followed in April-May 1975. It was found that some variety in lecturers was desirable, but to have more than three lecturers in a short course was generally not a good idea without a clear syllabus. Even then some lecturers tended to go off at extraordinary tangents regardless of the time, particularly when the classes were put together as a day course, thus disrupting all one’s best plans!
I remember telling Oxford Heraldry Society in 1972 that I was the world's worst lecturer and that the torment of the audience was nothing compared to what I suffered [2586]. That excuse worked for a while, but I found myself increasingly doing talks here and there. I was assisted in 1974 in the Society’s classes for beginners by Brian Brooks, Dennis Burton, Stella Colwell, Malcolm Pinhorn and Alexander Sandison, but in 1978 we had reduced the lecturers for the two series that year to Lawson Edwards, Stella Colwell and me. The following year there were four series of classes including one that we gave in May and June, organised by Colonel S. N. Marker, at the American Women’s Club in London, and talks to visiting overseas groups were becoming much more frequent [2587].
In 1971 the Law Society's library disposed of a great number of local and professional directories by auction at Sotheby's and Lawson Edwards was consequently able to fill many gaps in the Society's runs, we aiming to get directories for about every five years [2588]. I attended one of the sales and was able to acquire complete sets of the Medical Register 1858-1965 and Dentist's Register 1888-1965 for £15 (about twice my weekly wage at that time, but still quite a bargain) but then had to decline the offer of a complete set of the Medical Directory for the same price because I could not afford it. I gave them to the library but Edwards would only take the years 1858-1921 and then every fifth year, offering the remainder at fifty pence each to anyone willing to take them away [2589].
At the AGM that year Mrs Brenda Perks raised the unpleasant subject of the 'constant disappearance of books and manuscripts from the shelves' saying that members should not be allowed to take briefcases into the library. The Chairman said that the matter had been discussed at length but that any restriction needed further staff to enforce it and to keep the deposited briefcases in safe custody. The 'bugging' of books had also been considered [2590]. However, in March 1974 the Executive Committee, greatly perturbed by the continued losses from the library and document collection, announced that it was urgently considering a ban on briefcases and bags in the library [2591]. They were further pressed by a series of members at the Annual Meeting in June when Lord Mountbatten laughingly said that all the books should be stamped "Stolen from the Society of Genealogists" [2592].
The publication of the Library Rules in June 1975 revealed that all bags and briefcases then had to be surrendered to the attendant in the hall who issued a receipt for them and that any person taking folders, papers or other belongings into the Library was to offer them for inspection on their leaving the premises [2593]. The bags were placed on the floor of the small ladies cloakroom behind the reception desk and two part-time attendants or hall-keepers were employed [2594] until 1978 when both retired and were not replaced [2595]. There was almost no space in which to install lockers except in the ladies cloakroom and only a few could be purchased until after the move to Charterhouse buildings in 1984.
Early in 1972 the Society had purchased some 57 feet of shelving and erected it at the ends of the bays on the ground floor in Room Farrer. On these shelves we placed the Phillimore Marriage Series and thus greatly relieved the pressure on the county shelves [2596]. That same year I encouraged Lawson Edwards and the Library Committee to come to a reciprocal arrangement with our former Librarian, John Sims, who now worked at the Institute of Historical Research, to exchange photocopies of poll books from their large collection and by this means we acquired another forty-seven [2597]. The Institute was able to fill some gaps in its holdings and some years later (although he had meanwhile moved to the India Office Library) John Sims edited the standard bibliography, A handlist of British Parliamentary poll books (1984).
The first guide to the genealogical resources of a particular region of the British Isles appeared in 1972 in the form of Alexander Sandison's Tracing ancestors in Shetland based on his forty-years of research in tracing his own Shetland ancestry [2598].
The problem of the overcrowding of the shelves was highlighted by the accession of so many Medical Directories in 1971 and two years later the Librarian announced that, where professional directories were concerned, he preferred to be offered only those that were at least fifty years old [2599]. I had advocated that they should be retained only for every fifth year (based on the census years) and so on to a current date.
In September 1973, again because of the overcrowding by readers in Room Farrer on the ground floor, it was announced that the books on half of the English counties, those from Bedfordshire to Gloucestershire, would be taken up to Room Raglan on the first floor and replaced in Room Farrer with less used material on Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and the Schools and Universities, from that floor. It was also decided that the bulkier original documents in the Document Collection would be sorted out and, after abstracts had been made, sent to the relevant county record offices. An estimate of £700 had been received for microfilming Boyd's Marriage Index, the bindings of which were in need of repair, and it was agreed that this should be carried out by degrees [2600]. We moved the books in December but the suggested replacement of the much-used Index by microfilm met with much opposition and I for one argued against the idea unless it became absolutely necessary, the varying arrangements of the county sections of the Index not lending themselves to ease of consultation on film.
In 1974 Sir Andrew Noble (1904-1987) gave £100 to spend on improving the Scottish section [2601] but in November the Parish Register Committee was shocked to hear that as a result of a full-scale check of the library's contents, 75 parish register transcripts, both manuscript and typescript, were missing. The efficient Mrs Patricia Riach (died 2010), who had taken over the work of Parish Register Secretary in September 1972 following the death of Doreen Briscoe, had reduced that number to about 65 by sending out many general letters of enquiry [2602] but there was criticism of the back-up library organisation and many of us doubted that the checks were as thorough as they might have been. However, it was agreed that a list of the missing volumes should be published and it appeared in the September 1975 Magazine, [2603] the very few recovered being listed the following September [2604]. In 1976 the library volunteer Miss May Toop who worked tirelessly covering books and doing minor repairs gave a welcome £75 for the rebinding of books [2605].
At this time the Society had an arrangement with the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland whereby photocopies of registers were sent to us for indexing, the Society keeping the copies and the Record Office receiving the indexes [2606]. In May 1976 the Parish Register Committee agreed that a special project should be initiated to encourage members to transcribe registers for the years 1813-1837, many of the library copies ending in 1812. The period did not require great handwriting expertise and was short enough not to require great commitment and Patricia Riach appealed through the Magazine for possible volunteers [2607]. By the end of the year some 35 parishes were being worked up and some volunteers who had started with the ‘easy’ period had gone on to complete their parishes or to tackle other registers. The volunteers that year produced about 90 register transcripts for the library [2608] that number increasing to 146 in 1977 in response to Mrs Riach’s organisational skills and warm encouragement.
Meanwhile I had, in 1976, negotiated an arrangement with the Public Record Office whereby a free microfilm of the non-parochial registers of any one county (not of individual parishes) would be provided to the Society if typed copies of the registers could be made in return within a reasonable period. Those for Sussex were quickly borrowed by Michael Burchall on behalf of the Sussex Family History Group but no other counties showed an interest [2609].
It was at this time in 1975 that Mrs Mary McClure, a volunteer from California [2610], typed from the large manuscript collections left to the Society by Arthur Bertram Campling (1871-1947), of Bexley, the dreadfully written and seldom consulted slips of Norfolk and Suffolk marriage licences (mostly from the Norwich Consistory Court) before 1800, completing her valuable but unenviable task in some five volumes [2611]. Campling, formerly an agent for a locomotive company, had worked for some years in the office of Alfred Trego Butler at the College of Arms and with A.W. Hughes Clarke in 1933-4 had edited the 1664 Visitation of Norfolk and then in 1939 he put together two volumes of East Anglian Pedigrees, the second appearing after his death [2612]. Anthony Wagner thought him ‘probably the best working genealogist of his day’ but much fault has since been found with his visitation pedigrees [2613]. Another volunteer who made himself useful in the library at this time was Ingram Ord Capper (1907-1986) [2614] who had been in the British shooting team at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952.
Lawson Edwards had taken much interest in the recent publication by Thomas Laity Stoate (died 1997) of an 'early form of census', the 1641 Protestation Returns for Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, and in 1975 he began to compile a bibliography of those which had been printed [2615]. This was published in the Magazine [2616] and as a separate leaflet (No 8) in 1977. Lawson Edwards also listed and indexed the 300 or more original Sun Fire Office Insurance Claims 1770-1788 which we had found during the library re-arrangements in 1969 [2617], publishing full details and an example in December 1975 [2617]. It was only following the publication of the article that we learned that these interesting documents had been collected and donated by a young member, Roland Gwyn (1911-1987) in 1938 [2618].
The Society was not involved when on Tuesday evening, 20 April 1971, Lord Teviot, prompted by the Institute at Canterbury, rose in the House of Lords to ask if the Government 'would consider introducing legislation for the better preservation of parish records and for the purpose of establishing a central indexed copy of all parish records at the General Registry Office or somewhere similar'. He said he was 'not getting over excited or thinking that much progress will be made' and he was right about that.
In the debate Lord Cranbrook spoke eloquently about the shocking conditions in which some records were kept and Lord Sudeley talked about the work of the Cambridge Group, of the Genealogical Society of Utah and of the National Index of Parish Registers. They were supported by Lord Davies of Leek and by Lord Sandys but the Bishop of Newcastle drew attention to the bishops' powers to compel deposit in serious cases of neglect. For the Government, Lord Aberdare said that the existing law was adequate and that powers to enforce deposit were given in the 1929 Parochial Registers and Records Measure. The cost of transcribing and indexing the registers would be enormous and he doubted that the work would be worthwhile, the potential benefit of a central copy not justifying the likely cost [2620].
Edward John Erith (1907-2004) [2621], who had joined the Society in 1935 and been much involved in the survey and deposit of parish registers in Essex, wrote of the debate that the complacency of our law-makers 'makes one despair', saying ‘to suggest that all is well because Bishops have power to order such records to be kept in safe custody, preferably in diocesan record offices, is naïve in the extreme’. Mr Leech of Liverpool thought that the Society should take the lead in the 'tireless pressure' that would be needed to obtain improvements in this field [2622]. It is interesting that Edward Erith who himself in later years carefully transcribed over eighty registers should have written that ‘usually the most prolific transcribers made the most mistakes’ something that I too had observed.
The Parochial Fees Order in 1972 more than doubled the charges which incumbents might make for personal inspections of their registers, the new rates being 30p for the first year and 15p for each subsequent year searched, with certificates at 50p each, but fortunately many incumbents did not seem aware of this new scale [2623].
That year also the Chairman of AGRA had met the Minister of State for the Department of Health and Social Security to discuss the custody of and access to parish registers, and as a result the Minister, Lord Aberdare, had written to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York asking them to urge their bishops to encourage the deposit of parish registers. AGRA had received a complaint about access to an early register of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, 1562-1650, which had found its way into the family archives at Berkeley Castle, and the Association was able by its representations to have the register restored to the incumbent [2624]. The register was subsequently made available to the Society of Genealogists to copy through the good offices of the incumbent, Canon Gethyn-Jones, the Society having already copied his later registers [2625] and that work was completed in 1979 [2626].
In spite of the increase in search fees set out in the Parochial Fees Order of 1972, in November that year the General Synod of the House of Clergy adopted a report of its Standing Committee, to which I had given evidence, requesting the Church Commissioners to frame scales of fees for the searching of parish registers based on the time involved rather than on the number of years searched. At the time this was considered a major advance in a difficult field [2627]. However, the situation created by the Fees Order and the recommendations of the House of Clergy continued to stimulate much discussion and in 1973, on the initiative of David Avery of the Business Archives Council, representatives of various interested bodies including the Society and some individuals, made a joint approach to the General Synod urging the deposit in diocesan record offices and free availability there of all parish registers no longer in use for pastoral purposes [2628].
A year later the first in a series of small volumes that provided county lists of the registers deposited in record repositories and their overall dates was published by Local Population Studies in association with the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure (CAMPOP), Original parish registers in record offices and libraries (1974) [2629] and formed, with the two lists of copies published by the Society, a very useful stop-gap whilst the county sections of the National Index of Parish Registers were awaited.
It was at this time that I became involved in the work of the Standing Conference for Local History [2630], from 1975 attending meetings of its Records Users’ Group (RUG) at Bedford Square under the active leadership of the secretary, Miss Bettie Miller, she providing the necessary administrative support. The Group consisted of representatives of about twenty national organisations (I particularly remember Ralph Pugh, editor of the Victoria County History, and the industrious Irene Scouloudi from the Huguenot Society) and a brilliant and inspiring group of academics which included David Avery, Christopher Charlton, Lionel Munby, Alan Rogers, Roger Schofield and Richard Wall.
The meetings of this Record Users' Group owed much to those from the Cambridge Group in their aim to influence the deliberations of the Working Party of the General Synod with regard to the deposit and free availability of all parish registers no longer in use for pastoral purposes. That interest had become significant when in 1975 highly important proposals came before the General Synod which within a few years would completely revolutionise access to church registers in England. In June a letter that I wrote to the Church Commissioners summarising these proposals and giving the Society's views upon them was published in the Magazine: "We warmly welcome and heartily endorse the proposed new Parochial Registers and Records Measure which will relieve record offices from the obligation to charge fees for searches in deposited registers, require diocesan bishops to designate or establish diocesan record offices if they had not already done so, provide for the inspection every five years of those registers which remain in parochial keeping, and give the bishops power to require the temporary deposit of records for extended historical research. The importance of church registers to historians is now widely known. We do not need to stress their value for the study and analysis of population, of trades and crafts, of the rise and decline of communities, of family history, of genealogy and the related science of eugenics, of disease and mortality, of religious practice and dissent, all of which require wide and constant reference to church registers. These registers are essentially public records created by the church at the will of the central government mainly for administrative, not pastoral or liturgical, reasons, and held in trust by the church. They should not, however, be regarded as the peculiar concern of a particular church; they relate only partly to church affairs and form an extremely important body of material for the history of England as a whole. We also consider that objections can be raised to the use of historic documents as a means of raising money. For these reasons and because the parish church is frequently a damp and insecure place we believe that every effort should be made short of compulsion to persuade incumbents to deposit all their registers and records not in current use for pastoral purposes in the appropriate diocesan record office on permanent loan. Here they will be cleaned and repaired when necessary, the searchers will be properly supervised, reference works and ultra-violet lamps will be at hand, and, above all, they will be in safe custody. We agree that searches in those registers which remain in the care of the incumbents as being needed for current pastoral purposes, and are thus probably not more than about thirty years old, should be subject to some scale of fees similar to that suggested in the Report GS 114/C (i.e. calculated on the time taken for a search rather than on the number of years searched), but only in cases where the incumbent conducts the search himself or employs someone to invigilate the searcher and where certificates are required. In all other cases no fees should be payable. In cases where churches are made redundant we believe that all the records of that church should immediately be transferred to the appropriate record office, and not to the parish church with which the parish is united as now frequently happens. The subsidiary records are particularly at risk at those times. Finally we would stress once more that the skills of a small but dedicated group of members of this Society are at the disposal of incumbents wishing to have their Parish Registers transcribed and indexed so that when they deposit their original registers in a record office some convenient copy is retained in the parish for the use and interest of themselves and their parishioners. In any case incumbents should be encouraged to secure photocopies of their deposited records as an additional safeguard, especially where a transcript does not in itself form an adequate substitute for the original" [2631].
The recommendation regarding fees for searches, last altered in 1972, was that in future there should be a minimum charge of fifty pence for any search not exceeding three years, £1 for longer searches that did not take more than an hour, and fifty pence an hour for more extended searches. As noted above, the Society's views had been made known to the House of Clergy through its Standing Committee and our comments had been acknowledged in its Report (GS/114/C).
In April 1975, as if to illustrate our real concerns, a new Vicar of Lymington in Hampshire, Canon Eugene Haselden (died 1999), asked his local dustman to take a van-load of documents dating from 1700 to a local pit where they were soon buried under tons of garbage and eight feet of soil [2632]. It will be noted that in 1975 the Society had expressed its belief 'that every effort should be made short of compulsion to persuade incumbents to deposit' those registers and records not in current use, compulsion being opposed by many in the church and the county archivists. In November 1975 the General Synod gave general approval to the proposed Measure [2633].
However, whilst the Measure was still at its revision stage, Lord Teviot introduced a simple Bill in the House of Lords that had its Second Reading on 19 February 1976 with the intention of amending the 1812 Act to require parish registers to be kept either in the church in a modern thermostatically controlled safe or to be transferred to the appropriate diocesan record office. In the debate on the Bill it was made clear that although it had Government support, the Church's proposed Measure went further in several important areas, requiring inspections of the records every five years and giving bishops powers to insist on their deposit for research purposes or if the conditions in which they were kept were not satisfactory (details of the required safes being set out in separate Regulations),as well as making arrangements for the records of redundant churches [2634]. Lord Teviot therefore did not attempt to take his Bill further but the prospect of the State legislating for the Church had its effect and the Measure proceeded successfully through the General Synod where it was much assisted by the work of the lay-member Dr Alan Rogers. In July the General Synod had accepted an amendment that all records more than a hundred years old should be deposited in diocesan record offices except where parishes provided facilities similar to those which would have been required by the Bill. The Measure received its Second Reading in the Synod on 9 November 1976 [2635].
At the July 1976 group of sessions the General Synod had decided that fees for searches in parish registers should be retained but, as we had proposed, assessed on a time basis. It was then feared that when the new Fees Order was issued the fees would be considerably increased but the new Order issued in the autumn made no mention of fees. A letter on the subject, signed by eleven representatives of historical societies of which I was one, appeared in The Times on 7 October and resulted in considerable correspondence [2636], a reply from the Secretary General of the Synod and a Times Leader on 26 October. I also took part in a delegation to the Church Commissioners led by Philip Whitehead, MP, on 19 November, when an undertaking was given that no decisions had been reached and that further consultation would take place [2637]. I submitted the Society's revised views the following April [2638].
In February 1977 the Parochial Registers and Records Measure was amended to allow the 'private' institutions serving as Diocesan Record Offices to levy unspecified fees for the consultation of baptismal and burial registers. This raised considerable concern and I then represented the Society at meetings with the Chairman of the Steering Committee which had initiated the Measure, with the Assistant General Secretary to the General Synod and with members of both Houses of Parliament serving on committees responsible for examining the Measure [2639].
At the Society's AGM in June 1977 the possible effects of the Measure were raised and the threat of search fees being imposed in record offices mentioned. I reported then that the Society had made the above representations and that Lord Mountbatten had written on our behalf to the Archbishop of Canterbury setting out the unacceptable consequences of the amendment. The Measure itself could not now be amended and a great deal would be lost if it were rejected [2640] but as a result it passed through the Synod and then through both houses of Parliament on the understanding that it would be amended in a Miscellaneous Provisions Measure.
The Parochial Registers and Records Measure was finally approved by the House of Common on 9 January 1978. The new Measure was introduced in the House by Terry Walker, MP for Kingswood, and, as he said, in effect repealed the 1812 Act and the 1929 Measure but re-enacted their key provisions, requiring each diocese to appoint a record office in which its parish records might be deposited, setting high technical standards for the safes that were to contain any records more than one hundred years old that remained at the churches, introducing periodic inspections of the latter once every six years, and requiring the deposit of records more than a hundred years old that were not kept in the prescribed conditions, it being recognised that few parishes would be willing to undergo the expense involved. However, Clause 20 of the Measure allowed for the charging of fees for the consultation of the records and Terry Walker mentioned the concern that there was no limit to the fees that could be charged by the three private or 'independent' diocesan record offices: Canterbury Cathedral Library, the Bodleian Library at Oxford (which had never charged fees) and the Borthwick Institute at York. It was on this point that Lord Mountbatten had approached the Archbishop of Canterbury [2641]. As a result action had been taken in the Synod to include in a Miscellaneous Provisions Measure an amendment to Clause 20 to make it clear that the right to charge fees in local authority record offices was governed by the Local Government (Records) Act 1962 and that the Synod would limit the fees in the three 'private' offices to those specified in any order made under the Ecclesiastical Fees Measure. Mr Walker paid tribute to the Synod for devoting so much of its time and resources to the preparation of the Measure and said that the Synod itself wished to place on record its appreciation of the help that it had received from MPs and Lords and from the 'representatives of professional and other expert bodies'. Welcoming the Measure, Stanley Newens, MP for Harlow, stressed the fact that the question of fees would not disappear, the cost of General Register Office certificates had become exorbitant and it was vital that any fee should be kept as low as possible and that, if convenient, the records should be made available free of charge to genuine students [2642].
The General Synod had charged the Parochial Fees Commission with reviewing the whole gamut of fees for pastoral offices and other duties performed by the clergy and I went with other members of the Record Users' Group to meet its members on 19 April 1978 to talk about search and certificate fees. The Group was horrified at the Commission's most unsatisfactory Report published in October which recommended the strengthening and extension of the fee structure to all church documents. I immediately drafted a memorandum which formed the basis for one sent by RUG to all 547 members of the Synod, a longer note being sent to the Chairman of the Fees Commission. Following these and other representations debate on the Report was postponed, RUG having indicated that any attempt to extend fees to other church documents would be strongly resisted and the passage of any Measure incorporating them opposed [2643]. I was present at further discussions at Church House on 8 February 1979 and the debate on the Report was delayed until the November meetings of the Synod when we were pleased and relieved to see the Report completely rejected [2644].
The Parochial Registers and Records Measure came into force on 1 January 1979. At the Society's Annual Meeting in June 1978 Lord Teviot had said that he had been in touch with the Church in Wales about possible legislation about the registers there but that the Board of Welsh Bishops would watch the results of the Measure in England before taking any action [2645]. A free Guide to the Parochial Registers and Records Measure was issued by the Standing Conference for Local History on behalf of the Record Users' Group in 1979 [2646] and when Roger Barltrop asked about the results of the Measure at the Society's AGM I was able to say that the latest figures showed that throughout England and Wales about sixty per cent of records had been deposited, but that figures varied from county to county, from 90% to about 40% [2647]. The slow speed of inspections and deposits in some areas initially caused concern, particularly as a few parishes which had retained registers were (with the sudden upsurge in interest) deriving ‘a not insignificant income’ from search fees [2648]. Fortunately with the passage of time such parishes became a tiny minority and the overall situation greatly improved. Of course registers still occasionally turned up in strange places and late in 1979 I noticed that a register of burials in woollen, 1678-84, from Severn Stoke in Worcestershire, which had formerly been in the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps, was being offered for sale at £85 by a Cambridge bookseller [2649].
Lornie Leete-Hodge remained Editor of the Magazine for nearly five years until the issue for March 1972. From late 1969 it had been a period of increasing problems with the publishers, Phillimore & Co, and the Chairman paid a well-deserved tribute to the 'unflagging zeal and enthusiasm' that she had put into her task [2650]. Phillimore's involvement with the Magazine meant that the firm had taken over its distribution, but the complicated arrangements for up-dating the continually changing Addressograph plates caused many difficulties in the Society's office which had no means of recording temporary addresses or of sending any particular issue by airmail [2651]. Lornie Leete-Hodge had a most pleasant disposition. She was the daughter of a former Town Clerk at Devizes and had also, as her nephew later said an extremely sharp mind. Although after her 'retirement' she wrote to me in 1974 that it had been a bad year 'freelancing' she soon became a most successful writer, authoring a long series of children's books, thrillers, romances, royal biographies and local history, including the Story of Devizes (1983) and the very popular Country Life Book of Diana, Princess of Wales [2652].
Lornie Leete-Hodge's work was taken over by Francis Leo Leeson (1921-2009), Chairman of the Publications Committee, and Jeremy Gibson, one of its members, they working jointly to prepare the Magazine for publication. The new volume which had started in March 1972 had a different cover and a new name, it being henceforth entitled 'Gealogists’ Magazine' without 'The'. It had been decided to keep the 'golden-orange' of the cover as both 'traditional and eye-catching' and the simple cover design had just the Society's Seal, in a new design by Henry Gray with a list of the journal's principle contents [2653]. The Librarian, Lawson Edwards, was appointed Reviews Editor in November [2654].
The joint-editors set out their ideas in the June 1972 issue, hoping to have articles of 'instruction and advice regarding sources and techniques' rather than those giving the descent of any one family or group of families. They wanted articles 'on records and methods' as well as on topography, demography, statistics and genetics where they concerned genealogists [2655]. In the following issue they provided for the first time a basic 'house-style' for articles and reviews, the latter being solicited by the Librarian [2656]. A well-known American member, George McCracken, the editor of The American Genealogist or 'TAG' as it is familiarly known, was not so sure about excluding accounts of individual families and wrote that the most valuable articles in his journal were the studies of individual families by those who might be called experts [2657]. It is such examples of good practice that genealogical journals in England sadly lack.
One article that produced considerable interest in the speed with which it had been compiled was that on 'The ancestry of Captain Mark Phillips' by Patrick Montague-Smith in the December 1973 issue, the marriage of Mark Phillips and Princess Anne having only taken place on 14 November. The article included 16 'quartiers' and extensive further details of some maternal lines [2658].
In 1973-74 Dr Peter Spufford contributed two major articles to the Magazine about 'Population mobility in pre-industrial England' showing perhaps for the first time how very mobile Englishmen were in that period [2659]. Another important article was Melanie Barber's 'Records of genealogical interest in Lambeth Palace Library' with its many valuable comments on the marriage licences held there [2660]. However, an appeal which I made through the Magazine in June 1974 for members to slip index the calendars of marriage licences, working from a microfilm loaned to the Society for the purpose [2661], produced only one volunteer, the busy Arthur Howard (1921-1987), and the idea had to be shelved, though, of course, we renewed it later with complete success and a valuable series of indexes was then published by the Society.
An editorial in 1974 said that the time was perhaps ripe for the Society to extend its publishing role and suggested that the library must contain collections which with suitable editing would make useful publications [2662], for Phillimore, of course! Suggestions were called for, together with offers of editorial assistance, but met with very little response, Donald Mason calling it a ‘negative attitude’ when ‘a more positive view in encouraging the transcription of material not already held by the Society is required’ [2663]. The membership at large did not care for the Phillimore take over. The staff generally edited those things that were published and after the arrangements with Phillimore were discontinued in 1977 it usually fell to me to push them forward and to make the printing arrangements. The Publications Committee I had come to regard as rarely constructive or supportive, particularly after the war over Wills and their whereabouts which was being waged at this time.
The publication of the Magazine by Phillimore was, as mentioned, terminated after the March 1976 issue and resumed by the Society. Phillimore were reluctant to accept the situation and the firm's advertisement on the back cover continued to state for a further year that it was the official publisher and distributor to the Society though it was in reality only the principal agent for the distribution of the Society's publications.
Anthony Wagner thought that the brief revival of the Court of Chivalry in 1954 (when the Corporation of Manchester took successful action against Manchester Palace of Varieties Ltd for using its arms on the pelmet above the stage and on its seal) and the great increase in the number of Grants of Arms made about that time, were encouraging signs and wrote of 'the disappearance of the private Heraldic Offices' [2664], but, in fact, there was a great resurgence of them in the late 1960s and since then the purveyors of arms have not ceased to proliferate worldwide. There was a time when their presence at a self-respecting family history fair would have been questioned, but not today.
In 1968 the Heraldry Society had noted that within the last few months ‘almost every newspaper, national and provincial, has printed an article on firms who produce arms for everyone’. That Society had been flooded with letters of complaint and it thought that the public, generally ignorant of heraldic law and practice, should be protected from their activities. One firm claimed to have carried out research but the arms were usually taken from the unreliable Burke’s General Armory and the chances that they were genuine arms were, the Society thought, about one in five; the chances that the arms sold were those of the purchaser were roughly one in a hundred [2665]. According to The Times a shop of this type near Marble Arch run by Ronald Macaulay-Mowlam, of Croydon, had an average weekly sale of 700-1,000, three-quarters to Americans , and claimed that, ‘The arms we supply do not have any living claimants so far as our researches can tell’. They were ‘purely family arms and not in any way connected with individuals’. Whilst the reporter was there, an American called Bunker was given the arms of Goodhart, the surname Bunker being derived from Bon Coeur [2666]. The firm claimed to have arms for 225,000 names [2667]. Anthony Wagner had already pointed out to Macaulay-Mowlam that arms did not relate to names but to particular families and wrote to The Times to say that ‘there are … powers which could, I am advised, apply to improper traffic in armorial bearings or their commercial misuse’, but he did not choose to elaborate [2668]. In reply Macaulay-Mowlam wrote that the Arms dispensed by his firm ‘by virtue of their age’ did not ‘come within the protected categories of the College of Arms’ and that he was changing his literature to say that the ‘original Armiger … need not necessarily be related to the purchaser’.
A damning investigation into the trade by the Consumers' Association magazine Which? in April 1973 unsurprisingly came to the same conclusion as the Heraldry Society, saying that if you ordered Arms from one of the many commercial firms on the strength of your surname alone the resulting design 'is unlikely to be anything to do with you or your family'. In most of the cases investigated the arms depicted were for different surnames altogether [2669]. Of course the Arms provided by the firms did encourage some enquirers to investigate the matter further either themselves or by employing professional genealogists.
There was consequently considerable interest in May 1973 when a Bill sponsored by Lord Teviot, now working as a record agent and a member of the Society, came up for its Second Reading in the House of Lords, proposing that the College of Arms publish a table of its fees for granting or confirming arms, publish within twelve months a calendar of all its records and make them available to the public for reasonable fees and publish its accounts for Parliamentary scrutiny. After a debate lasting three and a half hours in which many peers spoke, the Bill was defeated by 49 votes to 28. Some peers were highly critical of the College's arcane practices but others, in particular Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, whilst agreeing that the College’s fees, like the Light Brigade, were ‘over-charged’, thought the Bill an ‘impertinence' and said that he would prefer to see a Bill to control ‘these freelance people … who advertise themselves as researchers and genealogists … some of whom are not above suspicion’ and to control the purveyors of false arms as exposed by Which? He quoted a man called Bibby who was given, for £5.50, the arms granted to John Bebb in 1801 and a man called Sandringham who was given the arms of Sander.
The former Lord Chancellor, Lord Gardiner, said that the impression was being created that each herald was asking for ‘what he thinks he can get’ and the debate revealed some interesting details of the salaries paid at the College but the Earl Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk, intervened to say that a table of fees would be produced (the fee for a grant of arms was at that time £250) but the debate also showed that the speedy production of a calendar to about a quarter of a million records was a quite impractical suggestion [2670]. However, Lord Teviot returned to the attack two months later when he asked in the Lords what public duties Garter King of Arms performed in return for the annual fee of £3,100 mentioned in the Supply Estimates. He was told that this was in recognition of the advice Garter gave on questions of heraldry, titles and precedence and for his duties at certain state ceremonies. On this occasion Lord Maybray-King was warmly supported when he commended the work of the 'very small and economically-run Department under Garter King of Arms' [2671]. There was, of course, some public support for the opening up of the records but the wider implications of such a move for the College as a whole were little understood.
The article in Which? did little if anything to stem the tide of bogus heraldry and the arrival of the firm Macaulay Mann Heraldry of London Ltd [2672] on Waterloo Station in 1975 was described by Francis Leeson in the Genealogists Magazine: ‘The latest development in assembly-line heraldry was witnessed at Waterloo Station, London, during the week ending 26 January when would-be armigers could be seen queuing at a kiosk for their achievements, sketched on the spot assuming a 30-minute search in the books and files of a well-known firm of heraldic manufacturers had proved successful. If not, the 70p fee was refunded in full to the disappointed applicant. Successful candidates, however, were sent on their way to City desks or suburban homes rejoicing in confirmed, or even new-found, gentility and their opportunity to purchase an ‘exquisite hand-painted shield’ at a substantial discount on ‘regularly advertised prices’’ [2673]. I have never forgiven the herald John Brooke-Little, the founder of the Heraldry Society, for being a director of this firm.
The Society's problems with Phillimore & Co were undoubtedly exacerbated by my three legal actions against the firm (the first also against its employee Jeremy Gibson) over the 1974 edition of my book Wills and their whereabouts. My 1963 edition had sold out within five years and in 1968 Phillimore came under new management and began to press for a new edition of the book. At the same time I began to collect revisions and additions for a major expansion of the text.
Although no copyright line had appeared in the 1963 edition, Phillimore took the view that the Society held the copyright, but I maintained that in view of my rewriting the Society probably held only the copyright of the introductory material in the first edition and that this was being completely rewritten or omitted. Although the book was not mentioned in Phillimore's October 1969 agreement with the Society, the firm apparently assumed that it would publish the book, though no specific terms had been arranged with the Society or me. The work on the book had, of course, mostly been done before that date, in my own time and at my own expense.
With the intention that Phillimore produce some sample page proofs and quotations which could be studied at the Society, the material that I had collected was taken by Phillimore in February 1971 and specimen proofs produced. These were of an extremely poor standard and quite unlike those of the 1963 edition, unjustified and lacking the indentations and changes of type that were necessary to make the book intelligible. I was astonished and appalled to find that the whole text had been hurriedly set in this way and looked at them in disbelief. Jeremy Gibson, who between April 1970 and September 1971 was employed by Phillimore as its Managing Editor (and had previously worked for the Pergamon Press and the Longman Group) but was also the joint-editor of the Society's Magazine and a member of its Publications and Executive Committees, then provided estimates of the likely costs. He was aware of my concerns and I made it clear to him in a letter written on 24 March 1971 that I was obtaining estimates from other publishers and that any work on the book done by Phillimore had been done without my authorisation [2674].
I then found a publisher willing to give a greater discount and royalty than that proposed by Phillimore who was also willing to produce the book in exactly the manner that I required. In these circumstances I had little hesitation in writing to Philip Harris, for Phillimore, 28 April 1971, that I would ask this other firm to print the book [2675]. Harris then said that with or without my approval Phillimore would go ahead and publish the book from the material I had submitted, and his solicitors wrote, 27 May 1971, to say that I would be breaking an implied contract by going elsewhere [2676]. After further discussion with Noel Osborne for Phillimore I re-iterated my decision to go ahead separately on 1 December 1971 [2677] and the firm's solicitors then wrote to the Society, 6 January 1972, saying that the book's copyright belonged to the Society, that it thus came under the terms of the 1969 agreement, and that Phillimore were proceeding with the publication and would be advertising to this effect in the trade papers that month [2678]. The Society, however, threw a spanner in their works by replying that although it had sponsored the previous edition of the book, it did not own the copyright [2679]. Gibson then wrote to the Chairman of the Executive Committee that he was 'heartily sick of the whole matter, which I fear have [sic] poisoned my relations with the staff and committee of the Society, when I know that I am only trying to do my best, at considerable financial sacrifice, for the Society' [2680]. The matter was raised again at the Executive Committee on 15 February but the Committee saw no reason to change its decision. The Chairman wrote consolingly to Gibson that he had unwittingly become 'caught in the cross-fire' [2681].
My solicitors, anxious to put the copyright question beyond any doubt, advised me to buy up the various rights in the book and in the course of 1972 I obtained a formal statement from Helen Thacker that she claimed no rights in her small additions to Bouwens's book [2682] and a formal Assignment of its Copyright from the Executors and Trustees of Bouwens's estate [2683]. Unfortunately, owing to the continual pressure of work and correspondence at the Society, my revision and expansion of the text of the new edition was intermittent and certainly not as speedy as I wished and then in July 1973 my mother died suddenly and I had the additional problem of putting my possessions into store and finding somewhere to live.
Phillimore & Co Ltd, as I subsequently learned, had meanwhile collected a large number of orders for a revision of my 1963 book and on 20 October 1973 Philip Harris asked Jeremy Gibson to work up a new book on the subject. Gibson (as became clear during the subsequent legal action), having prepared a draft either from my 1963 edition or from the galley proofs of the material which I had submitted in 1971, immediately began a whirlwind tour of some fifty record offices, starting only two days later and sometimes visiting two or three in a day, covering 3,000 miles in about ten weeks, and discussing with their staffs the drafts he had made from my work. These drafts he then amended and sent back to the archivists for approval and they formed the text of the book that Phillimore was now intent on publishing.
On 4 March 1974, getting wind from friends in the archive world of what Gibson was doing, I circulated to all the members of the Society a leaflet saying that my new edition of Wills and their Whereabouts would be published in May. It was a miracle that I had not delayed and in two weeks I had banked about £1,300 in orders and was circulating libraries in England and overseas. Jeremy Gibson, getting wind of what I was doing and being now ready to publish his version of my book, wrote to me on 8 March 1974 saying that I had probably heard on the grape-vine that he was preparing a new guide, saying 'Naturally I made a lot of use of your earlier edition' and telling me how impressed he was 'by its very high standard of accuracy' [2684]. He wrote similar letters to other officers of the Society. That to the Chairman, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, said that by circulating the leaflet I, Anthony Camp, had precipitated, 'a situation in which I regret there may be bad feeling (though not on my side)' [2685], but Arnold Hawker, the Honorary Treasurer, told him that he had himself created a difficult situation, saying 'What on earth lead you to step or dive into the already turbulent waters that lie between Anthony Camp and Phillimore? ... In your own interests should you not have advised AJC of your intentions?' [2686]. However, the Society's Executive Committee on 19 March avoided any mention of the matter. After it I had some sharp words with the Chairman, suggesting that Gibson be stopped from using the Magazine to circulate leaflets about his book, but Fitzgerald-Moore took the view that it was 'nothing to do with the Society' [2687]. I had already replied to Gibson saying that if he infringed my copyright, 'I will have to take such action as may be required to protect my interests' [2688].
An advertisement that Gibson then inserted in the March 1974 issue of the Genealogists’ Magazine referred to his 'completely new guide to testamentary records' and revealed that it was to be called Wills and where to find them, a title clearly chosen to cause confusion and 'rather sharp practice' as Mr Justice Brightman subsequently remarked. Gibson's book was published by Phillimore and available at £3.50 [3689]. The advertisement said that, 'All the information provided is fully up-to-date, having been collected by the compiler during visits to virtually every probate-record-holding office in England and Wales only weeks before actual publication'. Elsewhere in the same Magazine it was noted that my new edition of Wills and their whereabouts was due to be published in the spring at the same price and 'we must wait for reviews of the two books for a fair comparison' [2690]. My advertisement appeared in the June issue [2691].
Some aggressive marketing by Phillimore was meanwhile taking place. In response to enquiries for Wills and their whereabouts Phillimore were sending out a duplicated letter in which they stated that Gibson's book was necessary in the light of criticism of my 1963 edition and continued with the insulting statements, 'From the compiler's point of view it is far easier to list the material exactly as supplied by the relevant archivists, than to have to reorganise the facts in the interests of the user'. It had been necessary, the letter said, 'for a different editor to take on the far greater task of producing a completely new compilation which has been designed with the practical problems of the user in mind ... We are therefore supplying it against your recorded order for its predecessor which, of course, neither we nor the Society of Genealogists will now be publishing' [2692].
A similar nasty statement appeared in The Bookseller (where an advertisement for Gibson's book said that it was 'not based on any earlier work') [2693] under the heading 'Where there's a will', saying that Wills and where to find them was a replacement for Wills and their whereabouts and that the Society no longer wished to sponsor publication of my work or any revision of it [2694], a statement that the Chairman, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, was quick to deny as 'totally misleading' [2695], and which obliged me to advertise the true position in The Bookseller later that month [2696].
To cut a long story short, as soon as Gibson's book appeared my solicitors advised me that it was a blatant infringement of my copyright as well as a misuse of confidential information and informed Phillimore's solicitors in May 1974 that they intended to move the High Court ex parte in an interlocutory Injunction to restrain the further publication and distribution of Wills and where to find them. On 11 June separate writs were served on Gibson (at the Society just prior to a Publications Committee meeting) and on the firm and a Notice of Motion was served on their solicitors three days later together with a lengthy Affidavit which I had made on 13 June. The latter contained a schedule of similarities between my draft 1971 text and Gibson's book, listing examples of copied passages, of similar errors and peculiarities and of indexes omitted from both texts.
The Motion in the Chancery Division of the High Court commenced before Mr Justice Templeman on Friday, 21 June, and was adjourned to Friday, 28 June, before Mr Justice Brightman, on which day my printers delivered the eagerly awaited copies of my book which had been rushed through the press. This action was no casual affair. My solicitors, Rubinstein Nash & Co, were considered the foremost literary solicitors of the day, my Counsel, Andrew Pugh, had made a name for himself in copyright cases, and Counsel for Phillimore and Gibson, coincidentally called John Camp, had written the section on copyright in Halsbury's Laws of England. The daily costs were, of course, considerable. Arguments about the Motion continued for much of the following week but after an affidavit in which Jeremy Gibson set out his involvement in Phillimore's book he agreed that he had based his drafts on the galleys and previous edition of my book. In the course of the arguments the Judge said that Gibson had not acted dishonestly but that if he had made considerable use of my skill and labour, as was being argued on my behalf, Gibson had 'seriously misunderstood the nature of the law of copyright'. It was also, my Counsel said, 'a really shocking case of breach of confidence'.
On Thursday, 4 July, I was advised that Phillimore were willing to accept a settlement on terms very much in my favour. Gibson’s book, having already been circulated in the British Isles and in America, I was further advised not to proceed further but to agree to these terms. And so, in the corridor outside the High Court, me scribbling away on a large pad on my knees, Anthony Rubinstein dictated an agreement which was signed and exchanged by the various parties present.
The agreement required Phillimore to pay me within 14 days a royalty of 10% of the retail price on 750 copies of Wills and where to find them, 10% of the receipts from the copies sold to America, and 10% of all future sales, Phillimore limiting sales to the initial printing of 5,000 copies and (with Gibson) not publishing any further work with the same title or any other title using the word Will or Wills as its first word. Phillimore were also to attach a slip to face the contents pages of all future copies of Gibson's book sold acknowledging that Wills and their whereabouts was the definitive book in the field and that Gibson wished 'to record his indebtedness to Mr Camp's painstaking researches of which he has made considerable use in the present volume which is intended for less experienced genealogists'. Phillimore were also required to insert 'with reasonable prominence' into the next possible issues of The Bookseller, the Genealogists’ Magazine and the National Genealogical Society Quarterly a notice making it clear that Gibson's book was not a replacement for mine and that Gibson acknowledged his indebtedness to my work which he recognised as the definitive reference book on testamentary records. There were other minor points, and the libel action (1974 C4500) was to be settled by the making of an agreed statement in open court, Phillimore paying my costs. Phillimore (indemnified by Gibson) also agreed to make a substantial contribution to all my overall costs.
During the case I generally had lunch in the Strand with my solicitor and one day the waitress rushed up to say that a man had complained that his coffee was in fact soup! I was in such a nervous state that I had not noticed that I was drinking Marmite, to which I had added milk, merely thinking that it had a slightly unusual taste! How we laughed afterwards [2697]. The tension throughout had, of course, been considerable but I did not regret the action I had taken. Most of the staff at the Society thought that Gibson should resign from the committees and the genealogist Robert Wood Massey (1917-1985), also a member of the Executive Committee, wrote to me that the publication of Gibson's book had been 'utterly despicable' [2698] but Gibson took the view that my 'action was hardly in the Society's best interests' and that 'the Society should be run by its members and not by its staff [and] I intend to remain on its committees and doing my best for its future' [2699]. Gibson insisted on congratulating me publicly on my book and bounced up to me every now and then, in person or in correspondence [2700], to make some outrageous suggestion - such as co-editing the next edition or taking joint advertisements - that seemed calculated to annoy, though I was obliged to keep my peace.
As mentioned one of the terms of our agreement was that Phillimore would publish 'in a position of reasonable prominence' in the Magazine a statement that Gibson's book was not a replacement for my own and that Gibson acknowledged his indebtedness to my book which he recognised as the definitive one on testamentary records. I naturally attached some importance to such a statement. The wording appeared in the September 1974 issue but hidden in the text of an advertisement for Gibson's book [2701] and was hardly what we had in mind. The matter was raised at the Publications Committee in November but not even minuted and my attempt to get the statement printed in the manner intended was thwarted by Alexander Sandison, the chairman of the Committee, to whom I wrote formally about it in March 1975 [2702]. Desperate to avoid any prolongation of a bitter dispute he replied in May, 'If and when Phillimores and Mr Gibson seek a fresh insertion in the Magazine then of course facilities will be given for it to appear' [2703]. The Society's solicitor, Douglas Gabriel, when confirming his advice that the Society had no claim to any interest in the copyright of my book, had added 'I would have thought that the Society should give Mr Camp any assistance that he may require but this is, of course, a personal view' [2704], but the Society thus washed its hands of the matter.
In consequence of Phillimore's statement in The Bookseller and in their duplicated letter to applicants for my book, my solicitors had advised me that a separate action for libel should be commenced in the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court [1974 C4500] as a result of which Counsel for Phillimore & Co Ltd recognised that the statement in the letter, which Phillimore had already agreed not to distribute further, 'was completely untrue'. In a public statement read in Open Court before Mr Justice Shaw on 31 July 1975 they acknowledged that I 'had devoted several years of research to produce in the third and fourth editions of Wills and their whereabouts a guide which is accurate, convenient to use and in its fourth edition (published in June 1974) brought fully up to date in the light of recent research'. They said that they were happy to withdraw their allegations and to apologise 'for a wholly unjustifiable slur' on my reputation, adding that they recognised that the imputation referred to should never have been made. In view of this public correction and apology, and upon payment of my costs, I was happy to let the matter drop. The librarian, Lawson Edwards, and his former assistant, Anders Larsen, came with me early that morning to hear the statement read in Court 21. I had greatly appreciated their support and that of my Counsel, Andrew Pugh, throughout all these difficult months, not to mention that of my solicitor, the brilliant Anthony Rubinstein and his team (in particular Ruth Meyler), and the printer of my book, Irwin Van Colle. Malcolm McEachran amongst others at the Society had also been a warm supporter of my cause.
I had naturally hoped that this might be the end of the matter but the costs of the libel action were not paid until 1978 and the agreement to pay me ten per cent of the retail price of Gibson's book caused further problems. According to statements made during the court action in 1974 some 5,000 copies had been printed, of which 1,000 had gone to America. I received royalties on the copies sold until the end of 1974 but none thereafter and I therefore filed a claim against Phillimore in Westminster County Court on 4 July 1977 [Plaint 77/16365] and on 31 August 1977 obtained an Order that they provide statements for 1975 and 1976 and the costs of the action. I was then sent royalty statements and payments until June 1978 showing that in total 2,791 copies had been sold. What happened to the other 2,209 copies was never divulged. The costs of this last action remain unpaid.
My difficulty at the time was to obtain any publicity for the outcome of these actions. My book sold well and I did not need to send out review copies, though a few reviews appeared, usually in conjunction with Gibson's book, written by people who were obviously not aware of the outcome of the court action or who were mystified by the simultaneous appearance of two books on the same subject. Dr R. J. Hetherington in the Journal of the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry, in a lengthy article about both books concluded, 'There can be no doubt that Camp's is the one to buy' [2705]. My book had sold out by November 1975 and although I contemplated a revision then and on several subsequent occasions, the pressure of other things got in the way. In any case the whole experience of these two editions had been so unpleasant that I hardly wished to revisit it again.
Our President, Lord Mountbatten, was, it transpired, the most devious and manipulative of people, often sending out draft letters that his recipient friends were to write and send back to him that he might use them to promote some pet project of his own.
I realise now that I was expected to fall into this trap in July 1968 when after the AGM that year at No 3 Belgrave Square, he asked me what Supporters and Crest would be appropriate for Lady Mountbatten's Arms in a design which he was considering for Edwina Mountbatten House, a block of sheltered housing, which was to be built at Romsey in her memory. Edwina had died in 1960. Ladies, as I explained, with very few exceptions, are not entitled to either Supporters or Crests. He wrote the following day to provide the wording of a letter which he wanted me to write to him, suggesting that I said that ‘if it is proposed to place Supporters and Crest surrounding a clock ... the only proper solution would be to place your own Supporters and Crest as representing the Mountbatten family’ [2706]. I was not at all happy with this as Edwina's Arms would not then appear and although I did as I was asked, I sent a separate letter enclosing a design that incorporated her Arms, saying that if he used his Supporters and Crest around a clock face, some authorities would say that he had turned his Arms, in heraldic terms, into 'a clock face proper' [2707]. He called it a 'very helpful letter' [2708] but did exactly as he had intended, though Edwina’s personal monogram in wrought-iron is nicely used elsewhere in the building.
It was his own name that Lord Mountbatten wished to perpetuate and it was probably for the same reason that in 1972 he suggested to Sir Iain Moncreiffe that Sir Iain review his The Mountbatten Lineage (1958) for the Magazine [2709]. We now know that for the September Magazine that year, Lord Mountbatten asked Clare Forbes Turner, the daughter of his archivist at Broadlands, to type out and claim as her own an article which he had himself written about the use of the surname Mountbatten-Windsor by members of the royal family. Her father told her that she was to type the letter on her own machine and that there was 'little chance that you will be traced as my daughter' [2710].
Lord Mountbatten had for some years believed that his nephew the Duke of Edinburgh had been denied the right to found a new dynasty and had long been agitating for the royal family to take the surname Mountbatten-Windsor. In February 1960 when the Queen was pregnant with Prince Andrew she apparently told Mountbatten that the idea of the hyphenated name had been agreed by the Cabinet and would be announced when the baby was born. In fact the announcement made on 8 February was not at all clear in its intentions and when Princess Anne married in November 1973 Mountbatten pressurized the Prince of Wales to 'fix it', as he himself put it, so that her surname appeared in the marriage entry as 'Mountbatten-Windsor' [2711].
Sarah Bradford believed that this was 'in direct contravention' of the Queen's statement and so it appears to be, the declaration saying, 'while I and my children will continue to be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor my descendants, other than descendants enjoying the style, title or attributes of Royal Highness and the titular dignity of Prince or Princess, and female descendants who marry and their descendants, shall bear the name Mountbatten-Windsor'. This was generally interpreted to mean that only the third generation of her male line descendants would bear the hyphenated surname [2712].
However, the article that Lord Mountbatten had written for Clare Forbes Turner to sign, and which quoted as its authority 'our foremost constitutional lawyer, the late Edward F. Iwi' [2713], had unequivocally stated that as a result of the Queen's announcement the surname of her children was Mountbatten-Windsor. When the Turner article, which was considerably amended by Patrick Montague-Smith the Editor of Debrett [2714], appeared in our Magazine [2715], Mountbatten triumphantly sent copies to several sections of the royal household saying that it had been 'vetted by various constitutional experts' and 'amended by them to what they presume to be absolutely legally correct' [2716].
Unfortunately, Lord Mountbatten's Private Secretary, John Barratt, anxious to underline what had happened, then wrote to one of the joint-editors of our Magazine saying that 'Any ambiguity about the children of the Queen and Prince Philip legally possessing the surname Mountbatten-Windsor has now been resolved' [2717] but this backfired and our joint-editors innocently made the mistake of writing in the next Magazine that the earlier statement had now been confirmed 'by our President' [2718], a statement that his subterfuge had, of course, been designed to conceal. He was furious, saying that he had taken great care not to say anything of the kind and that the wording had placed him in a difficult position personally [2718]. The hyphened surname did not appear in the Prince of Wales's marriage entry in 1981, and although it appeared on Prince Edward's marriage in 1999, the latter's daughter uses the surname Windsor. In English law a surname is only acquired by use and repute and although one may have a Royal Licence saying that it is such-and-such, the reality is that one's surname is the name by which one is known. Lord Mountbatten's extraordinary machinations intended to associate his surname with that of the immediate royal family have not, therefore, been altogether successful.
At the EGM and AGM held at Caxton Hall, Westminster, in 1972 Lord Mountbatten explained his intended involvement in a forthcoming International Congress and during the interval between the two meetings called me and Mildred Surry into another room for a general discussion. At the second Meeting he proposed that the Society send a message of congratulations to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on their Silver Wedding which he (of course!) would sign [2710]. He then mentioned an old friend with whom he had corresponded for some years, Arnold McNaughton (1930-1979), of Hemmingford, Quebec, the compiler of The Book of Kings (1973) [2721] a book that traced all the descendants of King George I and was about to be published in three volumes with a great number of family photographs and an introduction by himself. He had not cared for the fact that I had criticised the book's arrangement in the draft which I had seen, though he did not say that in the formal meeting and he proposed to give the Society a copy, not, as he said, a copy of the signed, limited edition, but the cheaper one (costing £45) on which he could get the author's discount because he could sign that for nothing!
Mountbatten was lucky (or perhaps I was lucky) in that he never asked my opinion of his Relationship Tables (1947), a fascinating work that he had spent much time working on in India, for like many genealogists he had invented his own numbering system and it was quite appalling. The book was dedicated to H4B4A/V3A4A and H2A1D2/X5A3A43, the absurd numbers that he had given to his two daughters.
In 1971 the first report of the activities of the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry which had been founded some eight years earlier (in 1963) appeared in the Magazine. It had 96 members and an active new Secretary, Frederick Charles Markwell (died 1993), who had joined our Society in 1968. Its first President had been an eye surgeon Dr Kingsley Norris (died 1972) [2722] the Secretary Mr J. C. Sharp of the Birmingham Reference Library, and the organisation was affiliated to the Birmingham and Midland Institute. Members had done some transcription work of both registers and memorials and the Society intended to publish the results. A quarterly journal had recently taken the place of the former news' sheet [2723]. The following year the Society had published its first parish register transcript, Little Malvern, and the membership had risen to 185. On 1 June a group of 53, together with a reporter from the Birmingham Evening Post, enjoyed a crowded visited to our library [2724].
At the end of the AGM in June 1972 the President, Lord Mountbatten, said that he would like to make a personal statement. He had been awarded the Julian Bickersteth Memorial Medal and elected a Founder Fellow in Heraldry and Genealogy of the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies. There he had been told that at the 11th International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences held this year in Liege, the suggestion had been made that England should host the Congress in 1974 or 1976. He said that he had been invited to preside over the Congress but as he would then be 74 or 76 he had declined the honour, but that he would be prepared to give a brief opening address. He hoped that the Society would open its doors to all those attending and put on an exhibition for them. The suggestion was greeted with some enthusiasm [2725].
Lord Mountbatten did not know that some of the heralds at the College of Arms regarded the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies at Canterbury with suspicion and animosity as did many at the Society of Genealogists. Some remembered also that the Sixth International Congress, which had been held in Edinburgh (its only appearance in Britain) in September 1962 under the Presidency of the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, had been followed by much acrimony. Its Secretary-General, Lt. Col. Robert Gayre of Gayre and Nigg (1907-1996), claimed that a Government grant of £2,000, promised in 1958, had later been cancelled, too late for the congress organisers to withdraw, and that he had made a personal loss of £2,431 14s 6d [2726]. The racist overtones of his recently founded periodical Mankind Quarterly, coupled with his general unreliability, raised other concerns. The programme of the Congress, as reported in the Daily Telegraph, dealt only with ‘the relevance of genealogy to human genetics, the legal functions of heraldic offices and courts of justice, and the principles of classification and evolution of orders of knighthood’, all of which he happily sought to manipulate to his own advantage, inspiring little if any confidence in future such Congresses. Entirely at home in the promotion of false styles and titles (born merely ‘Gair’ he had changed his surname to ‘Gayre of Gayre and Nigg’ and invented a ‘Clan Gayre’ in 1957) his Congress announced that it would set up a supervisory body for such things. It would be, as Vincent Mulchrone jokingly wrote in the Daily Mail, a sort of Ilk Marketing Board [2727]. This International Commission on Orders of Chivalry was mired in controversy, much of Gayre’s making, for many years. Gayre died in 1996.
However, the suggestion that the International Congress should meet in England had been put to Lord Mountbatten by Cecil Humphery-Smith, the Director of the Institute at Canterbury, who for some time had been involved with the Académie Internationale d’Héraldique which sponsored these Congresses. Humphery-Smith's idea had been to form a very loose association of prestigious organisations to mount the congress and a working party had been formed of society representatives and interested individuals, the latter including Donald Steel. In September 1973 it was announced that the 1976 International Congress would take place at Canterbury and that the Chairman of the Society's Executive Committee, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, was attending preliminary meetings as an 'observer' [2728].
On 22 September 1973 Cecil Humphery-Smith had told the organising committee that ‘despite the fact that none of the Heralds were attending this meeting, relations with the College of Arms were good and that individual Heralds had indicated their support for the International Congress’ [2729]. However, on 13 November 1973, Sir Anthony Wagner, Garter King of Arms, wrote to Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, the President of the Institute, with whom he had been in contact on the subject since 26 April 1973, saying that he did not feel justified in nominating an Officer of Arms to act as liaison officer with the organisers of the Congress as Lord Monckton had requested, or indeed in agreeing to get Chapter’s approval of the Congress [2730].
As Donald Steel wrote later, 'When the College of Arms pulled out because Sir Anthony Wagner, then Garter King of Arms, objected to the Institute's involvement, and the Society of Genealogists followed suit, there were mass resignations from this steering committee until only a tiny handful of members were left' [2731]. The Society made it clear that it would not support the Congress because the College of Arms was unwilling to be involved.
In June 1973 the Magazine had noted that Donald Steel would be running two courses in Genealogy and Family History for London University Department of Extra-Mural Studies in the academic year 1973-74 at Adult Education Centres at Watford and at Camberley, following a similar pattern to the courses at these centres which he and Cecil Humphery-Smith had given in prevous years [2732]. The latter ran a similar course at Morley College, Westminster Bridge, commencing in the autumn of 1974 [2733], and in subsequent years. A note on the Society’s Lecture Programme for 1973-4 said that courses in family history, genealogy and heraldry were being run by the Extra-Mural Departments of the Universities of London and Oxford in London, Kent and Essex, as well as by several county Education Committees.
In September 1973 the Society published in the advertisement pages of the Magazine a notice headed 'Have you considered joining a genealogical society in the area in which your ancestors lived?' The advertisement had been organised by the Birmingham and Midland Society and listed nine groups, most of which produced a journal: Birmingham and Midland Society, Family History Society of Cheshire (Northern Region), Genealogical Society of the East Midlands, Irish Genealogical Research Society (with its headquarters in London), Manchester Genealogical Society, Northern Section of the Society of Genealogists, Rossendale Society for Genealogy and Heraldry, Sussex Family History Group and Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Family Studies Section [2734].
In response Mrs Elizabeth Simpson (1923-2007), then editor of the Family Historian the journal of the Family History Society of Cheshire's Northern Region, described how she had set up exchanges of journals with other societies and had thereby enriched her Society's library, but she complained that many societies would not exchange journals and that she had received some 'terrible rebuffs' from historical societies. She concluded that 'any society is only as good as the current member in charge of its affairs as its secretary, or its editor, or publicity officer, etc' [2735].The editors of the Magazine then made it clear that they were happy to devote a regular feature to conferences, courses and local groups and would welcome news of them, each limited to 100 words, the advertising pages being open to longer or routine announcements [2736].
At the time there was some considerable unease and apprehension at the Society that the Genealogical Society of Utah intended to establish a 'branch genealogical library' in their mission headquarters in London which would inevitably become a rival to the Society’s library, but in 1974 it confirmed that it had, at that time, no such intention [2737].
On 5-6 April 1974 a grandly named 'English Genealogical Congress', which copied the name of Stella Colwell's already advertised congress, took place at Eliot College, Canterbury, under the auspices of the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies. It was attended by only 34 people, including the Institute's staff and was opened by the Society's Chairman, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore. There were various discussion groups but the congress's main theme was co-operation in genealogy and Donald Steel wrote later that its 'highlight' was a talk by Fred Markwell on the new 'Provincial Revolution' that was fast transforming family history in England [2738]. Plans for the foundation of several provincial societies were mooted and hopes were expressed 'that closer ties could be established between the Society of Genealogists and such local groups'. The Society was also encouraged 'to give active support' to the forthcoming International Congress in 1976 [2739].
Three weeks later on 28 April 1974 Donald Steel had used the Society's Members' Room to found the West Surrey Borders Family History Society without any suggestion that it be affiliated to the Society [2740], and he then chose the June Magazine to make a virulent and typically blinkered attack on the Society which many thought should not have been published without official comment and which did little to advance his cause. He said that we were no longer a genuine Society as the members did not have contact with each other and there were no social functions. The organisation had, he said, in effect become a subscription library and with 3,000 members was too large to provide the 'genuine fellowship' found in the local societies, but that these had been ignored when they should have been part of the Society's 'parent body'. It had failed to mount or encourage conferences and the Annual Meetings were boring empty formalities. Little effort had been invested in encouraging courses through other organisations. He said that in his experience it was 'simply not true that genealogists are interested solely in their own families and do not want to associate with others'. He wanted 'a federal structure with an Executive Committee consisting of regional representatives' which would meet, perhaps quarterly, in different parts of the country. The library was daily becoming less comprehensive, the buying of family histories had stopped and members were not actively encouraged to deposit records. He agreed that the present staffing and accommodation were 'grossly inadequate' but said that whenever radical solutions were suggested the Society did 'too little too late, taking refuge in the entrenched conservatism of keeping things as they always have been' [2741]. As Patricia Riach wrote in the next issue Steel's letter had 'all the attraction of a party political broadcast' and he gave no trace of a suggestion as to how his dreams might be realised. The problems were lack of money, lack of staff and lack of space. The local societies had, in fact, been given much publicity through the Genealogists’ Magazine, journals were exchanged with all of them (in the British Isles and overseas), and many were being given the Society's duplicate copies of parish registers and monumental inscriptions [2742].
Mrs Riach might have added that Steel's idea for a federal structure was not one that he had previously advocated but which he now saw as a useful stick with which to beat the Society into supporting the International Congress. Whether the local societies that Steel was keen on founding would have agreed to an umbrella organisation formed by the SoG, with a subscription sufficient to cover the activities of both bodies, their journals and libraries (for history showed that only one in ten would subscribe to both), now seems highly unlikely. Donald Steel was on a crusade and the practicalities of these matters concerned him little. In fact, in spite of what he had written in June and as he admitted later, he was already thinking that a new federation of provincial societies should immediately be created from the handful of family history societies, most of them recently formed, 'independent of either the Society of Genealogists or the Institute', believing that this would form 'a solid base free of any influence from the prestigious bodies which had dominated the subject hitherto'. It would also support the International Congress. 'I discussed this concept with Fred Markwell', he wrote, 'and gained his wholehearted support' [2743]. He also proposed him for Fellowship of the Society.
In the absence of Humphery-Smith in Portugal, Donald Steel then called a meeting of all the British genealogical and heraldic societies and other fringe organisations, himself drafting a letter that was signed by Cedric Holyoake of the Heraldry Society, the secretary of the steering committee. This meeting was held at Newman College, Birmingham, on 8 June 1974, and took a decision to form a 'National Federation of Family Historical, Genealogical and Allied Societies'. Rodney Dennys and Sir Andrew Noble were observers on the Society's behalf [2744]. A second meeting at the Albion Hotel, Brighton, on 4 August (during the exhibition 'Heritage '74' mentioned below) wisely changed the name of the new organisation to 'Federation of Family History Societies'. Its objects were 'to bring together Societies who have a common interest in these subjects, to pool ideas and resources and generally to promote liaison between them'. Iain Swinnerton was confirmed as Chairman, Elizabeth Simpson as Secretary, and Royston Gambier (incorrectly called Gambia in Fred Markwell's report mentioned later) as Treasurer. The Federation immediately set up a committee to assist in the organisation of the International Congress in 1976. Fred Markwell thought it might be 'the most important development in British genealogy since the foundation of the Society of Genealogists' [2745].
The local societies, as young Martin J. D. Green from Sheffield pointed out, had many advantages over the Society of Genealogists (which he considered an insular and unfriendly place), relating as they did to a limited area, where people were likely to be following similar interests, with the added benefits of local knowledge and proximity to the local record office [2746]. His points were further elaborated by Fred Markwell in his article 'Co-operation in Family History Studies', presumably the text of the above mentioned talk, that appeared in the September 1974 Magazine, and which said that involvement in a local society 'can turn the genealogist into a family historian and thereby into a social historian'. He said that these societies, 'were widening their scope, launching major projects, undertaking valuable field work, recording, publishing, unearthing new sources of information and, above all, promoting stimulating comradeship and the sharing of experience'. A magazine was, he said, essential and should be 'as intimate and personal as possible'. He saw the national societies as 'rightly concentrating on collecting source material and providing for the more scholarly aspects of our study'. 'Their appeal', he said, 'is to the more experienced family historian'. He said that the regional societies 'have made a valuable contribution to genealogy by the promotion of W. E. A., extra-mural and local education authority evening institute courses'. He thought that some co-ordination in these would be useful and suggested a weekend training conference for their tutors [2747] The latter was a point echoed by Stella Colwell who thought that the increasing number of local societies 'points to an urgent need for proper organisation of teaching methods of research, palaeography, and the interpretation of material found'. She also called for a central registry of pedigrees through which professionals would lay their work open to scrutiny and prevent duplication of effort [2748].
Some ten days after the meeting in Birmingham, on 18 June 1974, the Society of Genealogists held its AGM in London. The crowded venue was the meeting room of the National Book League in Albemarle Street and Lord Mountbatten, who had a ‘fearful cold’, was in the chair. I remember standing at the back with the industrious transcriber of Oxfordshire parish registers Brigadier Frank R.L. Goadby (1899-1985) and many others and Goadby's acerbic comments on some of the speakers. Sir Anthony Wagner, who was not present, wrote later that Mountbatten handled the difficult meeting 'with great and necessary firmness' [2749].
At the end of the main business Donald Steel put forward a formal proposal, seconded by Gerald Hamilton-Edwards, that the Society welcomed the intention to hold the 13th International Congress in England and that the meeting requested the Executive Committee to appoint an official representative on the organising committee and to set up a sub-committee to make recommendations to the Executive on the ways and means by which the Society could assist. Mountbatten said that he had read the correspondence on the subject and had discussions with the Earl Marshal (the Duke of Norfolk) and Garter King of Arms (Sir Anthony Wagner) who had agreed that a worthwhile conference would need to have the full backing of the College of Arms. The Society, he said, had appointed Sir Andrew Noble to represent it in discussions with the College. He himself did not wish to be associated with a congress which did not have the active participation of the College of Arms as it would not be worthy of the Society.
Donald Steel said that in September 1973 he had joined the working party set up at Canterbury and that the British Council and other bodies had promised their co-operation, Imperial College having been chosen as the venue. Not having received the support of the Society and the College of Arms he and Hamilton-Edwards had worded the present proposal but he had since learned that both bodies would support a congress in 1978, believing that 1976 was too soon. However plans for 1976 were well advanced (something of an exaggeration!) and the local societies had agreed to federate and 'go forward together'. He did not think that the Permanent Bureau (the body that authorised the International Congresses) could be told that they were not wanted until 1978 or that the decision could be altered. Hamilton-Edwards, in supporting the proposal, said that the opportunity should not be allowed to slip by, but if another congress was desired perhaps it could be organised without the involvement of the Permanent Bureau. The Chairman of the Executive Committee, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, said that everyone wanted a congress, 'the difference lay in the time scale and perhaps the scope'. An International Congress without the College would be Hamlet without the Prince; no first class congress could be mounted without its support. The suggestion that there be two congresses was not a feasible one; one alone would be expensive enough. He urged the organisers of the 1976 congress to think of it as a national one that might pave the way for an international one two years later and he proposed an amendment to Steel's proposal to that effect. Denis Burton, seconding him, thought that an international congress on heraldry without the Heralds would be a disaster and that the participation of the College was essential. He had been told that the 13th Congress could be held in Madrid in which case the 14th could be in London in 1978. Fred Markwell, who had never been to any of the international congresses and would probably have had little sympathy with their programmes, said revealingly that very few local societies would want to support a congress organised by the College, they wanted 'a voluntary effort done for their own sakes and for that alone worthwhile'.
Lord Mountbatten said that 'whilst he greatly admired the achievements of Mr Markwell and his friends he felt they could best combine in an English congress. If they set up a rival organisation to the College there was bound to be trouble'. Cecil Humphery-Smith thought the proposals so far put forward by the College were too vague to risk abandoning existing plans, but Rodney Dennys, Somerset Herald, assured the meeting that the participation of the College could be relied upon though he regretted the delay. He felt that the College would adhere to its view that no congress could be mounted before 1978.
Others present proposed amendments to Fitzgerald-Moore's amendment, the difficult meeting dragged on until nearly nine o’clock when Lord Mountbatten eventually said that he would much prefer not to put the matter to the vote. He thought that the subject was full of dangers that many present did not understand and that the Society could easily be split and many people placed in impossible positions. Hoping that a compromise might be reached he therefore proposed that he contact Garter King of Arms and ask him to form with Sir Andrew Noble and Rodney Dennys a high-level working party. He would try to see Lord Monckton, President of the Institute, to ask him to see Garter, preferably with Colonel Swinnerton, the Chairman of the Federation. He put this motion to the meeting and it was carried and the meeting closed [2750]. Cecil Mackay, writing the day after this ‘perfectly frightful’ meeting, said that it was a ‘magnificent performance’ by Lord Mountbatten and got the Society ‘out of the most fearful jam’ [2751].
From Saturday to Tuesday, 3-6 August 1974, the Society sponsored an exhibition and conference at the Metropole Hotel, Brighton, called 'Heritage '74', organised by Exhibitions & Trade Fairs International Ltd, which was the forerunner of the family history fairs of later years and intended to include books, equipment and other materials associated with genealogy and its allied arts and crafts, such as heraldry, brass-rubbing and calligraphy [2752]. The Society was fortunately not involved financially but I publicised the event on the radio in 'The World this Weekend' the previous Sunday and went down to Brighton for the press reception on Thursday, attending throughout (staying at the Queen's Hotel) and spending part of a memorable Sunday parading Brighton seafront dressed as Henry VIII and handing out leaflets in an attempt to drum up interest in the poorly attended exhibition. I was later commended for the 'wonderful way' in which I joined in the spirit of Heritage '74 but it had been hard work [2753].
The exhibition was open from 10 am to 9 pm and a stand publicising the Society's activities was mounted in conjunction with AGRA, being manned for these long hours by one or two Society staff and AGRA volunteers, Gwynneth Martin from Hayling Island and Jo-Ann Buck from Colchester being stalwart helpers. A neighbouring stand publicised a number of the local societies and Fred Markwell of the Birmingham Society later paid tribute to Elizabeth Simpson, Michael Walcot (Secretary of the Hampshire Society) and Colonel Swinnerton, for 'this concerted effort' [2754]. Apart from these stands and a display of books published by Phillimore & Co there was little of direct interest to genealogists, the remaining exhibits, as the Magazine editors rather unkindly wrote, 'being a hotchpotch of costume displays, puppets, and antique dealers' wares'. A photograph of the Phillimore stand, showing four Fellows of the Society and the then Phillimore Editorial Director, appeared in the Magazine [2755]. but the caption did not say that Phillimore had abandoned the stand at the close of business on the first day and had not appeared again, the organisers subsequently taking legal action against them to recover unpaid booking fees [2756].
The manning of stands was certainly a challenge for the energetic organiser, Brenda Leech, but there were also four days of lectures. The first day, Saturday, was devoted to genealogy [2757], with Donald Steel, Cecil Humphery-Smith, Elizabeth Simpson and Dr W. O. Hassall as speakers, and attended by about a hundred people. The second day had talks on English ceramics, the third on English furniture and the fourth on coins, war medals and decorations.
Sir Andrew Noble and Rodney Dennys took the opportunity afforded by Heritage '74 at Brighton to meet Colonel Iain Swinnerton, the Chairman of the Federation, for exploratory talks and in December the Society's chairman reported that the Federation had produced a draft constitution and that it should not take long to find a convenient formula for associating the Society with the Federation. He emphasised then that the Federation was 'not brought into being, as many people suppose, solely to run the 1976 Congress, but is a coming together of many like-minded societies, with the intention of providing a permanent focus for genealogy and family history on a different geographical basis from that offered by the Society' [2758]. This was the diplomat speaking and many involved did not see it like that. Humphery-Smith saw the federation as ‘a national body as host to the Congress, divorcing it from any individual society or existing organisation’ and he intended that each organisation involved should guarantee £10 in the event of the congress making a loss [2759]. Donald Steel certainly did not see it like that. He had wanted, he wrote later, to 'create an organisation to host the 13th International Congress' and he had succeeded in forming 'a new organisation as a substitute for the Society of Genealogists and the College of Arms in hosting the International Congress when all seemed lost’ [2760].
It was to me a perfect recipe for duplication on all fronts and I was not alone in that view. Mervyn Medlycott wrote to the Magazine that although he believed strongly that those with a greater degree of knowledge and experience in the art of family history research should assist newcomers and that this was most successfully achieved by personal contact in discussions groups, he thought that such regional groups should confine their affairs to their regions and leave the national issues in the capable hands of the relevant committees at the Society of Genealogists and not in the yet-untried hands of the newly formed federation. He was particularly concerned that the efforts of genealogists be coordinated with those of other historical groups, saying that 'the local groups cannot hope to keep tabs on all national developments nor to have any idea of the overall effect' [2761].
It was a view that was not sufficiently heard, particularly as there were now two national bodies, both claiming the same 'geographical basis'. In the same Magazine, Hugh Peskett (1932-2020) pointed out that Devon and Cornwall already had 'some of the older, more active, and more progressive genealogical organizations in the country' although they did not have 'Genealogical' in their names [2762], to which Fred Markwell could only comment that they should join his Federation [2763]. Marion Lodey, a W. E. A. tutor in family history, to whom family history 'bridged the generation gap and enlivened history for all the family', agreed with Markwell's earlier suggestion that there should be a weekend training conference for potential family history tutors [2764]. The enthusiastic experiences of Eva Beech, the first W. E. A. tutor in family history in Staffordshire in 1973, were published in 1975 [2765].
The earlier comments by Martin Green, who had joined the SoG in 1972, about the unfriendliness of its members were attacked by Brenda Perks, an 'old member both in years of membership and age', as 'basically untrue' and an injustice to the members and especially to the staff who were always willing to help with problems when asked to do so. She wrote, 'I have overheard and marvelled at the infinite patience of Mr Lawson Edwards, the librarian, when he is approached about some elementary problem' [2766]. Harold Broadbent, of Huddersfield, also defended the Society, saying that members joined a national society to give their support to the general objectives of that society in the belief that at all times it would prosecute, with the greatest force, the general conditions and facilities required by its members for the more successful carrying on of their work [2767].
Meanwhile Sir Andrew Noble had been asked by the SoG to fly to Amsterdam to clarify with the Permanent Bureau some of the points raised at the AGM in June 1974 and as a result he recommended that the Society invite the Bureau to hold the 13th Congress in England in 1976. Rodney Dennys went to Munich in September and on behalf of the Society, the Federation and the Institute, formally extended that invitation which was accepted. The College of Arms had indicated that the holding of the Congress in England would enjoy its goodwill and the Heraldry Society promised its support, 'though unable to participate in the preparations'. The former provisional Organising Committee had been under the chairmanship of Dr Peter Spufford but he now resigned and was succeeded by Sir Andrew Noble. The Vice-Chairman was Donald Steel, the Secretary-General, Cecil Humphery-Smith, the Treasurer, Royston Gambier and the Congress Organiser, Major Robert (‘Bobby’) Collins (1924-2012) [2768]. Sir Andrew Noble, former ambassador to Poland, Mexico and the Netherlands, would need all his diplomatic skills in the months and years ahead.
At the AGM on 28 June 1975, in the absence of Sir Andrew, Donald Steel proposed a motion that 'the Society should in principle agree to join the Federation of Family History Societies provided that the Federation adopts a constitution substantially the same as the amended draft constitution which now lies before it’. He said that the Society had to ensure that its views were adequately represented to the Federation 'if only to avoid the undesirable duplication of effort which would otherwise ensue’. There would probably be two categories of membership with the Society having a permanent representative on the Federation's Executive Committee. A sliding scale subscription was intended based on the size of the organisation but with a relatively low ceiling.
There was some discussion and the balance of opinion was that the organisation of the Federation was not sufficiently advanced for a definite decision to be reached. The Revd Godfrey Beaumont (1908-1977) [2769] therefore proposed and John Blight (1918-2007) seconded that the meeting authorised the Executive Committee 'to continue discussions with a view to proceeding cautiously but hopefully with a definite end in mind' and, Donald Steel being satisfied with this, the motion was carried [2770].
The draft constitution of the Federation, which had been agreed between a sub-committee of the Federation and the Society of Genealogists, was formally approved at the Federation’s first Annual Meeting at Birmingham on 21 September 1975 when twenty-three societies were represented. There was some discussion on the fragmentation of societies within counties and it was optimistically agreed to be the general view ‘that a county society should form initially and cover the largest area it could manage, hoping that it could fragment later on and that if and when this happened, further societies could form under its umbrella’. A final attempt by Donald Steel to delete ‘heraldry’ from the Federation’s objectives was assailed by the Chairman, Colonel Swinnerton, and Cecil Humphery-Smith, and rejected. A similar fate, unfortunately in my view, befell the proposal to limit any personal representation on the Council to six years. It had been previously agreed that the member societies should pay subscriptions ranging from £5 to £25 per annum depending on their size but it was now agreed that these figures were ‘much too high’ and after argument it was agreed that the societies should all pay £5 but that the nominating ones should pay £25 [2771].
Following the approval of the constitution the Chairman proposed that a formal invitation be issued to the Society of Genealogists to accept nominating membership of the Federation by which it would pay an annual subscription similar to those of other member societies, but with the right to nominate a member directly to the Federation's Executive Committee. This and a similar invitation to the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies were carried unanimously. The Society's Executive Committee accepted the invitation on 21 October 1975 when Sir Andrew Noble was nominated to represent the Society [2772]. The Heraldry Society was elected a nominating member the following year [2773] but abdicated its rights after a few years.
Although the Society had made it clear in June 1974 that news from the emergent local societies would be welcomed for publication in the Magazine, the number of journals received by the joint-editors was not great, and the appeal was repeated in June 1975 [2774] after which the number increased. The Magazine noted that the first local society journal to publish its own index was that of the Hampshire Genealogical Society [2775]. In 1976 the membership of each local society was about 200-250 though that at York, established only in 1973, had jumped to 500 after publicity in our Magazine [2776].
In September 1975 the joint-editors of our Magazine noted that the rapidly expanding provincial scene was now being chronicled through the Federation of Family History Societies' own Federation News of which Elizabeth Simpson was the editor [2777]. They also noted that the upsurge in interest in the subject had encouraged the formation of 'Name' societies, similar to family associations in America, but devoted to all the bearers of a given surname-sound and that groups for the surnames Butler, Filby, Grubb, Hamley, Hamlin, Harrington, Higginbottom, Palgrave and Swinnerton, had already been formed. The activities and publications of these groups varied, our Magazine said, 'from the social to the scientific, with all shades between'. The Harrington Family Miscellany, for instance, included a critical article on the SoG's indexes to the Apprentices of Great Britain, suggesting that there had been considerable misreading of names, due principally to the ornate eighteenth century capital letters and the similarity in appearance of the small vowels.
The article noted that a register of 'Name' societies and of those working specifically on a particular surname had been started in July 1975 by a librarian Frank Higenbottam (1910-1982) [2778]. Derek Palgrave defined a one-name society as 'a formal association of those interested in the origin, history and development of the various branches bearing a specific [sur]name in all its known variants' and said that the majority of them had sought membership of the Federation, listing seventeen in 1976 [2779]. Publicity about the 'Register of One-Name Studies' having appeared in the popular American periodical The Genealogical Helper, Frank Higenbottam received a deluge of ill-informed letters and in 1977 handed the post of Registrar to Ian Swinnerton [2780] who published a Register of One Name Studies the following year [2781].
The use of our Society's journal for these reports of local and other activities was, however, not universally popular amongst the SoG’s membership and in 1976 Charles Elwell, 'a moderately senior member of the Society', felt impelled to protest at what the Magazine was becoming, writing 'It used to have pretensions to the status of a learned periodical containing articles that were instructive, entertaining and well written. It had an air both of authority and distinction. But now it is very different. The December (1975) number seemed to me to be inferior to an inferior school magazine, full of accounts of activities of amateur genealogists all over the country, the interest of which must surely be restricted and essentially parochial. In my view the character of the Magazine is being altered for the worse and I believe this will do the Society a grave disservice' [2782]. Elwell was not alone in this view and many older members came to my door complaining with distaste and alarm of the apparent take-over by the largely amateur local societies and their Federation. The following year Elwell wrote that he did not mean to disparage the efforts of amateurs and was 'as anxious as any of your readers to extend interest in an absorbing branch of learning. I did not think that reporting local genealogical activities did this' [2783].
In 1975 the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry published an 'algorithm' on how to find a record of a birth or baptism, reprinted from one developed at the Public Record Office that had so far received little publicity [2784]. The algorithm consisted of eighty-five questions or instructions, leading from one to another according to whether the answer was 'yes' or 'no', the final instructions being 'Consult Parish Registers held locally' and, if unsuccessful, 'Take expert advice: e.g. of the Society of Genealogists'. It produced enormous amounts of correspondence, usually from people who had not answered the previous 83 questions.
In December 1973 Stella Colwell, undeterred by her rebuff at the SoG's Annual Meeting, announced that the First English Genealogical Congress, sponsored by the Wrythe Heraldic Trust, would be held at St Catharine's College, Cambridge in 1975 [2785], and in June 1974 it was noted that it would run from Tuesday, 26 August, to Saturday, 30 August 1975, with Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls, as Patron and George Squibb, Q.C., as President. Stella Colwell had arranged a preliminary meeting at the College of Arms on 19 September 1973 which I attended with Rodney Dennys, Frederick Emmison, John Brooke-Little, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, Malcolm Pinhorn and Donald Steel, and we formed the organising committee with Malcolm Pinhorn as chairman. The Society of Genealogists and the Wrythe Heraldic Trust agreed to make loans to cover the initial expenses. The Congress Registration fee was £5 and full accommodation £32.50 [2786].
Over 180 people attended this first-ever full-scale residential congress. Everything went well, the weather was perfect, the accommodation and catering were excellent and the whole thing was considered (in the words of the joint-editors) a 'triumphant and most enjoyable' success [2787]. I represented the Society and it received considerable publicity when I was interviewed about the increase in interest in the subject for the BBC Television programme ‘Nationwide’ [2788]. As well as a wide range of lectures by academics and genealogists on the theme 'Family History and Demography - the contribution which genealogists can make to historical studies', there were several afternoon excursions, a civic reception at the Guildhall in Cambridge, a cocktail party hosted by the Federation of Family History Societies, and a banquet at which the main speaker was Michael Maclagan, Portcullis Pursuivant, with Colin Cole, Windsor Herald, as toast-master.
Ronald Blythe, the author of Akenfield, gave the opening address and in conclusion Donald Steel surveyed the genealogical field. My notes of his talk show his thoughts at this time. Following the ‘revolution’, as he described it, from genealogy to family history, the latter needed its own manual. There was a need to consolidate the Federation by organising societies in the counties where they did not yet exist. He thought that all the project work on monumental inscriptions and parish registers should be organised by sub-committees of the Federation (and not of the Society). He believed that the opening of local LDS Family History Centres would have an effect on the membership of the societies, but he thought that other organisations with similar interests should join the Federation which itself should forge closer ties with the historical societies. He looked to the future, mentioning the proposed opening of civil registration records, the promotion of interest through the media, a resulting growth in the membership of all societies and particularly of one-name societies, the teaching of family-history in schools, the subject’s growing respectability in universities and its universal acceptance as a discipline in the United Kingdom and abroad.
The Congress’s final debate passed resolutions that deplored the increase in fees at the General Register Office, advocated the formation of a users' committee, encouraged matrilineal genealogy and recommended the creation of a pedigree register. An exhibition of the genealogical sources used in six different pedigrees had been mounted in the Lower Marlay Gallery at the Fitzwilliam Museum and to this I had contributed a section on the vicissitudes of six related Walkern families, using parish chest and county legal records, the pedigrees being very nicely written by Aylwin Sampson. There was also a special bookshop in the congress office. Donald Steel organised a number of volunteer stewards 'to introduce members with similar interests to each other' [2789].
Stella Colwell's intention was to have an annual conference with published papers which would contribute 'substantially to genealogy as a science, and to its wider acceptance as an academic subject' but, although this highly successful congress was repeated in 1978 and 1984, all the usual difficulties of publishing papers arose, and, as described below, none appeared in print until 1986.
Sometime earlier, with the object of avoiding duplication of effort, Malcolm Pinhorn had tried to interest AGRA in a voluntary scheme to register the existence of pedigrees in private collections, a 'National Register of Pedigrees', members of the public paying a small fee to consult it, but AGRA had passed the idea to the Federation in the hope that it might consider a joint project to index manuscript and printed pedigrees and make it available in some public place [2790]. However, as noted above the creation of a 'Pedigree Register' was also recommended in a resolution passed at the English Genealogical Congress in August 1975 and after paying all its expenses and repaying the loans from the Wrythe Heraldic Trust and the Society of Genealogists the Congress found that it had made a modest profit and made a grant towards the establishment of a 'National Pedigree Index' at the Society, the balance of funds being placed on deposit to provide essential financial support for the next Congress [2791].
On 26 May 1976 an advisory committee was therefore formed (on which I served with Stella Colwell, Malcolm Pinhorn, Francis Leeson and John Brooke-Little) and it was agreed to collect information about British pedigrees of more than three generations in the male line that remained in private hands and to keep the index on standard printed slips at the Society where it would be tended and searches made by volunteers. A fee of £1 was to be charged per surname per county but would be refunded if no match were found, only 80p being refunded if no stamped and addressed envelope had been provided [2792]. Many people began to contribute slips about the pedigrees in their possession and a year later it was reported that about a thousand references had been filed and that the Institute at Canterbury had contributed an equal number [2793]. Mrs Rachel Mackie became the Index's Honorary Secretary in July 1977 with Anthony Attwood as Treasurer [2794]. The number of pedigrees recorded had passed 2,000 by September 1978 [2795].
Meanwhile a small group of tutors at a weekend course, 'Write Your Family History', held at the Cliff End Hotel, Bournemouth, 28 February - 2 March 1975, had formed themselves into an Association of Teachers of Family History with Cecil Humphery-Smith as Chairman and Donald Steel as organising Secretary. At the course the use of a simulation exercise had been introduced, which I assume to have been Steel’s The Trout Game, and agreed to be 'worth a whole course of lectures' [2796]. The Association's first formal meeting took place on the second day of the English Genealogical Congress (27 August) when a committee was elected, membership being open to anyone interested in the teaching of genealogy or family history.
The new Association hoped to publish a journal three times a year and to provide a variety of other services to members. The first Secretary was Lorna Rosbottom (died 1999) and the Services Secretary, Stella Colwell [2797]. At a further conference at Bournemouth in March 1976 they approved a constitution, Betty St George Brown (1918-1996) became Secretary and Elizabeth Simpson the Services Secretary, full membership being open only to those with recognised teaching qualifications or substantial experience of teaching family history. The conference themes included 'the need to develop family history at every level of education, with the problems of the recruitment of teachers and their training'. The first issue of a journal Teaching Family History was due for publication in the autumn [2798]. In January 1977 it had 46 members including four overseas but after Steel gave up as Secretary in 1978 it was far less active.
For seven years the Society's Annual Meetings had been held away from Harrington Gardens but in 1975 it was decided under the pressure of recent events to hold it in combination with a one-day conference in what became the first of a very successful series of bi-annual day conferences, though after the second day-conference in 1977, the Annual Meetings were again always held separately. The first conference, organised by Donald Steel (then BBC Education Officer for South-West England) and Michael Burchall (then on the staff of East Sussex Record Office) was on Saturday, 28 June 1975, at the Digby Stuart College of Education, Roehampton, and the conference fee, which included lunch, was £2.50, the Society's rooms being closed on that day [2799]. The Annual Report noted that it brought a small profit of £35 to the Society [2800].
The Conference was perhaps the largest genealogical gathering in this country so far, being attended by 190 members and 28 visitors, and a fairly detailed account of the eight discussion groups, four of which had to be repeated, was published in the Magazine. The pre-occupations of the members at that time are shown by the names of the eight groups: Parish Registers and Civil Registration, Monumental Inscriptions, Voluntary Work, Running a Large Society including Services to Members, The Role of Local Societies, Courses and Conferences, The Library, and Publications.
The group on running a large society interestingly thought that the Society was not yet large enough to consider computerisation of the membership records and it strongly condemned the practice of lending out printed books. The latter point was supported by all but one of those present at the plenary session. At the end of the day, in thanking the organisers, I said that although some had doubted the value of such a conference it had clearly been a great success. It was generally agreed, I said, that it had been an enjoyable and rewarding occasion which should be repeated in the future [2801].
The points raised in the discussions gave the committees plenty to think about, ideas such as name badges for staff and the production of Christmas cards becoming perennial, but several suggestions were considered by the Library Committee and its comments were also published in the Magazine. It agreed to post plans of the rooms in each room with a master plan in the Members' Room and that two more stepladders be bought, one of which was to be 'very tall', but Lawson Edwards resisted having a nametag though it was agreed that desk plates should show the names of the library staff. Some additional shelving might be added to the ends of bays and less used material placed in store. A trial rota of volunteer hosts and hostesses, as suggested by Brenda Perks, would be commenced in the library on late evenings in June but that idea failed due to lack of volunteers. It was also agreed that a suggestion that lists of the books on each county, other than parish registers, be duplicated and sold would be piloted, Meg Reeves having listed those for Essex, but that idea also failed for lack of further volunteers. The loan of printed material was considered highly important to country members on whom the Society was dependent for much of its income and the suggestion that book loans be stopped was rejected, it being thought that the vote at the Day Conference was not representative, the attendees being mainly town members [2802].
Meanwhile, of course, the arguments about the services provided by the Society vis-à-vis those of the local societies continued. Barbary Thorn of Portscatho near Truro suggested that the Society maintain a list of members who were willing to accommodate others on a non-profit making basis [2803] and in 1975 Marion Lodey proposed and offered to keep an 'Out-of-Area Index' if members would send her such stray entries that they came across in parish registers and census returns [2804]. This they did in encouraging numbers [2805]. She typed up the entries in groups and distributed copies of her typescripts, but by 1978 several local societies were undertaking similar indexes for their areas [2806].
On 20 February 1976 I went again to Missenden Abbey in Buckinghamshire, where I had lectured for the first time in 1965, to host another residential weekend meeting, 'Trace Your Own Ancestry', at which our former Secretary, Cecil Mackay, Hugh Hanley the Deputy County Archivist for Buckinghamshire, Thomas West from the General Register Office and Stella Colwell were also lecturers [2807]. I went again with Cecil Mackay for a similar weekend on 9 March 1979 [2808]. Our Magazine shows that courses of this kind were now being held in several places around the country. In May 1976, as the guest of the Belgian historian Dr Jan de Brouwere, I went to Brussels and attended the 11th National Congress of the Vlaamse Vereniging voor Familiekunde, speaking (in English) about the origins of Londoners at the end of a day devoted to the origins of the people of Brussels, 'Brusselaar, wie ben je?', with Senator Leo Vanackere in the Chair.
We had developed quite close connections with several societies in mainland Europe. Cecil Mackay had, on 14 April 1969, spoken to the Vlaamse Vereniging voor Familiekunde at Gent [2809] and on another occasion in French to the Service de Centralisation des Etudes Généalogiques et Démographiques de Belgique (SCGD), and our Research Department at the Society for some years acted as bankers of English cheques to the Dutch Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie in The Hague when it conducted research for anyone in the United Kingdom. In 1970 Emilia Adamczykova, the Secretary of the recently formed Czechoslovakian Genealogical and Heraldic Society which still flourishes in Prague, came to the Library and we kept in contact for some years. She charmingly wrote on one occasion about her visit, saying ‘I have been Alice in Wonderland’ [2810]. In October 1974 I had visited Hilda Prucher at the beautiful library of the Istituto Genealogico Italiano founded by Count Guelfi Camajani in the Palazzo Gondi in Florence, and we often exchanged letters with these societies about mutual research interests.
In March 1976 there were 28 regional societies in the British Isles and 24 of these were represented at a Federation council meeting at Norwich together with 15 of the national societies which included the Society of Genealogists, the university, one-name and allied societies. It was said then that eight further regional societies were in the process of formation. A list of all of them (including for Cheshire, Hampshire and Yorkshire, their branch societies) was published in the June Magazine [2811]. It was then announced that the Federation would itself be sponsoring a scheme to register members of the societies who offered reasonably priced bed-and-breakfast accommodation to fellow members, Miss Cynthia Read of Tadley, Hampshire, acting as co-ordinator [2812].
The arguments about what a national society like the Society of Genealogists should be doing, what its Magazine should contain, and about its relationship with the local societies continued. The member Ian R. Harrison, of Bideford, a regular and dispiriting complainer, wrote that 'It has always been a source of grievance to me that the Society never appears to promote, encourage or co-ordinate activities' such as Mrs Lodey's 'Out-of-Area' Index', adding that grand projects of this type were beyond the resources of individual enterprise and suggesting that the Executive Committee 'define two or three worthwhile projects which it would then officially sponsor and positively control' and 'pledge itself to completing just one project' [2813]. In the same Magazine Peter Clough, of Sale, Cheshire, who had joined in 1969 complained at the lengthening time taken to obtain replies to letters, saying that he would willingly pay double the subscription for 'prompt replies to letters and the removal of the feeling that my simple problems may be a nuisance to highly skilled and over-worked personnel' [2814]. Mrs Lodey agreed with Harrison but at least acknowledged the work that was being done ‘in the transcription of parish registers, marriage licences [sic] etc’ [2815].
In that September 1976 Magazine, Mrs Christine Powell listed what she had accomplished in southeast London (outside any society) with her transcripts and indexes of registers and records around Bermondsey, Pauline Litton in Stockport expressed the view 'as a historian and as a genealogist ... that the academic approach to genealogy has bedevilled it for too long', Ann Chiswell in Plymouth cast her vote 'on the side of a few scholarly articles', and John Rayment said that 'only a few of the members of federated societies, who are not already members of the Society of Genealogists, are likely to become such - yet' [2816].
A very small 'Special Liaison Committee' had been set up between the Society and the Federation and met regularly at the Society from 1976 onwards under the chairmanship of Sir Andrew Noble. We talked about subjects such as the National Pedigree Index, the National Index of Parish Registers, the co-ordination of county marriage indexes and the transcription of monumental inscriptions [2817]. I did not think the meetings of great practical value but they probably helped to inform Sir Andrew of the Society's views for communication to the Federation's Executive Committee. The list of committees of the Society published in September 1977 shows that by then the Society had accepted the formal nomination by the Federation of members to the Publications and Lectures Committees [2818] and for some years the Society's nominees also served on the Federation's sub-committees. An anonymous note about the Federation in the June 1978 Magazine says that 'only by establishing competent working groups will the Federation be able to serve adequately the needs of its member societies' [2819].
However, the Society was beginning to think a little more about itself and in September 1976 it announced that the courses, conferences and lectures organised by local societies and which did not directly involve the Society of Genealogists itself would no longer be reported in the Genealogists’ Magazine but that their organisers might instead take advertising space at the usual rates [2820]. The Society, having dispensed with the services of Phillimore & Co for the publication of the Magazine, was now receiving the income from the advertisements in a way that it had not done for several years, and in any case pressure on editorial space was increasing. Economies with the Magazine are mentioned above and in March 1977 it was reported that the future of the unwieldy section on 'Local Groups' was under discussion, coverage already being given in Federation News, though new groups would continue to be mentioned. Wiltshire was the only English county not now covered by name and the Heraldic and Genealogical Society of Wales formed at Cardiff in 1974 had foundered [2821].
The first issue of the Federation's new official publication Family History News and Digest edited by Elizabeth Simpson, appeared at the Day Conference in June 1977 (at 75p per issue) and contained very short abstracts of articles that appeared in many British family and local history journals, all classified by content, country and county [2822]. At the Society I encouraged the volunteer Edith Pritchard to start the compilation of a card index to these articles, pasting onto slips photocopies of the entries and arranging them to mirror the library catalogue, and it soon became a valuable reference to recently published material (though Lawson Edwards refused to have it in the Library). It was placed with the library catalogue in May 1984 when it contained 6,000 cards [2823] and, following Miss Pritchard’s death, it was carefully continued and expanded by Meg Reeves. The problem of how much space one gave to the activities of the Federation was solved by allowing the Federation a page in the Genealogists’ Magazine in exchange for one in Family history News and Digest, another little chore that fell quarterly on the Director.
Meanwhile the preparations for the 13th International Congress of Heraldic and Genealogical Sciences to be held at Imperial College, London, from 31 August to 7 September 1976, were making good progress. In September 1975 it was announced that there would be 110 lectures in four languages, several exhibitions, excursions and receptions, visits to Canterbury, Oxford and Cambridge, a tournament marshalled by heralds in the tilt yard of Allington Castle and a mediaeval banquet as well as other social events. The full residential cost was likely to be £115, with day-attendees paying £4 a day or £30 for the week [2824].
The Interim Programme of the Congress contained much that was only found at this series of International Congresses with talks on such topics as 'The testament of the last two princesses Medici', 'The Romanian boyars - an aristocracy or a nobility?' (in French), 'Heraldic dress for ladies' and 'The genealogy of the elite of the Empire of Brazil', but Donald Steel in his role as Vice-Chairman of Organisation saw the Congress as a 'unique chance to put over this country's particular emphases - the genealogy of the common man rather than that of the nobility and gentry, our increasing interest in family history rather than "mere genealogy" and the close links we are developing with historians, demographers and workers in other disciplines'. He therefore crammed every spare moment with additional lectures, organising others as an alternative to excursions. He published a list of these in the March 1976 Magazine when over 800 people had registered provisionally [2825], and then, of course, he changed his mind, and in the name of the Federation, he re-organised the lectures so that those of greatest interest to English genealogists all came together 'for the Federation' on the Saturday and Sunday (Sunday already included the next Council Meeting of the Federation; most overseas visitors were going to Oxford on that day) and asked a separate fee for those two days [2826].
Almost complete chaos ensued, particularly at the weekend when many more than anticipated turned up and lectures were crowded and later in the week as a result of the many changes to the programme, several talks being cancelled at short notice or postponed to a later day. The complexities of the layout of the building did not help. My memories of those hectic few days, when the ordinary work of the Society also continued, are rather hazy but Jeremy Gibson did a good 'personal impression' of the Congress in the Magazine the following year, though like many others he did not attend the social events. The Society's library, which was usually closed on Mondays, was opened to the Congress participants on that day and many visited the rooms.
Several people made a major contribution to the week and were to take an active part in the genealogical world in the future. Alan Reed, assisted by Colonel Stanley Marker and Marker's wife Joan, led a large band of harassed honorary helpers. Royston Gambier dealt with the enormous number of questions about the financial administration of the Congress and its social side. Catherine Humphery-Smith and Betty St George Brown were at reception and Philip Simpson, Elizabeth's husband, devotedly manned the Federation bookstall [2827]. Cecil Humphery-Smith, writing afterwards, paid particular tribute to Sir Andrew Noble, Major Bobby Collins, Royston Gambier, and to his wife Alice (1930-2017) and family, as well as to Donald Steel without whom, he said, 'the beginnings, the organisation and the event would have been a great deal more chaotic than they were' [2828].
I lived then in Cornwall Gardens fortunately within easy walking distance of Imperial College and I went over on the previous Friday to set up the Society's exhibition in the entrance hall. It was a selection of books and records from the library and collections illustrating the theme Using the Library of the Society of Genealogists. Jeremy Gibson kindly called it 'a most imaginative display' and I remember taking round the Lord Mayor of Westminster, Jack Gillett, after Friday's reception. The library guide with this same title had, as mentioned, originally been drafted by The Hon. Guy Strutt, John Phillips and myself in 1958, and it was now brought up to date and expanded with the assistance of Mildred Surry, Lawson Edwards and Anders Larsen, as a key to the exhibition, the text being nicely typed by the Institute. That guide was then subsequently revised almost every year, going through many editions and selling thousands of copies, it usually being left to me to finalise the wording, draw the maps of the rooms and compile the index. I was glad many years later to re-use for its cover the design drawn by Claire Evans for the 1937 exhibition catalogue.
In the event there were almost four hundred full-time Congress participants from twenty-six countries and 453 were present when Earl Marshal the Duke of Norfolk, a Vice-President of the Society, formally opened the proceedings on Wednesday, 1 September 1976, introducing Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, President of the Congress (and of the Institute at Canterbury), who (giving a selective view of the events leading up to the Congress) in turn introduced Baron de Vos van Steenwijk, Acting-President of the Congress Bureau, who introduced Sir Anthony Wagner, Garter King of Arms, who gave the opening address, expanding the themes of his recent book Pedigree and progress: essays in the genealogical interpretation of history (1975). At the end of the talk, his publishers, Phillimore & Co, most embarrassingly wheeled in a trolley piled with copies of the book for sale. In it he had examined possible links between the ancient world and modern genealogies and attacked the supposed rigidity of class distinctions in England, illustrating his themes with numerous chart pedigrees showing tentative connections to the pre-Christian world and the links between rich and poor, famous and unknown [2829].
During the seven days of the Congress with its five streams of lectures (about 170 altogether and in five languages) I spoke three times. Jeremy Gibson said that I 'set the tone with ... thought-provoking and stimulating views on the roles of amateurs and professionals in English genealogy', though correspondence about careers in genealogy, the employment of professionals and complaints against them were taking up an increasing amount of my time. I spoke secondly on 'Records of the English abroad' and thirdly on 'Sources for internal and external migration'. All were subjects on which I subsequently spoke frequently to local societies in the British Isles and around the world.
Donald Steel's talk, 'Family history in England: the outlook for the future', rather like that at Cambridge in 1975, dealt with the shift in emphasis from genealogy to family history and from landed, professional and business families to those of yeomen, craftsmen and labourers, brought about by the popularisation of the subject through do-it-yourself handbooks and publicity in the media, the growth of record offices, the teaching of demographic studies in the universities and the microfilming of the Latter-day Saints. He wrongly predicted a great growth in family associations and one-name societies, widespread courses with recognised examinations and qualifications, and, more correctly, the setting up of Mormon regional libraries [2830].
There were various receptions, formal meetings, excursions and other proceedings and at the closing banquet at the Guildhall in the presence of the Lord Mayor, Sir Lindsay Ring, as promised in 1972, Lord Mountbatten gave a relaxed and most entertaining speech [2831] (to which I remember contributing one or two sentences), and the whole unwieldy conference was generally reckoned a great success. The Society’s Annual Report rather coldly said that ‘your Committee was glad that this Society was associated with such an international event and consider the organisers deserve the Society’s thanks and congratulations’ [2832]. In thanking Lord Mountbatten, Baron de Vos van Steenwijk said that it had been one of the most successful and entertaining congresses in the series and that it would be remembered for its 'colourfulness, good company and great diversity of lectures' [2833]. The colourfulness resulted from the Institute bedecking the reception area with bright armorial banners and brass rubbings.
Short summaries of some of the Congress lectures appeared in its Proceedings (1979) [2834] but the printing of the texts proceeded only slowly over several years because of the cost involved, by which time some were quite out of date. It had been hoped that the next Congress in the series would take place in Madrid in 1978 but owing to the prevailing financial and political situation it was cancelled [2835] and the next or 14th Congress took place in Copenhagen, 26-30 August 1980. I attended throughout, though I don't think that any of the 'Federation' people did, except Cecil Humphery-Smith of course. After that the series proceeded almost completely without UK involvement (other than by the Institute) and no further Congress in this series was held in the British Isles until that on the theme ‘Myth and Propaganda in Heraldry and Genealogy’ at the University of St Andrews in August 2006.
In 1975 the Magazine had its attention drawn to an article by Alex Haley (1921-1992) [2836] a native of Tennessee, entitled 'Search for an Ancestor' that had appeared in the journal of the Community Relations Commission the previous year [2837]. After twelve years of research the author had apparently compiled a nine-generation pedigree back to a Gambian family via a slave ancestor transported to Maryland on the Lord Ligonier in 1767. After studying the verbal tradition in his family the author had visited London, Gambia and Annapolis, claiming to have obtained documentary confirmation of the voyage at the Public Record Office and in Gambia continuing back to the end of the seventeenth century through the oral genealogy preserved by a tribal griot who told him that the family had migrated from Mauritania. At Annapolis he had traced in the Maryland Gazette the advertisement for the sale of its slave cargo placed by the owners of the ship [2838]. It was the first time that the ancestry of a black American had been traced through the 'emigrant' ancestor to a specific place of origin in Africa.
The extraordinary book, Alex Haley's Roots (1976), which developed the story in this article and in another that had appeared in Reader's Digest in 1974, was described by the magazine Newsweek as 'bold in concept and ardent in execution, one that will reach millions of people and alter the way we see ourselves'. It certainly did that for many black Americans. First published in Great Britain in 1977 and adapted for the screen it had an enormous success [2839] and inspired countless numbers of people around the world to attempt to trace their ancestors. After Alex Haley appeared on television with Johnny Carson talking about the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, attendance almost doubled and letters poured in, one day peaking at 3,700 pieces of mail [2840]. Within a year the first ‘how to’ guide to black genealogical research had appeared [2841].
It was a wonderful story which earned Haley some 200 literary prizes and a £2m estate, but that its genealogy and chronology were severely challenged by Mark Ottaway in The Sunday Times in April 1977 [2842] and almost totally demolished in 'Roots Revisited', a lecture (which I attended) given by Gary Mills, Professor of History at the University of Alabama, with Elizabeth Shown Mills, at the National Genealogical Society Third Annual Conference in the States at Fort Worth, Texas, on 14 April 1983, was unfortunately only to be expected by any genealogist who had looked closely at the book [2843]. However, amongst the many inspired by Haley’s book, Dorothy Spruill Redford set out to trace her ancestors and in 1986 more than a thousand descendants of the 350 slaves on one plantation in North Carolina, Somerset Place, held a moving reunion at the restored and beautiful estate which their ancestors had created for the Collins family, representatives of which were also present [2844]. Sadly in 1997, however, it was reported that the American television networks were boycotting a BBC documentary exposing the extent to which Haley’s family history had been falsified, for fear of the racial tensions it might cause [2845].
About that time (1975) I had become involved with people at the BBC who were considering making a television documentary about the tracing of a family history, the aim being to show the methods, tools and skills used by the genealogist and by tracing a sample pedigree in some depth, to use the characters to illustrate aspects of English social history [2846]. The help of members of AGRA was enlisted but as in so many schemes of this kind, much time was wasted and nothing came of it.
Another large group of persons anxious to know about their background and ancestry began to come to the fore in 1976 as a result of the Children Act 1975, which from 26 November that year enabled adopted persons in England and Wales to apply for their original birth certificates, something that had been possible in Scotland since 1930. By the end of October more than 1,200 enquiries had been made to the Registrar General about this change in the law and it was then thought that a large proportion of the 600,000 adopted people in this country would be seeking the facts about their parentage over the next few years [2847].
A note in the Magazine about the change in the law thought that 'investigation may lie more in the field of the private detective than that of the genealogist' but the Society, which had lobbied consistently for the change, assisted many adoptees with challenging genealogical problems to find their birth-parents, and subsequently lobbied for that right to be extended to their children.
For many years an Associate of the Royal College of Art, Frederick Burgess, had collected a photographic record of 'English Churchyard Memorials', making notes of their form, material, imagery, lettering and inscriptions, as well as biographical details of their makers' careers, hoping to rescue from anonymity the work of these minor stonemasons and carvers. He had spoken to the Society about his valuable pioneering work in 1948 and a précis was published in the Magazine [2848] but his English Churchyard Memorials did not appear until 1963 [2849].
Also in 1963 the librarian, John Sims, appealed for assistance with the checking of the Society's collection of copies of monumental inscriptions [2850], with the idea of eventually publishing a catalogue [2851], but little happened on that front until the mid-1980s. However, in 1964 Kendall Percy-Smith contributed some thoughts on transcribing monumental inscriptions to the Magazine, drawing a distinction between copying for historical and genealogical purposes and for the use of sculptors, artists, lapidaries and students of language, etc. [2852], and the following year Archibald Maurice Colliard (1914-1966) [2853], the first LDS member of the Executive Committee (1964-65), placed on loan with the Society a very large collection of copies of monumental inscriptions taken in the course of his research work around the country [2854]. His sudden death on 5 May 1966 was a great blow to his friends and family.
In March 1967 it was again suggested that local schoolchildren might be involved in copying inscriptions and the interest of the local press aroused. At the same time the considerable work of Ronald Alan Lewin (died 2015) in the Bristol area was noted for the first time [2855]. In 1969 there were discussions about the possible publication of a bibliography of copies of monumental inscriptions which had been compiled by Arthur Charles Tucker who had assembled some 7,000 references but he needed more time in which to complete his project [2856].
Towards the end of 1969 an Ad Hoc Committee was formed at the Society to deal specifically with monumental inscriptions and the preservation of tombstones [2857] and, under the chairmanship of Dr Henry ‘Leslie’ White, of Bournemouth (1903-1986), as part of European Conservation Year, a letter was sent to all archdeacons and diocesan registrars expressing the Society’s concern at the wholesale clearance of churchyards in disregard of the recommendations of the Central Council for the Care of Churches. Other societies with kindred interests were also approached and the support of Members of Parliament invoked. The Annual Report said that ‘a great deal of encouragement has been received but it is clear that there is much apathy to be overcome’ [2858].
Since 1923 rather basic information about the graves and inscriptions in closed cemeteries had been sent to the General Register Office but their use by genealogists was almost completely unknown until a chance mention of them to Arthur Willis by Cregoe Nicholson was followed by a letter to the Magazine in 1971 [2859]. A list of the 166 grounds for which there were copies of the inscriptions, provided by Christopher Watts (1942-2012) and his brother Michael, was published in the Magazine in 1978, the collection having by then been transferred to the Public Record Office [2860].
By curious coincidence these copies of inscriptions were also mentioned in the Magazine in 1971 by Dr White in an article on the legal position when cemeteries were cleared. In these cases there was an urgent need for adequate copies of the inscriptions to be made, for the law merely required that they be 'sufficiently described' and this was frequently interpreted as the making of a list of the names and dates [2861]. Dr White, a member since 1946 and with much practical experience, was himself the author of a little pamphlet Elementary Notes for Churchyard Recorders, first printed in 1970 and revised in 1972. Martin C. Brimble, who had copied the inscriptions at Hartley, Dartford, Kent, warmly endorsed Dr White's comments on the value of the information that might be found [2862] and in January 1973 both Sir Anthony Wagner and Malcolm Pinhorn wrote to The Times about the need for complete and accurate surveys to be made (and not left to uninterested local authorities) and urging the notification of the specialist societies when changes to a graveyard were proposed [2863]. It is interesting to note that way back in 1912 the Society had been stressing this point to the Registrar of the Diocese of Southwark who had agreed that a faculty would not be issued to convert the churchyard of St Paul’s Deptford into a recreation ground under the Open Spaces Act 1906 until a statement as to the monuments had been filed in the Registry [2864].
So much work was being done by 1973 that John Rayment suggested that there would be an incentive for Members to copy inscriptions if district lists were available of those which had not been recorded [2865], something that remains true to this day. Following a suggestion that some manuscripts in the Society’s library might be suitable for editing for publication, Dr Leslie White (not 'Wright' as printed) drew attention to the number of small notebooks containing transcripts of churchyard inscriptions taken earlier in the century and in the nineteenth century (such as those by Arthur Ridley Bax) which were particularly valuable for the unique information that they contained but were vulnerable to theft. He again appealed for volunteers to produce a catalogue of the transcripts in the library, county by county, which might be published [2866]. The production of such a hand-list was itself controversial in that some thought that it might be used as evidence that a burial ground had been well copied and thus that the inscriptions might be destroyed and the book used, in Arthur Charles Tucker's words, as 'a blue-print for destruction'.
In June 1974 the member Lionel Aird (1902-1990), formerly Education Officer to the Pakistan High Commission in London, who had agreed in February 1973 to be responsible for the coordination of the Society's MI transcription work, appealed for members to signify their occasional willingness to help copy MIs in danger of destruction when churches were newly declared redundant and burial grounds were given over to other uses and urgent action was needed [2867]. Pressure had been maintained on the church authorities by Dr White and in March 1973 we published the recommendations of his group for the 'Proposed Revision of the Pastoral Measure, 1968' which had been sent to the Secretary-General of the General Synod in anticipation of imminent discussions. The 1968 Measure had set up the Advisory Board for Redundant Churches and the Board's annual reports had highlighted the neglect of some buildings and the resultant threats of damage and destruction to documents and memorials. White's proposals set out many suggested safeguarding procedures [2868].
The loss to the national heritage through the unrecorded destruction of monuments and their inscriptions was becoming more generally recognised and in 1972 the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) had set up a Churches Committee which included amongst its objectives the recording of churchyards. In July the Society’s application for membership of the Council was confirmed and I, Dr White and David Hawkings were appointed as the Society’s representatives. In addition a close liaison had been set up with the Advisory Board for Redundant Churches [2869]. In all of this Dr White showed enormous energy, enthusiasm and tenacity.
Other bodies such as Nature Conservancy and the British Lichen Society had also become interested in the preservation of churchyards as habitats for wild species. The Society of Genealogists therefore, led by Dr White, convened an afternoon meeting at the neighbouring Hotel Eden in Harrington Gardens on 21 November 1974 and invited representatives from twelve organisations to discuss the issues involved. In January 1975 a further meeting was held to iron out some of the differences in approach which had been revealed.
A new edition of the Church of England's Churchyard Handbook, which appeared at this time, recommended the recording of inscriptions in full, the Church Commissioners having already made the same recommendation under the Pastoral Measure for inscriptions in redundant churches at risk of destruction. Their booklet Tombstones, Monuments and Memorials (1973), included as an Appendix the Society's guidance notes for transcribers. The Faculty Measure of 1964, however, still only required that the name and date (usually interpreted as the year) be noted.
Dr White then persuaded the Diocesan Chancellors at their Annual Meeting in October 1974 to agree formally that it would be 'desirable and helpful' if genealogical advice were available at diocesan level when clearance of churchyards was considered though he admitted that, judging by the experience of the Diocesan Advisory Committees with the archaeologists, the likelihood of formal genealogical appointments to the Committees was not good. He was proved right, for although approaches were made to fifteen dioceses no formal appointments were made, the Committees preferring to give the advisors consultant status only [2870]. As it transpired, however, perhaps much more importantly, the office of the Redundant Churches Committee of the Church Commissioners agreed in 1975 to provide the Society of Genealogists monthly with the names of churches which were subject to official 'declarations of redundancy' [2871], together with some indication of the possible future fate of their churchyards, so that arrangements might be made to copy their inscriptions.
With the passage of time the Society began to receive copies of all the formal notices about church and churchyard alterations and with the development of the local societies these notices were regularly passed on so that any threatened inscriptions might be copied [2872]. It became a major part of the work of the MI Secretary. In 1975, however, there was a great shortage of people willing to take on the work in spite of a highly successful appeal for assistance made in 1974 when a circular about its value was enclosed with the papers for the SoG's Annual Meeting. Dr White's paper on the recent developments described above was published in March 1975 when it was noted that earlier appeals for members to send in press announcements of the clearance of churchyards was producing a regular stream of information [2873]. The highly unsatisfactory nature of much of the transcription work previously done was outlined in his paper, ‘The fate of churchyard monuments with their inscriptions and sculpture’, along with its extensive comparative study based on his own practical experience in the Bournemouth area, ‘The story of seven churchyards’, which he circulated at this time.
In 1975 the Society received three typescript volumes of Leicestershire Monumental Inscriptions copied by Patricia de Fontenay Moll, the work of seven summers (she intended more but sadly died later that year) [2874], containing some 19,000 inscriptions from 165 parishes, and a group of members in Northumberland gave for photocopying their transcripts of nine burial grounds in the county and appealed for assistance to copy others [2875]. In 1976 we received altogether the inscriptions in about 90 churchyards and a further 60 were being worked upon [2876]. Few copies were received from Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire, mainly because there were no local groups to assist in the work, as is mentioned in the Society’s 1977 Annual Report.
Kendall Percy-Smith died on 3 June 1975 and his last letter to me, written just four months earlier and containing a small donation to the Society, had been about his continuing parish register transcription work for which I had sent him some paper [2877]. He did not live to see it but he would have warmly welcomed the foundation in October the following year (1976) of the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia by Theon Wilkinson (1924-2007) the author of Two Monsoons (1976; revised 1987). Wilkinson's fascinating book reviewed 250 years of European influence in India in terms of the epitaphs and monuments left behind [2878]. It was an area in which Mrs Doris Pullen, who had succeeded the painstaking Lionel Aird as MI Secretary in 1975, took a particular interest, always attending their meetings and making sure that the Society received the Association’s publications. Theo Wilkinson spoke to the Society about ‘Epitaphs of the Raj for genealogists’ in 1977 and I always read with interest his Association’s twice-yearly newsletter Chowkidar.
For some time Dr White, with the encouragement of the Society, had been preparing a general booklet about monumental inscriptions and the legal situation. This, after much diplomatic discussion about his drafts and difficult prose, was then left to my editorial and typing skills and eventually published (though worthy of a nicer print) as Monuments and their inscriptions: a practical guide (1977; £1.00),deservedly receiving widespread acclaim. Part of the delay was due to the fact that it incorporated a series of suggestions made by John Rayment on behalf of the Federation, many of which Dr White had strenuously resisted.
In the previous year the Council for British Archaeology and RESCUE had published How to record graveyards by Jeremy Jones (1976; £0.75), a book that Dr White disliked intensely as it advocated the use of a rigid framework of forms which could later be used for data processing, whilst White emphasized the importance of the preservation of every fact on the stone [2879]. The historian John Harvey called White's book 'a more common-sense guide' which recommended the use of a notebook instead of forms, of feet and not a metric scale, the distribution of typed copies, and which insisted upon the priority of recording against time [2880]. The disagreement led to a discussion on the relative value of recording forms at the Society of Antiquaries in October 1976 which was attended by Dr White, Isobel Mordy and Mildred Surry [2881].
At the first major conference of the Federation of Family History Societies hosted by the Hampshire Genealogical Society on 15/16 October 1977, Stephen Emlyn-Jones proposed that it give priority to a national project to complete the recording of all monumental inscriptions within the next five years. This ambitious proposal was supported by Leslie White and John Rayment and carried [2882]. The Federation now published John Rayment's slight Notes on the recording of monumental inscriptions (1978) providing 'sound and straightforward advice' to the groups of Federation members who involved themselves in the project [2883.]
Practising what they preached Leslie White, Stella Colwell, Christopher Watts and David Hawkings, led groups of volunteer members to the churchyard of St Anne, Limehouse, in the East End of London, on several Saturdays, commencing on 10 June 1978, to copy the inscriptions. The unkempt churchyard, one of the few in central London that had not been transcribed, posed particular problems and it was unfortunate that many of the stones had been lined up three deep and half buried, so that excavation was involved [2884]. Having completed that parish this small ‘Gravestones Project Group’ went in the following year to tackle the graveyard at St Mary, Chiswick [2885] where excellent progress was made under the direction of Christopher Watts, Victor Gale and David Hawkings [2886]. That being completed the Group turned its attention in association with the West Middlesex Family History Society, to Brentford and Hillingdon [2887].
Cecil Mackay had visited her family in South Africa in the autumn of 1968 and was then away for almost three months [2888] and I deputised on her behalf. On other occasions when she was away or had not been well I had usually acted in her stead. It was generally thought that she intended to resign at the end of 1975 but meanwhile the office staffing arrangements were very ad hoc to say the least. At the Executive Committee in March the Honorary Treasurer, Arnold Hawker, who was a weekly visitor, commented about staffing generally and it transpired that the Committee believed that I had full time secretarial assistance whereas I had not had any since April 1973. After the meeting I wrote to him and to the Chairman, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, saying that I had begun to hope that if a good assistant could be found in the office (in succession to Mrs Elizabeth Gibson who had left late in 1974) and another in the Research Department that I might be considered a suitable applicant for the post of Secretary in succession to Mrs Mackay. However, as I wrote, Mrs Gibson had not been replaced, more work had fallen on Mrs Reid so that she could not help me and a member, Anthony S. M. Dickins (1914-1987), had been engaged part-time to answer general queries at a rate of pay in excess of all of us [2889]. Having been asked to help interview possible successors to Mrs Mackay I was consequently considering my position. Hawker and Fitzgerald-Moore drew the situation to the attention of the Executive Committee in May but that same month Cecil Mackay, without the Committee’s knowledge had engaged Mrs Ruth H. Harvey as Assistant Secretary and in the expectation that she would succeed her as Secretary.
At the Annual Meeting in June 1975 it was formally announced that Cecil Mackay would retire at the end of the year [2890]. She had for some time looked forward to this ‘joyful day’ [2891]. She had been Secretary for thirteen years and as Molly Tatchell (1910-2003) a member of the Executive Committee wrote in the Magazine, during a period of constant change and chronic shortage of staff she had always been ready to turn her hand to anything and had been responsible for a number of innovations designed to cut down work, most essential with the yearly increase in membership [2892]. Contributions to a retirement gift were solicited and at the Annual Meeting in 1976 Lord Mountbatten went so far as to say that he was convinced that the Society owed its possession of the Harrington Gardens to her efforts [2893], a slight exaggeration as this narrative perhaps shows. She intended to give up the flat above the Society and move to Cambridge but she continued her interest in the Society and was elected a Fellow in 1992. She and I always had an excellent working relationship and when she died in 1998 her nephew kindly wrote that she had been 'especially fond' of me, a comment that I greatly appreciated.
Meanwhile, of course, the Executive Committee had gone into over-drive! At an adjourned meeting (of a meeting on 13 May) on 27 May 1975 the members were told that Mrs Harvey had been appointed at £2,500 p.a. following an advertisement in The Times to which there had been only the one response. It agreed that Lawson Edwards and I should be told that the ‘whole structure of the Society’ would now come under review. Mrs Mackay had acted in good faith and had said that when she was appointed the then Chairman ‘had given her authority both to appoint and dismiss staff’. Both Mrs Mackay and Denis Burton, the chairman of the Staff Committee, now offered to resign. Alexander Sandison, as a member of the ‘ad hoc Reorganisation Committee’ was in his element and already on 14 May had circulated a paper on the collective ‘Functions of senior staff’.
A further meeting of the Executive on 17 June was told that there had been three meetings of the Reorganisation Committee. It now recommended that the Secretary should have overall management and supervision of all the staff and ‘actively promote the objectives of the Society among members, other persons and organisations at home and abroad’, there being also two principal officers, the Director of Research and the Librarian, with duties ‘broadly similar’ to those presently carried out. On 2 July the Librarian wrote a fierce letter to Denis Burton, the chairman of the Staff Committee rightly saying that that Committee was ‘a hollow sham’ with a ‘feudal attitude’, meeting ‘at far too infrequent intervals at far removes from reality’ [2894]. In effect the Committee met only once a year and then merely to consider the staff salaries; only the Secretary was present.
The Executive Committee met again on 15 July when a more detailed report from the Reorganisation Committee was adopted, abolishing the Finance, House and Staff Committees and forming instead a six-member General Purposes Committee with representatives from the other committees. It was required to meet monthly and report in writing to the next Executive Committee. It recommended also that the staff salaries should be considerably increased (the new Secretary to £3,540, the Director of Research to £3,300, the Librarian to £3,240 and the Library Assistants to £1,755). The Principal Officers (other than the Secretary) had no right to attend this new Committee unless ‘required’ but soon made a habit of being there whether ‘required’ or not. One of the three Principal Officers was expected to be present in the rooms at all times when they were open. The new Committee was immediately charged with advertising for a successor to Mrs Mackay and with the appointment of all future principal officers.
Meanwhile Alexander Sandison had got his teeth into some draft ‘Staff Conditions of Service’ which he prepared in October and which, for three of us at least, being introduced some years into our employment, showed much lack of sensitivity and were bound to cause difficulties. Cecil Mackay, sensing problems, wrote firmly to Denis Burton that they should be discussed with the staff involved before being put to the Executive Committee. ‘Speaking personally’, she wrote, ‘they would not be acceptable to me … they seem full of pitfalls’ [2895]. In particular the requirement that the copyright of material written by the staff in their own time should belong to the Society was quite unacceptable to both the Librarian and myself and I wrote to the Chairman, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, in no uncertain terms, telling him what he already knew, i.e. that I would never agree to it [2896]. I believed that the staff, who received miserable salaries, should be given every possible encouragement to write, publish and lecture in their own time to the benefit of everyone concerned. The possibility that they might bring discredit on the Society by so doing, as was claimed, was no greater, as I well knew, than if they had been members of the Executive Committee or indeed Fellows of the Society.
The new Secretary, as an advertisement in the September Magazine indicated, was to be 'responsible for the direction of the Society's activities, including the supervision of office and library staff, the management of premises, the conduct of correspondence, the servicing of various committees, and fostering the voluntary activities of Members'. It was said that applicants should have experience in administration and finance, and should possess tact, initiative and judgment. Knowledge of genealogy, archives, local history or related subjects was considered desirable but not essential [2897]. An advertisement in the wider press was a little different, saying ‘Applications are invited for the Post of Secretary. Those with ability to supervise a small staff, to encourage the voluntary activities of Members, in crowded premises, to service Committees, and to work irregular hours for £3,540 p.a. (superannuable) should write in confidence to the Chairman’. There were about fifty applicants and ten were interviewed, a short-list of five having a second interview at a special meeting of the Executive Committee on 27 October. I, of course, applied but, of course, was not successful.
The successful candidate was Miss Mildred Surry (1929-2018), a member since 1964, who commenced work on 2 January 1976 [2898]. An Associate of the Library Association, Mildred Surry had, from 1967 to 1975, been the Librarian of the Fawcett Society a group which had been at the centre of the non-militant campaign for women's suffrage under the leadership of Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett. The Fawcett Society’s growing Library, tended by Miss Surry without much help, had become a major national research source. However, the Fawcett Society had found it could no longer support its Library in Wilfred Street, Westminster and had agreed to transfer it to the City of London Polytechnic [2899]. Miss Surry was naturally much interested in the transfer and involved herself quite controversially in the proposals which continued to take up a good deal of her time. However, she worked hard at the Society and during her three years there, had a most caring and supportive interest in the welfare of her staff and of those members with whom she came into contact [2900]. When young in London in the late 1950s she had been a flat mate and good friend to the troubled but now widely acclaimed New Zealand writer and poet Janet Frame (1924-2004).
As a result Ruth Harvey was instead appointed Assistant Secretary as from 1 January 1976 with responsibility for the membership records and files and for 'general enquiries from both members and non-members, except those on policy, genealogical research or the library' [2901] or, as the Chairman put it, 'queries raised by members on administrative matters' [2902]. She also worked hard in what was probably not too congenial a position, particularly in view of the increase in subscriptions that year and all the problems of a rapidly growing membership with varying bankers' orders and deeds of covenant. She was formally appointed Membership Secretary in July 1979 and remained with the Society until December that year when she decided to go with her husband to live in Spain.
Arising from the staff changes there was much discussion also about the research department and in June 1976 I prepared a paper setting out some of its current problems. For thirty working days I had kept a note of the 237 letters I had answered, of which 55 were from members and 40 contained return postage. Some 97 of my letters were specifically about the research that the Society was currently conducting, including twelve that asked for money for new research. However, a further 23 enclosed a list of recommended searchers or named searchers in specific areas. The remainder, which included twelve about research in other countries, were on a great range of genealogical topics worldwide.
I identified a particular problem in that the widely distributed membership leaflet had for 15 years contained a statement that the Society was able to undertake a limited amount of research for non-members and for members at reduced rates. As a result some overseas members joined specifically to have research carried out at low fees or were using the Society as a general advisory service, with no intention of commissioning research but wanting free advice on what to do or where to look next. They rarely if ever came to the Library and usually resigned after two or three years, dissatisfied to some extent with the service given. The membership had risen from 1,800 to 5,000 since I had taken over the research in 1962, and the number of pieces of mail received had gone up from 4,300 in 1960 to 12,400 in 1975 (or 50 every working day), the Society being regarded as the final authority on so many topics. The research rates (£2 an hour for members and £3 for non-members) had only been increased to those levels in July 1975 but one tended to make short searches for members for nothing, though some took advantage and became very annoyed if charged £1.08 (inclusive of VAT) or neglected to pay so that two or three reminders became necessary.
The researchers were normally paid £1.50 an hour and I had the half-time assistance of Raymond Foster who did nearly all the outside work at the GRO and PRO, of Mervyn Medlycott who did one day every two weeks, of Alan Rolfe who probably did two or more days every week but only charged for half of them, and of Lydia Collins who worked in the library for about five hours a week. Alan and Lydia did their own typing and reports, the remainder being done by myself (often, though I did not say it, at the weekends) with the assistance of Mrs Reid on about one day a month. There were now considerable delays in reporting, particularly if one had to organise research somewhere in the provinces, and large cases (which might make more profit) were generally avoided because one could not give them continuity and individual attention.
I had advertised for a part-time assistant in 1973 but found no satisfactory person with the necessary knowledge of the library and outside sources who was able to type their own reports, and I could not offer a regular income as the amount of paid research to be done in the library fluctuated considerably. There was the added problem of lack of room to house a regular worker in the Society’s somewhat ‘open-plan’ offices which, as I said, ‘are in any case particularly ill-suited for quiet research’. One urgently needed further secretarial assistance, preferably with some knowledge of the subject, but it could not be expected that this would to any extent pay for itself [2903].
In the March 1975 issue of the Magazine the Treasurer, Arnold Hawker, had given a summary of the Society's then financial position and staffing. Six full-time staff were employed with an equal number of part-time employees. Pension arrangements for the senior staff, something in which Hawker had taken considerable personal interest, had been entered into in 1974 [2904]. The ratio of staff to members was about 1 to 450. Although costs had risen considerably, by the end of 1975 the subscriptions would have remained unaltered for five years. The cost of running the Society had risen from £19,000 in 1971 to a projected £29,000 in 1975 and, although there had been a 15% rise in membership, there would need to be an increase in subscriptions from 1 January 1976 [2905].
Hawker therefore proposed and it was agreed at an Extraordinary General Meeting on 28 June 1975 that London Members should pay £9 and Country and Overseas Members £6 per annum, with students paying half those rates and pensioners (over 65) paying £7 or £4.50 [2906]. At the Meeting a member, Jan Reid, herself a professional searcher, had suggested that professionals, who received tax relief on their subscriptions, should pay a higher rate, something that would have required the defining of 'a professional' and a change in the Articles for a relatively small number of people. There was resistance to the main proposals by some members of local groups present but Heather Hawker, Arnold Hawker's wife and herself also a member, said that if people wanted a Society with a large library and properly trained staff, they must be prepared to pay for it. Hawker had previously suggested that the Entrance Fee for students should be increased to £1.25 and to £2.50 for all other members and this was done the following year. Following a report from F. A. Davies, the actuary to the Eagle Star Insurance Company, the Executive Committee also suspended Life Membership of the Society, intending to review it again in a year's time [2907].
However, with escalating costs and inflation it was agreed at the Annual Meeting in 1976 that an increase in subscriptions in 1977 was 'almost inevitable' [2908] and an Extraordinary Meeting was called on 16 November 1976 (with Brian Brooks in the Chair) when it was proposed by Arnold Hawker and overwhelmingly agreed that Town Members who had joined since July 1965 should pay £12 and Country Members £8 per annum, that retired members should pay £9 or £6 and students £6 or £4 per annum, the Entrance Fee for students being increased to £1.75 and for all other members to £3.50 [2909]. The novelist Anthony Powell gave £100 to the funds that year.
Slightly fuller detail was given in the Accounts for 1976 and at the Annual Meeting in 1977 Jeremy Gibson asked that the postage on the Magazine be shown separately so that the true cost of the Magazine production was known to Members, that Photocopying be separated from the sale of Publications, and that the profits on the production and sale of the Society's own publications be shown separately from those brought in for re-sale, all matters that he had mentioned in the past and of importance to anyone interested in the Society's true trading position [2910]. Not all these figures subsequently appeared in the printed Accounts but they were always available at future meetings.
The rules about subscriptions were at this time relatively liberally applied. Under the Society's Articles of Association Members were supposed to give a month's notice of their intention to resign, and if they resigned after 30 November they were technically liable for the following year's subscription, the legal liability to contribute to the Society's funds if it were wound up also continuing to the end of the following year [2811]. Subscriptions were payable on 1 January but the Members were sent reminders with both their March and June magazines and they were not 'struck off' for non-payment until September when a formal list of their names was brought before the Executive Committee. It was not until the change in the Articles in 1979 that we began to tighten up on this procedure, no magazines being sent if a subscription had not been paid. However, in 1975 membership cards were introduced for those visiting the library [2912] (to differentiate them from day searchers) which they were asked to display, a not too popular decision, but aimed mainly at discovering those who had not paid. Previously members had just signed their names in a book kept at reception without any question being asked. If a member of staff thought the member had not paid that could easily be checked from the card index in the office.
In notes in the Magazine Ruth Harvey reminded members that if their subscriptions had not been paid by 1 September of the following year that they would be struck off and that they would then have to pay a second entrance fee if they subsequently wished to re-join (though a proposer and seconder would not then be needed) and that re-election to membership was not to be relied upon by constant defaulters [2913]. These points were reiterated in a letter that Miss Surry sent to all the defaulting members on 19 August 1976 which also pointed out that the March and June Magazines which they had already received would have cost a non-member £1.25 each plus postage. She suggested that those who did not wish to renew their subscriptions should make some contribution to their cost [2914].
Prompt payment, of course, also helped when ordering print-runs of the Magazine, an estimation problem that escalated considerably as the membership grew and the print-runs themselves could not be controlled exactly. Expensive reprints of the Magazine were to be avoided but occasionally proved necessary; sometimes far too many copies resulted in storage problems. The dollar rate equivalents were also frequently a matter of argument being calculated to take into account the bank charges that had to be paid, something that was not always appreciated by the member.
Although details of the increase in subscriptions were sent to members the day after the Extraordinary Annual Meeting on 17 November 1976, many members did not change their bankers' orders and many payments were made at the old rate on 1 January 1977, so that the balance had then to be collected. The matter was further complicated in that members who had joined prior to 1975 could not have their subscriptions increased but were now being charged an additional £5 for the Magazine. Some, as a result, chose not to take the Magazine. Life Members paid no subscription and received the Magazine without further charge. All this had to be set out and pleas were then made to those members in 'sufficiently good circumstances' to voluntarily increase their subscriptions to the new rates [2915]. What their legal liability would be, if their circumstances changed, was never decided. The Membership Secretary's task was not an easy one and arguments about these matters took up a considerable amount of time. A radical overhaul of the records resulted in 629 names being removed from the membership list in 1976 and a slight drop in the total number (to 4,852) at the end of the year [2916].
These problems were further complicated because the December 1976 issue of the Magazine contained an index only and for economic reasons it was held back and sent out with the March issue which was brought forward to February 1977. Only the March issue contained advertisements and so the charges to advertisers who paid in advance for four insertions had also to be adjusted.
As if Ruth Harvey did not have enough problems trying to apply the regulations about membership, the AGM in June 1977 introduced another concessionary category, that of married couples who opted to receive only one copy of the Magazine. This came into force on 1 January 1978, the subscription being 75% of the normal rate for two individuals [2917]. Arnold Hawker said that the loss to the Society, if any, would be very small, but he did not anticipate the arguments (amongst several others that wasted hours and are far too tedious to enter into) that would arise from some couples as to whom the Magazine should be addressed. This tricky question arose because, in order to save money, the Addressograph plate of the first of the couple to join was not altered when the second became a member.
At the AGM in 1978 it was noted that £6,000 was still owed on the mortgage, the income from the recent subscription increase had not brought in quite as much as was expected [2918] and a further increase was proposed and agreed without opposition. As from 1 January 1979 the rates would rise from £12 to £15 for Town Members, from £8 to £10 for Country and Overseas Members, and the Entrance Fee from £3.50 to £5. The concessionary rates would also increase to £11.25 for Town Members and £7.50 for Country and Overseas Members, but it was also agreed that the concessionary rate for Retired Members should in future inly be allowed to those who had been members for ten years [2919]. The situation was further complicated at this time in that 44% of the subscriptions received was liable to VAT at 8% and although this was absorbed and not charged separately, a few members demanded to have separate VAT invoices and a nasty little calculation had then to be spelled out, 66% of a £15 subscription (i.e. £9.90) for instance being zero rated, and £4.73 being subject to VAT of 37p. Fortunately most members were quite unaware of the situation.
The cards that recorded the addresses and payments of Members who lapsed and were struck off or died were transferred to a separate series of drawers that Ruth Harvey christened 'Boot Hill', a name that remained with them for many years. The index was a valuable source of information about former genealogists. In July 1979 with the membership coming up to 5,000, Edith Pritchard looked at all the cards and found that there were still 140 Life Members and 156 Members who paid old rates of £6 or less a year. Since the first days of the Society the members had each had separate correspondence files and these too, on death or resignation, were usually preserved and transferred to a separate series. Into these membership files were generally placed all the correspondence from the various sections of the Society, including the Library, and by looking at the file one could soon see how active or otherwise any member had been and whether he or she had been troublesome or helpful in the past. It was an important point as one was frequently asked to write formal letters confirming a person's membership or providing a reference for them when visiting an incumbent or record repository such as the Department of Literary Enquiry at Somerset House or Lambeth Palace Library or indeed the Public Record Office. I remember someone at the PRO saying in 1986 that if he had a pound note for every letter that he had seen with my signature on it he would be a wealthy man.
The amount of correspondence received at the Society was now becoming a very major problem. At the AGM in 1976 the Chairman, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore told the members that in 1960 the Society received 4,300 pieces of correspondence, but that in 1975 there were 12,400 items. In 1962 we had 1,800 members; the number was now about 5,000. The small staff had to deal with about 50 items of correspondence every working day [2920].
General enquiries about the Society were usually answered with a regularly revised duplicated sheet which could be folded in three and stapled, the address being written on the back. It incorporated details of the Library and an application form for membership. I had devised this in 1963 [2921] to replace the simple printed half-sheet that had been in use since Major Church's day and it worked well, many thousands being sent out over the years, though the stencilled picture of the Society's home on the front did not always come out too clearly [2922]. After the move to Charterhouse Buildings in 1984 we replaced it with a very similar yellow form, regularly updated and much more nicely printed in dark brown.
In answer to queries about research we had devised an impersonal letter that we called the 'Advice' letter and which was often sent with the membership form. Many enquiries followed very similar lines and in 1977 we started to produce a series of leaflets on particular subjects that could be sent with the membership form or a compliment slip. The first two of these Leaflets were a list of the publications sold by the Society and a Bibliography for beginners and these were available at the Day Conference that year. They were followed by Family records and their layout (based on a draft by Alexander Sandison), Note taking and keeping for genealogists, Genealogy as a career (about which we had an enormous number of enquiries), The relevance of surnames, and A note for Americans on tracing their British Ancestry. All these appeared in 1977 [2923]. The leaflet for Americans, which pointed out the problems entailed in tracing the place of origin of early migrants, again answered thousands of letters and was eventually printed on much thinner paper to save postage. We had for some years refused to take on research where the migrant’s place of origin was not known for, as I had written to the Mayflower genealogist Lucy Mary Kellogg (1899-1973), I had long ago concluded that it was ‘foolish to encourage and improper to take money in these cases’ [2924].
The problems in the identification of these early migrants were exemplified in the year of publication of our leaflet by the publicity given to a search for the ancestry of the US President Jimmy Carter whose emigrant ancestor was probably (but cannot be proved to be) Thomas Carter who arrived in Isle of Wight County, Virginia, in 1635. In June 1977 the President’s son visited Christchurch in Dorset in the firm belief that this Thomas was the son of a Christchurch merchant [2925], but in August the ubiquitous and quite unreliable Harold Brooks-Baker, then managing director of Debrett’s, announced that Thomas had come from Kings Langley in Hertfordshire [2926], and in October the firm sent four genealogists to Virginia for further research, The Times reporting that Debrett, ‘apart from the disinterested search for truth, is gratified by the publicity its search is attracting’ [2927]. No doubt it was, but so far as I am aware the origins of this particular migrant remain entirely unknown.
The leaflet on careers became a best seller and we considered it a far more realistic summary of the situation than that provided by the Institute at Canterbury [2928]. There were thousands of requests for it, not only from individuals, but from schools, colleges and universities throughout the kingdom, and overseas.
As a note in the Magazine relates, the preparation of the draft leaflets mentioned above revealed substantial differences in practice between various individuals and some surprisingly strongly held views on what Alexander Sandison described as 'really unimportant matters of detail' but there was usually full agreement on the important issues and the leaflets undoubtedly helped to inform good practice. The intention to seek a consensus of opinion on permissible abbreviations, however, unfortunately failed and has never been satisfactorily addressed. Sandison had begun to prepare a wide ranging draft on ‘Conventional practices in genealogy’ for a working party early in 1978, but it unfortunately raised many questions at a more than busy time and was not taken further [2929].
Apart from the list of publications (which was sent to all the members with the December 1977 Magazine and printed in that for June 1978) [2930], these leaflets were basically designed to be given away in reply to letters but they were also sold at 10p each and bulk supplies for resale were available at a discount to member societies of the Federation. All were regularly revised and reprinted. Later when they and others in the series were seen by the Publications Committee as something to be 'designed', printed on heavy paper, and produced specifically to make money, the idea collapsed, the Internet fortunately intervening to make the more worthwhile ones available without charge.
The printing of the list of publications became, with the passage of time and as the list grew, almost a major event, its checking and revision taking several days. The work of the Publications Committee was outlined by Alexander Sandison in the Magazine in March 1978 when he spoke of the leaflets being typed on a machine that 'simultaneously recorded the details on a magnetic memory' to facilitate updating and the possibilities of future publication on microfiche. His article completely overlooked the involvement of the staff concerned [2931]. He did, however, mention that the Society had joined the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) which took publicity stands and displayed books at various exhibitions and was now shrink-wrapping the Magazine instead of the Society's staff inserting it in envelopes for distribution, a major step forward as the membership rapidly increased.
At this time the Society's rooms were closed on Mondays, but open from 10 am to 6 pm on Tuesday and Fridays, 10 am to 8 pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and from 10 am to 5 pm on Saturdays. It closed on Friday afternoons at 1 pm and all day on Saturdays prior to Bank Holidays. However, late in 1978 it was decided that the Society would, in future, close on two separate weeks in the year to enable the Library Staff to take stock and do other work that could not be undertaken when the rooms were open. The first of these closed weeks took place in February and the second in October 1979 [2932].
As mentioned above the accountant Herbert Chadband retired after fourteen years in the middle of 1976, going to live in Norfolk, and was greatly missed [2933]. He was replaced by Chandra J. Bhatt who had recently come from East Africa, a fine and able accountant, who remained with us until October 1979. Sometime after we had moved to Charterhouse Buildings in 1984 he sought me out to say that he was migrating with his family to America and he touchingly wanted to thank the Society for employing him earlier. Haidee Reid who had been with us since 1970 and Anthony Dickins who had also helped Mrs Mackay both retired in 1976. They were replaced in June by Edith Pritchard who had been recruited as a part-time office assistant by Mildred Surry. Joan 'Edith' Pritchard (1916-1986) had recently retired as an editor with the BBC and for the next ten years she made herself quite indispensable with all manner of tasks around the office, working full-time from early in 1979.
The highly competent and organised Mrs Patricia Mary Riach (nee Cutting; died 2010) who had joined the Society in 1971 was in September 1972 invited to take over the work of the late Doreen Briscoe (and in succession to Margaret Duggan who had kept it ticking over) in the organisation of the parish register subscribers and this she did with great success for the next ten years, providing a steady stream of work to a loyal band of workers. Her husband, Major Hamilton ('Tony') Fraser Riach (died 1993) was also a member and typed numerous parish registers for the Society.
At the same time another member and a popular teacher of local and family history classes, Mrs Doris Evelyn Pullen (nee Lord), in May 1975 took over from Lionel Aird the similar work of co-ordinating the transcription of monumental inscriptions. She also, with great energy and enthusiasm, carried that work forward until her retirement in 1998, her husband John also typing registers and, after the move to Charterhouse Buildings, assisting the ‘Monday Club’ there.
These two ladies shared a desk and each worked one day a week in the library and their dedication and helpful presence was a considerable asset as they both came to know the library's organisation well. Two able assistants, Timothy Howard and Christopher Edwards, also joined the library staff in 1976 [2934] and we looked forward to a little more continuity generally. In 1977 there were a number of suggestions from Members that the Society might benefit from the Government's recently introduced Job Creation Scheme and the matter was given active consideration by the Executive Committee [2935] but found quite impossible, three people apparently being the minimum number to be employed.
However, as is frequently the case when there is plenty else to think about, the provision of afternoon tea to the members became a major issue in 1977 and much time was expended in argument. Mrs Norris now found it hardly worth her while to come to the Society, sometimes for only one or two people, and the staff were generally unwilling to act. Hamilton-Edwards and a small number of regular visitors, remembering the days of yore when the tea bell rang and the room filled with people to enjoy a genealogical discussion, were particularly tiresome in drafting notices and calling meetings, though their main meeting on 1 July 1977 only attracted a dozen members, most realising that the day had probably come for some automatic self-service system, though these machines, like photocopiers, were not so efficient then as they later became. His thought that some local retired lady would, at almost no cost to the Society, give up every afternoon from Tuesday to Saturday, was quite unrealistic [2936].
Jeremy Gibson gave up the joint editorship of the Magazine with Francis Leeson after the June 1976 issue and 'Frank' Leeson continued as Editor alone. Although based at Ferring in Sussex he and the printers, the Grosvenor Press, had an excellent relationship with the Society in the timely circulation of copy, proofs and final product, the large office and library sections of the journal being prepared ‘in-house’.
As Jeremy Gibson mentioned at the AGM in 1976 the postage on the Magazine was a major item at about £400 a quarter [2937] and the December issue (which consisted solely of an index compiled by Isobel Mordy) was despatched with the March 1977 issue, members being kept informed meanwhile through a special News Letter. As a result the payments by regular advertisers had then, of course, to be adjusted. In March 1977 Leeson introduced a slightly new format in A5 size with a smaller type in two columns, as had been proposed by Jeremy Gibson, they attempting to keep the costs down without lowering standards [2938], but when the print size of the lengthy lists of new members and library accessions was still further reduced in the June 1978 issue, to save about 20% space [2939], and the sections of reviews and correspondence were further reduced in March 1980 [2940], some members began to complain, saying that the lists of library accessions were unreadable. However, in June 1980 it was agreed to discontinue listing the names and addresses of the many new members, though the addresses of those who gave birth briefs were now included instead.
The Librarian remained as Reviews Editor. He used a panel of reviewers whose names were now generally given in full and in June 1977 he appealed for further reviewers, at the same time setting out some basic guidance drafted by Jeremy Gibson [2941]. However, many books were now sent directly to the editor at Ferring and were then frequently reviewed by Leeson himself.
The Magazine continued to publish important pioneering articles. These included Mervyn Medlycott's 'The City of London Freedom Registers' [2942], 'Post-1834 Poor Law Records' by C. R. Webb [2943], and 'In search of a soldier ancestor' by Christopher T. and Michael J. Watts [2944]; in 1977, 'Genealogical Research in the Channel Islands' by Lawrence R. Burness [2945], 'British Knighthoods' by Colin Parry [2946], 'Bigamy in 19th Century England' by Stella Colwell [2947], and 'Genealogical Research in South Africa' by Dr R. T. J. Lombard [2948]; in 1978, 'Unravelling Merchant Seamen's Records' by Christopher T. and Michael J. Watts [2949], 'Genealogy in Canada' by Brenda Merriman [2950], 'Genealogical Resources in Chancery Records' by Peter Wilson Coldham [2951], a useful note on 'Feet of Fines' by Molly Tatchell [2952], and an important article on the relationship between 'The Archivist and the Genealogist' by Felix Hull [2953] in 1979. The India Office Library and Records published its important Brief Guide to Biographical Sources by Ian A. Baxter in 1979 [2954].
The Society's library and collections continued to grow, the foundation of local family history societies in the mid-1970s doing much to increase the rate of transcription of parish registers and monumental inscriptions. The character of the Society had rapidly changed and the great modern movement in 'grass roots' genealogy was well under way. The downside was that on lecture days the rooms were often dreadfully overcrowded with the library and document collection in a shambles. People were generally very good-natured but security was extremely poor and thefts of books and documents were sadly not infrequent.
I remember an extraordinary range of visitors from all social levels, from grand old European aristocrats, like Prince Alphonse Clary et Aldringen or the Baron Andre de Moffarts, to ordinary working people, mixed with a great many professionals, army men, teachers and a sprinkling of ‘resting’ actors or actresses. The Society, of course, attracted a fair number of 'social climbers' and eccentrics as well as some impostors like the nervously timid Peter Francis Mills (1927-1988), self-styled Prince Petros Palaeologos, Emperor and Autokrator of the Romans, a real menace who falsified entries in parish registers, gave us pedigrees in which his labouring ancestors had been turned into princes or princesses and signed his letters in Greek characters 'The Despot'. He was the son of Frank Mills, a GPO wireless operator, but claimed through his mother, Robina Colenutt, that he was descended from a brother of Constantine XI Palaeologus, the last Byzantine Emperor, who died at Constantinople in 1453 [2955]. In 1969 I urged him to set a good example to other claimants to distant thrones by depositing at the Society a detailed pedigree of his family, setting out all the sources used [2956], but that of course he never did and after his death his son wrote sadly about the embarrassment and discomfiture he had long caused his family by his bogus claims [2957]. Another impostor but also a knowlegeable genealogist was the charming self-styled ‘Baron’ de Breffny (1931-1989) [2958], first known to us as Brian Leese. The Baron himself introduced a number of titled and glamorous people including the actor Michael York who came to tea. The Australian singer Helen Reddy, keen on her convict ancestors, was a correspondent, as was the comedian Spike Milligan (1918-2002) with his interest in the First World War. The actor Sir Donald Sinden came to Harrington Gardens several times as a member and the writer Doris Lessing (1919-2013) came about her very Irish grandmother who, she found, was born in the East End of London. In my early days I had met at reception, on some quest for his publisher, the great novelist Nevil Shute (1899-1960) and I remember calls from 'The Man in Black', Valentine Dyall (1908-1985), about an entry in the Newgate Calendar for someone who had been pressed to death, and from the pompous Simon Dee (1935-2009) who was Britain’s first ‘pirate’ disc jockey in 1964. The exquisite Shirley Lord, wife of the carpet millionaire Cyril Lord (1911-1984), came several times in 1968 about his ancestry in the silk industry. Such was the extraordinary variety of those who began to think of tracing their ancestors or using genealogical sources.
The actress and art-historian Adrienne Corri (1930-2016) joined the Society in June 1978 on the advice of the theatre designer David Walker and later related that she found the library, 'a glorious muddle of information and confusion, reference books on every county, some in longhand from zealous local historians', adding, 'It takes a bit of finding your way around. There is a certain amount of one-upmanship from the staff, but mostly help'. I don't remember her discussing her search for Thomas Gainsborough's early life but she did not like my attitude and wrote, 'Mr A. J. Camp, the expert on wills, thinks I am an idiot and shows it' [2959], and there was I thinking that I had the patience of Job.
Her book shows an interesting sidelight on attitudes to researchers at this time. The vicar of St George's Hanover Square told her crossly, 'I have no time for dead people' [2960] and the boy who opened the door in the deathly hush at Lambeth Palace Library said scornfully, 'You're not a researcher. You look too cheerful' [2961]. She, however, realised that she was a typical genealogical bore. 'There is', she wrote, 'not a shopkeeper, passing stranger, postman, chemist, grocer, the man who sweeps up the leaves, within a five-mile radius of St John's Wood who has managed to escape the Gainsborough Lecture' and she admitted to bringing him into her every conversation so that her neighbours' eyes glazed over and they crossed the road when they saw her coming [2962]. Like several actors I have known she found that she could continue the research wherever she was and that the study of her papers filled many a gap whilst rehearsing for The Mitfords or Dr Who, but in a few years she had 'begun to notice a bored look on people's faces, or one of pity and disbelief; or worse, a kind of humouring kindness, as shown to a child or someone in their dotage' [2963]. Thus she learned, I hope, as the saner genealogists eventually do, to keep their discoveries to themselves, or at least to put them into print as she herself did in her amusing book. Her opinion of me, too, must have improved a little with the years as she came to my 30th anniversary party in 1987.
The description ‘Great Genealogical Bore’ or ‘GBB’ was given by Lawson Edwards to several well known genealogists who one tended to avoid if at all possible but there were some, even on committees of the Society, who could be amusing in short doses but who certainly did not know how or when to stop. Cecil Brand and Gillie Potter were prime examples but the phrase was coined, if I remember correctly, for the kindly bumbling Gerald Hamilton-Edwards.
On 16 November 1977 the members had been surprised to see the outside of 37 Harrington Gardens used in an episode of BBC TV’s ‘Secret Army’ filmed on a Sunday in September for which the Society received a most useful fee.
Commencing on Tuesday, 23 September 1975 at 6.30 pm, and running for 24 weeks at the Society, Stella Colwell (then a free-lance genealogist at the College of Arms) provided under the auspices of the University of London Department of Extra-Mural Studies a 24-week course, ‘Genealogy: 18th and 19th century sources’, which included one special visit, the session costing £6.
This proved very popular and in September 1976, she commenced a similar course which this time included two visits, 'Genealogy: 17th century and earlier sources', on Wednesdays at 7.30 pm, the fee being £9 or £6 for registered students and pensioners [2964]. She subsequently ran similar courses at the Society on 'The theory and practice of genealogy', for similar fees, on Thursday evenings at 7.15 pm from September 1977 to March 1978 [2965], and another entitled, 'Studies in genealogy', from September 1978 to March 1979 [2966], and yet another, ‘Genealogy: Family and Community’, from September 1981 [2967]
In 1976 Michael Burchall, the librarian and editor, and Judy Warren, the new secretary, of the Sussex Family History Group brought together in a joint project with the Hampshire, Kent and West Surrey Borders societies, the 'interests' of their more than 1,000 members in a Southern Counties Family Register which sold at £1.25 post-free [2968]. Many local societies were publishing individual county lists and the sixth edition of the Birmingham and Midland society's Midland Genealogical Directory (1978) contained 13,000 references [2969].
Following the success of their combined 'Southern Counties' venture, Michael Burchall and Judy Warren decided to launch a national index and circulated subscription forms through the Federation and its member societies [2970], producing a National Genealogical Directory (or NGD) containing about 20,000 names from 1,748 subscribers, in 1979 [2971], the first such list since the Society published its Directory in 1966 and its supplement in 1968-71. A second edition with 23,500 names appeared in 1980 and Michael Burchall alone then produced further directories in 1981, 1982-3, 1984, 1985 and 1986. Iris Louise Caley, also at Brighton, then took over the project and produced volumes for the years 1987-1993. Interests in particular places and other specialist subjects were listed in these volumes from 1985.
Of course the local societies continued to produce their own lists or to publish them in their journals, as they do to this day, and they have a considerable local value (particularly to those without access to the Internet), but whilst the NGD was being produced in England, out in Australia, two noted genealogists and publishers, Keith A. Johnson and Malcolm R. Sainty, had produced two parts of an ‘Australian Edition’ of a Genealogical Research Directory (GRD) containing about 40,000 entries, and the following year published an ‘International Edition’ (1982) with more than 35,000 entries. Following the appointment of local agents in various countries worldwide in 1984 the annual volumes of the GRD grew rapidly in size, passing the 100,000 mark in 1987 and 150,000 in 1996. They contained entries relating to every country and included valuable listings of practically all known genealogical societies. The careful editing and regular appearance of the volumes was widely appreciated and their success in putting people in touch with each other undoubted [2972]. The last edition appeared in 2007, having only partially been superseded by the many databases and discussion lists on the Internet.
Meanwhile in 1993 the Federation of Family History Societies had also launched a scheme to index the interests, solely within the British Isles, of any interested subscriber, christening it the British Isles Genealogical Register or BIG-R. The first edition, containing over 300,000 entries from 22,000 subscribers and thus the largest index of its kind, was published on microfiche in 1995.
The Society's second Day-Conference took place at Baden-Powell House in Queen's Gate, within easy walking distance of the Society, on 25 June 1977, there being a choice of a lecture, two seminars and a problems and queries brains trust in each of three sessions, the day ending with the AGM [2973]. The crowded day was attended by 350 members and friends and organised by Stella Colwell. I spoke on ‘The English Abroad’. Bookstalls were provided in the foyer by the Federation, Phillimore & Co, a number of local groups and by the Society which also mounted a small exhibition [2974]. The AGM was chaired by Brian Brooks but he resigned as Chairman of the Executive Committee in November.
A third Day-Conference with a similar format, organised by Alan Reed, was also held at Baden-Powell House on Saturday, 23 June 1979 [2975], though this time it was decided to hold the AGM on the following Wednesday evening so that Prince Michael might take the Chair [2976] and the two events were not held together again. At the Conference in addition to the usual question and answer seminars there were lectures by specialists on local history, Irish and Scottish records, the army, maps in the Public Record Office, the National Maritime Museum, the Guildhall Library, the India Office Library, and on the records of the working man [2977].
The Silver Jubilee of The Queen was celebrated by the Society at a dinner in the Baronial Hall at Colonial House, Mincing Lane, London EC3, on Saturday, 19 November 1977, presided over by the Earl Marshal, Major General the Duke of Norfolk, a Vice-President of the Society, and attended by 120 members, wives and guests. Anthony Colin Cole, Windsor Herald, proposed a toast to the Society and was also the Guest Speaker, discussing 'The Use of Arms in England', and Sir Andrew Noble gave the response [2978]. At the reception, to my amusement and indeed slight embarrassment, the Duke asked to speak to the 'young man' wearing, though I did not realise it, the Lancers' 'Death or Glory' tie!
There had been a very rapid growth in the number of Latter-day Saint converts in England in the early 1960s and the British Isles had also been the focus of the Church's microfilming activity but the number of cameras operating here fell steadily and by 1969 there were only three. That year the patient and diplomatic Jeffrey F. Packe took responsibility for directing the work in the United Kingdom, seeking out records and persuading the custodians to have them microfilmed and this he continued to do until his retirement in September 1986.
Prejudice against the Latter-day Saints was still very strong in many quarters and it was an uphill task. The archivists usually saw the benefits of microfilming, but opposition frequently came from the clergy, not necessarily on religious grounds but because of their loss of income from search fees which many regarded as their private perks. It was not until after the 1978 Records and Registers Measure had resulted in the deposit of so many registers in county record offices that this opposition fell away and that doors were sensibly opened to the Genealogical Society of Utah. The number of cameras at work here was increased to thirteen in 1986 [2979] and a special seven-year filming initiative continued until 1992 by which time the registers of 5,110 parishes and the bishop's transcripts of 4,516 parishes had been filmed [2980].
Copies of the films were normally only given to the record offices where the Church had carried out the filming but in the 1970s its representative Jeffrey Packe (1921-2018) arranged for copies of the Church's computerised files to be made available on microfiche to the major family history societies in the British Isles, he touring the country and speaking about the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and the uses of the great indexes that were being created.
Thus one of the most important acquisitions ever to come into the Society's library was the donation in 1977 by Frederick Norman Filby (1915-1995), his son David J. Filby and Miss Dorothy Streeper (1906-1996) in Salt Lake City, of the British Isles section of the first microfiche edition of the Computer File Index or CFI (later called the International Genealogical Index or IGI) compiled by the Genealogical Society of Utah. I was asked about it at the AGM in June 1977 when I came forward in the meeting to say that delivery was expected in July, though the Index would not be available until a microfiche reader with a special high magnification had been obtained. It was hoped that this would be installed by the end of the year [2981] as indeed it was, other donations (totalling £205) contributed to the cost of tables and drawers for the fiche. The 1,699 microfiche contained 25,015,318 entries of baptism and marriage, the parishes covered being listed in Parish and Vital Records Listing (June 1976).
Lawson Edwards, the librarian, who warmly acknowledged the assistance of Jeffrey Packe in the acquisition of this great new tool, reckoned that at least two microfiche readers would be needed [2982] and in December he reported that the Executive had approved the purchase of two Mini-Cat TN readers [2983]. He and I described the Index's strengths and weaknesses in an article in the Magazine in March 1978 [2984].
At that time there were no facilities for taking copies direct from the fiche and members had to write or telephone well in advance of visiting the Library in order to reserve one of the viewers for an hour, but the vast new index naturally attracted many new searchers to the rooms, and the two library assistants, Christopher Edwards and Timothy Howard, were put under considerable pressure. The Index occasionally proved a mixed blessing and David Gardner in Salt Lake City was obliged to admit that as the result of a 'logic error' by the programmer the wrong place of marriage was sometimes shown. However, the correct place could be found (if the entry resulted from a Controlled Extraction) by checking the Batch Number, and to enable us to do that he provided the Society with a microfiche copy of the Parish and Vital Records Listing in Batch Number sequence [2985].
This first edition of the Index was initially available in only a few record offices and libraries in the British Isles, but in 1978 a new edition that corrected the locality errors was produced together with a new edition of the Listing [2986]. In July 1979, with a generous interest-free loan of £1,000 for two years from Frederick Filby [2987], the Society acquired for the first time a microfilm and microfiche reader-printer from which the Research Department was able to make printouts from the fiche (the Librarian not wishing to be involved in the correspondence that would ensue) and a lively trade commenced [2988] at 20p per page, increased to 40p on postal application in 1981 [2989]. The number of non-member visits in 1979 was 3,704, a 26% increase on the previous year [2990].
At the Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1978 it was agreed that church members would no longer be required to trace their ancestry as far back as possible, but for four generations only, including their own. The Church thereby hoped to avoid much duplication of effort and would concentrate on its Controlled Extraction Programme [2991].
Other major indexes were also becoming available and in June 1978 the Magazine published a major article by Michael Walcot which listed some twenty-three county and part-county marriage indexes which were in course of preparation by individuals and local societies around the country, the majority of which could be searched for small fees [2992]. On 9 November 1979 I spoke at the official opening by Sir John Nicholson of the Consolidated Index of Parish Registers on the Isle of Wight at the County Record Office, Newport, which had been organised by the archivist Clifford Webster and was the first complete county index to be compiled [2993].
That vigilance was still required where the safety of registers was concerned was graphically illustrated about this time by the stories of a register from Urswick, Lancashire, 1608-95, that had been found covered in mould in the damp cellar of a former vicar and by the gift to the British Library by the Kraus Reprint Corporation in New York of part of the burial register of St Leonard, Colchester, Essex, which had been dismembered in the nineteenth century [2994]
The criticisms at recent meetings that the Society was not known for its friendly and welcoming atmosphere was addressed to some extent in December 1977 by the introduction of quarterly Open Days for newly elected members on Saturdays, each new member being given the dates for the forthcoming year in the hope that one Saturday would be convenient. The Secretary, Director of Research and Librarian were usually present, together with some members of the Executive Committee, and Lawson Edwards and I conducted tours of the building [2995].
On these and other occasions members of the various Committees were instrumental in providing tea. There was generally a greater involvement of the committees with the day-to-day running of the Society at this time and in 1977 Isobel Mordy, the Chairman of the Library Committee, organised a series of working parties to assist with tasks about the Library [2996] often to Edwards’s annoyance.
Although we were fortunate with some members of staff, others did not stay so long and there were frequent changes in the library and in the office. Prospective staff were often interviewed on the first floor and taken round the building afterwards and they could be seen mounting the stairs from the office doorway or the landing. It was a simple test that many failed, for if they could not cope easily with the stairs they would be of little use in a building without a lift in which the library was on three (and latterly four) floors. In 1978 Edwards had a further eye operation and was away for some time, he himself finding the stairs increasingly difficult to cope with. I also, as the Chairman told the AGM, was 'very unwell' but was now on the way to recovery and would complete twenty-one years with the Society in a few months [2997].
No major work on the British royal family had appeared since the Canadian Arnold McNaughton’s illustrated work on the descendants of King George I which, as mentioned above, had been promoted by Lord Mountbatten in 1973. However, at the end of the nineteenth century George Wentworth Watson (1857-1940), a private tutor eduated at Cheltenham and St John’s College, Cambridge, had contributed a series of important and well referenced articles on the ancestry of the then Prince of Wales to The Genealogist [2998], which were later reprinted as The 4096 quartiers of King Edward VII (Exeter, 1904). This work inspired Gerald Paget (1885-1980), of Welwyn Garden City, who had worked for Lloyd’s Bank and was the son and grandson of vestry clerks in Clerkenwell, to revise and extend the tables to include the ancestries of Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary. More than fifty years later when aged 92 and for the present Queen’s Silver Jubilee he produced The lineage & ancestry of H.R.H. Prince Charles, Prince of Wales (2 vols. 1977; £60) listing in the second volume some 222,400 of the Prince’s ancestors in all its lines for eighteen generations to the 13th or 14th centuries, that on the Hungarian and Swedish lines being noteworthy though generally lacking any account of the sometimes obscure sources used. The first volume also contained pedigrees of the various reigning houses of England, Scotland and Wales and 79 tables of the seize quartiers of the kings and queens of England and Scotland [2999]. In his later years Paget had been assisted by Arthur Charles Addington (1939-2015), of Harpenden, who worked for NatWest bank and was the son of a newsagent at St Albans, and who had himself produced a definitive work on The Royal House of Stuart: the descendants of King James VI of Scotland, James I of England (3 vols. 1969-76) [3000]. Both Addington’s and Paget’s great works were published by Charles Skilton (1921-1990), of Barnwell Castle, Somerset, better known for publishing postcards and the ‘Billy Bunter’ books, but who in 1974 had reprinted Ruvigny’s The Jacobite Peerage and now in 1977 became a member of the Society.
The year 1977 also saw the publication of the first of the two valuable volumes of Burke’s Royal families of the world: Europe and Latin America (1977; £18) which usefully included the offspring of many morganatic marriages and some details of the better known illegitimate children, and the first volume of a work on the fifteen former reigning families of Germany, L'Allemagne Dynastique, by Michel Huberty, Alain Giraud and F. and B. Magdelaine. [3001] The seven volumes of the latter which appeared over the next seventeen years rivalled The Complete Peerage in their careful attention to sources and their encyclopaedic nature, paying tribute to Arthur Addington and Morris Bierbrier for assistance in England, and were an outstanding contribution to knowledge but sadly, like The Complete Peerage, their intended index of names was never published.
I had a few years earlier in 1973 contributed a lengthy article, 'La recherche généalogique en Angleterre', to Héraldique et Généalogie, the Bulletin of the Sociétés Françaises de Généalogie, d'Héraldique et de Sigillographie [3002], of which the Duc de La Force (whom I met at the International Conference in 1976) was President, and in 1978 I had been honoured to write a short Introduction to the eleventh part of the Cahiers de Saint Louis by the Abbé Jacques Dupont and Jacques Saillot [3003], an enormous work which sought, in eight volumes, to enumerate all the descendants in both male and female lines to the present day of Saint Louis IX, King of France 1226-70, and which included the descendants of Edward I and Edward II of England. The eleventh part covered the descendants of Edward III and included much new material [3004].
Also in 1977 I was delighted to contribute a foreword to a valuable new The Genealogist's Guide (£9) by Geoffrey Battiscombe Barrow (1927-2002) published by the Research Publishing Company and the American Library Association, containing an index to pedigrees and family histories which had been printed between 1950 and 1975, and forming a most useful supplement to George Marshall's Genealogists' Guide (1903) and Beach Whitmore's Genealogical Guide (1953) [3005]. I had made sure that it incorporated the unpublished Addenda that Beach Whitmore had collected and which I had sorted out at the Society following his death way back in 1957. Ten years later, in 1967, I had contributed a new Introduction to the reprint of George Marshall's Guide published by the Genealogical Publishing Company, a book selected by the American Library Association as one of the best reference books published that year, and I was always proud of my small association with these indispensable volumes.
The number of general books on genealogical research was now also proliferating and in 1978 Donald Steel was asked to review a new edition of Arthur Willis's Genealogy for Beginners (1976, £2.95) that he judged not well revised, and two new books, Tracing your Ancestors by Meda Mander (1976, £3.95) that had annoyingly stolen my title, and Your Family History by Mrs C. M. Matthews (1976, £3.95). He predictably considered both latter books as manuals for the genealogist rather than for the family historian, but thought Mrs Matthews' the more careful work. The editor, Francis Leeson, very kindly added a footnote that my little Tracing your Ancestors (62p) was, after 14 years, still in print and had sold more copies than any other book of its kind.
The publication of Alex Hailey's Roots (1976) had an enormous impact on the numbers of people worldwide who were attempting to trace their ancestors and although there were by 1978 several handbooks on the market that gave general guidance on how to compile a genealogy or assemble a family history, there was no recent survey of the subject as a whole, and so when I was asked that year to write something for W. H. Allen in its Star Books series of paperbacks, I took the opportunity to attempt a general book that might look, in a relatively light-hearted way, at the major sources but against a background of their users and what they hoped to find. It was published at 95p as Everyone Has Roots: an introduction to genealogy (1978) and Lawson Edwards called it, with some truth and in comparison to the book by Anthony Wagner, 'a poor man's English Genealogy', though it was no work of scholarship in that league. Francis Leeson wrote that it was 'compulsive reading' with 'an easy flow of often recondite information and illuminating examples' and although sub-titled 'An Introduction' there was much 'in this book for the veteran genealogist to learn and enjoy' [3006]. A particularly nice compliment, I thought, came from Gerald Hamilton-Edwards who wrote that he now wanted to re-write his In search of ancestry again. The book was much more nicely reprinted as a hard-back in the United States for $9.50 by the Genealogical Publishing Company in Baltimore which called it 'shrewd and elegantly written ... as delightful an introduction to the subject as has ever been written' and kept it in print for many years.
The suggestion that I write that book had been put forward by Mrs June Bassett, formerly an assistant to Cecil Mackay and an amused observer of the Society but later working with the publishers W. H. Allen, and I must here pay another tribute to her editing skills to which much of the book's success was undoubtedly due. I had, also in 1978, completely redrafted and brought up to date the British Tourist Authority’s booklet Tracing Your Ancestors which had a very wide circulation overseas [3007].
The duplication of effort that many had feared was now a frequent matter of discussion between the Federation and the Society. The Society had for years thought of itself as a clearing house for information about the transcription of parish registers and monumental inscriptions but so much work was now being undertaken that frequent appeals for information had to be made for both the Society and the Projects Organiser of the Federation to be kept informed [3008]. It was not an easy relationship.
The amount of correspondence generated by the upsurge in interest at this time was enormous and in April 1978 at a Federation conference at Bristol, Elizabeth Simpson whose workload had grown to unmanageable proportions, resigned as General Secretary, Colin Chapman taking over the post. At that same conference the Federation's constitution was changed and Iain Swinnerton was elected President. The following month a meeting at Leicester of those interested in one-name studies agreed to form a Guild of One-Name Studies (to which individuals might belong) which would seek full membership of the Federation and thus have voting rights at Council meetings, the existing one-name groups being only Associate Members without such rights [3009].
A regular and frequent contact between the Federation's officers and its member societies was early recognised to be a major difficulty [3010]. It was one that was never satisfactorily solved and a regional structure that might have helped was never encouraged. The Federation's first American member was the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History which Donald Steel had been instrumental in fostering, based in Ohio [3011].
The Federation's Annual Meetings were always held at a weekend conference in the spring and it became a general rule that I attended these wherever they were held (initially at my own expense) and the Society's Librarian, Lawson Edwards, attended the Federation's Council or half-yearly meeting at a similar weekend conference in the autumn. On both occasions the Society's bookstall was generally taken and manned throughout, though the transport of books frequently caused problems until Edith Pritchard came on the scene fulltime and manfully did practically all the work. She had started, if I remember correctly, with bookstalls at the courses I ran at Missenden Abbey, at the Society’s residential course at York in March-April, at the Federation AGM at Bristol in April, and at the English Genealogical Conference at Cambridge in September, all in 1978, and with growing success.
The successful residential course ‘Genealogy North and South’ had been held at the College of Ripon and York St John at York from 31 March to 2 April 1978 and had 55 residents and 15 day attenders, the tutors being me, Stella Colwell and Lawson Edwards, with Dr David M. Smith from the Borthwick Institute [3012]. Together those attending spent £244.72 on Society publications and bought in addition 38 copies of the Federation’s News and Digest.
The Second English Genealogical Congress was held at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, 4-9 September 1978, this time on 'The Theory and Practice of Genealogy - the contribution that genealogists can make to historical studies' with Dr Frederick Emmison as President and Brian FitzGerald-Moore as Chairman [3013]. It was attended by 180 people from all over the world and gained a good deal of publicity, both Anglia Television and the BBC giving time to the activities of the daily groups, led by John Rayment and Leslie White, which transcribed the tombstones in a local churchyard and, led by Mrs Susan Stewart, transcribed the parish registers of Landbeach [3014]. There were parties and meetings, as well as outings to Bury St Edmunds and Framlingham and guided tours of local landmarks and of the record office. The Society's bookstall did a lively trade and I was persuaded to mount an exhibition of pedigrees in the glass cases in the central well of Heffers' Bookshop. Stella Colwell was again the Organiser, supported by the same committee (with Major R.M. Collins as Secretary and Patric Dickinson as Treasurer) and by many stewards. Roy Strong, then Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, was the Guest Speaker at the Banquet, Colin J. Ford of the National Portrait Gallery opened the Congress and Dr Emmison, the President, attended throughout.
Alexander Sandison, who reviewed our activities for the Magazine, wrote that it was a very worthwhile and enjoyable week in which the lectures were devoted to topics of very practical help, particularly commending Dr Alan Rogers 'who made us put our work into context and stop to consider if it had any purpose at all beyond gratifying our personal vanities. He posed valid questions and asked that we should produce some general conclusions, not specific cases all the time. He accepted the answer that our sets of data, cutting across local and temporal boundaries, can be exploited for many social, historical, genetic and medical studies in a way that other records cannot - but this does lay on us all a responsibility for ensuring that, by deposit in a library or by publication, our results are made available for others to use' [3015].
I went to the Federation's annual conference at Nottingham at the end of March 1979 (when Sir Andrew Noble formally represented the Society) and it was interesting then to note that it was largely supported by the sale of its publications and not by its members' subscriptions, a situation which continued for many years and was often a cause of discussion and friction, the member societies acting, not always willingly, as agents for what became a stream of Federation publications [3016]. Sir Andrew resigned from the Federation’s committees in 1979 and Alan Reed was appointed as the Society’s representative in his place, he and the librarian attending the half-yearly meeting at Plymouth (1-2 September) [3017].
In July 1976 a paper suggesting various amendments to the Public Records Act 1958 was submitted to the Advisory Council on Public Records, signed by me and twelve representatives of other societies. A detailed reply was received, a delegation followed, and a useful dialogue ensued. The concern of the Society at the closing of the Census Room on Saturday mornings was the subject of additional representations [3018].
During the course of 1977 many records were moved to the new Public Record Office building at Kew and searchers were advised to telephone in advance of their visits for up-dates on the situation. In the summer it was announced that the Kew repository would open on Monday, 17 October. The rooms at Chancery Lane were closed from 9 September and re-opened on that date. It was thought that those in the Land Registry Building, Portugal Street, which were also closed in September, would not open again but after a month they were re-opened and the census returns, non-parochial registers and PCC wills remained in London, the records of the War Office, Colonial Office and Admiralty going to Kew [3019].
However, the Chancery Lane reading room was not now open on Saturday mornings and David Hawkings raised the matter at the Society's Annual Meeting in June 1977 when affected Members were asked to write to the Keeper of the Records. I had been involved through the Records Users’ Group in correspondence on the matter, but without success [3020].
In 1978 Jeremy Gibson appealed for information on the whereabouts of microfilms, hard copies and indexes to the various census returns, 1841-1871, with the intention of publishing a guide [3021] and this, the first of what later became known as the 'Gibson Guides', was published by the Federation the following year [3022], Gibson giving 100 copies for sale in the Society's bookshop [3023]. A national scheme to publish indexes to the various British census returns, using the Government's Manpower Services Commission Temporary Employment Programme, discussed that year and given publicity by Royston Gambier in 1979 [3024] came to nothing.
Conditions in the new Public Record Office building at Kew were naturally of great interest to members and in March 1978 the Magazine editor, Francis Leeson, described his first experiences at this un-sign-posted 'out-of-the-way place' that impressed him with its 'roominess and space-age luxury' and its 'elegant restaurant', though, of course, there were initial problems with the computers [3025], with the bleepers that notified one that documents were ready for collection [3026] and with the mechanised food dispensers in the basement [3027]. Dr Mark Hughes, a member at Newton Abbot, was not impressed with the office's inability to provide photocopies of the PCC wills to postal applicants, its excuse being that the wills had been given new references that the staff were unable to translate from the previously adequate old ones which had been used for six hundred years [3028]. Alice Prochaska spoke about the new search rooms to the Society on 18 October 1978 and a week later a group from the Society, limited to twenty members, was given a tour [3029].
In June 1979 many London searchers were sad to see the closure of the old Middlesex Record Office at 1 Queen Anne's Gate Buildings in Dartmouth Street. It had been administered by the Greater London Council jointly with the County of London Record Office since April 1965 and the records were now moved to County Hall where the search room, B21 in the basement and from all accounts not greatly liked by searchers, was closed for the last three months of 1979 in order to make the necessary alterations and improvements [3030].
On 7 March 1979 I represented the Society at a meeting of the Record Users Group with the Keeper and Deputy Keeper of the Public Records and we discussed many of the points later detailed in a formal submission to the Public Records Committee on the selection and preservation of records and on public access, under the chairmanship of Sir Duncan Wilson.
However, at the end of the year we were shocked to hear that as a contribution to the reduction in the size of the Civil Service announced by the Prime Minister on 6 December the Public Record Office would lose about forty staff. The Reading Rooms in Chancery Lane would be closed in the course of the next two years and the records removed to Kew. Letters of protest to the appropriate authorities were immediately written [3031] and the Society’s members contributed to correspondence to The Times in January 1980. The Records Users’ Group wrote to the Keeper of Public Records and to the Advisory Council on Public Records which met on 22 January and I wrote to the Keeper stressing our members’ concern that the records be kept in central London, copies of my letter being distributed to the members of the Council. The Keeper replied that no decision had been taken about the Search Room in Portugal Street as this awaited a decision on the future of the Registrar General’s records. He accepted that inconvenience would be caused by the closures but saw no alternative, saying that the more heavily used classes of records would be go to Kew. At this stage, however, a sub-committee of the Advisory Council was set up to look at possible alternatives and appeared cautiously optimistic. An informal petition was started by members of the Society of Genealogists and there was a meeting with the Keeper in March. The editor of the Magazine wrote then that the personnel at Kew ‘already have the appearance of being over-worked’ [3032].
On 3 June 1980 I went with other members of the Records Users Group to the House of Commons to talk with members of the All Party Heritage Group and we later provided examples of amateur searchers who would experience difficulties from the proposed closure, though one member thought that the Society should itself move to Kew [3033]. Many members wrote to the Attorney General and Lord Chancellor and Members of Parliament asked a number of questions in the House, there being a debate on the effect of public expenditure cuts on the work of the PRO on 8 August. On 8 December 1980, in answer to a question from Lord Teviot, it was announced that a study was being carried out into the possibility of bringing together at Kew all the PRO’s records and that the 100-year old records of the Registrar General would be considered in that context [3034].
A preliminary report was circulated in June 1981 suggesting that such a concentration of records was feasible by 1987-8. It envisaged the addition of a further storey to the existing building, the use of its basement and the construction of a new linked building there. The Records Users’ Group considered the site at Kew particularly unsuitable (as expressed in its letter to The Times, 18 July) because of the danger of flooding, it being in any case remote from the centre of London and the specialised needs of census and General Register Office users. I was one of the representatives of the Group which met the Houses of Parliament’s All Party Heritage Group on 1 July and again at a meeting set up with the authors of the report at the Lord Chancellor’s Department on 28 September 1981. It was then reported that the possibility of setting up a Microfilm Reading Room in central London to house the Wills, Census and General Register Office records, was being considered and costed. This was considered ‘essential’ by the Advisory Council on Public Records. Following a further meeting, the Records Users Group reiterated its fears in writing on 15 October.
Meanwhile the report of Sir Duncan Wilson’s Committee, Modern Public Records: Selection and Access had been published in May 1981 and the Society took the opportunity to agree warmly with many of its recommendations, urging their early implementation. The comments on opening hours and photocopying charges were particularly welcomed, as was the recognition given to the vastly increased use made of modern records by the genealogist and local historian [3035]. The Government’s response was less satisfactory and at the end of 1982 the Records Users Group and the Society made separate representations on several of the issues to the Select Committee dealing with the Report [3036].
The study which had been carried out into the possibility of bringing together all the records in the custody of the PRO at Kew was not published until April 1982 but the Solicitor General then announced that although the report demonstrated that it was physically feasible to concentrate the records on a single site at Kew (instead of being split between four sites), building work costing about twelve million pounds would be needed and this could not be justified ‘in the present’. The proposal was therefore ‘now in abeyance’. No further reductions in staffing levels, however, would be made and there were no immediate plans for discontinuing the public search room in Chancery Lane [3037].
In November 1980 the death indexes at St Catherine’s House were moved to a separate building on the opposite side of Kingsway, thus enabling the birth and marriage indexes to be spread out to relieve the notorious congestion, but certifiates had still to be applied for and collected in the main building [3038]. The cost of certificates had increased to £3.50 (or £8 by post) on 1 April 1980, with checks at £2 [3039], and on 1 April 1982 they were further increased by 15% from £4 to £4.60, drawing a swift letter of protest to The Times.
In October the GRO offered to lease copies of its indexes for the period 1866-1912 to interested professional genealogists, for £17,800 payable over four years. The Society once more deplored the attempts to obtain prohibitively high fees, and urged wider distribution of copies of the indexes as a means of reducing the pressure in the search rooms. The opportunity was again taken to urge the deposit of the older records and to explore the possibility of on-line access to the computerised indexes of the more recent events. A party from the Postal Application Section of the General Register Office visited the Society on 18 October [3040] and on 11 January 1983 members of the Executive Committee of the Society toured the General Register Office when the system of producing certificates from personal and postal applications was explained by Mr K. J. Stalker and his staff.
The Public Records (Amendment) Bill which sought to transfer the older records to the Public Record Office had its Second Reading in the House of Lords on 28 January and was amended in Committee on 11 March. Correspondence on its provisions developed in The Times to which I contributed a letter (15 April), but there was a general fear that the freeing of the records would be conditional on heavy fees for access and that such fees, once accepted for the registration records, might rapidly spread to the other material which it was proposed to house in the suggested central London microfilm reading room. The Society therefore proposed and it was agreed at the AGM of the Federation of Family History Societies on 10 April 1983, to oppose the levying of any charges for access to these records. The Bill, however, fell at the dissolution of Parliament [3041].
It was, I think, particularly unfortunate that in 1984 the British Association for Local History which had provided administrative support for the Records Users Group decided on grounds of finance to move from Bedford Square to Cromford Mill near Matlock in Derbyshire and that the active Bettie Miller’s two-year contract with the Association came to an end [3042]. The Group, with Christopher Charlton as Convener, tried to continue its valuable work for a while but the continuity of regular meetings was broken [3043] until the British Genealogical Record Users Committee (BGRUC) was established late in 1985.
In March 1984 the Registrar General sent letters to the Society and other organisations suggesting the possible sale of copies of his indexes of births, marriages and deaths, 1837-1980, on 1,722 reels of 16 mm microfilm, at from £10 to £20 per reel depending on demand and enquiring as to ‘the possibility of selling certified copies of entries on microfilm in respect of those birth, death and marriage records more than 100 years old’. These proposals met with little encouragement and were the subject of a critical editorial in Local Population Studies. The Society took the view that any wider distribution of the indexes was to be welcomed but in general it was in agreement with the Record Users Group which believed that the older records both central and local should be made freely available to searchers [3044]. However, the Registrar General issued a Press Notice on 2 December 1985 with details of microfilm copies of the indexes, 1866-1980, which might be purchased from his office [3045].
In October 1985 the Department of Health and Social Security made public an Efficiency Scrutiny Report on Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths printed in February and circulated copies to various bodies, asking for comments by 31 January 1986. Stephen Hale, Alexander Sandison and I were asked to draft the Society’s response, after discussion with the Registers and Records Committee. I was also involved in the wording of a submission by the Records Users Group in March 1986. Although the Society welcomed some of the suggestions made in the Report, it again stressed the necessity of keeping a search room in London for the centralised indexes and of freeing both the central and local copies of the certificates to public use [3046]. Following a meeting of BGRUC the Chairman wrote to the Department of Health and Social Security requesting a discussion of the Report and this took place with the Baroness Trumpington, the Registrar General Designate, and other officials of the General Register Office, on 8 December 1986. It was a frank and useful discussion and in February 1987 the Government announced that it would not be closing ‘the central searching and certificate issuing facility’ at St Catherine’s House, but that further consideration would be given to possible access to registration information and the methods of its release [3047].
A few months later the Society’s President, Prince Michael of Kent, accepted an invitation to unveil a plaque at St Catherine’s House commemorating the 150th anniversary of the General Register Office on 1 July 1987 and I represented the Society that evening at a reception at the House of Lords given by the Registrar General, Mrs G. T. Banks, and Lord Teviot. The Prince’s speech (which I drafted) had been used to say something about the needs of the genealogists where these records were concerned and arising from articles about the celebrations I wrote a critical letter to The Times which was printed in a prominent position on 7 July under the heading ‘Rigours of Consulting Birth Registers’. It highlighted the appalling conditions resulting from over-crowding, the charges for certified copies that most people did not require, the inadequate indexes and the need to make and distribute cheaper copies of them on microfiche (and not on microfilm at £240 per year as was currently the case).
In September BGRUC was asked to appoint a representative to sit on a small ‘Historic Records’ Sub-Committee to consider the release of material over 75 years old. Dr Geoffrey M. Swinfield and I were appointed to represent BGRUC and its recommendations were awaited with some optimism, the Government having announced its intention to legislate at the earliest opportunity [3048]. Our Report was published in March 1988 and in October it was announced that it had been accepted by the Government as a basis for wider consultation, a Green Paper (Registration: a modern service, Cm 531) being published in December [3049]. Early in 1989 a summary of its contents was sent to all the local family history societies with the suggestion that their comments be submitted to the Registrar General. A questionnaire on its recommendations, prepared by Stephen Hale, was made available to members who called at the Society in January and their comments were used in the Society’s response which I drafted along with Stephen Hale, Alan Reed and Dr Watts and submitted at the end of March. Stephen Hale also contributed a summary of the Green Paper and of our submission to the June issue of the Genealogists’ Magazine. The matter also received the attention of BGRUC which met on 25 February and of the Record Users Group on 13 September [3050].
A White Paper, Registration: proposals for change (Cm 939), summarising the Government’s conclusions was published in February 1990. It proposed that microfilms of the ‘historic’ records, i.e. those over 75 years old, should be made available in a central library outside the sphere of central government ‘either as a non-profit making trust or a commercial concern’. On 17 February BGRUC, of which I was the convenor, welcomed the proposal to open up the older records. It asked the Society to explore the possibilities with a view to calling a wider meeting of representatives of users in due course.
The Executive Committee believed that the Society’s members would expect it to consider seriously the viability of such a library and with Stephen Hale I met the Deputy Director of OPCS with the Deputy Registrar General and the Head of Search on 15 March. The Society’s Honorary Treasurer, Vic E. Gale, drew up a paper on the likely cost of such a library and this was discussed by the Executive Committee in May when it was agreed that the Society should continue to involve itself in discussions, though without any formal commitment at this stage. The Deputy Registrar General was invited to visit the Society on 18 July for informal discussions with members of the Committee.
Our position was explained to a meeting of BGRUC on 4 August 1989 when a possible joint operation was proposed and agreed as a basis for future discussions, the Society being left to monitor the situation [3051]. There was, however, little progress in 1990 though on 6 September, Stephen Hale, Chairman of the Executive Committee, met a team which had been appointed by the Lord Chancellor to carry out an Efficiency Scrutiny on the Public Record Office, a copy of its Study Plan having been previously debated by the Executive Committee. The opening hours, photocopying, publications, the library, charges, the amalgamation of the repositories and the wider involvement of the Public Record Office in a more integrated national archives service were discussed [3052]. The Efficiency Scrutiny Report on the PRO appeared in January 1991 and its various radical proposals for long-term changes in the location and administration of the Office were summarised in the March issue of the Genealogists’ Magazine. The Society’s comments thereon, drafted by Stephen Hale, were forwarded to the Lord Chancellor in March. Following discussions with the Society, Lord Teviot initiated a debate in the House of Lords on 1 May 1991, when the Lord Chancellor made a statement accepting the great majority of the Report’s recommendations. They included the transfer of the original records at Chancery Lane to Kew when an extension there was complete, extensive microfilm reading facilities being retained in central London [3053].
Meanwhile a meeting of BGRUC on 27 April 1990 had supported the Society’s view that a central London reading room of microfilms of the General Register Office records should preferably be run by the Government in conjunction with that now being proposed for the Public Record Office. This view had been put to the Lord Chancellor in the Society’s comments on the PRO Efficiency Scrutiny Report. The possibility that an independent charitable trust be formed to raise the necessary capital for such a library was, however, also under consideration [3054].
The next few years saw little development on this important front, though the Society warmly welcomed the opening of the Census Room at the Public Record Office in July 1992 [3055] and I spoke about the needs of genealogists and the possibility of more open access to registration records without legislation at an important seminar, ‘The challenge of the Citizens’ Charter for the Registration Service’, held at Chester on 11 February 1993, which was attended by the Registrar General, his Deputy and over a hundred registration officers [3056]. It was, I like to think, a forceful summary and when at the end I was asked why no progress was being made and, without replying, just passed the microphone to John Ribbins, the man responsible for the Registration Service, I received surprisingly warm applause. My text was published in the December issue of the Genealogists’ Magazine (and is available on this web site).
However, on 11 May 1994, David Lidington, M.P. for Aylesbury, introduced a Bill that would have made those registration records over one hundred years old Public Records, but on 14 July, at its Second Reading, it was rejected without debate.
Following the publication of my speech at Chester, a dogged correspondent, Mr Sparry, to whom the Society offered every assistance, received a letter from the General Register Office saying that ‘arguably there is no clause in primary legislation which specifically prohibits a superintendent registrar from allowing public access to registration records’. Having been refused access to his local records and the Local Authority Ombudsman having no jurisdiction in the matter, he had, through his M.P., referred his request to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and it was accepted for investigation in July 1994 [3057]. However, the complaint was not upheld and the Commissioner decided in August 1995 that the legal situation was not clear and that ‘only the courts could give an authoritative ruling’ [3058].
I had attended a meeting at the PRO on 5 July 1995 to discuss the facilities which might be offered at the proposed central London microfilm reading room when the PRO moved to Kew in 1997 and we greatly welcomed the statement that the Census Returns 1841-1891, the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Estate Duty Office wills, and the non-parochial registers, would be included, and that it was intended to co-locate this room with the public search room of the General Register Office and perhaps with that of the Principal Probate Registry.
In May 1995 it had been announced that the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys would be united in April 1996 with the Central Statistical Office as a Next Steps Agency and the Society was asked to be represented on a Certificate Services Users Consultative Group. I attended meetings on the Society’s behalf and in September 1995 it was announced that a review of the registration part of the Government’s 1990 White Paper was taking place and it was indicated that an early and favourable announcement might be expected [3059]. On the latter point we were, of course, completely misled. In April 1996, as its convenor and on behalf of BGRUC, I wrote to the Minister responsible once again setting out the Committee’s objectives. There was a small crumb of comfort in the decision by the General Register Office in October to market on microfiche its indexes of overseas returns, something long advocated by the Society. The latter became available with the other miscellaneous returns (other than adoptions) early in 1997 [3060].
We also welcomed the announcement, finally made in November 1996, that the PRO microfilm reading room and General Register Office public search room were to be co-located at a ‘Family Records Centre’ at 1 Myddelton Street, London EC1, early in 1997. I toured the new building and later attended the public meeting (at the General Register Office on 2 December 1996) on the facilities to be offered there. However, we greatly regretted the reluctance of the Principal Probate Registry to be involved in spite of the long delays in the production of copies of wills for inspection resulting from the recent removal of the wills themselves to Companies House. I made representations to the Lord Chancellor that in the interests of the historical professions and of administrative economy the pre-1930 microfilms and the later wills be brought together in the room which had been set aside for them at Myddelton Street [3061]. In June 1997, however, it was announced that in view of the costs involved the Probate Search Room would transfer in June 1998, to First Avenue House in High Holborn.
The new rooms at the Family Records Centre opened in March and April 1997 and I continued to attend meetings at the General Register Office of the Certificate Service Users Consultative Group which, following the move, was reconstituted as the Family Records Centre Users Consultative Group, and I was present at the formal opening of the Centre by the Lord Chancellor on 23 July 1997.
In July and again in October 1997, I raised various access matters, this time through the M. P. for North Swindon, the constituency of the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Marjorie Moore, concentrating on the early registration records, the census returns 1901-11, and on the permanent preservation and access to adoption case records and on public access to their indexes.
Meanwhile the Society had been informed that the Registrar General was preparing yet another ‘options’ paper which would again examine the question of access to registration records, both centrally and locally, and the possibility of working with other organisations outside the public sector along similar lines to those mentioned in the 1990 White Paper Registration: proposals for change [3062].
Most unfortunately the Society’s Annual Reports after that for 1997, when I resigned as Director, make almost no reference to any particular involvement in these matters which I considered so fundamental. The new Director, Robert Gordon, a solicitor who had been appointed specifically for his legal knowledge and in the expectation that he would continue to be active in lobbying in this and other records-related fields, seems to have accepted the status quo, perhaps thinking other things more important and in this one assumes that he was supported by the Executive Committee (and, indeed, by the Federation of Family History Societies) but I considered it a terrible dereliction of their duty. Following Gordon’s resignation in September 2001 (when incidentally he said that someone with lobbying skills was needed), it was left for Family Tree Magazine to continue this particular fight. In this I was only too glad to give my active assistance.
The Standing Conference for Local History had in 1977 set up a Committee under the chairmanship of Lord Blake to make an assessment of the pattern of interest, activity and of study, in local history in England and Wales, and to make recommendations for meeting any needs revealed by amateur and professional local historians for support and services. In February 1978 the Society of Genealogists made a submission to this ‘Blake Committee’ setting out its observations under the heads of Parish Registers, Records of Civil Registration, Monumental Inscriptions, National Records and Local Records. One of the points that I brought up, but which gained no attention at the time, was the need for some form of centralised record of those working on specific places or on ‘one-place studies’ (a Society for One-Place Studies was not formed until 2013 [3063]). Arising from our submission and that from the Record Users Group, in which I had also assisted, as a representative of both organisations I gave verbal evidence to the Committee on 3 August [3064].
The Report of the Blake Committee to Review Local History was published and formally adopted as a consultative document at the AGM of the Standing Conference for Local History which I attended on 28 September 1979. Much concerned with the education and training of local historians, the Report’s major recommendations of interest to genealogists were in connection with access to study materials. Consultations with a wide range of organisations followed [3065].
The Society was at this time involved in many other matters concerning access to records, often in conjunction with the Record Users Group. These included the photocopying charges at the Public Record office (about which Parliamentary questions had been asked), the report of the Data Protection Committee (following the Government White Paper ‘Computers and Privacy’) [3066], the draft Guide to the Parochial Registers and Records Measure, a submission to the Committee on Public Records, the publications programme of the Public Record Office, the restoration of searches in the more recent Census Returns and the levying of fees in County Record Offices [3067].
On the initiative of Dr Christopher Watts (who had come onto the Executive Committee in June 1979) a meeting of representatives of the Society, the British Records Association, the Society of Archivists, the Law Society and the Federation of Family History Societies took place at the Society on 11 September to discuss the preservation of solicitors’ records [3068] and, as agreed, articles on their historical value by Colin Prestige appeared in The Law Society’s Gazette for 16 July 1980 and another by Roger Suddards in that for 27 August. A letter strengthening points in the articles over the signature of Lord Denning, a Vice President of the Society of Genealogists was published in the Gazette on 14 January. The hope that these might be brought to the attention of solicitors was then expressed in notes published in the Genealogists’ Magazine and in Family History News and Digest. I was closely involved with the British Records Association in these matters and in March 1980 its Council elected me to the Committee of its Records Preservation Section [3069].
In the year before the 1976 International Congress, Donald Steel had given up teaching to become the Education Officer for BBC South West, based at Bristol, and when in 1979 the BBC decided to produce five programmes on tracing ancestors, with the accent on family history rather than genealogy, he naturally became the series adviser. The five episodes of Family History, produced by Bryn Brooks and narrated by the TV presenter Gordon Honeycombe, were first shown on BBC 2 from Wednesday, 21 March 1979, and raised the profile of the subject very considerably.
Gordon Honeycombe had long been an enthusiastic amateur genealogist and his family was used as an example throughout the series as well as in Steel's accompanying book, edited by Bryn Brooks, Discovering your family history (£3.75; 1980),which became a best seller. Steel complained to me afterwards that much of what he had written had been heavily edited and reduced in size (no surprise in that) and the book certainly went through innumerable drafts, but I don't doubt that much of its success stemmed from that process and from its numerous excellent illustrations.
The television programmes that we all tried to see and the BBC book were Steel's last triumphs. In England he had alienated almost everyone he knew. Working at Bristol he had, of course, stopped being a lecturer for the London University Extra-Mural courses and after the International Congress his relationship with Cecil Humphery-Smith and the Institute at Canterbury was one of unremitting conflict. He either resigned or retired from the Society's Executive, Publications and Lectures Committees, and from the Federation's Executive, all in 1977, but received no special tribute at the Society’s Annual Meeting [3070].
His once popular but now marathon lectures which always overran any schedule earned him a dreadful reputation. On one infamous occasion in America he said that he would go on speaking until everyone had left the room, and he did just that. At another lecture he persuaded Royston Gambier to write on a revolving blackboard behind him as he spoke the main points from his lecture and we were all mesmerised by Gambier's exhausting and quite distracting performance. Steel's mechanical aids inevitably failed and I remember once, with two machines both going in and out of focus, that we all thought that we would be seasick. As a result there was an unwritten rule at the Society never to ask him to speak again. He was notoriously accident-prone, though blissfully unaware of the chaos he caused. If his luggage could go astray it certainly would. Everyone had stories about him. In one American hotel, although told not to do so, he left the window open and was surprised in the morning to find a snowdrift across the room. Staying somewhere overnight after a lecture he threw his briefcase down on the bed, not noticing that it was covered with oil which had leaked from a can in the boot of his car. Going downstairs he asked the lady who had offered to put him up if he could have a scrubbing brush and a bucket of water and left her wondering what he was doing until the following morning when, of course, he had to confess what had happened.
Steel tried various commercial ventures, being Chairman of Environmental History Limited (or 'Family History Services') [3071] from 1978, offering a wide range of services anywhere in the British Isles from tours to lectures and from publications to research, the latter organised by Mrs Eve McLaughlin. In later years he could be seen as a bookseller at many conferences and family history fairs, always helpful but his overflowing tables and the cash side of his affairs seemingly always in chaos. He retired from the BBC in 1989, consistently ignored all my letters about a possible revision of the National Index, and died on 7 April 2008, aged 72. I wrote then that Donald Steel believed that family history should be 'an enquiry into the thoughts and actions of people in the past' and that he had spent his life in helping people in that endeavour. His pioneering books had undoubtedly given him an assured place in all our history, but we had suffered a good deal along the way [3072].
When Lord Mountbatten reached the age of 77, he was advised by his doctors to cut down on his commitments and he decided that he would resign as President of the Society and if it was the Society's wish that he would become Patron instead, the Society not having had a patron since the death of Queen Mary in 1953. This was proposed by Brian Fitzgerald-Moore and agreed at the AGM held at the Royal Society of Arts on 19 June 1978 at which Lord Mountbatten had taken the Chair. He said that it was very pleasant to be following Queen Mary as Patron and recalled that he had succeeded Lord Mersey as President twenty-one years ago and had, in fact, two months seniority over me. By becoming Patron he would not be losing touch with the Society [3073]. His last words to us were that he would next visit the Society when it was established in its new premises and he repeated this intention as he got into his car in John Adam Street, but it was sadly not to be. Just a year later Mildred Surry telephoned me at lunchtime on Monday, 27 August 1979, with the dreadful news that he had been murdered in Ireland. The Chairman and I represented the Society at the Ceremonial Funeral in Westminster Abbey on 5 September, a bright sunny day, being seated in the North Transept, and I went with others to his Memorial Service (which also commemorated Lady Brabourne and Nicholas Knatchbull, killed at the same time) in St Paul's Cathedral on 20 December, we being seated close to the Royal Family in the South Transept.
Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, our former Chairman, wrote that the brutal murder of Lord Mountbatten had sent a wave of horror through the civilised world where he was widely admired as one of the greatest Englishmen of the century. He had taken a deep interest in the doings of the Society and he had been easily accessible to its officers and ready to help with a discreet word behind the scenes [3074]. Prince Michael of Kent wrote that 'he was loved and respected all over the world, not only by those who knew him or served with him, but by people who wished they had fallen into either of those categories' [3075]. He had indeed been a great servant of his country and a magnificent friend to the Society. I wrote an account of his 21 years of involvement in the Society's affairs for the Magazine and recalled his remarks in 1976 when he so aptly described himself as a 'true lover of genealogy and heraldry' [3076].
Lord Mountbatten had suggested to us that Prince Michael of Kent be asked to accept the Presidency of the Society and that had been formally agreed at the AGM in June 1978. Mountbatten had always taken an interest in the Prince having been a close friend of his father, the Duke of Kent, who had been killed on active service in 1942. The Prince first came to the Society with Princess Michael on Wednesday, 25 October 1978, and met the Executive Committee and staff, who together fell back into what must have been a rather intimidating circle in the Members' Room. The couple were conducted around the Library by Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, then Chairman of the Executive Committee [3077], and showed considerable interest in the collections, the building and all that we did. As an immediate tribute to Lord Mountbatten the Members' Room had been renamed the Mountbatten Room and the possibility of some other memorial was discussed and suggestions invited [3078] though none was agreed. A little later the Fellows agreed to invite subscriptions from the Fellows to pay for an inscribed Chairman’s Chair in his memory [3079] which would match the green upholstered chairs obtained by Sir Christopher Courtney (and annoyingly later sold by Michael McEvoy). Sufficient money was not obtained but a fine Chair was eventually displayed at the AGM in 1982 and formally presented to the Chairman at the Executive Committee on 20 July [3080].
This was, of course, only a few months after Prince Michael's marriage and long before the Princess's books were published but she had always been interested in historical matters and later sometimes corresponded with us on knotty genealogical problems, acknowledging that assistance in one of her books. Later that year we published a detailed account of the couple's ancestry, compiled by Patrick Montague-Smith and Dr Morris Bierbrier and that on the Princess's background created a good deal of interest, descending as she did from most of the mediatised houses of the former Holy Roman Empire as well as from Henry IV of France and Edward III. The pedigrees also showed that the couple had common ancestors in Prince Ferdinand of Lobkowicz (1655-1715) as well as in Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel (1572-1632) [3081].
Prince Michael came very regularly to our meetings and several times visited the Library, very kindly coming to my retirement party in 1997 and making a most flattering speech. He then too was elected Patron in 2005 when Patric Dickinson, then Richmond Herald, was elected President.
The Society’s membership was at this time rapidly increasing. Some 789 new members were elected in 1978 (as against 603 the previous year) and at the end of the year the membership stood at 4,544 of whom 880 lived outside the British Isles. This figure included 199 who did not take the Magazine but there were an additional 180 subscribers to the Magazine only. The Society now had a healthy basic income, augmented by rents and bank interest. Although 1978 was the first year in which the Society was completely subject to VAT, the Treasurer, Arnold Hawker, negotiated a formula which was very favourable to the Society and a re-assessment of the VAT paid in previous years was also agreed. Deposits and investments were, however, being kept in an easily realizable form, bearing in mind the search for new and larger premises which was taking place.
The year 1978 was also a record one for visitors with 2,924 non-members paying to use the library. With those booking an hour on the Computer File Index in mind, an innovation of an hourly search fee was introduced in October, the two microfiche readers being in continual demand. Self-service with the fiche had been introduced in May and relieved the Library staff of frequent interruptions. A reader-printer which would make Xerox copies direct from the fiche was ordered in October, a new photocopier having been installed in June.
In the course of the year we held four new members’ days to introduce them to the facilities and a new edition of the Library guide was published in January, Edwards recording a much shorter version on tape for sale in September. The latter was done entirely from memory and Edwards being Edwards, it overlooked one room entirely. Successive chairmen of the Library Committee, Miss Mordy, Major Collins and Dr Morris Bierbrier, continued to lead volunteer working parties on Sundays, others met on Tuesday evenings to sort accumulations of documents and the Fothergill and Shield collections [3082]. The remainder of the original documents in the Places section of the Document Collection were taken out and sent to the appropriate county record offices and Edith Pritchard sorted the large number of duplicate parish register transcripts which had accumulated since the 1940s and partly distributed them to county record offices. Some 166 parish register transcripts were added to the Society’s collection this year and Miss Pritchard compiled a new catalogue of the 5,700 held, which was printed in 1979. Copies of churchyard inscriptions from 103 parishes were added to our collection and information about 98 cases of redundant churches and/or alterations to churchyards were investigated with the appropriate local societies. A valuable list of copies of inscriptions formerly with the Registrar General and now in the Public Record Office (obtained by the brothers Christopher and Michael Watts) was published in the Magazine in September [3083].
In September 1978 I had completed 21 years with the Society and was presented with a cheque for £100 as a token of the Society’s and of the Executive Committee’s appreciation [3084]. However, early in 1978 our Secretary Mildred Surry's elderly father had been seriously ill and just before Christmas she decided to retire to spend time with him at Bury near Pulborough, he being again unwell, and by mutual agreement she left on 1 February 1979, her father dying shortly afterwards [3085]. She continued to take an interest in the Society and involved herself in local affairs at Pulborough, being at one time secretary to the computer club there, but died in a nursing home at Littlehampton, 17 December 2018.
The Executive Committee had appointed a special committee to consider Miss Surrey's replacement and it recommended that I be appointed to the newly created post of Director (and Company Secretary) of the Society and I took up those duties immediately. However, I decided to remain in the small research office that had been created when the general office was partitioned in 1969.
Alan Reed and Mildred Surry had for some time been keen that I should do the opening address at the upcoming Society’s Third Day-Conference of which Alan was the organiser and this we had agreed in August 1978 [3086]. The conference took place at Baden Powell House on 23 June 1979 when, in a packed Assembly Hall with three hundred present, I reviewed the past, present and possible future activities of the Society, the talk being published in the Magazine as 'The Society in a Changing World' [3087].
I gave a few statistics about the Society at that time. There were about 5,000 members. We had elected 545 new members in the last six months when ten had died and 90 had resigned. At the end of the year probably 300 would lapse, not having paid their subscriptions after two reminders. There would be 15,600 letters in the year, about 300 a week. Twenty thousand magazines would be sent out and £13,000 worth of publications sold. Twelve non-members were on average using the library every day.
I went on to discuss how the Society had changed and to put forward various ideas for its improvement, provided that one could gain the co-operation and assistance of the members. The Magazine editor described the address as 'of such thoughtfulness for every Member' that it was worthy of publication, but any impact that it might have had was overshadowed by a lengthy and unpleasant letter published in the same issue from our critic Flt. Lieut. Ian R. Harrison who said that 'if you are feeling unhealthily euphoric and wish to redress the balance' you had only to read the back-numbers of the Magazine!
According to Harrison the building was 'squalid', new members were deterred by a 'lack of warmth', there were no social facilities and the place was 'Hell'. The Magazine, he wrote, often contained articles 'that inclined to the stratosphere' and the Society's other publications were 'slightly disappointing'. He even wondered if the National Index was 'worthwhile'. He wanted copies of the lectures to be made available for purchase (the best, of course, were always published in the Magazine when permission could be obtained),and he was 'swamped' and felt 'despair' by the amount of paper in the library. Harrison had discovered computers so why, he asked, revealing how little he understood the finances and membership or the Society, did we 'waste hundreds, if not thousands of man-hours annually' by compiling indexes when they could be produced by machines in minutes? [3088]. The letters that we received in response to this ill-informed tirade were not summarised or published but copies were circulated to the staff and to the committees [3089]. Not for the first time, however, did I think that I was wasting my time. However, Charles Shepard of Rochester, New York, thought otherwise and to celebrate fifty years of membership that year and in appreciation of the Society's work, gave us a cheque for £500 [3090].
At that day-conference I had also chaired a lecture by Richard A. Storey the senior archivist at the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick on ‘Records of the working man’. Storey was already a prolific writer on the material at the Centre but for the 130 or so present it was, as I said on the day, the first talk on the records of trade unions given specifically to genealogists [3091].
A week after the Day Conference, on Wednesday 27 June 1979, the Society's Annual Meeting was held at the Royal Society of Arts and with Brian Fitzgerald-Moore I had the pleasure of welcoming Prince Michael of Kent who took the Chair. He gave a talk about his family's interest in the subject that I had helped to sketch out, though I was taken aback by his unwarranted description of Frederick, Prince of Wales, as 'a malicious lunatic'!
The quarterly new members’ days were continued in 1979 and that year for the first time we closed for a week in February and again in October for stock-taking when all kinds of things were done around the library which could not be done at other times, volunteers coming in to assist. These closures were not popular with the members at large but were very necessary at a time when the Library was so busy. In February 1979 several sections of the library were moved to the less used basement so that the county shelves could be expanded. Dr Bierbrier and Major Collins again led volunteer working parties on Sundays and Jean Tsushima reorganised the London shelves. It was at this time that under my direction the card index to the pedigrees in the deposited collections was commenced. The number of parish register transcripts acquired in the year reached a total of 234. Following the rearrangement it was agreed that the general guide Using the Library of the Society of Genealogists should be sent free to all new Members [3092] and a new edition, with plans drawn by Charlotte Firmin, was typed by Christine Gerken and published in June 1980 [3093].
In the latter part of 1979 there were various staff changes. Mr C. J. Bhatt our excellent Accountant had left in October and it proved difficult to find a replacement, thus throwing an extra burden on the remaining staff. Ruth Harvey the Membership Secretary (from July) left in December. Mrs Norris, who had been the cleaner for many years, retired in August and the cleaning was then placed for the first time with a commercial firm, Associated Contract Cleaners Ltd. The security of the building on Library 'late nights' and Saturday lunchtimes was strengthened from 18 July by the employment (at £3 an hour for six hours) of a member of the Corps of Commissionaires [3094], the two Hall keepers having retired in 1978 and not been replaced [3095].
Lydia Collins (Mrs Morris Bierbrier), previously a part-time worker, was appointed Research Assistant in July 1979 and following her appointment, inroads were made into the backlog of old cases and a speedier turnover in current research was ensured. Considerable numbers of postal requests for searches in the Computer File Index were being received. The showing on television in March of Gordon Honeycombe’s series Family History mentioned the Society’s facilities and fees, as did a short article in Woman’s Own which was copied into several other journals later in the year. In all 15,098 letters were received that year [3096] with 17,378 in 1980 [3097].
In the light of the staff changes I was asked to draw up proposals for a revised staffing structure. We had had a very difficult few months with a skeleton staff working under pressure. My plan, accepted by the Executive Committee on 9 February 1980, envisaged a third Principal Officer (in addition to the Director and Librarian) who would have responsibility for all the financial aspects of the Society and supervise the Office Assistant for Membership and a new Assistant for Publications. The latter would relieve the Library staff of all the work of postal sales of publications and stock keeping. We were then extremely fortunate to obtain the services of Sir Wilfred Robinson as Finance Officer in April, of Miss Meg Connor as Membership Assistant in March, and of Miss Margaret Watkins Birts (with us until February 1982) [3098] as Publications Assistant in September [3099]. The calmly dependable Meg Connor was with us through the move to Charterhouse Buildings, but sadly left in March 1985.
Sir Wilfred Robinson (1917-2012), 3rd Baronet, a Major in the Devonshire and Parachute Regiments in the War, had for many years been on the staff of the Diocesan College School at Rondebosch in South Africa. He needed some persuasion to take the post of Finance Officer but threw himself into it with great energy and proved a much liked, greatly respected and most dependent servant of the Society who, until retirement in 1990, contributed enormously to its financial stability. He once said that people were attracted to the Society because it was 'a safe haven of integrity' and if that were true, as I like to think it was, it owed much to his work and presence there. I was myself left with a wide variety of duties and was glad to note that some on the Committee understood what they entailed, Arnold Hawker sending me an amusing ‘job description’ that covered everything from occasional cleaning to political lobbying [3100].
In the Library, Edwards had been an enthusiastic and popular Librarian in the 1970s and he was a familiar figure with the Society's bookstall at many conferences and meetings where his knowledge and sardonic humour were much appreciated, though his apt nicknames, withering comments and abruptness sometimes caused offence. He was placed under great strain by the growth in membership and enquiries, when asthma and bronchial trouble took an increasing toll. Although protective of their interests, his assistants, on whom he was obliged to rely more and more, worked around him rather than with him. He long resisted the involvement of volunteers and exasperated the committees further by his negative attitude to the local family history societies. In March 1979 our member Michael J. Wood brought to my attention ‘A professional code for genealogical libraries and librarians’ that Gary Boyd Roberts in New England had contributed to the National Genealogical Society Quarterly and which, whilst recognising that the librarian might be ‘in essentially a dead end position, with low salary and little possibility for advancement’, thought that the ideal librarian should be ‘a recognized scholar who publishes frequently, lectures often, and moves quite readily between widely disparate genealogical topics’ as well as giving patrons his ‘full genealogical expertise and complete guidance through relevant printed and manuscript sources’ [3101]. If that is what our American visitors expected, and some of them clearly did, they were being sadly disappointed.
In our Library an additional Library Assistant had been appointed in 1978 and Christopher J. Edwards (no relation to Lawson and an Assistant since 1976) was promoted Senior Library Assistant in October that year [3102], providing some stability, strengthened after further staff changes, by the appointment of two new Assistants, Miss Charlotte Firmin (with us until February 1982) and Miss Deborah Chapman (who remained a year only), in June 1980 [3103]. The salaries were a good deal better but the General Purposes Committee in July 1980 showed its irritation with the Librarian by not increasing his salary in line with the others that year, the possibility of obtaining the services of an experienced and energetic librarian, perhaps on a part time basis, to enforce some system of classification, being discussed [3104]. In 1981 there was a further concerted move to try to do something about his stance and an independent report was commissioned from a librarian, James L. Howgego. This proved useful, it being possible to put some of his recommendations into effect almost immediately. In August 1981 a qualified librarian, the active Clive R. Vaisey, a member since 1979 who had worked as a volunteer in the library since April, was appointed Assistant Librarian [3105] and proved a great asset, being cheerful and highly competent and able to deal with Lawson Edwards, but he only remained with us until June 1982. As had been anticipated, however, little progress was made with the implementation of the library classification scheme, further voluntary assistance being needed [3106]. The loyal Christopher Edwards had resigned in October 1981 [3107] and although the competent Mrs Janet W. Thornton, an Associate of the Library Association, was appointed to succeed Clive Vaisey in August 1982 [3108], she did not get on with Lawson Edwards and unfortunately left in December 1983 [3109]. Miss Jennifer Wraight, B.Lib, succeeded Charlotte Firmin as Library Assistant in March 1982 [3110].
In my office Mrs Christine Gerken who had been the much-valued part-time audio-shorthand typist since 1978, doing letters and research reports, resigned in January 1981 and, to our great distress, died in June after a painful illness [3111]. She was succeeded by Miss Winifred R. Grinsted (1920-2005) who worked for me until the Society moved in 1984 when she decided to retire because of the extra journey.
The small bookshop at the reception desk was slowly acquiring new publications and in 1979 we took over the publication of the popular Genealogical Record Cards designed by Keith Lovet Watson which were selling in large numbers. A new leaflet in the Society’s series, No. 9 Starting Genealogy, also had a wide distribution following publicity in the national press and Edith Pritchard again organised bookstalls at the Society’s Day Conference (where £530 was taken), at my course at Missenden Abbey in March and at the Federation’s half-yearly meeting at Plymouth in September [3112].
The Society had for some time been considering possible revisions to its Articles of Association to bring them into line with current needs. An 'Ad Hoc' Committee to consider their revision was appointed in 1978 and Alexander Sandison and Sir Andrew Noble (nominally its chairman) took the lead in the resulting discussions and negotiations with the Department of Trade and the Charity Commission. In September the views of members were sought on a new draft prior to its submission to the Department of Trade and the Charity Commissioners but the editor of the Magazine published a letter from Leslie White, who lived at Bournemouth, which was critical of the Society's general stance, suggesting that the 'of London' in its former name and the London-based committees had greatly restricted its activities, and that, except for the 'outstanding example' of the campaign over the General Register Office, it did not act like a national society. He thought that this might be achieved by having an Executive Committee elected by postal ballot of all the members and by paying the expenses of those who travelled long distances to meetings. These, he said, should be held on Saturdays so that younger working members might attend. He criticised the lack of contact between the Executive and the Society's other committees and called for their minutes to be published in the Magazine and for 'distant group membership with concessionary use of the Library', believing that 'the most important service the Society can render to genealogy in the future is through its Library' [3114]. At the AGM in 1978, Royston Gambier, said that the definition of a Town Member (those living within a 25-mile radius of Trafalgar Square) should be re-drawn to coincide with the boundary of the Greater London Council [3114], but a quick sample survey showed that the resulting loss in income would have been considerable.
The new Articles came before the Society’s AGM at the Royal Society of Arts in John Adam Street on 27 June 1979 when Alexander Sandison said that the main reason for the alterations had been the discovery that the old ones did not allow the Executive Committee to appoint sub-committees from outside its own ranks, although it had in fact done so for many years. The opportunity had been taken to simplify everything and to transfer into General Regulations some matters which could in future be amended by Ordinary Resolutions at Annual Meetings. Other matters that related to the day-to-day running of the Society would be placed in Standing Orders. There was no discussion and when Prince Michael put the Resolution to the Meeting it was carried unanimously.
When sending the papers about the Meeting to the Members we had made it clear that the new Articles would continue the practice of election to the Executive Committee by the ballot of those Members who were personally present at Annual Meetings. However, in order to give an opportunity for a debate on postal voting the Executive had arranged for an amendment to be proposed providing for elections by postal ballot. Michael Faraday, who lived in Herefordshire, had agreed to propose such an amendment and Leslie White, from Bournemouth, to second it. This arrangement of the Meeting’s business enabled the Members to express their views in any way they desired.
Accordingly Michael Faraday then put forward a Special Resolution on Postal Ballots. He said that over the last ten years the elections to the Executive Committee had only been contested on five occasions but a postal ballot would provide an opportunity to seek and obtain the wider support of the membership. Leslie White, seconding, said that the Committee members were drawn from London and the commuter belt. However, Dr Patrick Smythe-Wood (1914-1997), who lived in Northern Ireland, said that if Country Members were elected to the Committee it might be liable for large claims for expenses and new-comer Gregory Lauder-Frost said that the proposal did not warrant the large cost in money and administration which would be needed. He believed that the Executive should reflect those who were constant users of the Library. Frederick Emmison was quite unnecessarily offensive about the proposal and it was overwhelmingly defeated. Brian Fitzgerald-Moore retired as Chairman of the Executive at this meeting and was thanked by Isobel Mordy for his 'infinite tact and kindness', a resolution which was carried with warm acclaim [3115].
The necessary Standing Orders for the general administration of the Society and its Committees had already been the subject of considerable discussion and were agreed by the Executive Committee in November [3116].
In the last months of 1979 there were considerable problems with the production of the Magazine. Increasing costs and other difficulties persuaded the Society to dispense with Eyre & Spottiswood at the Grosvenor Press in Portsmouth after the June 1979 issue and we went to Coasbyprint Limited, also at Portsmouth, who produced the September issue. With part of the December issue already at galley-proof stage, however, the firm went out of business shortly after moving to new premises. The old-established St Richard's Press at Chichester quickly rescued us from this predicament and they were able to produce the first copies of the December issue (containing an index to the volume compiled by Isobel Mordy) in early January [3117]. After the June 1980 issue we stopped publishing the names of new members in the Magazine, thus saving four pages for other material in each issue, but from that date the addresses of the donors of birth-briefs were included. Following publicity in Family News and Digest, magazine exchanges with most local family history societies were also arranged [3118].
The St Richard’s Press continued to print the Magazine with great competence and courteous efficiency until the changes at the Society in 1999. The Society had, in 1979, very considerable stocks (though few complete runs) of past issues of the Magazine and I made an effort that year by employing Ferenc Himer to have them put into some order and to reduce their numbers by offering them at 10p each to personal callers and at Federation meetings [3119]. The numbers, however, never seemed to reduce and it was a continual problem to know what to do with them.
In March 1979 I agreed to meet Jean-Claude Peissel, Editorial Director of the Phaidon Press at Oxford, who was interested in finding someone to write a thorough, well-illustrated book about family history to be called The Family History Book. His researchers had told him that 'the escapist mental retreat into nostalgia for the past' had, in recent years, contributed to a growth of interest in genealogy and that this had 'created an expanding popular market for books on the subject, at present catered for either by the wordy, though worthy tomes which might put the beginner off, or by cyclostyled brochures and small booklets which, though cheap, are not widely distributed' [3120].
I did not care much for this summary, though from the number of publishers who approached me about possible books, these were widely held beliefs. I recommended Stella Colwell as a likely author and as a result they published her The family history book: a guide to tracing your ancestors (£9.95; 1980) in which she paid tribute to those who had helped her with 'encouragement, advice and support over the years', describing me as 'my first genealogical mentor'. She presented me with a copy inscribed, 'If it hadn't been for you all this wouldn't have happened'. The successful book became something of a standard and was revised in 1989 (£14.95).
Membership of the Society passed the 5,000 mark in 1980 and had reached 5,802 at the end of the year, 1,026 new members having been elected. The possibility of using direct debit facilities for the payment of the annual subscriptions was investigated at this time but the Society unfortunately could not give the unlimited guarantees then required by the Bank. Some 4,067 non-members had paid to use the Library. To mark his retirement from the Executive Committee in June Sir Andrew Noble made a handsome contribution of £1,000 to the Library funds and an old friend and frequent visitor, the Revd William ‘Douglas’ Walford (1895-1979), bequeathed us £250. In October a magnificent collection of 258 volumes was presented by Arthur Edward Oldaker (1901-1999), a member since 1934.
The President, Prince Michael of Kent, accompanied by Prince George Galitzine, visited the Society on 14 July and toured the library, a small exhibition having been laid out in one of the rooms. I received them along with the Chairmen of the Executive and Library Committees, Stella Colwell and Morris Bierbrier, and the Librarian. Our former President, Lord Mountbatten, had contributed generously to the library’s binding expenses and in July the Executive Committee decided that the fund he set up specifically for that purpose should be revived to commemorate his name. Monies which had already been received for a memorial were credited to the fund and further contributions were invited through the Magazine, the Executive Committee adding £2,000. A commemorative bookplate was printed for insertion in the rebound books and another bookplate was inserted in the books bound with the funds provided by Sir Andrew Noble. Altogether that year £4,692 was spent on binding and rebinding 886 books and transcripts [3121].
The Society was of course keen to be the first place in England to have each successive new edition of the Computer File Index and another edition with thirty-two million entries was obtained in August 1980 and resulted in heavy use of the readers and printer. In March that year the ever-practical Arnold Hawker had given two large cabinets for the storage of the growing collection of microfilms.
The quarterly new members’ days continued throughout the year and the rooms were again closed for a week in February and again in October for stocktaking when the checking of most of the county shelves on the ground floor and the family history room was completed, the volumes for Scotland and Ireland being given shelf-marks. These checks revealed that over the last fifteen years the Society had lost about ten per cent of its holdings, a quite shocking figure, though many of the rarer items had fortunately been microfilmed by the Latter Day Saints in the 1960s. However, at the end of the year the Library Committee made plans to microfilm many more. In October that Committee had accepted a report on the classification of the Library though it was realised that little headway would be made without volunteer assistance.
Work on the consolidated index to the special collections continued throughout the year, Meg Reeves writing cards for the pedigrees in the Wagner Collection of Huguenot Pedigrees, the Rogers Collection of Cornish Pedigrees and the Mitton Collection of research cases and commencing work on the Macleod Collection. Miss E. B. Clapham made a new index to the Campling Collection of Norfolk and Suffolk families, and Miss Elisabeth McDougall listed the Whitmore Collection so that index slips could be made [3122]. May Toop continued her repair work and sorting of collections.
There were about 60 volunteer transcribers and indexers working on parish registers under the direction of Patricia Riach and she passed a remarkable total of 282 transcripts to the Library. Included amongst them were those completed in March made by Michael Burchall who had copied all the Sussex nonconformist registers from the microfilms borrowed four years earlier from the Public Record Office. These were typed by volunteers and a composite index made by Alfred Stephen Harcourt (died 1990). Lawson Edwards then similarly borrowed microfilms of the Devon nonconformist registers from the PRO and commenced their transcription. As previously mentioned the 1980 edition of the Catalogue of Parish Registers in the Possession of the Society of Genealogists, revised by Edith Pritchard, was the first of the Society’s publications to be revised using the text of an earlier edition composed on a memory typewriter. Early in the year a valuable group of copies of transcripts of monumental inscriptions found in other libraries was given to the Society through the project ‘Arboris’ funded by the American-based International Society for British Genealogy and Family History.
I spoke about the centralisation of parish and nonconformist registers in the Radio programme ‘You and Yours’ in November. Publicity continued and a detailed article about the Society by Michael John Wood, illustrated with photographs of the rooms, appeared in the autumn issue of Pruview the house magazine of the Prudential Assurance Co. The second showing on television of Gordon Honeycombe’s series ‘Family History’, which mentioned the Society’s collections, produced many letters about the Society’s facilities and fees, as did articles in various popular journals later in the year. Several members of the Society attended a reception given by the BBC to launch the publication of the ‘book of the film’, Donald Steel’s Discovering Your Family History on 27 February and in October, as mentioned above the publication of Stella Colwell’s The Family History Book led to several broadcasts in which the Society was mentioned. Society bookstalls were provided at the Chester Conference and at the Federation Conference at Lancaster, and in September the Society appointed an assistant to deal with the growing number of postal sales and to maintain stock control, the Society now dealing in about seventy items.
Other articles on the Society’s work appeared in the spring issue of the Public Record Office’s house journal The Petty Bag and in the autumn issue of Family History News and Digest. A postcard view of the building was produced and sold well and a nicely printed fixtures card of lectures, events and closures was again produced annually, thus ensuring that ample notice of all of them was given. Navy blue and maroon ties incorporating a design from the Society’s seal were also produced in 1980 and proved popular with Members, though a small number of our lady Members proclaimed that they were being discriminated against, suggesting that we produce a headscarf. As already noted our vast post-bags continued and in all some 17,378 letters were received in the year [3123].
Prince Michael of Kent, as President, had taken the Chair at the Annual Meeting at the Royal Overseas League on 12 June 1980 when about 150 members attended and he met many members at the reception afterwards. It was probably the largest turnout for an AGM that we have seen. As well as the traditional six winter lectures, there were the usual beginners’ courses of seven lectures in February-March, the demand for the latter being such that a second series was held in September-October. We also organised an intensive course in palaeography at the Lutheran Church House on four Saturdays in April-May at which instruction was given by Mrs Jo-Anne Buck. An innovation this year was a series of three lectures for beginners specifically on the Society’s Library which the Librarian and Christopher Edwards gave in October and Lydia Collins repeated in October-November.
Following the success of the residential course ‘Genealogy North and South’ held at York in 1978, Betty St George Brown, who had been elected to the Executive Committee in June, ably organised a similar course under the same name at Chester College, Chester, 29-31 August 1980, when there were 67 in residence and 29 day attenders, the charge being £35 inclusive or £15 for the latter. The lecturers were Dr Brian E. Harris the editor of the Victoria County History of Cheshire, Brian C. Redwood the Cheshire County Archivist, Miss A. M. Kennett the Chester City Archivist and the Society’s Librarian. I gave the opening talk about the basic centralised records and Canon W. H. Vanstone provided a guided tour of Chester Cathedral on Saturday evening. Edith Pritchard again organised a well patronised bookstall at which £450 was taken [3124].
The Chester College course started on the day I returned from attending the 14th International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences at Copenhagen University where at least I did not have to speak but which was overshadowed for me on the first day, to which Queen Ingrid came, by my luggage being taken on to Moscow. However, I had a very pleasant few days strengthening our contacts with other societies in Europe and elsewhere and our former Library Assistant, Anders Larsen, showed me something of his hometown.
Earlier that month, 12-15 August, Mrs Marilyn R. Peterson had been the Society’s observer at the Second World Conference on Records on the theme ‘Preserving Our Heritage’ organised by the Genealogical Society of Utah in Salt Lake City [3125]. Back in 1977 the ever-optimistic Colonel Stanley Marker, US Air Force (ret), had been canvassing the idea of a group of genealogists going from England to Salt Lake City for a conference at Brigham Young University in July-August that year. He had hoped for 180 participants, the three-week tour costing, he estimated, about £500, but his plans were too premature and overly optimistic [3126]. However, the First Australasian Congress of Genealogy and Heraldry had taken place at Melbourne at Easter 1977 and had been attended by the professional genealogist Brian Brooks, briefly Chairman of the Society's Executive Committee, who had been educated in Australia and had many contacts there [3127].
Closer at home Alan Reed and I attended the Annual Meeting of the Federation of Family History Societies and the ‘First British Family History Conference’ at Bedford in March 1980, and Alan and the Librarian attended the Federation’s half-yearly meeting at Lancaster in September. The Librarian and I were now regularly giving lectures and guided tours to a growing number of visiting groups and these were generally listed in the Annual Reports along with details of other major meetings attended.
At the AGM of the Association of Genealogists and Record Agents on 16 May 1980 I was elected a Vice-President of that Association.
In spite of the difficult economic climate in 1981 the Society’s membership passed the 6,000 mark (to 6,402, including 1,028 overseas) and 1,234 new members were elected in the course of the year. Only 321 did not take the Magazine but an additional 477 copies were sent to subscribers and in exchange for other periodicals. For the first time there was a decrease in the number of non-members using the library, to 3,736 as against 4,067 the previous year, but this was counterbalanced to a large extent by the greater number elected to membership. The usual four new-members’ days were held and the Library was closed for a week in both February and October for stocktaking.
The indexing of the special collections continued, with Meg Reeves working on the Macleod Collection and Elisabeth McDougall on the Holworthy Collection, she having completed slips for the Whitmore Collection. May Toop continued with her repair work and the expansion of the Document Collection to make room for recent acquisitions. Some 296 parish register transcripts were received in the year, including 69 for Essex.
It had long been recognised that the Library Catalogue was incomplete where the copies of Monumental Inscriptions were concerned and in 1981 a project was started to compile a list of all the transcripts in the library. Many volunteers came forward to check all the books on the shelves, the manuscript material and the periodicals. To assist the process I did those for Hertfordshire. Copies of 183 graveyards were added to the collection this year and the appropriate local societies were informed of 119 cases in which stones were perhaps at risk through redundancy or alteration.
Concerned for the security of the collections and for the number of Members who delayed in the payment of their subscriptions we for the first time issued Readers’ Cards to all who came to the Society. On the advice of the Society’s brokers the Society’s insurances were increased to a level consistent with the cost of rebuilding its listed premises and replacing as much as possible of the Library. With the high interest rate then current the Society’s investments produced £15,000 but it was thought prudent at the Annual Meeting to increase the subscriptions as from 1 January 1982, from £15 to £20 for Town Members and from £10 to £14 for Country and Overseas Members. The reduced subscriptions for married couples, students and Retired Member were also increased.
Prince Michael took the Chair at the AGM which was again held at the Royal Over-Seas League on 30 June and he remained to the reception afterwards. He had also visited the Library on 1 June, being received by the Chairman of the Library Committee, Dr Bierbrier and the Librarian.
That year £8,678 was spent on binding 1,290 books and transcripts, a generous donation of £500 from Dr Marc Fitch towards the Mountbatten Binding Fund being particularly welcome. Arthur Howard placed on permanent loan with the Society a Recordak A. K. Micro Film Camera in October and this enabled the projected programme of microfilming of the rarer items to be carried out.
Edith Pritchard edited a revised List of Parishes in Boyd’s Marriage Index in February and an amended version of Using the Library of the Society of Genealogists was issued in April. She also organised bookstalls at the Society’s Day Conference, the English Genealogical Congress at York, the week-end course at Great Missenden, and at the Federation conferences at Birmingham and Cheltenham. Representative copies of the eighty publications stocked by the Society were also displayed on the American Lecture Tour and a useful number of orders taken, but the weight of the books and the work involved were both considerable. The list of publications was now sent twice a year to the many societies and other organisations on the Society’s mailing list. The June issue of the Magazine contained a major article by David Williamson on ‘The ancestry of Lady Diana Spencer’ which was received with considerable interest. However, I told Jonathan Sale the Feature’s Editor at Punch that I was fed up with people telling the Society that they were related to her, saying that she was the cousin of practically everyone of any consequence! [3128].
At the end of the year I persuaded the Committee to agree that in view of the growing number of persons with little or no practical experience who wished to advertise professional genealogical services in the Magazine, they should only be allowed to do so if they had been members of the Society for at least five years or were members of the Association of Genealogists and Record Agents, something I considered of great importance.
In August 1981 the Society had again sponsored the Third English Genealogical Congress, this time at the University of York and on the theme ‘Ancestors on the Move’. The Congress was under the Patronage of Prince Michael of Kent and the Presidency of Garter King of Arms. Brian Fitzgerald-Moore was the Chairman of the Organising Committee with Stella Colwell as Organiser, Major Collins as Secretary and Patric Dickinson as Treasurer. The practical projects on monumental inscriptions and demography led by John Rayment and Stella Colwell attracted much interest as did the exhibition ‘From the Cradle to the Grave’ which I organised from material at the Society and had a struggle to set up and get ready on the opening day.
The fourth in our series of biennial day conferences was organised by Frederick Filby at Baden Powell House, Queens Gate, on Saturday, 10 October 1981, on the theme ‘The Uses of Genealogy’ and attracted about 250 attendees, fifty staying to a reception afterwards, an innovation for these occasions. There were lectures on lateral genealogy, population statistics, eugenics and hereditary illnesses, all by distinguished academics, and a demonstration of parish register transcription by computer, specially arranged by Alexander Sandison [3129]. Following on from our American tour, Christopher Watts and I spoke about ‘The Overseas Connection’.
In addition to the usual six winter lectures, yet another Sessional Course of 24 lectures, as related above, took place from September 1981, there was an evening Beginners’ Course in September-October, an intensive palaeography course, again with Jo-Anne Buck on two Saturdays in October and November and I went again as course director for a weekend at Missenden Abbey, 20-22 March 1981. The Deputy Registrar General, F. A. Rooke-Matthews, was our first speaker and the team included Lawson Edwards, Stella Colwell and the County Archivist, Hugh Hanley. It attracted some fifty people with 34 resident in the Abbey where the Warden, Peter Hebden, was a perfect host. Amongst other meetings and lectures I had the pleasure of attending receptions at the College of Arms to launch the publication of Christopher Lake’s European Rulers (21 July) and of Jiri Louda and Michael Maclagan’s Lines of Succession (23 November) and, continuing the royal theme, a garden party at Buckingham Palace on 16 July at which Prince and Princess Michael and many members of the Royal Family were present with Lady Diana Spencer whose engagement to the Prince of Wales had been announced in February [3130].
Articles about the Society in The Times (17 January), Punch (18 November) and various popular journals continued and produced many letters about the Society’s facilities and fees, as did a broadcast that I did for LBC on 24 January. In all there were 17,202 letters this year, a very slight decrease on 1980. On 27 November 1981 representatives of the Society were entertained by the Committee of the Irish Genealogical Research Society in their rooms at the Challenor Club when there was a useful exchange of views on mutual problems and experiences but mostly about accommodation long-term [3131].
Early in 1981 admission charges were introduced by the North Yorkshire County Record Office as a result of the central and local government economies that year. Representatives of the Records Users Group met the Association of County Archivists on 28 April and joined in the widespread condemnation of such charges. Following hard upon the publication by the latter body of a policy paper condemning fees for personal searches, Derbyshire County Record Office reversed a decision to introduce charges at a meeting on 23 June, but Devon Record Office introduced a scale of fees in July. The matter was one of those discussed with the All Party Heritage Group on 1 July 1981 which, with other economies introduced in many offices at that time, gave considerable cause for concern.
Representations were also made this year to the Companies Registrar about the increase in fees for the production of a file, and to the Home Office about possible charges for access to records under the British Nationality Bill [3132].
Further unsuccessful representations about fees in county record offices were made through the Record Users Group in 1982 when Gloucestershire proposed to make charges as from 1 March. The Council of the Society of Archivists issued a statement on 19 January condemning all fees for admission to the record offices of local authorities and to other record offices maintained by public funds. Perhaps as a result no other archives joined ‘the unhappy trio of Devonshire, Gloucestershire and North Yorkshire’ though in the autumn of 1982 the Bodleian Library imposed an annual fee on users of the Library who were not members of Oxford University [3133].
The year 1982, following a meeting that I attended on Saturday, 13 March, saw the transformation of the Standing Conference for Local History into the British Association for Local History (BALH) and at the end of the year, in view of recent developments about access to records, it agreed to organise a one-day conference on the selection of records for preservation, their keeping and the public’s access to them nationwide, including opening hours and search room facilities. The Conference, ‘Access to Records’, took place at the Victoria and Albert Museum on 25 June 1983 during the course of an exhibition there ‘The Common Chronicle’ (8 June – 29 August), and was organised by the Society of Genealogists for the Association’s Record Users Group and in conjunction with the Association of County Archivists [3134]. A policy document of the latter Association, Yesterday’s future: a national policy for our archive heritage, was introduced at the conference, discussed in detail, and received the general support of the Records Users Group and of the Society though there were reservations about the proposed listing and registration of documents in private hands [3135].
There was concern at this time about the future of the Greater London Record Office and a statement on the Future of Archive Services in Greater London and English Metropolitan Counties issued by the Association of County Archivists in August 1983 viewed with disquiet any proposals which might lead to the dismantling of the Office and the dispersal of its collections, a view supported by the Society through the Record Users Group [3136]. However, in June 1984 we were glad to hear that the City of London had announced its willingness to consider undertaking responsibility for the Office in order to maintain the advantages of the single service, an announcement warmly welcomed at the soon-to-be neighbouring Society [3137]. The formal agreement of the City to take over and run the Office ‘on behalf of Londoners as a whole’ was announced on 27 February 1985 [3138].
A good friend of the Society, Bill Royce Linder (1937-2000) [3139], who was Director of the Central Reference Division at the National Archives in Washington, had since 1974 been bringing groups of Americans on study tours to England. He was a charming and extremely popular man and several of his elderly students came with him year after year, doing research in the main London repositories and then travelling around England to visit the places from which their ancestors came. From 1977 onwards I usually helped with the introductory talks in London and the group always came to the Society for a tour when most became members. Over the years several became good friends.
Bill Linder, who had previously worked on publications for the Genealogical Society in Salt Lake City, was the author of the succinct How to trace your family history (New York, 1978) and had initiated the first World Conference on Records in Salt Lake City, serving as its programme chairman in 1969. In May 1981 he initiated for the National Genealogical Society in Washington a highly successful program of annual 'Conferences in the States', serving as Chairman when the first Conference was held at Atlanta, Georgia. Linder was keen that representatives from England should attend and after lengthy correspondence, conducted on the Society's behalf by Colonel Stanley Marker, the Chairman of the Lecture Committee, who, as mentioned, had been considering some such idea for several years, it was agreed that Elizabeth Simpson, Dr Christopher Watts and I would make a general tour to various centres on behalf of the Society, which would take in the Conference and be paid for from lecture fees.
The three of us left on 22 April and flying via New York were the guests of the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History (ISBGFH) at Cleveland, Ohio, speaking at the conference ‘British Genealogy and Family History’ arranged around their AGM at Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea (24-25 April). Dr Watts and I stayed at the home of the great genealogist Meredith Colket (1912-1985) who had been Director of the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland (1957-80) and all doors were opened to us. As well as tours of the Western Reserve Historical Society and Cleveland Public Library, there was a memorable lunch at the Union Club with former ambassador, Hon. Henry Norweb (1894-1983), for whom I had been doing research, a visit to Lorraine Harpur’s daughter’s house at Erie Lakeside where we visited the Great Lakes Historical Society Museum and walked along the beach, and a very special trip out to the Western Reserve’s reconstituted Jonathan Hale Farm in the Cuyahoga Valley of which Julia and Meredith Colket had many fond early memories. The industrious Lorraine had in 1979 been with Donald Steel one of the co-founders of ISBGFH, now based in Salt Lake City. Here Elizabeth Simpson also spoke on ‘Mayflower Moonshine’ to the Spring Assembly of the Cleveland Colony, Society of Mayflower Descendants.
The three us then proceeded to Boston (28 April-4 May) where, after following the Freedom Trail in the city with Elizabeth and taking coach trips out to Lexington and Battle Bridge, Concord, and to Plimouth Plantation, we provided a day-meeting in a local church for the New England Historic Genealogical Society, 'Searching for your ancestors in England' (2 May). Here an unexpectedly large audience of about 250 enthusiastic people had obliged the Society to hire a neighbouring church for our lectures.
Two of Bill Linder's students, Shirley Nickerson and Alice Anderson, met us early in Washington on 4 May and gave us several tours, including the Library of Congress, the National Archives (where we were particularly honoured to be received by the Archivist and Deputy Archivist of the United States), the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Lincoln Memorial and even the Space Museum, with a dinner at the Kennedy Centre hosted by Vivian Luther-Schafer a Vice-President of the National Genealogical Society (NGS). We visited the charming headquarters of that Society, then at Glebe House, but did not speak in Washington, proceeding to the NGS’s conference at Atlanta, co-hosted by the Georgia Genealogical Society, at the Century Centre Hotel, 7-9 May 1981.
At Atlanta I stayed at the lovely home of the distinguished lawyer Bates Block (1918-1990) close to the Governor’s mansion. The highly successful conference, a project of NGS President, Phyllis Johnson, to make NGS truly national, was indeed as she said, ‘a real milestone’. The energetic Bill Linder was general conference chairman and Rita Worthy the local arrangements chairman and it was attended by 630 people, then the largest genealogical gathering in the United States outside Salt Lake City, there also being a quite remarkable array of bookstalls. At a 'Britain in Atlanta' luncheon on 7 May I was presented with a scroll recording the names of the participants in Bill Linder's Genealogy Tours and of others who had contributed over $3,000 to a fund in memory of Lord Mountbatten, the proceeds from which were used to purchase a word processor. On the penultimate evening Mrs Block took me to see the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Samson et Dalila at the Civic Centre and on the last day there was a fascinating tour to Antebellum Madison.
Elizabeth Simpson then went to Cincinnati to speak to a meeting of the Warren County Genealogical Society, Chris Watts returned home and I flew via Denver to Salt Lake City as the guest of the Genealogical Society of Utah, staying at the magnificent old Hotel Utah (now the Joseph Smith Memorial Building) and touring with my kind host, Thomas Boam, the Granite Mountain Record Vault in Little Cottonwood Canyon, the library at Brigham Young University and the Genealogical Society headquarters and library.
Returning to New York I took a train out from Grand Central Station to Westport where I was met by the enthusiast Don Bergquist (died 1997) [3140] and driven to Windsor, Connecticut (via Hartford and Wethersfield to see the dogwood), as the guest of the Connecticut Society of Genealogists, speaking on emigration at their Annual Meeting to some 250 members [3141]. Back in New York there was another marvellous dinner with James (‘Jim’) Edward Bolles (1926-2014) of Norwalk, founder of the Bolles Family Association, in a thunderstorm at the top of the World Trade Centre and a final evening to see Linda Ronstadt in The Pirates of Penzance on Broadway.
The hospitality given by so many had been outstanding. We had tried to explain in the lectures how best the Society’s facilities and other sources in England could be used in correspondence and in person. A set of slides showing aspects of the Society’s collection against the background of its building were particularly helpful and examples of the Society’s publications were displayed at most of the places visited. Many valuable contacts were made and at the end of 1981 preparations were put in hand for another tour the following year, centred round the NGS’s Second State Conference at Indianapolis, 13-15 May 1982. I did not know it then, but regular attendance at these annual conferences would become a major and most pleasant feature of my life until the Society's Annual Family History Fairs, which unfortunately usually fell in the same week as the State Conferences, had to take precedence.
Four representatives of the Society went to Indianapolis in May 1982: Elizabeth Simpson, Patric Dickinson from the College of Arms, Stella Colwell and myself, flying to Denver, Colorado, via Chicago. We began with a two-day seminar at Denver as the guests of the Columbine Genealogical Society and as our Annual Report says 'particularly appreciated the warm hospitality of this small but energetic Society which showed them so much of their State in the time available'. This very active group included Ann Lisa Pearson, Betty Kaufman and Doris Farmer Hulse (1934-2012), the latter also taking us on a trip via Central City to Ten Mile Island where we stayed overnight and then to the ski resort at Vail. The second Conference in the States, organised by NGS and the Indiana Genealogical Society, took place at Indianapolis (12-15 May) and attracted about 850 people, the capable Willard Heiss being local arrangements chairman. Here we were delighted to be joined on the lecture platform by the former Essex county archivist Derek Emmison and the benefactor and genealogist John Brooks Threlfall, and I, on behalf of the SoG, was presented with a cheque arising from the generous contribution of Bill Linder’s group.
The energetic Joy Wade Moulton (1928-2016) then drove us from Indianapolis to Columbus, Ohio, where Ohio State University were our hosts and she had organised a half-day seminar at which we all spoke. We then flew to New York and provided a day seminar for 130 members of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. In New York we were entertained by the greatly respected Rabbi Malcolm Stern (1915-1994) of New York and his wife Louise. Rabbi Stern was the author of Americans of Jewish Descent (1960) and the highly effective Program Chairman of the 1981 and 1982 congresses in Atlanta and Indianapolis and he had given every assistance to Colonel Marker in all his arrangements for our tour.
However, it had proved almost impossible to organise a tour funded mainly from lecture fees which also covered the cost of mid-week accommodation when talks were not required. A heavy suitcase of representative copies of all the Society's publications had been taken around and displayed at the various meetings on the first trips, orders being taken for later despatch, but the manning of a bookstall at these events was an added complication which caused considerable work.
The overwhelming enthusiasm and interest shown by our hosts during these very busy conferences had also the effect of driving me to seek refuge in hotel accommodation so that I could occasionally enjoy a little peace and get ready for the next lecture. As Elizabeth Simpson used to say, it is difficult to remain polite when a pedigree is opened up across your meal or a persistent genealogist pursues you even into the smallest room in the house! As a result, however, my subsequent trips became more expensive and I was obliged personally to bear much of the cost, it being necessary to disillusion those (and there were always some) who thought that I was gadding about the world at the Society's expense. It had also become increasingly embarrassing to accept hospitality overseas when it was not the Society's policy to give hospitality to visiting genealogists in London.
From New York I flew to the tiny airport at Lexington, Kentucky and at the invitation of Charles and Elizabeth Rawls spoke to a very pleasant late evening meeting of the Owsley Family Historical Society which had been formed in 1979 by descendants of the Rev John Owsley, Rector of Glooston in Leicestershire [3142]. The following year (1983), however, with so many other things happening at the Society, I was the only British representative and guest at the third of the conferences organised by the National Genealogical Society, this time with the Genealogical Society of Fort Worth, at Fort Worth, Texas (13-16 April), with Sharron Ashton as Program Chairman, when generous hospitality was again provided and I spent time helping on the ISBGFH booth [3143]. The congress drew 1,145 registrants and the archivist of the United States was the banquet speaker. The NGS President was now Varney Nell and although only able to stay a few days, I renewed many friendships and saw much of Fort Worth, even taking in a rodeo with Jane English and her friends, and touring the Kimbell Art Museum then showing the splendid Faberge collection.
Heather Hawker asked about the progress of the National Index at the AGM in 1977 when Alexander Sandison said that under the prevailing conditions it would be best to publish the county sections as they became available [3144] and that became the Society's future policy. She brought up the question again at the AGM in 1979 when Patrick Palgrave-Moore said that Northumberland and Durham were about to be printed, the completed texts for Kent, Surrey and Sussex were being typed and he hoped to finalise the text of the East Anglian volume that year. She expressed the hope that deeds would follow words; it was thirteen years since the first volume had appeared and five since the last and she believed that the Publications Committee were sitting on their 'clutch of eggs', as she put it, with more patience than competence [3145]. Fortunately, as mentioned above, with my direct involvement the volume for Durham and Northumberland appeared at the end of 1979 and was able to be advertised (at £4.20) in the December issue of the Magazine [3146].
The continual movement of original registers caused major difficulties but in November 1980 Palgrave-Moore was able to produce another regional volume of the National Index covering Kent, Surrey and Sussex (vol. 4) [3147] the texts of the three counties, however, being of variable quality. A thousand copies were printed. The following year considerable funds were invested in reprinting the first two introductory volumes and that for Scotland but no further progress was made [3148].
The decision to publish the National Index in single counties when they were ready, as I had long argued, and not to wait for a whole region, resulted in the publication in April 1983 of Dr Peter D. Bloore's survey of Staffordshire (published as volume 6, part 1), compiled with the active co-operation of the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry [3149], 750 copies being printed. Following further deposits of registers Dr Bloore compiled a revised edition in 1990, which, under the general editorship of Clifford Webb (and with camera-ready copy provided by Neville Taylor), was published in 1992.
The editor, Patrick Palgrave-Moore, next produced in August 1984 what proved to be the last complete regional volume of the National Index covering Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk (vol. 8) but having seen nine counties published he retired in May 1985 and Clifford R. Webb was appointed Editor in his stead, he making fresh approaches for assistance to the local Family History Societies in the counties which remained to be covered [3150]. He also issued some detailed Notes for County Editors (August 1985) and subsequently took advantage of the Society’s change of policy to produce a ‘corrected, augmented and updated’ version of the 1980 volume, but only for his home county of Surrey, in 1990 [3151]. In view of the great improvements that were taking place in computer generated printing I then caused a furore in the Publications Committee by describing as ‘shoddy’ the physical production of the volume for which, I hasten to add, Clifford Webb had not been responsible.
Meanwhile, in April 1986 the Society was able to adopt as its thirteenth volume in the National Index series the splendid Parish Registers of Wales (£6.95), published by the National Library of Wales in association with the Welsh County Archivists Group and the Society of Genealogists and edited by C. J. Williams and J. Watts-Williams [3152]. The third volume of the National Index was reprinted that December [3153] and work on a second separate county, Nottinghamshire, was well advanced.
Towards the end of 1981 we had the idea of publishing a series of booklets on religions and subjects to be entitled My ancestor was a ...: how can I find out more about him? There was much silly discussion as to whether the title should be in the singular or plural, the decision being taken and later, of course, abandoned that it should always be in the singular.
The Revd William Leary, the Methodist Connexional Archivist, had written various booklets about Methodists and, with his active cooperation, I combined material from two of these and added lists of the Methodist registers to be found at the Public Record Office and in our Library (the lists, in fact, forming the major part of the work) and this was published as My ancestor was a Methodist in February 1982 [3154]. The compilation of the additional lists in this and other books in the 'religions' series took considerable time and often revealed errors in the Library catalogue. The lists of nonconformist registers in the Public Record Office were initially extracted from the catalogue printed in 1859 and, following the re-cataloguing of the collection in the late 1980s, from the new class lists. The Methodist volume proved extremely popular and was reprinted in March 1983, selling a thousand copies in two years.
Preparations for other volumes in this series continued throughout 1982 and Isobel Mordy's My ancestor was Jewish was published in January 1983, followed in September by Edward Milligan's My ancestors were Quakers.
The office assistant Edith Pritchard had the most dreadful handwriting but her left-hand was never happier than when, pencil poised, she was editing some text for publication, correcting the spelling and amending the punctuation. Mercifully she was also a fairly good typist, was content to transport things in her car, generally happy to work long hours for little pay and quietly to beaver away for the common good.
With the general growth of the number of Society publications there was much to do. Simply keeping the regularly printed list of them up-to-date was itself becoming a major task but seeing the need for regularly updated editions of all the Society publications, Edith Pritchard carried out the majority of the work on the revisions of two editions (the 7th and 8th) of the List of Parishes in Boyd's Marriage Index, four editions (the 4th to 7th) of the Catalogue of Parish Registers and two editions (the 1st and 2nd) of the Catalogue of Census Returns watching the stock levels to see when the revisions would be needed and then with my help organising the printing, setting the print runs and fixing the prices and discounts.
Being interested in the application of computers to genealogy she frequently attended and helped to organise the meetings of computer enthusiasts and naturally, from September 1982, she organised subscriptions to the new periodical Computers in Genealogy. For the Magazine she organised the readers' queries and advertisements as well as the exchange and non-member subscriptions and for those who attended courses and conferences she took payments and did the necessary correspondence. She continued to maintain the valuable card index to the articles in the 'Digest' section of Family History News and Digest commenced by Meg Reeves. Above all, however, as mentioned above she was remembered for her friendly face and attendance with a bookstall at the twice-yearly weekend Federation conferences and at other venues, checking the stock in and out and driving long distances with her laden car. She was elected a Fellow in June 1985 but sadly died quite unexpectedly after a very short illness in February the following year.
For the first time in many years there was a considerable fall in the number of members elected in 1982 (768 as against 1,234 in 1981) but this was due partly to the increase in subscriptions that year and partly to the world economic situation, the lack of foreign visitors and to travelling difficulties in the British Isles following industrial action on the railways. There was even a public transport strike on the day of the Annual Meeting (24 June 1982) chaired by Prince Michael of Kent and only about eighty came. Along with the great American genealogist John Insley Coddington (died 1991, aged 88) of Bordentown, New Jersey, I was on that day elected the first Honorary Fellow of the Society ‘for very distinguished services to genealogy’, a possibility introduced by the Articles of Association agreed in 1979. I found out afterwards that sixty-five Fellows had signed my proposal form, organised by Alan Reed, a quite unprecedented number. The Society had very few overseas Fellows and the election of John Coddington, Meredith Colket, Bill Linder and Neil Thompson that year and of William Filby in 1983, mostly unknown to English members, was in my view a major step forward though several others that were proposed were rejected.
The numbers of non-members using the library, 3,473, again showed a decrease on previous years (from 3,736 in 1981 and 4,067 in 1980) and the smaller number of overseas visitors was particularly noticeable, but following the recent changes in the library layout a new version of the Library Guide was published in June.
Some 233 transcripts of registers were received in 1982 and the possibility of purchasing microfilms of parish registers from county record offices came under active consideration. An even larger number of transcripts of graveyards (259) was also received, many from the local family history societies. By December 1982 Lydia Collins had commenced typing draft county lists of those in the Library ready for publication [3155]. My letter to the local societies about the possible compilation of a ‘National Index’ of copies was, however, largely ignored, there being only lukewarm support from the Federation because I was resolutely opposed to the involvement of the Institute at Canterbury in the work or its future publication.
Using the microfilm camera which had been placed on loan with us in October 1981, a major programme to microfilm the unique and most valuable collections in the Library was commenced. Donald Norman gave considerable assistance with this in the summer and in October a full time assistant was appointed to continue the work. This programme was long over-due and just prior to our move in 1984 I was horrified to find that someone had stripped out large numbers of the mounted book-plates from our collection (then housed in the basement Family History Room and thankfully only recently filmed) and that eleven volumes of a finely bound History of Norfolk had somehow also been taken from the library [3156].
Additional shelving was bought for the Directories in Room Farrer and for the Public Records in the Basement Corridor and a former wine bin in the basement was cleared and shelved for the Foreign Periodicals. Most of the Library chairs were replaced in the course of the year, a new photocopying machine was acquired in February allowing A3 copies to be made for the same charge as the previous smaller ones and a paper trimmer was provided. In May the 1981 edition of the International Genealogical Index, consisting of 5,460 microfiche, was acquired and a third microfiche reader was purchased and installed in the Periodicals Room. There had been stock-taking in rooms Raglan and Mersey in the closed weeks in February and October. The generally improved financial position had allowed the Society to bring up to date the boxing and binding of many periodicals and local family history magazines, the sets being completed where possible. A legacy of £300 from Miss Vera Margaret Lamb (died 1980) was used to rebind the collection of original apprenticeship indentures (they were microfilmed in 1983) and a valuable collection of American books was given by a former member, Mrs Marie Agnieray [3157].
The series of weekend residential courses was continued in 1982 when Betty St George Brown organised ‘Genealogy on the Welsh Border’ at the Royal National College for the Blind at Hereford, 30 July-1 August. It was highly successful, with 130 attending (full board £35 or £10 a day). There were speakers on the archives at the National Library of Wales, at Worcester and at Hereford, as well as in London, and Frederick Burgess’s widow Pamela spoke on ‘Churchyard research’. On Saturday afternoon there were tours to the book-shop town of Hay-on-Wye and to Hereford Cathedral and there was an interesting exhibition of material selected from the Society’s manuscript collections by Betty Brown and the Librarian. This year, instead of Missenden Abbey, I took an equally enjoyable, if tiring, weekend course at Wansfell College, Theydon Bois (4-6 June) [3158].
Also provided that year were another 24-week Extra-Mural Studies course, ‘Genealogy: Family and Community, Part Two’, based on a family reconstitution project of the parish of Grasmere (£20), a two-Saturday intensive palaeography course, a seven-week evening Beginners Course (£8), a three-week course on the Library (£4), and the usual winter series of lectures. The latter included my ‘Further sources for the genealogist: farm labourers’ (13 October) here given at the Society for the first time. I attended the Federation’s Annual Meeting at Lincoln (2-4 April) and represented the Society at the opening by Lord Mountbatten’s daughter, Pamela, of the new lecture hall and record room of the Institute at Canterbury (16 April). I also spoke at the Annual Dinner of the Birmingham and Midland Society (18 June) at the Norfolk Hotel, Birmingham, afterwards using the same text to the Cambridge University Heraldic and Genealogical Society (24 February 1983) and printing it as Roses in December: some thoughts on tangled roots and recording our memories (1983).
A further volume in the series cataloguing the Library, Marriage Licences: abstracts and indexes in the library of the Society of Genealogists, carefully compiled by Lydia Collins, was published in January 1982, and at the end of September as an aid to finding burials in the London area we published Greater London Cemeteries and Crematoria by Patricia S. Wolfston. The latter proved very popular and has since gone through several editions, being revised since 1994 by Clifford Webb. I devised a new version of the Society’s Birth Brief on A3 paper (to replace the old one on a non-standard size) and this was published in the autumn and followed by a larger but similar Ancestry Chart for recording eight generations of ancestors. Both sold in large numbers, the Chart needing to be reprinted in October 1984, having sold 1,200 copies [3159]. Also in the course of 1982 we added three further Leaflets to our growing series, No 10 ‘Irregular Border Marriages’, No 11 ‘Genealogical Research in New Zealand’ and No 12 ‘Army Musters and Description Books’, all stemming directly from recent articles in the Magazine. Two earlier publications that had proved popular, Monuments and their inscriptions and Examples of Handwriting, were reprinted [3160].
The possible use of computers in the administration of the Society and in genealogy generally was recognised in July 1979 when the Executive Committee appointed an ad hoc Computer Committee with Alexander Sandison as Chairman. Its first interest was in the possible application of computers to the Society’s membership records, there being then just under 5,000 members in several categories, but the cost of a suitable program was a considerable deterrent [3161]. When, the following year, specifications were compiled and estimates obtained, it became clear that until technology advanced there were not sufficient advantages to dispense with the manual system [3162]. The possible introduction of a costly new electric Addressograph machine had also been deferred but a grant of £250 from the High Chart Charitable Trust was earmarked for an electric typewriter to assist with publications [3163].
The March 1980 issue of the Magazine contained an unusually forthright letter on ‘Improving the Society’s income’ from a member, Michael Synge, of Washington, USA, who said that he was disappointed in the Society’s complaisance with its perpetual state of strained gentility, the squalid conditions at Harrington Gardens and the alarming rate of decay in its collections. He urged a more aggressive and businesslike approach to strengthen the finances, suggesting that subscriptions be increased, old library items be reprinted or microfiched, more research be undertaken and donations and legacies actively sought, though he did not realise that tax-free donations, frequent in the USA, were not possible in the UK [3164]. Some eighteen letters of comment were received and circulated to the Society’s officers and to the Executive Committee and in June a member at Hay-on-Wye, Geoffrey Fairs, wrote that advance preparation was the keynote to successful use of the building [3165]. Stella Colwell, then the committee’s chairman, also replied with ‘Improving the Society’, and wrote of the search for new premises, the theft of books from the library, the cost of re-binding books and the possibility of further publications and a larger research department [3166].
These letters appeared in the same issue as an article by Alexander Sandison which aroused considerable interest and asked for information from the members on the possibilities and dangers of the use of computers in several areas – membership software packages which might be linked to the members interests, their use in the library and in the possible word processing of standard letters and publications [3167]. His article was followed by a letter from I. R. Harrison saying that computer storage would take over ‘in a few years’ and making a plea for recommended standards [3168]. The September 1980 issue contained a frank description of the work of the Library Committee by its Chairman, Morris Bierbrier, and Vice-Chairman, Major Collins [3169], and a letter from I. R. Harrison, who claimed to be ‘actively sponsoring work on computerising techniques at the PRO’, in which he advocated his abstraction of various documents, using a ‘Gendex Code’ of 80 characters, but which allowed for only the initial letter of second forenames [3170].
These articles produced a flood of correspondence which Leeson summarised in the December issue. Major H. F. Riach as ‘The Man in the Street’ urged caution until the Society could get ‘input and output in forms acceptable to the average genealogist’. Alexander Sandison also advocated a gradual approach, using the computer to prepare traditional eye-legible indexes, and the widely experienced Mrs Evelyn M. Kenward, a senior lecturer in Mathematics and Statistics at a large college, who was also involved with West Surrey Family History Society, described the practicalities of members of that Society in computerising part of the 1861 census. Colin Chapman, writing on behalf of the Federation, said that he read with horror of the multifarious avenues that enthusiastic genealogists and computer addicts were determinedly driving along, saying that he would be far happier if these avenues were to be only explored at this stage and not regarded as one-way streets [3171].
Early in 1981 it was decided to re-introduce membership cards, but they were not sent by post (the long trays of pre-addressed cards being kept at reception) and were only issued to those who came to the Society if they had paid. They were then to be shown to the receptionist on entry at future visits [3172]. Although a nasty little task to print they proved very effective at catching non- and reluctant payers.
In March 1981 Leeson put together a second summary of the views expressed in other correspondence, some of which, he said, ‘was not couched in terms suitable for publication’ [3173]. Sandison said that his ad hoc Committee and the Executive had agreed that computerisation of the office procedures (such as linking members’ interests to the mailing list) was not likely to be cost effective and it had now turned its attention to transcription and indexing, though the costs of using a ‘main-frame’ computer were presently unknown. The practicalities of indexing the GRO records, if one had access to them, was discussed at some length by Dennis K. Powell, of the Welding Institute [3174]. Leeson could not resist a dig at Harrison, asking him why he disdained to use post-codes on his letters when they were the key to automation and speed in mail delivery. Harrison moved to Norwich in 1981 and then described himself as ‘a full time professional genealogist’, in 1984 advertising as ‘The Professional Genealogist’ and saying that he conducted research throughout England [3175].
However, in 1982 which was called 'Information Technology Year' the Society, supported by the Federation, took several major initiatives. On 19 June, Peter Swann organised a day seminar at Baden Powell House on the theme 'The genealogist and the computer' which was attended by eighty people with Dr Chris F. Reynolds of Brunel University and Conway Berners-Lee (the father of Sir Tim Berners-Lee the inventor of the World Wide Web) as the main speakers. The Executive Committee then agreed to provide facilities for 'Interest Groups' for beginners on different types of computer, to encourage the formation of a committee that might advise on the relation between archives and computers, and to publish a quarterly newsletter, Computers in Genealogy, for which there would be a separate subscription (initially £4 p.a. to members and £5 to non-members). The first number of the newsletter, edited and prepared for the printer by David Hawgood, appeared in September 1982 and contained a report on the seminar.
The newsletter Computers in Genealogy was an immediate success, its circulation rising rapidly to 800 in December and to nearly a thousand in the course of 1983, about 200 of the subscribers living overseas. Over fifty enthusiastic people attended the inaugural meeting of the interest groups at the Society on 18 October 1982 and groups of users of Sinclairs, of BBC micros, and of those still deciding what to buy, met on Monday evenings throughout November. A questionnaire was circulated with the December newsletter asking what equipment its readers owned and what they wanted from the Society [3176]. These groups held fourteen meetings in the course of 1983 and on 7 May the little group that co-ordinated them, led by the dependable Donald James Francis (1921-1997), organised a half-day conference at Queen Elizabeth College, with talks on census indexing, parish register transcription and choosing software. Don Francis had first come into contact with computers in 1963 as part of a Civil Service team investigating the possibility of payment of National Insurance benefits by computer. He later headed the DHSS project that put Unemployment Benefit on computer and managed the Department’s Reading Computer Centre until 1974. Having retired in 1981, he bought his first home computer, a Sinclair ZX81, in 1982.
There were, in fact, three groups of computer enthusiasts at this time: the ad hoc Committee formally appointed by the Executive Committee to advise on a computer for the Society; an Advisory Committee on Computers and Records which was supposed to report to the Registers and Records Committee on the use of computers and Public Records; and a Steering Committee that organised meetings of specialist user groups and was beginning to think about a separate membership and a constitution for itself outside the Society.
Alexander Sandison had started to devise Standing Orders for the separate interest groups when in May 1983 I circulated a note suggesting that all three be amalgamated into a formal Computer Committee (drawn from the Members only, but with powers to co-opt) appointed annually by the Executive which would organise all the meetings and advise the editor of the computer newsletter [3177]. The Society would absorb the costs of the small meetings at the Society for which no fees were charged and these would be open to non-members as well as members, like the Society’s winter series of lectures, but all would pay for any larger conference. That did the trick and in June the Executive Committee, as suggested, appointed a formal Computer Committee with standing similar to that of the six other committees of the Society, the Federation being invited to appoint a representative [3178].
The May meeting had been such a success that Donald Francis was then asked to organise a day-conference at the same College on 29 October (£7 including lunch) when about 120 attended. I made some opening remarks about not re-inventing the wheel and then Nicholas Cox spoke on the impact of computers at the Public Record Office and John Welford on standards. The practical demonstrations in the afternoon proved particularly popular. The possible formulation of a standard format for exchanging machine-readable data received much discussion, Sandison having just written a paper suggesting relationship codes for the April issue of Personal Computer World [3179].
By the end of the 1983 it had become clear that the immediate uses of computers at the Society would be in connection with the membership system and the mailing of the two journals as well as with word processing for the smaller publications. John Addis-Smith then drew up a specification for a word processing and mailing list system which allowed for growth and this was approved by the Executive Committee in December, it being recognised that this could not be put in place until after the projected move to new premises [3180]. A memorandum drawn up about this time on the office and banking procedures to be observed in connection with the election of new members, their changes of address, deaths and resignations, and so forth, and the many pitfalls involved, covered six closely typed pages.
There was considerable concern in 1983 about the proposed Data Protection Bill. It had become clear at an early stage of discussions that any genealogist who collected information about living persons on a computer would need to register and pay the fees involved, as would any incorporated society storing details of its members and their subscriptions. These matters were raised on the Society's behalf in the House of Lords during the Bill's Committee Stage on 22 February and were further explored by the Record Users Group and by several Society members through their Members of Parliament. The Sixth Principle enshrined in the Bill caused particular concern as it stated that 'Personal data held for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or other purposes'. Data held for historical purposes could be held indefinitely but the positive step of re-registration for that purpose would need to be taken at the end of the data's useful life. It was feared that if this were not done it would then be an offence not to destroy the records [3181].
Although a small deficit had been anticipated in 1983 the pessimistic forecast was not borne out by events in spite of the large sums spent on the building the previous year. At the end of the year the membership stood at 6,494, some 900 new members having been elected. The number of non-members using the Library rose to 4,103, the overseas visitors having returned in strength and an average of 120 members came to each of the four days for new members.
Colonel Hugh Manus O’Donnell (1901-1983) bequeathed the Society £3,500, the largest bequest yet received and, as mentioned elsewhere, the £4,000 loan which the Society had long had from the Pilgrim Trust in connection with the National Index was repaid. A surprising £10,058 was spent on rebinding 1,429 books and transcripts and the extensive programme to microfilm the rarer material, including Boyd’s Marriage Index, his ‘Citizens of London’ and many of the larger family and topographical collections, was completed in October, a camera operator having worked for some months hermit-like in one of the cellars under the forecourt [3182]. With the assistance of the appropriate county archivists, a large number of microfilms of Gloucestershire parish registers were purchased and arrangements made to receive microfilms from Essex and Herefordshire. Ronald Matthews gave an additional bookcase for Room Mountbatten and in September the old metal shelving in the Family History Room was replaced with new wooden shelving. A new microfiche and microfilm reader-printer was purchased in July and three microfiche readers for eventual use in the new building were acquired through the good offices of Alan Reed in March.
The recently appointed Keeper of the Public Records, Dr Geoffrey H. Martin (1928-2007), a distinguished and interested historian, toured the Library prior to the Annual Meeting of AGRA on 17 June and our own AGM was again chaired by Prince Michael of Kent at the Royal Over-Seas League on 30 June.
A new edition of the Catalogue of Parish Registers in the Library of the Society, prepared by Edith Pritchard, was published in April, followed by a revision of the Catalogue of Marriage Licences by Lydia Collins in October. Isobel Mordy’s My ancestor was Jewish appeared in January (its authorship, after a disagreement, being credited to the series editor, Michael Gandy) and Edward Milligan’s My ancestors were Quakers in September. William Leary’s My ancestor was a Methodist proved popular and had to be reprinted in March. A Library ‘Floor Guide’ was added to the series of Leaflets as No 13. Altogether some £25,391 was received from the sale of books this year. In November it was agreed that discounts on Society publications sold to member societies of the Federation of Family History Societies for resale to their members, a matter about which there had been much lobbying, should be increased to 25% regardless of the quantity or total value of the order, though some felt that to retain the same income an increase in prices was bound to result.
There were fewer advertisements by record agents in the Magazine following the new regulations and an increase in the advertising rates, but the opportunity was taken to give greater prominence to advertisements of the Society’s own publications and this resulted in increased sales. Articles by Lance J. Jacob of Salt Lake City on the International Genealogical Index proved of particular interest [3183].
It fell to Patricia Kirkland and Peter Park to organise the Society’s fifth Day Conference, this time on the theme ‘… on the eighth day the clerks created the records’, which was held at Bedford College, Regent’s Park, on 8 October 1983 (£7, plus £3.50 for lunch). Dr Geoffrey Martin, the Keeper of Public Records, gave the opening address to about 230 participants, welcomed by Christopher Watts, Chairman of the Executive Committee. He was followed by a choice of sixteen speakers including K. J. Stalker from the General Register Office and there were bookstalls provided by Phillimore & Co and the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies.
Stella Colwell continued with her work on Grasmere family reconstitution at another Extra-Mural sessional course of twenty-four lectures, ‘Genealogy and the community: Part Three’, commencing in September. For the first time this year we amalgamated the Beginners’ Course and the Lectures on the Library and provided a course of nine lectures running from September to November. Jane Cox and Alan Reed were, as had become usual, the other speakers in addition to the Librarian and myself, the final talk taking place at the Public Record Office.
I took another weekend course at Missenden Abbey (11-13 February) which sadly proved to be the last before its closure and development in 1984-5. Colonel Marker organised on behalf of the Society a series of lectures to the American Wives Club at Northwood in February-March at which I was one of the speakers. As mentioned elsewhere I was the only British representative at the Third Congress in the States at Fort Worth, Texas, in April. The list of lectures given and meetings attended, detailed in the Annual Report, was very long again this year [3184].
The efficient Parish Registers Secretary, Mrs Patricia Riach, retired at the end of November 1983 and was a great loss to the Society. For eleven years she had formed a close relationship with the volunteers she organised and in her final year was corresponding with about fifty transcribers and indexers. The value of their joint work is shown in the 450 part register transcripts and indexes accessed that year [3185]. Mrs Mavis J. Sharp, a Member who was one of the volunteers, took over the work but unfortunately had to give up the position in December 1984 owing to the ill-health of her husband [3186], when Miss K. Monnica Stevens, a member who had been helping me with correspondence, was appointed in her stead. She threw herself most enthusiastically into the work, again forming a close bond with her many transcribers and indexers.
Although desperately busy in the closing days at Harrington Gardens I again visited the United States to speak at the Fourth Annual Conference of the National Genealogical Society in San Francisco, 23-26 May 1984, hosted by the Napa Valley Genealogical and Biographical Society with its headquarters at the historic Sheraton-Palace Hotel and with Kip Sperry as National Conference Chairman. This highly successful and pleasant conference was attended by more than 850 genealogists and was the first to have a ‘Computers in Genealogy’ seminar. At the banquet, held in the magnificent historic Garden Court of the hotel, I was delighted to meet the entertaining speaker, Louis L’Amour (1908-1988) - a member of the London Topographical Society and a prolific writer of Westerns - who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom that year. I gave a two-part talk on ‘English Research’ and provided a detailed eight-page hand-out of sources, repositories and books, which was eagerly seized upon by the large numbers present. At the banquet I was honoured with the NGS’s Award of Merit for distinguished contributions in the field of American genealogy, presented by President Varney Nell. Although I escaped with several friends one day to visit wineries in the Napa Valley (including the renowned Falcon Crest) and went another day to see the redwoods in Muir Woods, I was not able to go on the trip organised to Alcatraz in the bay but was pleased to meet the elderly Colonel and Mrs William R. Stewart, keen genealogists (she saying, ‘You may kiss my hand!’), who had just visited the island where he had been the prison’s last Commanding Officer before its closure in 1963. Although the Conference was immensely enjoyable a photograph taken at the banquet by the expert Jacqui McDaniel shows a rather exhausted me. The long daily programme began at the very un-English hour of 8 a.m. and was taking its toll. However, the crowded exhibit areas at this and future NGS conferences persuaded me that something along the same lines could and should be organised in England, though it took a while to persuade others of its potential benefits.
I flew then to San Diego and after a hectic day with Nancy and Frank Knight, driving down to Tijuana in Mexico, visiting beautiful San Diego Zoo and taking in the Old Town, Point Loma and Balboa Park, the next day (2 June) I gave a four-session seminar to about 70 enthusiastic people at the San Diego Genealogical Society. Afterwards I was very glad to have a few days completely free and to be taken by Bette Anderson to be most pleasantly looked after by Thelma Phelps Ward (the widow of Captain Frank Trenwith Ward, Jr.) in her little orange grove on the island near the famous Hotel Del Coronado.
My next engagement was at Chicago where I was joined by Christopher Watts for an all-day workshop which we gave at the Public Library Cultural Centre (9 June). This meeting, organised jointly by the Chicago Public Library and the Chicago Genealogical Society, and with the wonderfully enthusiastic June Barekman in the chair, was organised by the Librarian, Ralph Schneider, and sponsored by the Chicago Council on Fine Arts, taking place in the truly magnificent Preston Bradley Hall, about 220 attending. I flew home and Dr Watts then visited Salt Lake City and was warmly received by the Genealogical Society of Utah which had presented the Society with a microfiche copy of its new Family Registry, containing about 30,000 names, and with details of the personal computer software which they had been developing [3187].
Before the tour I had taken the opportunity to write to all our members in North America about the proposed move of the Society and its new facilities (and, of course, appealing for funds) and expressing the hope that I might again meet some of them at the conferences on the tour [3188]. I arrived home on 12 July and went later that day to a meeting to see the progress at Charterhouse Buildings, finding it (as I wrote in my diary) ‘partially painted and looking much better’.
The growing number of indexes and copies of census returns coming into the Library was reflected in 1983 by the creation (from the 'Lists' section) of a separate division of the Library catalogue and of the accession lists published in the Magazine. About 183 copies and indexes were received that year and I was keen to publish a leaflet listing those held (whatever their format) which might take its place with the other published catalogues of sections of the Library. This appeared as Leaflet No. 14 in 1984 and quickly went into a second edition [3189].
Later, when the number of indexes and transcripts had grown considerably the Library Assistant, Jane Kenyon, compiled a full list by county which I typed and this was published as a separate booklet in 1987 [3190], with a second edition, in which I was assisted by Suzanne Spurgeon, in 1990. The publication of hand-lists of this kind, with the related checking of the Library Catalogue and of the material on the shelves, as Lydia Collins had found with the monumental inscriptions and marriage licences, did much to correct the library catalogue and to publicise the Society's growing collections, at the same time as high-lighting the gaps and encouraging the deposit of further material.
Meanwhile, as described above, the freehold of 37 Harrington Gardens had been purchased in 1968. The investment proved a most valuable one but the building was already too small to house the expanding library and as early as the Annual Meeting in 1973, Alexander Sandison urged that larger premises be actively sought [3191]. The rooms and high shelves were crowded, the latter a deterrent to elderly members, and their general upkeep, tidiness and security were growing problems. With increased footfall the polished floors of the old house were hardly recognisable. The matter was discussed at a House Committee on 31 July 1973 when it was agreed that an absolute minimum of 6,000 square feet was needed and might be found in a redundant school or church or in industrial premises, but it was not until 1978 that an ad hoc Premises Committee was appointed and an organised search was commenced for somewhere that would provide proper offices for the staff and a separate lecture hall as well as a members' room.
Major Robert (‘Bobby’) Collins took the lead on the Society's behalf and spent much time investigating the numerous possibilities and I conducted the correspondence with agents, local authorities and the many members who made suggestions about possible buildings, many of which, like one that we should take Battersea Power Station [3192], were unbelievably unrealistic. It was then thought that a former warehouse, where the floors had already been strengthened to carry the heavy load of the library, or a redundant school building or even a church might be suitable, about 7-10,000 square feet being desirable, not necessarily in central London but with a good public transport service close by. No modern office building would have the necessary load bearing structure [3193].
A possible building was mentioned at the Annual Meeting in 1978 and was being further investigated [3194], but like several others proved impossible for one reason or another. In view of the location of the new National Archives in the Thames' flood plain at Kew some members expressed concern that any building should be above the reach of flooding [3195]. The search continued through 1979 [3196] but when in October 1980 the lease of the second floor front flat at Harrington Gardens came to an end, the opportunity was taken to apply to the Borough for permission to use it as part of the Society's headquarters. This was granted for two years as from 31 December and gave a much-needed breathing space for the library.
I devised a plan that would relieve the great pressure on the county shelves by moving all the lesser-used periodicals to the flat's larger room and lobby which we fitted out with new shelving. The new Finance Officer and the Publications Assistant were placed in the flat’s other main room [3197]. At the same time the lesser used 'places' part of the Document Collection, together with the Macleod Collection and some other special collections, were moved to this room and to the flat's former kitchen, the IGI with its readers and reader-printer taking their place in the Tweeddale Annexe on the first floor landing. The Library Catalogue which had outgrown the fireplace in Room Farrer was made more easily accessible in Room Mountbatten and in November completely re-housed in four new cabinets. For the first time the Librarian was given space in the general office on the first floor and his unsightly overflowing desk at last removed from the library, allowing further reading space there [3198].
The opportunity was also taken to decorate part of the flat and to do other over-due work throughout the building, the bathroom in the maisonette being reconstructed, the back-stairs and the basement painted, the doors fitted with self-closing devices to meet new fire regulations and the main electricity cable enlarged to take account of the additional film and fiche readers [3199]. This programme of repair continued into 1982 with the redecoration of Room Raglan and was the first internal work of this nature to be carried out for some years. Some re-pointing of the brickwork and repairs to windows also took place. Concern about the possible overloading of the building returned in the autumn, but a survey commissioned from Messrs Lander Burfield, Chartered Surveyors, in October did not consider the floors overloaded. It was fortunate too that the Society's application to continue its use of the second floor front flat was approved by the Borough in December 1982, if only for a further year [3200].
In late 1982 a schedule of the works envisaged in the survey was drawn up and quotations obtained and it was agreed that the more urgent of these should be put in hand by Messrs Mansell Ltd in April-July 1983. The front and back of the high building and a chimney stack were re-pointed, broken tiles and rain-water pipes and gutters were replaced, a decayed girder in the front riser wall was replaced, and fractures to the stone rear bay windows were repaired. Whilst scaffolding was in place the whole of the front elevation of the building was also cleaned for the first time, this work being assisted by a grant from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea [3201].
Meanwhile the small ad hoc committee had continued to meet and to look at possible schools and churches and in September 1981, in conjunction with the Society of Analytical Psychologists, we made an offer for Marylebone Grammar School's modern science block, but without success. Another much older and rather dreary school in nearby Rossmore Road, Marylebone, was investigated in some detail and a more promising one in Exton Street near Waterloo Station proved too large a commitment for the Society by itself. The possibility of sharing freehold premises, and thus some facilities, with other societies, was at this time actively investigated. In September the decision was taken to test the market and we put 37 Harrington Gardens up for sale (at £450,000) and appointed Chestertons sole agents, various offers then being received [3202].
In 1982 there were discussions with other societies and planners about the Society's possible use of part of Kensington Town Hall. An account by the Treasurer, Arnold Hawker, of the continuing search was published in the Magazine in June and set out the various choices to be made [3203] and approaches were made to several of the larger charitable trusts for possible assistance with the purchase of a building, again without success. The President, Prince Michael of Kent, who had studied the account referred to, ably summarised it at the Society’s Annual Meeting in June and said that ‘the reality of the situation is very clear to me. If we remain in Harrington Gardens the Society will, of course, continue, but it will not flourish, and indeed there are already signs that it will gradually regress’. Of course not everyone agreed, amongst them the Yorkshire novelist Barbara Whitehead (died 2011 aged 80) [3204], a member since 1963 who had taught evening classes in family history in the 1970s and whose students had formed the York Family History Society. She wrote saying that we should stay in Harrington Gardens and find an ancillary building into which the lesser used material might be hived off to be retrieved on notice and on payment of fees. She also thought that we were trying to be all things to all men and that the new members should be left to local societies, our own membership being limited to those with a permanent interest who could produce proof that their ‘probationary period’ had passed’ [3205].
However, the majority thought that the Society’s services, library and staff, could only be maintained with income from a growing membership and that the search should continue and in July an approach was made to the London Docklands Urban Development Corporation, but the only building suggested, a former pumping station at Lavender Pond which I toiled out to see, was considered to be in an unsuitable area. Other buildings recommended by the National Trust and the Historic Buildings Bureau of the Department of the Environment were also investigated. I pointed out in the Annual Report that many office buildings which were being suggested were immediately ruled out on structural grounds, the floors needing to take 170 pounds to the square foot, and that this was not normally found in residential buildings or offices. In other cases planning permission for alteration from commercial use to educational use could not be obtained. In October we expressed an interest in former warehouse buildings near Fitzroy Square and in January 1983 in an excellent modern warehouse in Cowcross Street, Islington, close to Farringdon Station, but in both cases there were planning difficulties, the Society's intended use of the latter building being opposed by the Planning Department in the belief that it should be put to light industrial use [3206].
The search for alternative premises was, however, eventually rewarded when in March 1983, following a chance conversation with Frederick Emmison on a train from Chelmsford, Mr J. P. Hiner of Messrs Sir Charles Nicholson, Rushton & Smith, brought to our attention a most suitable former silk warehouse at 14-15 Charterhouse Buildings, EC1. The Society then appointed Messrs Kemsley, Whiteley & Ferris additional agents and negotiations were put in hand. Islington Borough Council approved our planning application to change the building’s use from warehousing to our particular needs on 18 July [3207] and following a detailed structural survey the Executive Committee decided to go ahead, the planning situation of the basement being further clarified at a meeting on 17 November [3208].
Meanwhile in February 1983 we had received a fair offer for the freehold of Harrington Gardens and a 'put-option agreement' had been set up with Hardaker Estates Ltd whereby the Society could call for the purchase of the building at an agreed price at a convenient time, the Midland Bank agreeing to provide the necessary bridging loan. The Executive Committee approved this arrangement in October. At the same time the position of the tenants of the flats had been clarified by Fair Rent applications in April which were taken to appeal in October, the tenants of one flat then surrendering their rights. The necessary planning consents and that of the Charity Commission having been obtained, the way was clear for an exchange of contracts with completion in March 1984. A relocation committee was therefore set up in October to plan and oversee the move into refurbished premises and Rodney Baker of Baker & Associates, a member of the Society, was appointed Surveyor on the Society's behalf [3209]. It was a singularly fortunate appointment and he worked most diligently at the task at the conclusion of which, in April 1985, he presented us with a fine heavy lectern for use in the Meeting Room [3210].
Tenders were put out for the needed refurbishment of the new building and it being understood that this could be completed in three months, work started on 1 April 1984. Meanwhile in March the Library Committee had made arrangements for the installation of a book security system. The refurbishment of the Society’s new home had been almost completed by Saturday, 7 July, when the rooms at Harrington Gardens were closed for the last time and a small farewell party held.
The Library volunteers met on Sunday 8 July to label the books and shelves and on the following day packing of the offices commenced. Most of the bookcases, which had been constructed in the old rooms, had to be broken down completely prior to removal and rebuilt in the new building. By working very long hours the move was accomplished without major difficulty in the period 9-27 July and the valiant efforts of a small group of volunteers, particularly in the last few days, enabled the Society to open without formality at 10 am on Wednesday, 1 August 1984. Meanwhile the put-option agreement had been invoked and the old premises were handed over at noon on 27 July, the transfer having been signed at a special meeting of the Executive Committee on 24 July.
There were still minor carpentry and electrical works to be carried out, and the display racks for the reception area and the lockers for the cloakroom did not arrive until later in August. Additional shelving was constructed in the Library in October enabling the original plans to be put into effect in November when a new Library guide was published. Some useful metal racking had been purchased with the building and this was rearranged by John Rayment in the two large store rooms that had been created in the basement, the various miscellaneous collections being put into order there by Elisabeth McDougall. The Meeting Room in the basement was finally got into order, ready for the first lecture in October. Bill R. Linder’s Genealogy Tour contributed £300 to the cost of 110 chairs there, a projector was purchased, and Stephen Hale organised volunteers to sort and rearrange the boxes of Magazines which remained in the room. Some additional chairs for the offices and Library were obtained through the good offices of Michael John Wood in December. On Tuesday, 27 November, Prince Michael of Kent paid a private visit to the new premises, met the staff, and went carefully over all that had been done, touring all the rooms. The Chairman of the Executive Committee throughout the year had been Dr Christopher Watts, the Vice-Chairman and Chairman of the Library Committee, Dr Morris Bierbrier, and the Honorary Treasurer, Alan Reed.
In the early part of the year it had been decided to make an Appeal for the refurbishment of the new building and a small working party compiled a leaflet, to which Prince Michael contributed a letter, setting out the Society’s aims, which also included a sketch of the modern box-like building which was such a contrast to its predecessor. This was sent to all the Members in April and there was an immediate and very heartening response and by the end of the year the cash received stood at £44,085. This figure would be increased to £64,185 by additional sums promised through bankers orders over the next four years and would be further increased to the magnificent total of £76,333 by the income to be received from Deeds of Covenant. There were very generous donations from Sir Andrew Noble and Marc Fitch’s Aurelius Charitable Trust. A further £7,314 received from the estate of Colonel Hugh Manus O’Donnell was also added to this fund and Major Ynyr Alfred Burges bequeathed £500. The cost of the new building (£272,500), including its refurbishment, survey and legal fees, was approximately £420,000. This was financed from the gross proceeds of the sale of 37 Harrington Gardens which obtained £360,000, the Appeal Fund and the Society’s accumulated funds. The net cash resources had, however, been reduced to £27,500. The rates on the new building were double those on Harrington Gardens and we no longer received rents from the flats above.
The registered proprietor of 14-15 Charterhouse Buildings was Diamond Silks Ltd, but the firm had sold the building to Sundown Limited of Hong Kong in September 1983, and it was technically conveyed to the Society by Diamond Silks Ltd at the direction of Sundown Limited [3211]. The company had named the building ‘Diamond House’ but that was not a name we ever used, though there was some discussion about giving it another name, Christopher Watts suggesting ‘Pedigree Building’.
The area had been heavily bombed in the Second World War and the land which had originally been part of the Sutton Hospital (Charterhouse) estate lay derelict until purchased for £4,500 in 1957 by Douglas Warne & Co Ltd, a firm of sports clothing manufacturers based at Bury St Edmunds but with an office in St Paul’s Churchyard. That firm apparently constructed the building, sometimes then called Unwin House after its property in Northgate Avenue, Bury St Edmunds. Advertisements in the mid-1960s show it dealing in the ‘Spall Ball’ range, ‘the finest value in match-play footballs’ as recommended by Bobby Moore. Douglas Warne & Co sold the building to Diamond Silks Ltd for £75,000 in 1969 [3212] and it was then used for offices and the storing of rolls of silk as we saw when we first visited in 1983.
Seen from the cul-de-sac that ran off at the junction of Goswell Road and Clerkenwell Road, it was a plain square building of three floors and basement, two-thirds of the ground-floor street frontage consisting of a large garage. However, the land fell away at the back of the building and the basement had fairly good natural lighting from windows on the south and east sides, those on the south looking onto an untended area of greenery which was later turned into a car park and then developed. This basement was divided to form a Meeting Room which would seat 110 people, a Common Room and two store rooms, one for the library and the other for the stock of publications.
The offices on the right of the ground floor initially suited the Society very well. A small entrance hall led into an open reception area and bookshop. Beyond that a locker room had been built into part of the garage and there was a security device that bleeped if books were taken from the library. There were three offices here, for the membership secretary and publications assistant, for the Finance Officer and for the Director, with two very small offices at the back one of which was linked to that of the Director.
On the right of the ground floor a large area beyond the garage and central staircase became the Lower Library and housed the Great Card Index and all the microfilm and microfiche readers, several more of the latter being obtained this year through the good offices of Alan Reed. The Society’s collection of microfilms, then only 900 reels, and the Bernau Index, were put on open access here for the first time and completely re-catalogued, a duplicate catalogue being placed near the films in October. At the same time the microfiche collection was made easier of access in new display units.
The upper floors which were each just large rooms were called the Upper and Middle Libraries. I was determined that we should get away from the names of former Presidents as used for the rooms in the old building. Carved out from part of the Middle Library were two offices for the library staff and a staff room which had access to the patio roof of the Lower Library below. The Middle Library took the whole of the British Isles Collection and the Library Catalogue and photocopier. The unbound parish register transcripts were shelved near the library offices and a new system of numbering introduced this year, the old shelf numbers now being completely dispensed with.
The Upper Library received the Document Collection and the family histories as well as the whole of the remainder of the Society’s bound material including Boyd’s Marriage Index.
Of course, regardless of the thousands of maps that were published and circulated, great numbers of people had difficulty in finding the building and I remember someone ringing up in desperation from various locations and saying that we were moving it about! To make matters worse the local Council put up a sign in distant Charterhouse Square with our name on it, but pointing to the British Records Association. In January 1987, Anthony Weaver, the energetic Director of the Clerkenwell Heritage Centre, telephoned, almost in hysterics, the sign having been moved to Clerkenwell Road where for a while it pointed across the Medical School car park, but a few days later he got it moved to a lamp-post at the end of our cul-de-sac. I used to say that if people could not find the building it was a fairly good indication that they would never find their ancestors.
To add to our problems, vast quantities of mail continued to be sent to Harrington Gardens and had to be recovered from the Russian tenants there, the house having been bought by the USSR’s Permanent Mission to the International Maritime Organisation, and I made frequent visits in the first few months to deliver their mail which had been forwarded to us and vice versa. The security of the new premises, at the end of a cul de sac and away from the main road, was also a considerable concern but after two break-ins we decided to put security bars on all the vulnerable windows. We did not like the idea but after they were fitted in January 1987, we quickly became used to them and had no further trouble.
Francis Leeson wrote a most encouraging description of the ‘bright box-like’ building for the Magazine saying, ‘one would never dream that bolts of silk had once reclined in such light and airy splendour as do now the Society’s Collections in their serried but rarely more than head-high stacks, with wide windows shaded by modern vertical venetian blinds, white emulsioned walls and endless strip lighting, giving the volumes a patina of freshness and beckoning accessibility they never enjoyed in the cramped confines of Harrington Gardens’. He wrote that ‘much praise is due to Staff and Executive’ in the planning of the new building [3213].
Press interest in the Society and in the subject generally had steadily increased and in March 1984 there was a major well-informed article in The Times by John Carey which produced many enquiries [3214]. In that article Ann Chiswell for the Federation interestingly said that ‘the present trend is towards believing that all our ancestors are of equal importance, be they rich or poor, famous or just ordinary workers’. In May the Society appeared amongst some non-existent organisations in the list of ‘Learned Societies’ in David Benedictus’s eccentric Essential Guide to London [3215] and although from the correspondence received more publicity sometimes seemed hardly necessary, an ad hoc Publicity Committee was appointed with the objective of increasing the Society’s membership. Ten thousand leaflets were printed and steps taken to publicise the additional facilities which would be available in the new home. This coupled with the publicity generated by the move itself, when I devised an advertisement about the millions of 'ancestors on the move', brought many new enquirers to the building and was followed by a further rapid expansion in the collections and membership. To ease applications we changed the rules at the Annual Meeting on 27 June so that people joining after 1 July in any year could pay half that year’s subscription provided that they paid for the following year in advance. Those you joined after 1 October paid a quarter in the same way. A £5 voucher to be spent on Society publications was given to those Members who proposed two new Members in the last three months of the year.
At the end of July I wrote to the secretaries of all the local family history societies summarising the Society’s new facilities and the ways in which we might help each other. Enclosing a list of our publications, I said that we were glad to give a discount of 25% on any books ordered for resale to their members and that we would bring them to the next meeting of the Federation of Family History Societies (at Writtle, 13-15 September) if they so desired. We were ourselves glad to stock the local societies’ publications in our bookshop if they related to the whole county or were guides to research. We could arrange free Library tours at almost any time and if a group stayed all day we could arrange a light sandwich lunch. Alternatively I said that I was ‘happy to come to any local Society in the evening or on a Saturday to talk about the Society’s library and collections, with slides … without any charge, provided my travel costs are covered’. Finally, I suggested that the societies consider using the Meeting Room for meetings of their members who lived in the London area (at £7.50 an hour or £37.50 for the day), slide and overhead projectors being freely available.
These arrangements had already been made with some local societies and they were developed and refined with the passage of time. Together they again brought many into the building via the book shop and membership thus grew rapidly. Many societies brought groups for guided tours. My lecture showing slides of what was to be expected as one entered the building and then going into and around the library, proved particularly helpful to uncertain newcomers, some of whom had not used a library since they had left school.
The involvement and work of the local societies was now considerable. The Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology deposited within the year the graveyard inscriptions from 79 parishes, Hampshire Genealogical Society gave 53, the Birmingham and Midland Society gave 32, and 30 came from Yorkshire. The copies of Avon graveyards deposited by Ron Lewin now filled 25 volumes. Copies of registers and bishops transcripts from Essex and Suffolk from the great collection of the late industrious professional Leslie Hugh Haydon Whitehead (1899-1985) of Long Melford were now being bound and coming into the Library, though his Suffolk bishops transcripts arranged by date were now sorted by parish on the instructions of the Librarian, a decision with which I could not agree. Other major groups of registers came from Oxfordshire and Wiltshire, and from Huntingdonshire there was an almost complete marriage index, 1754-1837, compiled by Thomas ‘Peter’ Roysse Layng (1901-1985) and typed by Mrs N. K. Travers. The first part of the Society’s important Monumental Inscriptions in the Library of the Society of Genealogists: Part One: Southern England, edited by Lydia Collins, was published in July. The co-operation with the Church authorities enabled us to notify local societies of those chapels whose licence to celebrate marriages had been revoked by the Registrar General, this being a likely indication of closure. As mentioned above the collection of census transcripts and indexes also continued to grow.
Also in 1984 the Society published Francis Leeson’s useful Directory of British Peerages: from the earliest times to the present day forming an index by surname and title to all those created, in which he had been assisted by Colin Parry and which was also published in America by the Genealogical Publishing Company ($12.50). Also this year we produced (as mentioned) the third volume of my PCC Will Index 1750-1800 on the paste-up and correction of which I had spent many evenings. Apart from the leaflet (No 14) listing the census indexes and transcripts held, we also produced leaflets No 15 The Right to Arms, which I wrote, and No 16 Assessing Computer Software for Genealogical Use by Alexander Sandison, both of which were used to answer many letters.
Some 1,022 new members were elected in 1984 bringing the total membership to 6,879 at the end of the year. The numbers passed the 7,000 mark in 1985, reached 8,000 in 1986 (when an average of a hundred persons were using the library every day), 9,000 in 1987, 10,000 in 1988, 11,000 in 1989, 12,000 in 1991, 13,000 in 1993, fell back a little following an increase in subscriptions in 1993; reached 13,000 again in 1995, and 14,000 in 1997. After I left at the start of 1998, the figure remained at 14,000 (peaking at 14,382 in 2001), but fell abruptly (following a subscription increase which drove away the overseas members) to 11,000 in 2006, and then to 10,000 in 2011.
In the Library, Dr Charles Isetts was appointed Assistant Librarian in January 1984 in succession to Janet Thornton and was a major asset, working hard with the assistants Jenny Wraight and Melven Helsey to prepare for the move to Charterhouse Buildings and in the subsequent arrangement of the Library there. On one occasion Melven, of course, got stuck in and had to be rescued from the goods lift which was used to take the crates of books to the upper floors and then sealed up. Charles Isetts was only with us until February 1985 when Jenny Wraight was appointed Assistant Librarian in his place with Jane Kenyon as second Assistant.
My careful typist Miss Grinsted retired in June 1984 but I was fortunate to recruit Monnica Stevens in her place for a few months immediately after the move. Young Alison Hicklin who had been appointed Receptionist just prior to the upheaval came with us (a part-time assistant being engaged to help with the Saturday working) and was with the Society until December 1986 when she went to Australia [3216]. It was an extremely busy and difficult year for all the staff with the extra travelling and work involved in this historic year in the Society’s development.
The usual meetings and courses went on. I organised the six lectures of the winter series, 1984-5, the first to be held in the new Meeting Room, around local subjects: Charterhouse, the Honourable Artillery Company, the Museum and Library of the Order of St John, Smithfield Market, St Bartholomew’s Hospital and England’s Huguenot Heritage. Just prior to the move Betty St George Brown organised another highly successful week-end course, ‘Genealogy in Essex and East Anglia’, at the University of Essex, Colchester, 20-22 July 1984, with 56 participants, and I remember in particular the pleasant visit to Harwich, led by Mrs Cooper.
Early in the year Joan Coburn the busy Head Archivist to the Greater London Council had been persuaded to conduct a two-day practical intermediate course in reading the handwriting of local archives on Saturdays, 10 and 24 March, at the Lutheran Church House. On 2 April many members of the Society attended a useful meeting organised by the Chartered Insurance Institute on the theme ‘The Use of Insurance Records for Social and Family History’ at which the Society was presented with a transcript of the First Policy Register of the Amicable Society 1706-7 [3217], a summary of the talks being published in the Magazine [3218]. We did the usual nine lectures for beginners in September-November and sponsored Stella Colwell’s Summer School ‘Some genealogical problems and possibilities’ at Lancaster University, 30 July – 4 August. She conducted a fourth sessional course on Grasmere, ‘Genealogy and the Community’, from September onwards, but this year I had a change and went as Course Director to Burton Manor Residential College in Cheshire, for ‘Trace Your Ancestors’, 21-23 September.
Whilst I was away that weekend Donald Francis had on 22 September organised a most successful Computer Day Conference on the theme ‘Standards’ at Queen Elizabeth College, London, with about 65 attending. The programme again included demonstrations of home computers and talks on census projects in schools, on the computerisation of local history records and on database organisation and standards for the exchange and transmission of genealogical data. On Saturday, 24 November, David Hawgood organised an afternoon meeting at the Society on ‘One-Name Studies and Computers’. The highly organised and competent David Hawgood as editor of Computers in Genealogy was doing an enormous amount to promote the whole subject and in 1984 the Society was affiliated to the British Computer Society. Much of the Computer Committee year had been taken up with discussions about a standard format which might be recommended for exchanging machine readable data from as many types of record as possible and the preliminary recommendations of a small sub-committee were also discussed with the Cambridge Group and the GSU. At the same time the committee had obtained the agreement of the British Standards Institute to consideration of a standard code for the representation of names of counties and was turning its attention to the advice which should be given to genealogists with regard to registration under the Data Protection Bill.
Also in September the Society had been one of the sponsors of the Fourth English Genealogical Congress held at the University of York under the Patronage of Prince Michael of Kent and the Presidency of the Earl Marshal. Brian Fitzgerald-Moore was the Chairman of the Organising Committee and Stella Colwell was the Organiser with Bobby Collins as Minutes Secretary and Patric Dickinson as Treasurer. Alan Reed organised the excursions and I organised an exhibition, ‘From the cradle to the grave’, taken from records at the Society. On 1 October I had the great honour of attending a Dinner in the Earl Marshal’s Court at the College of Arms to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the granting of their first Charter by King Richard III, speaking briefly to the now blind Sir Anthony Wagner beforehand, he having sadly lost his sight the previous year. Amongst many other meetings that year I spoke at the Library Association Branch Conference at Norwich in November. Alexander Sandison had intended to represent the Society at the International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences at Helsinki, 16-21 August, but he was unwell, though his paper on ‘Interchange of Genealogical Data held in Computers’ was published in the Congress Proceedings.
The need for a popular journal about genealogy and family history was finally filled in 1984 by the publication at Ramsey of Michael Armstrong’s bi-monthly and highly popular Family Tree Magazine, which was published monthly from 1986. I had given him every possible encouragement and when on 4 December 1984 he came to see me with his editor Ralph Braybrook I volunteered to provide extracts from the more genealogical parts of my diary for publication. The first extracts of my ‘Diary of a Genealogist’ appeared in its second issue in February 1985. I was allowed a page a month and I have very little doubt that they, with other material in the magazine, had a considerable effect on the development of the Society and its growth in membership. The latter doubled from seven to fourteen thousand over the next twelve years.
Michael Sharpe in his Family Matters (2011) described the diary entries as ‘especially controversial’ but the majority of readers were, in fact, avid followers of my daily activities. After some complaints I withdrew the entries in May 1990, but they were reinstated by popular demand in October and continued until my retirement, the last entries appearing in March 1998. They were certainly not ‘dropped’ in 1990 and replaced with general articles, as Sharpe wrongly says, the articles commenced in April 1998 and continued until December 2003.
The Society had, of course, only a few months earlier moved to new premises and it seemed to me that Family Tree Magazine, which developed a considerable worldwide circulation, provided a splendid opportunity to show what the Society was all about. As I wrote in 2002, I knew enough not to ask the permission of any committee; I had learned one of the great rules of life from Admiral Grace Hopper that it is easier to apologise afterwards than it is to ask permission beforehand. It had been my habit for many years to scan all the books and the hundreds of periodicals which came across my desk and to make notes of anything which interested me, and these notes naturally formed the basis o the published diary. Each month I edited down my diary of about 10,000 words to the required 1,500 words for the printed diary.
The published entries thus quickly drew attention to the great variety of material which was daily coming into the library, mentioning new publications and major articles in the field, some quite basic but others quite esoteric, and relating to an extremely wide spectrum of British society. It undoubtedly encouraged further donations. It described the Society’s involvement with other societies and organisations and its activities on the wider, indeed world, stage. It calendared and paid a tribute to the involvement of the volunteers and their valuable work within the Society. It showed that there was a place in the Society for both computer enthusiasts and those who had little time for computers or were just starting in that field, but perhaps gaining greater enjoyment from the older more traditional forms of research. And the leavening of the entries with a few personal items was also, it transpired, widely appreciated. Consequently the Society owed a considerable debt to Michael Armstrong for his personal generosity and interest at this time.
With the great growth in interest in family history the sale of ‘arms of the name’ now became widespread. One firm in particular, The Hall of Names or La Maison des Noms, founded by David Richardson at Toronto in Canada in 1971 had begun by producing extremely generalised ‘Parchment Scrolls of Surname Histories’. Following the advent of micro-computers these were made available at Eaton’s Centre store in Toronto at Christmas 1987. Having collected together all the references in the old heraldic dictionaries, ordinaries and armories, the firm then matched the two databases together and in 1999 started to licence the results for use by other interested parties (in 2013 a franchise cost $5,000), so that these generalised surname and heraldic databases with software to make printouts on demand became available to mail order businesses and they are now seen in pushcarts in shopping malls all around the world. One cannot deny that many people find such outline details of interest and that they may thus be encouraged to delve into the histories of their own particular families, but that any of the information provided, particularly where the heraldry is concerned, will actually relate to their own family is, as discussed above, not altogether likely.
About the same time, in 1969, a ‘copywriting and direct marketing genius’, the late Gary C. Halbert (1938-2007), of Ira Road, Bath, Ohio, had assembled mailing lists from electoral registers and telephone and other directories and having spent several years in the Boron Federal Prison Camp for fraud in the 1980s, had an idea to sell the lists themselves as part of ‘family name books and coats of arms’, the letters soliciting subscriptions to the books being signed by people of the relevant surname, but, as the Observer pointed out, all with the same squiggle signature [3219]. Some signatories were, from about 1988, real people who had agreed to this use of their names but when no person of the right surname was available, pseudonyms such as ‘Sharon Taylor’ were used. The cheaply produced books themselves contained an absolute minimum of information ‘barely changed from one book to another’, as an article in Which? commented [3220], and the lists of addresses were often out of date and, of course, far from complete. Those approached were led to believe that they were receiving (for about $30-$40 or £14.95) a carefully researched history of their families. Many millions of these solicitations were sent out, including about 750,000 to families in the United Kingdom [3221]. and resulted in complaints from genealogical organisations worldwide. In 1985 and 1988 complaints about the misleading wording of the letters led to the US Postal authorities prohibiting the firm from representing that the books were principally about a particular family name, or contained information about particular forebears and their emigration from Europe or about the heraldry and family crest of a particular name, or explained how a particular family got is surname.
Notwithstanding this order much further mailing worldwide (under the name Family News Network in America) took place in 1994 and 1995, and led to the National Genealogical Society in Washington, supported by the America-based Federation of Genealogical Societies, protesting to the US Postal Service which in November 1995 issued a cease and desist order prohibiting Halbert’s from pretending that (1) a solicitation for a surname-related product was sent by a relative of the solicitee, (2) a relative of the solicitee was involved in preparing a surname-related publication, and/or that (3) a relative of the solicitee endorsed the surname-related product. The company was also ordered to include a disclaimer that ‘No direct genealogical connection to your family or ancestry is implied or intended’. In Canada Halbert’s was fined $5,000 by the Quebec Department of Consumer Affairs for violation of consumer laws. In spite of this and other actions around the world the firm continued to produce similar books but Gary Halbert sold his interest in the firm and it was shut down completely in 1999. Gary Halbert is said to have spent eleven million dollars in less than a year before he died in April 2007 [3222].
Most unfortunately the Numa Corporation, which latterly owned Halbert’s, had earlier come to a licensing agreement with the thoroughly disreputable Harold Brooks-Baker (1933-2005), by now the self-proclaimed ‘editor’ of Burke's Peerage, to use Burke’s name to promote The Burke’s Peerage World Book of … around the world. The American born Harold Brooks-Baker (who had adopted the hyphen), had never actually written or edited anything, least of all Burke’s Peerage, but had been managing director of Debrett’s Peerage Limited in London from 1976 to 1981 when absolute chaos had developed in the office and the firm having changed hands he was dismissed. With some associates he acquired the rights to some minor publications of Burke’s Peerage, but not the Peerage itself (it had last been published in 1970 and did not reappear until 1999), until in February 1987 these were wound up by the Department of Trade and Industry as ‘hopelessly insolvent’ [3223]. However, Brooks-Baker, who now started a new business as Brooks Marketing Limited, had acquired the name ‘Burke’s Peerage’ from the liquidators and traded shamelessly on it, using it on letterheads and compliment slips, and sending with all his mailings a photograph of himself either holding a copy of the Peerage or with one prominently displayed on a bookshelf behind him. His other stock-in-trade was a stream of ill-informed and frequently outrageous comments on the activities of the Royal Family about which he, in spite of his appalling snobbery, was entirely ignorant but which delighted ‘reporters, feature writers and columnists seeking to beef up their threadbare stories’ (as his obituary in The Times put it) [3224], who believed or pretended to believe that his pronouncements had some authority or knowledge because they came from ‘Burke’ rather than from ‘Brooks Marketing Limited’ [3225].
A good example of Brooks-Baker’s bizarre and unfounded genealogical pronouncements was one in 1986 that the Queen was a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed ‘through the Arab kings of Seville’. It appeared in The Sun under the banner headline ‘Her Majesty is an Arab’ and Brooks-Baker wrote to the Prime Minister saying that although ‘sacred in Moslem eyes’ she ought to have better security. His claim was unfortunately quickly picked up by The Times of India but, as he should have known (from reading my Everyone Has Roots if not from elsewhere), it had been conclusively demolished by research some twenty years earlier and no such descent can be shown [3226].
However, following the agreement with Halbert’s vast numbers of The Burke’s Peerage World Book of … were sold, thousands of innocent genealogists and other mildly interested persons being curious to see what they contained. In 1994 following the many complaints that I and the magazine Family Tree were receiving and encouraged by an enraged member, Martin Penny, who had received the usual letter from Brooks-Baker signed by an almost certainly fictional ‘John H. Penny’, I made a formal complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority, concentrating on the pretended connection with a Peerage that had not appeared for twenty-four years and the use of fictional names to promote the books. I had myself been similarly approached by ‘Richard C. Camp’ whose existence I also doubted.
My complaint was initially upheld on the grounds that the company did not have the right to mislead consumers that they were the Burke’s Peerage of old merely because they owned the rights to, but none of the fixed assets of, the company, and that the company had also failed to demonstrate that John H. Penny existed [3227]. However, when the preliminary adjudication went to the Council of the Authority it chose not to uphold it, saying merely that the company had acquired the Burke’s Peerage name and had provided evidence to show that John Penny had permitted the use of his name in advertisements [3228]. My further letter on the subject received no answer.
Having expected us to believe his claims to ‘extensive research throughout the world’ and ‘years of effort and considerable expense’, Harold Brooks-Baker feebly now told the Sunday Times the books were ‘a general survey – it is not genealogical research. I don’t think it should be taken too seriously’ [3229]. The Weekend Telegraph ridiculed the computer generated and worthless books with some spoof arms and the motto ‘Money Groweth on Family Trees’ [3230] and the Independent, mentioning my ‘unequivocal criticism’, asked if it were ‘A peerage for berks?’ [3231].
As well as the complaints and real anger caused by these books, Brooks-Baker was also involved in some extraordinary ‘research’ in America about which the Society received a large number of enquiries. In 1987 he latched on to the Walling Heirs Association and received considerable amounts of money from several hundred hapless people who were led to believe that, ‘As publishing director of Burke’s Peerage, the American-born expert with the double barrelled name is Britain’s top gun in genealogy’ and could prove their entitlement to many millions of dollars in oil revenues from the Walling Survey in Nacogdoches County, Texas. Brooks-Baker had typically described the Wallings’s expectations as ‘one of the biggest pots of gold at the end of the rainbow that has ever hit the genealogy world’ [3232]. The claim, which had gone to court in 1941 and had been decisively dismissed in 1944, centred on John Walling, Senior, who in 1841 had left 320 acres of land to each of the nine children of his first marriage and the remaining 2,862 acres (an area known as the Walling Survey) to his second wife Judy and their two sons, Richard and William. Judy died in 1842 and William died a minor in 1854. Richard conveyed the 2,862 acres to R. W. Berry in 1857 and the land was subsequently sold and/or leased in portions to individuals and oil companies. The heirs of William’s half-siblings claimed in 1941 that Richard could not and did not convey William’s interest to Berry in 1857. However, although as mentioned the case was thrown out in 1944, Mrs Beatrice Thedford the granddaughter of one of the heirs involved who had been brought up on stories of the family’s claims and wrongful treatment, in May 1987 formed the unincorporated Walling Heirs Association which soon had 1,200 members intent on proving their claims.
Although the genealogy of John Walling’s descendants had been carefully compiled and published in 1945 [3233], Brooks-Baker asked for $700 (shortly afterwards increased to $800) from each descendant ‘to research this possible connection and present any findings in a form acceptable to the courts’, adding ‘Our stamp of approval on your family tree could guarantee your success’ [3234]. Eight hundred members of the Association (each paying a $200 membership fee and $25 annual dues) met ‘a team of 35 Burke’s genealogists’ (who these were or what they thought they were doing is difficult to imagine) at the Sheraton Century Centre Hotel in Oklahoma City on 8 November 1987 [3235] but following adverse publicity, a worried Mrs Thedford telephoned Brooks-Baker on 22 February 1988 to be reassured that he was making ‘very impressive progress on the Walling cases’, that Burke’s Peerage was ‘the most prestigious name in ancestry tracing and has been for almost 200 years’ and that only ‘certified genealogists’ worked for the company. The cost was now $1000 each for ‘non-Walling clients’ but in order to break-even Brooks-Baker said that he needed about 118 clients from the Heirs Association. Pretentiously dating a confirmatory letter in Roman numerals, he was ‘confident that the reports that we produce and the publicity which Burke’s Peerage will generate will bring you to the negotiating table with the oil companies’ [3236].
Of course the reality was that the involvement of British genealogists was quite superfluous to any action that might take place and in which the majority of the pedigree lines had already been documented with affidavits. My careful replies to the worried letters that I was receiving from America caused a concerned Brooks-Baker to telephone me on 28 July 1988. One Walling descendant (that I had first met in London in 1972) wrote, ‘As you know, naïve Americans in search of their roots are very vulnerable to scams’. She had rightly seen ‘troubled legal and financial problems ahead’ [3237].
I was not the only person watching developments with interest and in June 1989 the Oklahoma Department of Securities commenced an action in the County District Court against the Walling Heirs Association which terminated in January 1990 when the Association (then with 4,000 members), Mrs Thedford, her two daughters and another, were ordered to cease and desist from their many violations of the Oklahoma Securities Act, to stop offering or selling memberships (judged to be securities under state law) and to refund those already received. This was not however the end of the matter and whilst aggrieved subscribers began to take court action against Mrs Thedford, she in turn continued her claim against the oil companies, going as far as the Texas Court of Appeals in 1999, but completely without success [3238].
Meanwhile, Harold Brooks-Baker had transferred his interest to another very similar but much larger claim. Back in November 1986 he told the City Editor of the London Standard that he had ‘already been called in to work for the 7,300 claimants to the 10 billion dollar Humphries heirs’ case in Texas’ [3239]. This was another claim against oil companies, this time in connection with land granted to one Pelham Humphries in 1835 on which oil was discovered in 1901 and which became known as the Spindletop oilfield. In 1987 a rival, more conservative, genealogist (Hugh Peskett) said that the estate was worth £1.3 billion and that there were 2,000 claimants including about 200 living in England; a successful claimant, he said, might get anything from £75,000 to £7.5 million [3240].
Brooks-Baker’s clients were the Humphries Heirs Association with 7,500 members and he began to collect fees of $750 from each person introduced to him by the Association, he and seven colleagues visiting Tennessee in October for that purpose [3241]. The proposed action to challenge the oil companies’ leases had, in fact, gone to court unsuccessfully on at least seven previous occasions and in 1968 the judge had ruled ‘the Humphries heirs have no title in the league of land’. The early descent of the property is uncertain but by 1883 it was clearly possessed by a rancher named William P. H. McFaddin who the following year ‘enclosed the entire league with a substantial cattle-proof fence’. In 1964 the Texas appellate court had ruled that McFaddin’s heirs and assigns had an unbroken and peaceful adverse possession of the land. However, Brooks-Baker was still actively hyping up the possibilities in October 1987 (when the ‘unpaid oil royalties’ were said to be $100-$200 billion!) [3242] and the Humphries Heirs went again to court in 1989 when the judge said, ‘Lest there be any further misunderstanding as to this court’s ruling, take heed: there is no claim available to any heir of Pelham Humphries as to any part, parcel, or portion of the league of land commonly known as the Humphries Survey, nor the minerals extracted therefrom; nor is there any such claim by any heir of Pelham Humphries available to be asserted to that property or minerals extracted from the league since 1901. “Any heir” means every heir, past, present or future’ [3243]. In spite of this the matter was raised yet again in 1995-8 [3244] and appears still to be before the courts.
Unsurprisingly, Private Eye reported in October 1991 that Harold Brooks-Baker and his partners in the Burke’s Peerage ‘empire’ were under scrutiny by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States for their failure to deliver the results of genealogical research to several hundred people who had paid out sums totalling approximately three million dollars. One disillusioned man had gathered a hundred affidavits and said that a final figure of 650 complainants would ‘not be exaggerated … There are a lot of angry people’ [3245].
Unfortunately nothing seems to have happened and the unscrupulous Brooks-Baker had already turned his attention to the possibilities of making money from the marketing of Scottish feudal baronies. In 1994 he had been quoted as saying, ‘There is nothing wrong with selling titles, but it must be to a carefully selected market, or who knows who will end up as the aristocracy” [3246]. I had long disliked the trade in lordships of manors in England but now some very large sums were being asked for feudal baronies in Scotland. Originally attached to a particular piece of land containing the ‘caput’ of the barony, perhaps a castle or mansion, these feudal baronies, like English manors, could pass to anyone by inheritance or conveyance, but they had been phased out by official policy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the last barony actually ‘erected’ or created was in 1824. Although until 1874 each new baron had to be confirmed in his barony by Charter of Confirmation recorded in the Register of the Great Seal of Scotland, they were of so little importance in the nineteenth century that their very existence seems to have been overlooked or forgotten. No feudal barony had been listed in the ‘Roll of the Peerage of Scotland’ laid before the House of Lords at the Union in 1707, let alone in Sir James Balfour Paul’s The Scots Peerage (9 vols. 1904-14) or The Complete Peerage (13 vols. 1910-59).
Although the Heritable Jurisdictions Act 1747 had preserved some of the jurisdiction of these barons and placed it on a statutory footing, the appropriate section of the Act had been repealed by the Statute Law Reform (Scotland) Act 1948 which provided that the repeal would not ‘revive or restore any jurisdiction’ [3247] and the devolved Scottish Parliament by the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc (Scotland) Act 2000, which came into force on 28 November 2004, put an end to the feudal system in Scotland and abolished the jurisdictions of feudal baronies. As a result baronies by tenure became in 2004 merely ‘incorporeal heritable property’, or floating dignities. When detached from their land they are no longer registerable in the Land Registry and deeds relating to them are no longer automatically recorded in the Register of Sasines.
Some sales of such baronies had taken place in 1779 when a company which had bought up many of the estates forfeit after 1745 got into financial difficulties, but in 1989 Brooks-Baker attracted much publicity when he organised the sale of the feudal barony of Alford ‘near Aberdeenshire’ to Kerry Hamer, a property developer, and placed a notice opposite the ‘Court and Social’ section of The Times that Hamer had ‘acceded to the title of the Baron of Alford’, granted by William III in 1702. The notice said ‘Burke’s Peerage has verified Mr and Mrs Hamer’s right to be addressed as Baron and Baroness Hamer of Alford’ [3248]. Brooks-Baker with unusual modestly told the Evening Standard that ‘it is not enough just to have the approval of his genealogical knowledge’, owners had to get the approval of the Lord Lyon [3249]. In the following February the Barony of Ruchlaw, East Lothian, with about half an acre of land, was sold at auction in London by ‘Manorial Titles’ to a Canadian for £99,000 [3250]. The sale of other baronies quickly followed and these ‘titles’ came regularly to be sold through mail order catalogues and by auction, a process which Burke asked us to believe had ‘a presumption of royal consent’ [3251]. Some owners were not themselves Scottish, but by the purchase of sometimes miniscule amounts of land had acquired their ‘titles’. It is said that these are the only genuine UK ‘titles’ which can be bought and sold but it seems to me that when bought and sold and not inherited, these baronies, detached from their original caputs, confer on their owners little if any honour or prestige.
In 1989 the copyright of Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage had been acquired by Brian Morris and his editor Charles Mosley (1948-2013) [3252] set about creating a new, 106th, edition of the Peerage which appeared in two volumes in 1999. I reviewed it in Family Tree Magazine in 2002 [3253] and said that since its publication, Morris had in 2000 licensed the use of the name Burke’s Peerage to Dr Gordon Prestoungrange (formerly surnamed Wills), a marketing expert who was Lord of the Manor of Milton in Northamptonshire (which he had purchased in 1979) and whose barony of Prestoungrange had been recognised by the Lord Lyon in 1999 [3254]. In 2001 he and Mosley published the first volume of a 19th edition of Burke’s Landed Gentry, relating only to Scotland, in which much space was given to owners of feudal baronies. In 2002 Prestoungrange bought the rights to Burke’s Peerage from Brian Morris and thus reunited both titles under one publisher, Burke’s Peerage and Gentry (UK) Ltd, but Charles Mosley’s book Blood royal from the time of Alexander the Great to Queen Elizabeth II was published by Robert Smith of the Manorial Society that year (2002) when about eighty feudal barons and manorial lords were subscribers. The indented narrative, familiar in other Burke publications, had, however, lost most of its indentation and was almost impossible to follow.
Following the separation of the dignity of baron from the ownership of land in 2000 many barons formed a non-statutory ‘Convention of the Baronage of Scotland’ intending to create and maintain a register of claims in which assignations or sales would be recorded, simultaneously making them public by registration in Scotland’s official Books of Council and Session [3255].
The use of Arms that have not been matriculated with the Lord Lyon is a statutory offence in Scotland and it had meanwhile transpired that a hundred and thirty-three of these baronies had been recognised by the Lord Lyon between 1965 and 2000. For some time Lord Lyon’s intentions as to the future armorial recognition of the owners of baronies was uncertain but in 2003 Prestoungrange, with Mosley as editor, produced the 107th edition of Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage which for the first time in a peerage included the pedigrees of many feudal barons. I reviewed it in April 2004 again criticising the inclusion of the feudal barons and Scottish Chiefs who, whatever the situation before the Union with Scotland, are not today peers in the generally accepted sense of the word [3256]. The Burke’s Peerage was dated in November 2003 but it also included without comment the pedigrees of some Irish chiefs even though the Attorney General had said in July that there is not, and never was, any statutory or legal basis for the practice of granting courtesy recognitions to chiefs of the name. Of course some Scottish feudal ‘barons’ take great interest in promoting the places from which they take their ‘titles’, but I took the view, as Lord Kinnoull had done in 1977, that the inclusion of these families in the peerage, when they had no place in the official Roll of the Lords Temporal and Spiritual, only diminished the standing of the latter. Mosley’s reply, with its customary bluster and abuse, described with relish the former traffic in titles, the end of which was something he obviously regretted [3257]. Later in 2004 for undisclosed reasons he was dismissed and by Royal Warrant on 1 June 2004 the Queen established a Roll of the Peerage (similar to the existing Roll of the Baronetage) to include all those peers who have proved succession to an English, Scottish, Irish, Great Britain or United Kingdom peerage (but not, of course, to feudal baronies), the Roll being administered by the Secretary of State in consultation with Garter King of Arms and Lord Lyon King of Arms.
I have been charged with taking an overly puritanical view of these matters [3258] but in view of the turmoil caused in England in May 1995 by the sudden retirement of the Garter King of Arms, Sir Conrad Swan, following allegations of irregularities in relation to a grant of arms to his son-in-law [3259], and similar but greater turmoil in Ireland over the recognition of spurious ‘clans’ and bogus ‘chiefs’ by the state’s Office of the Chief Herald or Ireland between 1989 and 1995 [3260], I have no doubt whatever that if these matters are to have any continuing validity and place in our society that they need the closest possible and continuing scrutiny away from all financial interest.
In 2013 Dr Gordon Prestoungrange sold the united Burke company to a new company, Burke’s Peerage Limited, and that year he was awarded the MBE for services to the community in Prestonpans, East Lothian, though the citation in the London Gazette did not mention his barony [3261]. Previously the key question for a petitioner for a Grant of Arms in Scotland had been where he or she lived, but in 2015 the newly appointed Lord Lyon, Dr Joseph Morrow, decided that ownership of a lordship in Scotland (as evidenced by an entry in the Scottish Barony Register and so long as that Register was in the custody of ‘a person of skill’) was sufficient to bring a person within his jurisdiction for the granting of Arms, though the grantee needed also, under an Act of 1672, to be ‘a virtuous and well-deserving person’. The latter point, a previous Lord Lyon had said in 1990, normally involved having given some service to the community in the UK [3262]. In 2015 the Lord Lyon noted that ‘anyone is at liberty to call themselves what they wish subject to it not being the intention to deceive another person’. Accordingly he would in future word his Grants of Arms to say that ‘the Petitioner holds the Lordship of --- being of the genus of barony, which ownership brings the Petitioner within the jurisdiction of the Lord Lyon King of Arms’ [3263]. Feudal barons have generally been known by their surnames and have usually considered it bad form to call themselves ‘baron’ or ‘lord’ [3264]. Today in cases where the Lord Lyon has recognised a feudal barony the owner may have that fact noted in his or her passport, the equivalent in many cases, it seems to me, of saying ‘owner of a legal fiction for which I have paid a ridiculous sum’.
Just before I left the Society of Genealogists in 1998 I received a copy of a new edition of The Burke’s Peerage World Book of Camps which to add insult to injury included a further section ‘The Camp Wills Index’ consisting of ‘a specially compiled’ and ‘exclusive index’ of all the Camps whose wills were proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury from 1750 to 1800. This list had, of course, been copied directly from one of the volumes of the PCC Will Index which I had produced in 1977 and was a clear breach of the Society’s copyright.
When Brooks-Baker died in 2005 the rubbishy books and the schemes which this ‘Crooks-Faker’ (as he was apparently referred to in his office) had promoted in conjunction with Halbert’s and in the name of Burke’s Peerage were unsurprisingly not mentioned in the sanitised and misleading obituaries in The Times and Daily Telegraph [3265]. He was, as a former colleague said, ‘a total charlatan. He was not quite a crook, but he was a cunning little so-and-so’ [3266]. Others were not so generous. A saddened former editor of the Peerage, Peter Townend, who died in 2001, doubted that the name which Brooks-Baker had so tarnished would ever recover.
A volunteer who had adopted the Society as her own after the move was Elisabeth McDougall (died 2005). Although Chairman of the Library Committee she had no experience of such matters and was loathed by Lawson Edwards. Experience had taught me that whatever one did at the Society there would nearly always be some member of a committee or a volunteer who would criticise or oppose it, but Elisabeth McDougall, a member since 1976 who had been a social secretary in the Foreign Office, carried this opposition to absurd lengths, latterly waging a long war to make life as difficult as possible. Apart from disagreements over library matters and her use of the garage, she carved out for herself a small empire in the basement library store into which no staff were allowed to go without her consent and then took over the basement Meeting Room as her private office. Having organised ‘her’ volunteers there, she made any use of that room for its intended purpose as difficult as possible, refusing to clear papers from the tables until the very last moment, always disorganising their layout, clearing away and piling up the stacking chairs and even insisting that she continue to work behind the lecturer as he or she spoke.
As a result almost every day and sometimes two or three times a day there was a last minute scramble to get the room ready for a committee or evening course when at least four heavy collapsible tables and two smaller ones with sixteen committee chairs needed to be set out, or for a larger meeting which needed a lectern and 110 chairs and the collapsing of all the tables. Late on Fridays the whole room usually had to be set out again ready for a visiting group or conference on the Saturday (and even again on the Saturday evening or Sunday morning if the Federation met there on a Sunday), solely because she had got ‘her’ volunteers to stack everything away. She returned to Australia in 2003.
Above all Lawson Edwards disliked the move in 1984, memorably describing his overly bright new office with its un-plastered brickwork as 'an outside lavatory'. He had done almost nothing to assist in the planning of the removal of the library. However, in spite of his health (he mounted the stairs at Barbican station and in the library with increasing difficulty and rarely visited the Upper Library) he soldiered on, resisting almost every attempt at change. He was elected a Fellow of the Society in 1987 and on 14 October 1988 received a presentation on completing twenty-one years’ service with the Society. However, having developed angina, he suddenly announced in September 1990 that he had decided to retire and he left on 2 February 1991. In retirement Edwards became quite reclusive and he died in August 2005, aged 77 [3267], just a week after Elisabeth McDougall, former Chairman of the Library Committee [3268], whom he had so disliked. I found myself his executor and was pleased to learn that he had left useful bequests for the purchase of Shetland Island and Scottish material for the Society's library and for the perpetuation of his name in prizes at his old school and university.
On 12 March 1985 an unprecedented fifty-two lordships in eight different counties were offered for sale by auction at the Merchant Taylors’ Hall in London by Bernard Thorpe and Partners and advertised in the Wall Street Journal. They were expected to sell at more than £3,000 each and it was reported that ‘everyone expects them to get a good deal more expensive still’ their numbers being limited, though in reality there are probably about 38,000. One, the lordship of Codicote had originally been granted by Ethelred the Unready in 1002 and was expected to fetch £12,000.
Robert Alexander Smith, a former Guardian sub-editor, who had himself inherited seven lordships from a great-uncle and started a company called Manorial Research Ltd, in 1980 took over the moribund Manorial Society of Great Britain and actively encouraged sales [3269]. In 6 June 1986, presumably to whip up interest, his Society staged a re-enactment of a Court Leet and Baron of the Manor of Bromsgrove, which had held courts in Worcestershire every year since 1199, at the Guildhall in London.
Eight auctions, including one in Cumbria and another in South Wales, were held in 1987 and with about thirty lordships sold privately it was estimated that altogether 230 lordships had been sold that year at an average price of £8,750 (compared to £2,500 in 1981). They included the Seignory of Anneville in Guernsey for £40,500, the Irish feudal barony of Naas for £33,000, and the lordship of the manor of Old Buckenham with its fifty acres of village green for £30,500.
Some peers had become active in the market, though they did not usually sell where they held land or where the name of the manor was part of their peerage title. Being classed as incorporeal property the sale of a lordship was free of VAT [3270]. In February 1988 the lordship of the manor of Farnham fetched ‘the alarming sum’ of £57,750, being sold with 41 others, including many cast off by the Dukes of Grafton and Sutherland [3271]. In October 1988 the Evening Standard, which had bought the Lordship of Brighton, offered it as a competition prize [3272] and it was later reported to have been bought by Chris Eubank, a professional boxer, for £50,000 [3273].
Stephen Pile wrote in 1996 that Robert Smith had discovered that there was ‘a rampant appetite for self-ennoblement .. matched by a vast supply of peers keen to off-load meaningless, minor titles for cash’ [3274]. Smith’s Manorial Auctioneers Ltd was incorporated in 1989 and his Manorial Society of Great Britain Limited in 1996, the latter claiming to be the lineal descendant of the old Manorial Society founded in 1906, and on 18 May 1990 thirty-eight lots of ‘baronies, superiorities & lordships of the manor in England, Ireland and Scotland’ were offered by sale by auction in London by the Manorial Auctioneers Partnership. On 27 July 1990 ‘a unique snippet of living history’, the lordship of the manor of Henley-in-Arden for which an annual court leet was held in November [3275], was sold to an American lumber tycoon, Joseph Hardy, for £85,000 and the ‘Feudal Barony’ and Lordship of the manor of Morpeth went to a Japanese businessman, Hiroshi Matsuo, for £50,000 [3276]. When that year John Hoare sold for £6,000 the lordship of Purse Caundle in Dorset which had been in his family since 1720 he said he did so because it was ‘quite meaningless yet had some value’ [3277].
The lordship of Stratford-upon-Avon, hyped up by the Shakespeare connection, and bought privately by Donald Wilson from the Sackville family, had fetched £87,000 in April 1988, but was again put up for sale on 19 July 1990. Sotheby’s hoped to obtain £250,000 [3278] but the highest bid was £120,000 [3279]. It was eventually sold in 1993 for £110,000. An unimpressed Patric Dickinson at the College of Arms said the Shakespeare hype was preposterous and the estimated price absurd [3280]. Dickinson was not alone in thinking that lordships of manors were bogus nonsense and in June the Advertising Standards Authority had ruled that the publicity of the auctioneers Bernard Thorpe and Partners was misleading because it wrongly gave the impression that a lordship entitled its owner to a coat of arms and could be entered on the title page of a passport. Dr John Martin Robinson, Maltravers Herald Extraordinary, was quoted as saying that lordships were no more than anachronistic forms of property and, as he had written to the Spectator, their sale was ‘a perfect manifestation of the 1980s heritage industry which taints and undermines genuine institutions and traditions’. He said that the statement by Peter Spurrier, Portcullis Pursuivant and a specialist in heraldic art and design, that the lordships were created by royal charter and were titles of honour was ‘absolute poppycock’. Sir Colin Cole, Garter King of Arms, a member of the governing body of Smith’s Manorial Society, refused to comment on the situation [3281]. Bernard Thorpe had said that manors convey ‘the status that lordship implies’ but this was dismissed by Robinson as ‘utter rubbish’. Indeed it transpired that lordships had not been listed as evidence of gentlemanly status in Letters Patent granting arms until Cole, who had one of the largest genealogical practices in the College of Arms, became Garter [3282]. Cole resigned as Garter in October 1992 [3283].
The Earl of Kinnoull continued to believe that the whole lordships industry and the ‘auction house aristocracy’ debased genuine titles and in February 1990 it was reported that he intended to re-introduce his Bill banning the sale of all lordships and baronies, but opposition from Labour members of Parliament, as expressed by Dennis Skinner, didn’t want ‘to have anything to do with something which would make the Lords a cleaner place’ [3284]. Lord Kinnoull lost his seat in the House of Lords as a result of the reforms in 1999.
And so this sad state of affairs continues. In 1996 a local historian, Eric Taylor, was able to buy the manor of Balneath, Sussex, for ‘about £8,000’, a court leet being held at Lewes for the transfer of the title, and the Earl of Chichester sold the Manor of Hastings [3285]. That year Smith’s business had a turnover of £2.5 million and he estimated that in fifteen years a hundred peers had sold 1,500 titles, the Duke of Newcastle offloading 120 lordships [3286]. However, other firms were entering the market and sales were levelling off and a report in the Sunday Telegraph in 1998 said that several of these ‘Mickey Mouse’ lordships, sold in the late 1980s, were now being investigated by the fraud squad and that the unlucky purchasers had discovered their error in recent attempts to resell [3287]. A further article in 1999 pointed out the dangers of purchasing a house to which the only vehicular access was over a small strip of manorial land, for which a fee (in this case £15,000) was charged, the right to charge being upheld by the High Court [3288].
On September 1997 the Bangkok Post carried an advertisement which showed how these things were sometimes marketed overseas. The ‘Chief Heritage Officer’ of a firm ‘Chatsworth of London’ offered two ‘rare and valuable “Lord” titles of great respectability and standing’, saying that they confer ‘incredible social and business benefits worldwide, as well as being a solid investment, with typical growth value of 21% per annum ... fully recognised by all governments and include the right to use the word “Lord”/”Lady” in your name ... only those of impeccable integrity, honour and standing will be accepted’. The price was £11,750 or £11,150, and ‘Certificates may be worded to show a “bestowal” rather than sale’.
Meanwhile, in an Editorial to The Coat of Arms, the journal of the Heraldry Society, in early 1997, John Brooke-Little, Clarenceux King of Arms, said that legal opinion generally supported that the sales were legal conveyances of the lordships of manors and entitled the purchaser to style himself ‘Lord of the Manor of Blank’, but he added ‘that is about it’. Purchasers might not style themselves ‘Lord of Blank’ as many new lords tended to do and it did not entitle them to be granted arms as was often stated in the Press. The purchase of a lordship conferred no honour, ‘nor social recognition now that the coinage is so debased’. The designation ‘Lord of the Manor’ was no longer included in the description of a grantee of arms and possession of a manor had never been a qualification for being granted arms. He thought it sad that the trade had become a folie de grandeur and that the purchasers had brought upon themselves ‘the ridicule, scorn and derision rather than the envy of those who really are the backbone of England’ [3289].
The story of the Society following the move and for the next decade or more was one of very considerable success, of great expansion and of financial stability. That there was throughout this period a growing interest in the subject is undeniable but the Society did everything possible not only to encourage that interest through basic publications and lectures but also to develop knowledge of the subject as a whole, its sources and its uses.
The year 1985 saw the election of 1,352 new members and by its end the total had passed the 7,000 mark and was 7,842, of which 1,086 lived overseas. Despite an increase in rates on 1 July, there were 4,813 fee-paying visits by non-members, a new record. In total some 24,000 visits were made, an average of 100 a day; the highest number, 185, came on the last Wednesday in April, though March was the busiest month. New members’ days were held in March and June, but subsequently because of their popularity we provided tours of the library on alternate Saturdays, making it easier to deal with the crowding. There were in all 35 guided tours and/or lectures for visiting local groups. Meg Connor who had been with us for five years as Membership Secretary resigned in March 1985 when Peter A. F. Bacos was appointed in her stead.
The Society now being well established in the new premises and the financial position (aided by the high interest rates) being much improved it was possible to set aside £50,000 from the General Reserve for possible future maximisation of the use of the building, provision also being made to build up the Library’s resources. However, the Annual Report recognised that the staff salary levels still caused concern, there being a considerable gap between them and those paid in comparable employment elsewhere with a resulting high staff turnover to better paid jobs. Sir Andrew Noble had made another generous donation to the Appeal Fund. Robert Massey had left the Society £250 and Edith Pritchard had given £500 specifically for the purchase of Poll Books.
During the latter part of 1985 a system of voluntary manning of the Upper Library was introduced in order to aid readers in the use of its collections and we were particularly grateful to Mrs Norma Allum, Mrs Susan Bourne (died 2012, aged 73), Mrs Isabelle Charlton (1920-1016), Mrs Vivienne Lawrie (1929-2014), Ernest Angell (1920-2006) and his wife Esme (1927-2004), Arthur Brown (died 1990, aged 87), Frank Hardy and Mr R. Mott, for their willing and regular assistance. Appeals were then made for further help in the evenings and on Saturdays. In 1986 those in the Upper Library and elsewhere were joined by Miss J. D. Hobday, Mrs Jenny Key (1930-2011), David J. Pinborough and Mrs Suzanne Spurgeon, and further assistance was sought for Wednesday evenings and Fridays [3290].
A valuable collection of abstracts of wills of those with monies in the public funds 1717-1844, in 176 volumes (with three extra volumes that related to Horatio Nelson, the Duke of Wellington and Charles Dickens),was presented by the Bank of England and, collected by Elisabeth McDougall on 31 October, immediately becoming the subject of a fascinating indexing project for the Upper Library volunteers. In November the House of Lords’ Library gave a large collection of duplicate printed peerage claims. More than eighteen hundred items were added to the Library and with the improvement in finances it was possible to purchase more books and periodicals and to bind or rebind more books and transcripts. Some 230 transcripts from the Haydon Whitehead collection for Suffolk were added in 1985 and there were major groups from Oxfordshire and Berkshire. The purchase of microfilms of parish registers from county record offices continued, Members now being encouraged to sponsor by joint-purchase any microfilms in which they had an interest, they being given the films exclusive use for a limited period.
In September the Chairman wrote to The Times about the theft from the church of ten volumes of the original parish registers of Winson, Gloucestershire [3291] and I wrote fiercely to the Bishop and Diocesan Archivist, as their deposit had been recommended eighteen months earlier. A new edition of the Catalogue of Parish Registers, revised by Edith Pritchard, was published in February. Microfilms copies of the indexes of births, marriages and deaths for all the Australian states (except Tasmania and Victoria) prior to 1900 were also obtained, and in August 1985 I struggled home from Salt Lake City with the heavy boxes of the latest (1984) edition of the International Genealogical Index on microfiche. A new microfiche reader-printer had to be purchased in May, and two more readers were purchased and another given. The book numbering system introduced in 1984 was now extended to the greater part of the English counties during the February and October 1985 closure periods. In July 1986 the old Registers and Records Committee was dissolved and its responsibilities transferred to an enlarged Library and Records Committee [3292].
The ad hoc Publicity Committee formed prior to the move was in 1985 made a permanent Committee of the Society and a poster designed by Peter Park was distributed to county record offices, another 10,000 leaflets being printed in October. In addition some 2,000 maps of the area showing the Society’s premises were donated by Scholl following my support of the Clerkenwell Heritage Centre and the promotional project ‘Towards Historic Clerkenwell’. In addition the free publicity given to the Society through the pages of the new Family Tree Magazine and the kindness of its proprietor, Michael Armstrong, nominally in return for my regular articles, benefited the Society enormously, producing many hundreds of enquiries. The Publicity Committee was consequently deemed somewhat less important and demoted in July 1986 to being a working group of the General Purposes Committee [3293].
Responsibility for the bookshop was transferred from the Library to the Publications Committee in June 1985 when additional shelves were built and the stock much expanded, an additional Office Assistant for publications being engaged in November. Following an arrangement with the Harvester Press, the Apprentices of Great Britain 1710-1774 were published on microfiche, followed (in 1986) by some of the older genealogical periodicals and the Catalogue of the Library holdings taken from a security microfilm made in 1983. Stephen Hale took charge of the accumulation of older issues of the Magazine (some 34,500 copies) and led volunteers in their sorting prior to their sale at a nominal price. Edith Pritchard continued to take bookstalls to the Federation conferences in Wiltshire and at Writtle and to the Society’s Day Conference. The latter, the Society’s sixth and entitled ‘A day in their life’, organised by Patricia Kirkland and Peter Park, took place at Regent’s College on 2 November 1985, when there were over 400 participants (at £10 for members, £11 for non-members) and three streams of four lectures, the opening address being given by Lord Briggs of Lewes (Asa Briggs) (died 2016).
There were two series of classes for beginners, a third series taking place at the American Wives Club at Northwood, and Stella Colwell completed her fourth London University Extra-Mural Course on Grasmere in April 1985. In December she and I represented the Society in discussions at the Extra-Mural Department and agreed the outline of a certificate and diploma course in genealogy and family history which might be offered by the University in 1987. I had myself conducted weekend courses at Theobalds College in Hertfordshire and at Burton Manor Residential College in Cheshire in 1985 and did two more at Theobalds College the following year in March and July. Plans for a fifth London University Extra-Mural Course to be conducted by Stella Colwell in 1986-7 unfortunately had to be abandoned for lack of support.
On 3-4 December 1985 I attended the Annual Conference of the British Records Association on the theme ‘Genealogy’ and the relationship between genealogists and archivists. I was at the time a member of the Council of the Association’s Records Preservation Section which continued to be much concerned with the sale by solicitors to stamp and ephemera dealers of parts of collections in their custody and in 1986 the Society gave £100 to that Association to assist its advertising campaign with regard to the disposal of documents in solicitors’ offices and their transfer to county record offices. Later on its behalf the Society circulated to all the local societies an article for publication on the same subject [3294].
Evening meetings of computer enthusiasts took place in most months throughout the year and on 5 July 1985 the Society, which had joined the Association of Computer Clubs in April, welcomed Howard Nurse of Commsoft, who spoke about the program Roots II marketed by his company, publicity for the meetings being given on Prestel. On 5 October Donald Francis organised a Computer Day Conference in the meeting room (£6.50 to members of the Society and the British Computer Society, £7.50 to others) with demonstrations of home computers, and talks on what the computer could do for the genealogist, computers and heraldry, the application of scientific techniques to genealogical problems, the programming and marketing of a genealogical database and on the use of generalised commercial databases for record keeping.
David Hawgood, who in February had published his widely acclaimed book Computers for Family History, gave a day course ‘Introduction to computers for genealogists’ on 11 May and at an open meeting on 13 February I talked about projects that might be done using computers and an appeal for volunteers was published in the March newsletter. By October about thirty volunteers had come forward and were being organised by Donald Francis and Eric Probert to transcribe and index parish registers on an equipment basis.
In the summer of 1985 Chris Bingley re-evaluated the situation with regard to a computer at the Society. It was then thought that the first need was for word processing in connection with the leaflets and publications, the scope of any service to members not being known until one saw how much use was made of any machine by the office where computer experience was almost completely lacking. The back-up for any file management system was expected to come from members of the Computer Group.
A Torch Graduate Computer with Xchange software (based on the BBC micro-computer possessed by many members and yet compatible with IBM personal computers) was hired and several members of the Computer Group assisted the staff in its use. The system was not, however, found suitable and at the end of the year the lease was discontinued, though the hire of an alternative machine was actively considered [3295]. By then there were 1,069 subscribers to Computers in Genealogy, the mailing labels for which were being prepared for us by Roy Thompson, and it was found necessary to reprint all the earlier issues of the newsletter. In May 1986 the Society registered its membership records under the Data Protection Act 1984.
Details of a proposed program for BBC micro-computers to be sponsored by the Society and produced by David Lane of Bel Tech Ltd were published in June 1986, and a sufficient level of tentative orders having been received a satisfactory contract was entered into but the production of the program, to be called ‘Heritage’, was unfortunately greatly delayed [3296]. The testing by Donald Francis, Eric Probert, Dr Chris Watts and Mrs Doreen Willcocks (died 2009) continued throughout 1987 (David Lane speaking about it at the June and September meetings) and until July 1988 when David Lane decided to withdraw from discussions, but following a favourable review of the program in December it was stocked and sold by the Society [3297].
Unfortunately owing to the pressure of other work the newsletter’s editor, David Hawgood gave up the position with the June issue. Alexander Sandison saw the September issue through the press and the Society was then fortunate to find a successor in Eric D. Probert who took over in December, the newsletter’s printing now being organised from the Society.
Eric Probert also arranged a successful Computer Day Conference in the Society’s rooms on 4 October 1986 with about 80 attending, including many non-members. The programme included demonstrations of home computers and talks on the Domesday Project, the Genealogical Information System (by Reynolds Cahoon), transcription and indexing by computer, the Economic & Social Research Data Archive at Essex University, and on genealogy on the Amstrad. Evening meetings took place throughout the year and a second monitor for use at lectures was purchased in November [3298].
In August 1985 Dr Christopher Watts, the Chairman of the Executive Committee and I again visited the United States and gave several lectures at the enormous Fifth Annual National Conference of the NGS, ‘Genealogy for All People’, hosted by the Utah Genealogical Association in Salt Lake City, 5-9 August. There were 278 lectures and seminars at the Salt Palace Convention Centre, some fourteen running simultaneously. Many new subjects arose, not from direct invitations to named speakers, but for the first time from NGS’s ‘call for papers’ asking potential speakers to submit their own proposals for talks, something that I generally disliked doing. Altogether 2,200 lecturers, ‘conferees’, volunteers and exhibitors were involved, making it the largest NGS event so far.
We stayed in the Marriott Hotel immediately opposite the Convention Centre where the Federation’s stand made a useful meeting point. With talks starting at 8 a.m., great numbers of people to meet and the long days it was a rewarding but quite exhausting time. I was asked to speak on ‘Irish Probate Records’ and ‘British Heraldry’ and at a panel on ‘Current Developments’ I showed slides of our new building. The active Paul Smart was at that time Supervisor of the British Reference section of the GSU library then in the west wing of the Curch Office Building and he was keen to show us the progress being made with the great new library on South Temple which was to be dedicated that October and re-named the Family History Library in 1987. I went with Richard and Marjorie Moore, Don Steel and Geoffrey Swinfield to see the finely appointed rooms then taking shape and Paul Smart arranged for me to bring home for the SoG the 1984 world edition of the IGI with its 88 million entries on microfiche. It was fortunate that we had just bought a new reader-printer.
With so many family historians from the British Isles present at the Conference the GSU took the opportunity to launch a major initiative to promote its microfilming and indexing programmes. The Church’s most senior General Authority then interested in family history was Boyd K. Packer (1924-2015) of the Quorum of the Twelve who, with his wife Donna, were ardent supporters of the Church’s family history and temple work having themselves had considerable personal experience of research. In 1975 the Genealogical Society of Utah had been transformed into a new Genealogical Department of the Church to become a full part of its administrative structure and in 1978 the Church’s President, Spencer W. Kimball (1895-1985), declared that all worthy male Church members might be ordained to the priesthood ‘without regard for race or color’, subsequently clarifying the Church’s three-fold mission as ‘to proclaim the gospel, to perfect the Saints, and to redeem the dead’. That declaration and his renewed emphasis on the redemption of the dead vastly extended the scope of the Church’s future genealogical work. The previous year (1977) Boyd Packer had attended a crash course in computers with IBM and he was one of the first to foresee their potential value in the work ahead. Donna’s genealogy room contained a computer on which Boyd had a fascinating concordance of all the Church’s official publications.
Another General Authority in the LDS Church taking an active part in all these developments was Richard G. Scott (1928-2015), who had been appointed an assistant executive director of the Genealogical Department in 1981 and its Executive Director in late 1984. He had earlier been on the staff of Admiral Hyman Rickover, the ‘Father of the Nuclear Navy’, developing military and private nuclear power reactors, and he was a driving force behind the development of the Family Record Extraction Program through which paper copies of records (initially pre-1970 temple records) were manually transcribed in the homes of Church members, entered locally on personal computers and then returned to Salt Lake City on computer disk.
And so on the final day of the conference, 9 August, Boyd and Donna Packer and members of their family gave an evening reception at their home among the trees near Cottonwood Canyon, to which most of the English group were invited, and Richard Scott outlined the Church’s future plans for computerising records. These were met with considerable enthusiasm. In 1982 his Department had embarked on a scheme to index the 1880 US federal census and he now proposed expanding the indexing program to involve not only Church members but also any other genealogists who were willing to help. Elders Packer and Scott followed this up with a meeting in the Church Office Building on 13 August when it was agreed that I would convene a meeting of likely partners in London in November
After a few days working in the Library in Salt Lake City I flew to Kansas City not expecting to speak at the Federation of Genealogical Societies, 6th Annual National Conference, ‘Crossroads of America’, 15-17 August, but being immediately called upon to fill a space caused by the absence of a speaker. The Congress’s Syllabus contained 346 pages of lecture summaries and information and included the text of Rabbi Stern’s ‘The ethics of genealogy’ and his widely cited ‘Ten commandments for genealogists’ (one of which Joe Brickey had summarised as ‘Thou shalt not use bacon as a bookmark’). Here at an evening reception hosted by the inimitable Joyce Hensen she launched a National Order of Genealogical Convention Hounds and I with many others received a splendid leather luggage label illustrated with an appropriately exhausted looking dog! It was also here at the final dinner on 16 August that I was privileged to meet and hear Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, USNR (1906-1992), the mother of COBAL, give a quite remarkable talk, ‘Hardware, Software and People …The Future of Computing’, with her famous illustrations of nanoseconds and picoseconds (which I still have) and her valuable advice that it is easier to ask forgiveness afterwards than it is to ask permission beforehand!
Terrick FitzHugh, the founder of The Local Historian above-mentioned, had come to local history through his passion for genealogy and he became a professional genealogist in the 1960s and was one of the founders of AGRA, but worked also as an extra-mural lecturer in genealogy for the Universities of London and Surrey. Combining both interests in 1985 he produced The Dictionary of Genealogy, a highly commendable first attempt at such a work but notable for its inclusion of rarely encountered medieval terms and its omission of much basic material which ought to have been included. He invented the terms ‘Total Descent’ and ‘Paragraph Pedigree’, for which I do not care, instead of the old ‘Birth Brief’ or ‘Ancestral Chart’ and ‘indented narrative’, but they are fortunately rarely used. An American edition, although subtitled ‘A guide to British ancestry research’, oddly contained no entries for Scotland or Ireland. In his eighties in 1988, FitzHugh produced How to write a family history: the lives and times of our ancestors (£12.95) but generally failed to address the needs of his younger contemporaries. A revised edition of his Dictionary was published in 1988 and another, edited by Susan Lumas, for which I re-wrote a number of sections, in 1998. By then it had a serious rival in Pauline Saul’s The family historian’s enquire within (1985 &c) but both lacked, as FitzHugh admitted, good bibliographical references.
In 1985 Garter King of Arms, Sir Colin Cole and I had been the genealogical advisers to the organisers of the ‘Domesday 1086-1986’ Exhibition which was staged at the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane, 3 April to 30 September 1986, and sponsored by the Daily Telegraph and Prudential Assurance. I remembered that way back in 1886 at the Domesday octocentenary celebrations that Hubert Hall’s paper on the official custody of the Book had actually been read from the gallery of the Round Room and that in 1937 for the centenary of the General Register Office the band had played there.
In 1986 it was the first time in twenty years that an exhibition (other than the standard one in the Museum) had been organised at the PRO and all the documents associated with Domesday and its compilation were brought together in a way that had never been done before, along with computers and audio-visual displays. The Exhibition had over 130,000 visitors. I attended the Domesday Luncheon on 31 January, the opening on 2 April, and the Reception in the presence of HM The Queen at the Royal Courts of Justice on 29 May 1986 [3299]. The many pedigrees sent to the Public Record Office as a result of the publicity for the Domesday Exhibition were passed to the Society in October [3300].
Following the death of Edith Pritchard in February 1986 and in order to reflect the growing importance of publications and conferences in the Society’s budget, the former Secretary-Treasurer of AGRA (from 1979 to 1985), Mrs Mary Gandy, who had worked for some months part-time in the office, was appointed Publications and Conferences Manager (her husband, Michael, was Chairman of the Publications Committee, 1982-86), taking up full time duties in September 1986. The couple had organised the Society’s bookstall at the Federation’s half-yearly Conference at Norwich in 1984 [3301].
The Publications Assistant since October 1985 had been the enthusiastic and energetic Mrs Barbara Merrall and as the bookshop expanded after the move she was promoted to the role of Bookshop Manager, becoming the friendly face of the Society in its relationship with the local societies and behind its bookstall at a growing number of meetings and conferences. Mary Gandy unfortunately decided to leave at the end of 1992 but Barbara Merrall continued as Manager amidst growing pressures until her retirement in September 1997.
A financial blow to the Society in 1986 was the decision by the Inland Revenue, taken on 1 August, to withdraw the concession relating to recoverable tax on covenanted subscriptions, it taking the view that membership subscriptions were not outright gifts for which no benefit is received but that they were to be considered as payment in part for free use of the library and concessions on book purchases. No new covenants could be accepted and those which were currently held would not be renewable. As a result the income from this source quickly fell away over the next few years. At its budgeted level in 1986 this income (including the Appeal Fund covenants) would have represented almost £1.50 per head of the membership. Fortunately, however, covenants on donations were not affected [3302].
In spite of this setback we were able that year (1986) to add a further £25,000 to the fund which had become known as the Premises Development reserve. Some £7,319 had been received in donations to the Appeal Fund including £500 given by Mr D. Cullum. A bequest of £1,000 by John Unett (1906-1984), the author of Making a Pedigree (2nd ed. 1971) which was strong on medieval sources, was added to the Special Projects Library Fund. I had meanwhile shown old friends Ismini and Marc Fitch over the new premises and she generously gave £500 to re-upholster the chairs in the Members Room and to clean the carpet there which she had chosen in 1954. We were glad also to receive, through the good offices of Clifford Bird at the Mobil Oil Company, eight most useful tables and twenty-eight chairs, followed in February 1987 by seven microfiche readers.
Some additional lockers were obtained in January 1986 and in February and March the intended work to upgrade the lavatories in the basement was carried out. A large sign based on the Society’s seal, which could be seen from the entrance to Charterhouse Buildings, was affixed to the building in March. Unhappily, as mentioned above, in view of two minor break-ins the addition of burglar-bars to the basement and first floor windows was agreed in November and completed early in 1987 [3303].
A trial airmail distribution of the September issue of the Magazine to overseas members by Pharos Distribution Services Ltd proved successful and from now on was regularly used by the Society. Binders for the Magazine, blocked with the Society’s new Badge, were made available in August and proved popular [3304] and similar binders for Computers in Genealogy were produced in June 1987 [3305].
The Annual Report for 1986 when paying tribute to the staff who were facing many extra demands and challenges, echoed Reports for earlier years when admitting that ‘salaries paid to its staff do not in general compare well with salaries obtainable in commercial organisations’. Consequently we had attempted during the year to reduce the gap by introducing a salary structure which provided for continuing progression to better levels of payment. Although this would mean large increases in expenditure in future years, we believed that they had to be borne if we were to hold good members of staff and not lose them to better paid employment elsewhere [3306].
Perhaps as a result of the great increase in the number of part-time professional genealogists, the Society attracted much less research than in earlier years. Very few members took advantage of the reduced rates for specified searches, but the number of general enquiries, mostly without return postage, ill-informed and without any intention to pay even the smallest of fees, continued to escalate and over 24,000 letters were received in the year [3307].
Following the move in 1984 a group of men, the ‘Monday Club’, consisting of Eric J. Balley, John Pullen (died 2008) and John L. Rayment (1923-1991), had begun to come regularly on Mondays to do various maintenance works throughout the premises [3308] and as the ‘Maintenance Work Group’ they were in July 1986 made a working group of the General Purposes Committee [3309]. In 1988 they were joined by the skilled Leslie Crafer (1921-2002) and they and the Library Volunteers became quite indispensable to the adequate running of the building.
The Society’s initial plans had allowed for the retention of the large garage with its heavy shutter door next to the entrance and two store rooms in the basement which utilised a quantity of steel racking purchased with the building but mostly in three-foot squares. These two rooms were known as Store A and Store B, the former containing unsorted library material, roll pedigrees, and a large number of duplicate books, and the second containing the Society’s store of publications, and a considerable amount of old correspondence, research files and minute books. The garage itself had begun to attract an assortment of clutter, including jiffibags and other packing material, boxes of current and old issues of the Magazine and a large amount of wood salvaged from neighbouring building sites. Underneath the garage and in the far corner of Store A was a bricked off area containing an oil storage tank.
It became clear that better use could be made of the large garage area if the other material could be stored on mobile shelving in Store B but there was opposition from those who used the garage to park their cars and to load and unload books for bookstalls at conferences and for incoming collections. In May 1986 we clarified the situation about its possible future use when planning permission was sought for its use as part of the library, this being given on 13 November [3310]. In February 1987 John Rayment circulated a note on behalf of the Maintenance Group discussing various options for the future use of the area and of the stores [3311] and a week later Chris Watts put out a paper on the further developent of the premises generally, suggesting that both stores be fitted with mobile shelving, that the oil tank be removed and the space converted as a workshop for the Group, and that the garage above be converted to library use with additional space for lockers [3312]. The feasibility of these suggestions was referred to Rodney Baker and further refined [3313] but Lawson Edwards and Mary Gandy thought that the conversion of the garage into library space, if parts were still to be used as an unloading bay with additional lockers, not worth the expense involved, they believing that the Society’s assets should be preserved towards the eventual provision of an additional storey [3314]. The plan was complicated in any case by the need for additional space for the growing bookshop in the reception area.
1986 was again a record-breaking year for visitors, with 5,304 fee-payers and a significant increase in the use of the Library by members. The Library was closed for a week for stock-taking in February and this now became a regular yearly occurrence. Tours for new members were held on alternate Saturdays and there were forty-five group visits from local societies, including one from the Scottish Genealogy Society on 12 November. With the accession of so much new material we found it necessary to increase the height of the shelving in the Middle Library in May and that behind Boyd’s Marriage Index was completely renewed in August, the necessary carpentry being done by the Maintenance Work Group whilst the Library was closed on Mondays.
Several hundred film and fiche copies of parish registers were also bought or received as a result of the sponsorship scheme that year. Fiche copies of the indexes of births, marriages and deaths in Victoria, Australia, prior to 1900, were also purchased, the Society of Australian Genealogists gave us a similar index to the New South Wales probate records prior to 1982 and the New Zealand Society of Genealogists gave the Return of Freeholders in New Zealand in 1882, also on fiche. The resulting purchase of three new microfiche readers in turn necessitated the complete re-arrangement of the Lower library in September to make space for further machines.
Two major collections of papers of professional genealogists were received in November: those of the former Chairman, William Cotton, who had died in 1961 (received through the good offices of Malcolm Pinhorn) and those of Ronald J. D’Arcy-Hart (1895-1985) who had joined the Society and become a professional in 1955 although he had had a life-long interest in the subject.
As a new venture the Society organised three tutorial classes in the course of the year: on 19 May, Mrs Eileen Stage conducted a half-day class on ‘Coastguards’ when seventeen attended; on 5 July, Mrs M. R. Rowe, County Archivist for Devonshire and the Librarian conducted a half-day course on Devonshire when seventy-nine attended; and on 25 October, Drs Christopher and Michael Watts conducted a day course on the records of the Merchant Navy when forty attended.
Miss Joan Coburn, Head Archivist to the Greater London Council, conducted for us two day courses in Palaeography, on 17 May and 21 June, and her assistant, Mrs Susan Palmer, conducted a two-day course in Latin on 12 and 25 April. Two series of nine lectures for beginners were also held.
I was away for part of May 1986 visiting Australia as the guest of the Heraldry and Genealogy Society of Canberra, sponsored by Qantas and Ansett. At Canberra I was the keynote speaker and lecturer at the notable Fourth Australasian Congress on Genealogy and Heraldry, 7-11 May, which was attended by some 600 participants and was particularly memorable for its friendly atmosphere, with Bill Marsh as President, Doug Blair as Convener and Geoff Burkhardt as Program Convener. On Saturday evening during the Muster I helped to launch the Biographical Index of South Australians 1836-1885. Dr Neil Gunson had organised an exhibition of heraldic items, including porcelain, at the Menzies Library on the ANU Campus. I proceeded to Hobart, Tasmania, to speak to the local branch of the Genealogical Society of Tasmania and visited the former convict settlement of Port Arthur. After flying to Melbourne I then spoke to a joint meeting of the Genealogical Society of Victoria and the Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies. At Brisbane I conducted a day-seminar for the Genealogical Society of Queensland and spoke to the Southern Suburbs Branch and to a meeting of the Queensland Family History Society. Finally at Sydney I spoke at two meetings of the Society of Australian Genealogists, being everywhere most warmly welcomed [3315].
On 14 June 1986 the members of North Middlesex Family History Society had organised a most successful day meeting at the Society which included use of the library and talks by me and Michael Gandy, their committee members acting as stewards, when sixty attended. Similarly on 6 December an Open Day for officers of local family history societies was organised at the Society by Peter Park the Chairman of the Lectures Committee. Some 60 delegates came from 34 societies and there were representatives of the Federation of Family History Societies, the Institute at Canterbury and the Guild of One-Name Studies. I gave a talk about the history of the Society, Michael Gandy spoke on its organisation and structure, and Christopher Watts described its other activities and facilities, the theme of co-operation being stressed. A buffet lunch was provided, an exhibition arranged and tours of the Library given and the whole event did much to cement the Society’s links with the local societies [3316].
In 1986 the Society celebrated the 75th anniversary of its incorporation in 1911 and several special events were organised. Already in 1983 a sub-committee under the chairmanship of Brian Fitzgerald-Moore had been set up to organise a conference at Oxford in September 1986, it having been agreed that the Society would at that time act as host for the Federation’s half-yearly meeting [3317]. The committee consisted of several of those who had organised the previous English Genealogical Congresses and Stella Colwell was the Honorary Organiser. The resulting international congress was held at the three colleges of Balliol, St John’s and Trinity, from 8 to 14 September, under the Patronage of Prince Michael of Kent and the Presidency of Garter King of Arms, Sir Colin Cole, who attended throughout. Professor Henry Loyn gave the Opening Address in the Sheldonian Theatre and there was a wide choice of subjects from four streams of lectures, some seventy in total, over the next six days. Distinguished lecturers were invited from Australia, Canada, France, The Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States of America and amongst the 470 attending was a party of nine from Australia. The social events included Medieval Entertainment in the Dining Halls of the three Colleges, a Civic Reception at Oxford Town Hall, Folk Songs and Dance in the Garden Quad of Trinity College, a choice of excursions to Burford, Blenheim Palace, Chastleton House and Broughton Castle, walking tours illustrating Architecture in Oxford and Oxford Past and Present, and a Banquet at Balliol College at which the Lord Saye and Sele was the Guest Speaker. The conference incorporated the Federation Half Yearly Meeting and included, instead of their usual banquet, a River Boat Party with buffet. The total cost amounted to £42,529 but with careful budgeting there was a surplus of £789. The whole thing was from every point of view a considerable success and looking back now I cannot but feel that in many ways this Congress represented the Society’s finest hour. Certainly that for the Society’s Centenary in 2011 (a one-day event in London) was by all accounts not a patch on it.
The major London event of the year was a reception after the Annual Meeting on 26 June at the Royal Over-Seas League when a standing buffet was provided and about 105 attended. Three Vice-Presidents had been welcomed to the Meeting chaired by Dr Christopher Watts: Sir Colin Cole, Garter King of Arms, Colonel Somerset Hopkinson (a member since 1919) and Dr Frederick Emmison.
As part of the annual series of lectures I had on 27 September given a lecture, ‘The Story of Janetta’, recounting to a crowded meeting room the research carried out over many years in connection with the biography of Janetta Scott Norwebb the author of The memoirs of Janetta (1812) and the first ancestor of our friend in Cleveland to use the surname. I had given the talk at various places over the years but not previously at the Society.
On the suggestion of Michael Burchall and with the approval of the Executive Committee, the Fellows recommended to the Executive Committee in 1985 that it mark the Society’s 75th anniversary the following year by petitioning for a Grant of Arms and Badge, the costs of which would be covered by the Fellows. Patric Dickinson, then Rouge Dragon Pursuivant of Arms and himself a Fellow, drafted the Petition which the Chairman and I signed on 18 February, and he forwarded it to the Earl Marshal and guided us through the whole process.
The design of the projected Arms, Crest, Supporters and Badge, as Patric Dickinson wrote in the Magazine, was the subject of a good deal of discussion, but it seemed from the outset desirable to retain the oak tree long used as a motif by the Society and such a tree was consequently made the principal feature of the Arms and of the Badge, that on the Badge showing its roots and being encircled with a chain [3318]. I suggested that the shield’s background be the symbolic ‘gyronny of sixteen’ with a ‘gorge counterchanged’ to distinguish it from other Arms with trees and this found general approval. For the crest Patric Dickinson proposed a gold double-tailed lion (as in the crest of Lord Mountbatten) which held a pedigree scroll and rose from a circlet of red annulets (a feature of the Arms used by Charterhouse). Two most elegant backward-looking cranes would support the shield, the word pedigree deriving from pied de gru – crane’s foot.
The design was approved by the Fellows and by the Executive Committee ‘without any notable dissension’, but the choosing of a suitable motto proved more difficult. Fifty-three suggestions were received and balloted upon, one in Latin, ‘Radices Quaeramus’ (‘Let us seek our roots’), proposed by John Blight, eventually finding favour. Anthony Wagner had proposed ‘From one generation to another’ [3319] and the LDS Fellows were keen on ‘Hearts turned to their fathers’, but I was very happy with the outcome and thought the whole Achievement quite exceptional. The preliminary sketches, the scrivening and extra illumination of the Letters Patent, and the line drawings, were all executed with great skill by Henry Gray, a Herald Painter at the College of Arms and also a long-term member of the Society.
The completed Patent, dated on the anniversary of the Society’s incorporation, 8 May 1986, was presented to the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Christopher Watts, at a Reception after the 75th Annual General Meeting at The Royal Over-Seas League on 26 June 1986, by Sir Colin Cole, Garter King of Arms. In the event the costs were considerably more than the funds collected from the Fellows and the balance was met from the Society’s funds. Following the Grant, the Seal on the cover of the Magazine was replaced in June 1986 with the Shield from the Grant, and this in turn by a simple design showing the complete achievement of Arms, which I organised from the start of a new volume in March 1989. Henry Gray subsequently kindly produced a re-worked version of the Seal without the word 'The' in the name of the Society to which I had long had a dislike (and had removed from its name in the new Articles in 1979). As mentioned above the ‘The’ in the title of the Magazine had been dropped in 1972.
A further booklet in the My ancestors series was published in February, the highly successful Merchant Seamen by the brothers Christopher and Michael Watts. A pilot scheme to produce publications on microfiche was agreed in April 1986 and copies of the 1734 Poll Book for Sussex, the 1772 Poll Book for Wiltshire and the 1869 edition of Lloyd’s Captains Register, were produced in that form and sold reasonably well. It may be noted here that the important Lloyd’s Marine Collection was made available at the Guildhall Library in 1980 [3320]. Leaflet No 18 on the Data Protection Act and Genealogists, by Alexander Sandison, was produced in June 1986. A new line in earthenware and china mugs and a pin tray, all bearing the Society’s Seal, was commissioned in small quantities in July and paper bags, similarly printed, were first used in the bookshop in February. The new volume of the National Index for Wales, published in April, is mentioned elsewhere and a revised edition of the Library Guide was also produced. There had been a steady expansion of the bookshop throughout the year, a wider range of smaller books and guides being bought in for re-sale. The discount given to member societies of the Federation was increased from 25% to 33% in February and in May any order above £10 was allowed the larger discount. The usual bookstalls were provided at the Federation’s conference at Loughborough (4-6 April), when a new portable display outlining the Society’s facilities (designed by Charles Plouviez and constructed by Paul Blake) was first used and then, most successfully, throughout the 75th Anniversary Conference [3321].
The early volumes of the PCC Will Index did not sell well but I was much opposed to the publication of the remainder of the index on microfiche as was being suggested. After some experimentation I found that it would be possible to have two columns of typing on each A3 page which might be reduced in printing to A5 and still be legible, thus tripling the number of entries in each volume. Of course the columns could not be typed directly onto A3 and paste-ups had to be made which incorporated any corrections discovered in the checking. All this took considerable time but the sections were typed by Pauline Attrell and then checked against the slips and corrected and pasted up by myself and a third volume, Ch-G, containing some 60,000 entries (as opposed to the 20,000 in volume two), eventually appeared in 1984, when sales of the series became more promising.
Volume Four, H-M, with the many problems of alphabetising the M', Mc and Mac entries, came out in 1988 (£21), followed by Volume Five, N-Sh, in 1991 (£16), and Volume Six, Si-Z, with an extensive series of corrections to the first volume, in December 1992 (£18). By then the success of the volumes was assured and they were making a considerable profit for the Society. In the Preface to Volume Six I said that slips for the Administrations, 1750-1800, had been prepared by the original slip writers and that the typing of these had now commenced, with the intention of publication in due course. As mentioned above they had been sorted by Michael J. Wood back in 1976 [3322] and in fact I had begun to type them myself in my spare time, there being about 120,000 entries.
Under the arrangement with the Federation of Family History Societies, Alan Reed had been the Society’s most active and appreciated representative on the latter’s Executive Committee in succession to Sir Andrew Noble since 1979, but that position he also resigned and in September 1989 Mrs Gill Valentine was nominated in his place. In November 1989 the formal representation of the Federation on the Society’s Library and Computer Committees was brought to an end by mutual agreement, but the useful liaison in the field of publications continued through Mrs Susan B. Lumas. I followed Mrs Valentine as the Society’s representative on the Federation’s Executive Committee from 1992 to 1998 when I was elected President (1998-2000) and Robert Gordon was named the representative.
Sarah J. Walters, the office Assistant, was promoted to Membership Secretary in February 1987 following the resignation of Peter Bacos after two most active years. She herself resigned in March 1988 when Mrs Suzanne J. Spurgeon was appointed in her stead and had the heavy task of entering the details of ten thousand members in the new computer system.
There was, as noted elsewhere, a reduction in the amount of research coming to the Society, and in May 1988 the Research Assistant, Lydia Collins, resigned after ten years sterling work with us, more recently on our publications. It then proved difficult to find anyone with suitable qualifications and experience to administer the work at its then level of income and without considerable expansion (which would itself increase the already heavy level of financially unproductive correspondence) and it was agreed in September 1989 to restrict the work to specified searches in the Society’s library for members only [3323].
I lost my typist, Miss K. Monnica Stevens, to the Library in July 1988 when she was appointed a third Library Assistant to augment and assist the Library staff, and Mrs Beverly Wass was appointed Secretarial Assistant in the general office in her place. A new Library Assistant, who is with the Society still, Miss Clare F. Bullen, took up her position on 3 January 1989. Later that year, in December, another Library Assistant, Nicholas John Fogg, replaced a former short-lived Assistant who had left in October, loyally remaining with the Society until July 2017.
In October 1987 the General Purposes Committee had appointed a ‘Premises Development Working Party’ to consider the overall situation within the building and it was decided that whilst there were clearly growing pressures on the facilities and particularly on the space available, it would be best to build up the Development Fund with a view to a major development at some future date and meanwhile to add a further £25,000 to that Fund, bringing it to £100,000. A further £20,000 was added in 1988 when there was an increase in the sale of publications after a rather disappointing result in 1987. Also in 1988 the membership income increased by almost £12,000, though this was offset by increases in the cost of staffing by £14,000 and of the Magazine by £6,000. As a result of the new rules the tax recovered on covenanted subscriptions continued to fall, from £9,000 in 1986 to £5,860 in 1988.
One particularly generous member who had been closely connected with the Society made an anonymous covenanted donation of £2,000 in April 1988, to be repeated in each of the coming three years. Also in 1988 the Revd J. P. Hill gave £500, Dr Joseph Druse gave $500, Michael Armstrong gave £200 and bequests of £500 each were received under the wills of Arthur J. Howard (together with his microfiche reader) and Sir Andrew Noble.
It was noted in September 1988 that the character of the Society’s immediate surroundings was likely to change considerably by the proposed development of St Bartholomew’s Medical School on the Society’s south and west sides and of the neighbouring Litton House to the south-east and a surveyor had to be engaged and formal protests made before somewhat amended plans were approved by the Borough of Islington on 6 December. Noise and dust from the re-development of Litton House site was endured throughout much of the following year and in June 1989, because of the proximity of the scaffolding, our burglar bars were extended to the rear windows of the Upper Library. Our front elevation was repainted in October 1989. The proposed development of the Medical School site was, however, the subject of considerable discussion and delay and was not completed until 2008-9.
The next few years were remarkably busy. There were 5,406 fee-paying visits by non-members in 1987, and 5,751 in 1988, both record years, with about 19,000 visits by members in 1987 and 25,400 in 1988. The membership passed the 9,000 mark in the first of these years, the 10,000 mark in the second and the 11,000 mark in 1989. However, although there were about 21,500 visits by members in 1989, the number of fee-paying visitors fell to 4,853, the lowest figure for some time, partly no doubt caused by the rail and underground strikes when the Society was several times obliged to close.
Considerable numbers of film and fiche copies of registers were added to the Library but any decision to purchase microfilms of the GRO indexes of births, marriages and deaths was deferred pending the results of discussions as to their possible production on microfiche. Agreement with the diocesan authorities followed by circularisation of the clergy in Devonshire paved the way for the purchase of microfiche copies of many registers from that county.
In July 1986 the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Dr Christopher Watts, had written to The Times about the Society’s work of recording monumental inscriptions and an article in Reader’s Digest did much to publicise our publication on the subject. Consequently there was also a considerable increase, to 619 places in 1987 and 588 in 1988, in the number of transcripts received and in May 1987 we were able to publish the second part of the important Monumental Inscriptions in the Library of the Society covering Northern England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Overseas, the result of much careful work by Lydia Collins and Mabel Morton. Regular new editions were now being produced of all the library catalogues and when in June 1988 the Annual Report mentioned the revision of the Library Guide we noted that 5,000 copies had sold in the preceding twelve months. In October 1987 we published a new booklet Census Indexes in the Library of the Society of Genealogists compiled by the Library Assistant, Jane Kenyon (who unfortunately resigned the following month),which replaced the former Leaflet No 14. Another major catalogue of material in the library was also produced that October: The Trinity House Petitions: a calendar of the records of the Corporation of Trinity House, London, in the library of the Society of Genealogists, compiled by Mr A. D. D’Ews, checked by Isabelle Charlton and Norma Allum and typed for publication by Mr C. V. Porter, I having added an introduction, calendars of the apprenticeship indentures and miscellaneous records and an index of surnames. Mabel Morton continued her work on the library and produced School, University and College Registers and Histories in the Library of the Society of Genealogists, which was typed for publication (in October 1988) by John Addis-Smith. October 1988 also saw the fourth volume of my Index to the Wills Proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury 1750-1800, covering H-M, which was typed by Mrs Pauline Attrell, my double column arrangement now making good headway into the alphabet.
In 1987 we produced two further booklets in the My ancestor series, on Baptists by the Revd Geoffrey R. Breed, and my work on Migrants which was later re-titled My ancestors moved. In May 1988 we produced Mr W. T. Stott’s Volume 6 Part 2 Nottinghamshire of the National Index of Parish Registers and in August, following the great Domesday Exhibition in 1986, my edition of the controversial talks given in 1931-2 and indexes to the various versions of the Battle Abbey Roll, as My ancestors came with the Conqueror.
The material on microfiche continuing to sell reasonably well, a further group of poll books was published in that form in June 1987 and the Bankrupt Directory 1820-43 in February 1988.
There were four new Leaflets in 1987: No 19 Army Research Bibliography and No 20 Navy Research Bibliography, compiled by Dr Watts, No 21 Has it been done before? which I wrote, and No 22 Genealogical sources in London, by Alexander Sandison. Sandison, who had in 1987 spent time on the British Standards Institution’s committee on codes for the name of counties, produced the definitive Leaflet No 23 County Codes in 1988.
Bookstalls were provided at the Federation conferences at Blackpool in April and at Aberystwyth in August 1987. In 1988 the books were taken to six different venues, including the Federation Conference at Aberdeen. Stocks of the Society’s tie showing the Company Seal (produced in 1980) [3324] being exhausted, the opportunity was taken in October 1987 to market a new design with the single motif of the full Achievement of Arms granted in 1986 on a blue background. A badge showing the Seal was also produced in May 1987.
In addition to those already mentioned, further regular volunteers came forward in 1987 to staff the Upper Library and to help with tasks in the library: Miss C. A. Bennett, Miss Iris Caley, Mrs I. Dickson, Miss Jessica Freeman, Mrs C. Hammond, Flt. Lt. Nicholas Newington-Irving, Miss Olive R. G. Jeynes, Mrs L. McGowan, Mr G. Morgan, Mrs Mabel Morton (died 1989), Mrs A. R. Nilson, Mrs Anne Prudames, Mrs Margaret Spearman (died 2012) and Derek Tooke [3325]. New volunteers in 1988 were Mrs Meryl Catty, Mr J. G. Davies, Ms F. S. Deak, Mrs M. B. Ellis, Mrs Lilian Gibbens, Donald Halliday, Brian Hicklenton, Mrs D. Hobin, Mrs Joyce B. Kent (died 2015), Miss Beth Iegge, Edward Lowe, Mrs Wendy Mott and Martin Penny [3326]. Most were happy to man the Upper library and to work there on various projects but they were not so keen to man the Lower Library with its many machines and their ensuing problems!
Substantial increases to the stock of parish registers in microform were made in 1988 when two new microfilm viewers were purchased and additional shelving had to be constructed in the Lower Library to accommodate the growing microfilm collection. The new (1988) version of the English section of the International Genealogical Index was added in June and an order placed for the remainder of the British Isles and the World. We purchased the two per-cent sample of the 1851 Census Returns in October. The large card index compiled by the late Edward Dwelly and mentioned above came to the Society in 1988 and was put in order by volunteers and made available in the Lower Library, the Maintenance Work Group cleverly refurbishing some 92 needed drawers. Further shelving had also to be erected in the Upper Library that year where working parties of volunteers were organised to expand the Document Collection and file therein the large collections of the late William E. C. Cotton and of Mrs Brenda Perks the London-based LDS researcher who was retiring and who died in 1993.
A very successful day conference on the theme ‘Another slice of life’ was organised by Patricia Kirkland and Peter Park at Regent’s College on 7 November 1987, when about 306 participated. Four streams, each of four lectures, were provided and the opening address was given by the Registrar General, Mrs G. T. Banks. The three main talks provided case studies for the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The usual bookstalls were provided by Phillimore & Co, the Institute at Canterbury and the Society.
Two half-day tutorial classes were organised in September and October 1987 on the records of Lancashire and the Birmingham area with local archivists and the librarian as speakers. Joan Coburn again gave two one-day classes and a two-day class in palaeography and Mrs Susan Palmer gave a two-day course in translating medieval Latin, all being fully booked. Two series of ten lectures for beginners were also provided. At the end of the year a more advanced course of eleven lectures, ‘Further sources for the family historian’, was given by Stella Colwell, about sixty attending. Together with Miss Colwell, I represented the Society on an Advisory Committee at the Department of Extra-Mural Studies of London University which approved a syllabus and scheme of study for Certificate and Diploma Courses in Genealogy and the History of the Family offered at two centres by the Department in 1987. As a result I now acted as one of the External Examiners for the Department on those and subsequent courses. In September 1988 Stella Colwell commenced a thirty week Certificate Course, the first year of a two-year course at the Society, with 27 attending.
I had taken further week-end courses at Theobalds College, 18-20 September 1987 and 26-28 February 1988, and with Michael Gandy in 1987 provided a series of day meetings in the Society’s rooms for local family history societies at which we both spoke, many similar group visits along these lines being organised by Mary Gandy with various speakers in the coming years. In May-July 1988 Michael Gandy gave a popular series of eight lectures on 'English History 1485-1914' with forty-seven people attending. On Saturdays in the summers of 1997, 1988 and 1989, David Hawkings, a Fellow who knew the Library well, kindly provided a series of Research Surgeries when a significant number of members were given advice on their genealogical problems. The number of postal enquiries was also great and made greater by an otherwise accurate article in the Edmonton Journal which announced that the Society sold on behalf of the Guild of One-Name Studies its ‘detailed books on each family surname’ (having misunderstood a note about the Guild’s list of registered surnames which we sold), and which resulted in many requests for books on particular families which, of course, we did not have [3327].
In view of all that was happening at home I was not able to go to the Sixth NGS Conference held at Columbus, Ohio, in May 1986, with its 1,200 attendees and at which Donald Lines Jacobus (1887-1970) was the first person admitted to the National Genealogy Hall of Fame, a fine project promoted by President Varney Nell. However, in May 1987 I again visited the United States and lectured at the National Genealogical Society 1987 Conference in the States, ‘Where it all began’, hosted by the North Carolina Genealogical Society and with the amusing expert on Rowan County, Jo White Linn (1930-2006) as Host Society Chairman, at the Radisson Plaza, Raleigh, North Carolina, 13-16 May, which coincided with the 400th anniversary of the Roanoke Island settlement. During the Conference, which had 1,150 attendees, I gave the Meredith B. Colket, Jr., Memorial Lecture, sponsored by the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History, ‘Six things to do in America before giving up on that early immigrant’, as well as two lectures about the Society of Genealogists and its value for the ‘Colonial Period’.
It was with the Raleigh Conference in 1987 that the NGS began to publish a detailed conference syllabus and each lecturer and panel moderator was asked to submit up to four pages of material well in advance so that it could be printed in time. This could be quite a chore and the volumes soon revealed those who could not keep to deadlines, but talks delivered from notes on the backs of old envelopes (which may have had their place elsewhere) thus became a thing of the past. These volumes, at no extra charge, proved to be highly popular and very useful additions to the conferences. The first in 1987 had 232 pages but with the great growth in the number of sessions, the syllabus for the 1990 Conference filled two volumes and had 886 pages. The majority of the talks were also subsequently available on tape for an additional $6 or $7 and one of my first tasks on returning home was to listen to how they went and to see how the texts might be improved. Later, in other countries, lecturers were asked to provide for publication complete texts of their talks in advance and on one occasion I found the prospect of the audience reading along with me so off-putting and restricting that I chose a quite different topic from that in the syllabus, trusting that those present might consider it a bonus.
I went from Columbus to Cleveland again and on 23 May 1987, I conducted a one-day seminar at the Western Reserve Historical Society with Nicholas Vine Hall, Director of the Society of Australian Genealogists. I particularly remember a day there when in the Rare Book Room of the Western Reserve the Director, Kermit Pike, showed us various treasures and opened up on the floor for me the great book commemorating the coronation of Alexander II of Russia in 1855 (I have that for Alexander III in 1883). The previous day I had seen the Russian items in the India Early Minshall Collection, ‘Faberge and his Contemporaries’, at the Cleveland Museum of Art (of which Mrs Norweb was President of the Trustees).
We celebrated the 30th anniversary of my first coming to the Society with an informal reception, very kindly organised by Norma Allum, on 5 September 1987, and attended by 125 members and friends [3328]. A year later, on 9 September 1988, I was, as I said, ‘divided into two camps’ when I formally opened the Federation’s Half-Yearly Conference in two marquees at Avery Hill, Eltham, my speech attracting some attention and being published in full in Family Tree Magazine. I had again been to America in April 1988 when I attended another particularly enjoyable National Genealogical Society 1988 Conference in the States, this time hosted by the L. W. Anderson Genealogical Library at Biloxi, Mississippi, when I was again the speaker at the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History’s Luncheon, addressing the topic ‘Ancestors on the Move; Three Centuries of Migration within England’ which caused some amusement when publicised as ‘Ancestors on the Run’! I stayed with most delegates at the delightful Royal d’Iberville Hotel facing the Gulf and the conference, held along the front at the Mississippi Coast Convention Centre (badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005), attracted some 1,300 registrants. The scholarly NGS President, Erma Angevine, called it ‘a happy, friendly conference from start to finish’ which indeed it was.
The year 1988 had been particularly busy for me and the list of other talks that I gave that year is very long. They included lectures at the Trustees’ Dinner at Dr Williams’s Library (7 July), the ‘Records of the Nation’ conference in connection with the centenary of the British Record Society at the Middle Temple (8-10 August) and the ‘Lure of London’ Day Conference at Friends’ House (8 October).
The algorithm mentioned above with its 85 questions leading to the Society of Genealogists which was first published in 1975 had been reprinted in the first edition of Tracing Your Ancestors in the Public Record Office (1981) and was, I thought, a considerable tribute to the Society's library staff and its harassed research department but I could not help making fun of it when I was asked to open a new (and, in the event, short-lived) Family History Enquiry Desk at the Public Record Office at Kew on 4 July 1988.
The tutorial classes in 1987 having proved successful, the Conferences Manager, Mary Gandy, organised a day class on schools’ records with five lectures on various types of schools on 19 November 1988, when 58 attended. There were the usual classes in palaeography and Latin in 1988 and two series of ten lectures for beginners.
Evelyn M. Kenward organised a successful Saturday afternoon workshop on 21 February 1987 with several practical demonstrations illustrating the use of databases by family historians, when about thirty members attended. Evening meetings for computer enthusiasts took place throughout this and the following year. With John Addis-Smith she also organised two successful half-day conferences at the Society in February and November 1988, both being attended by about 75 people. John Addis-Smith himself organised on behalf of the Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society a day conference at Ardwick Green North on 14 May when 130 attended, the local arrangements being made by Mr H. King.
The Society had, in December 1986, purchased an Amstrad PC 1512 Computer with WordPerfect software and an NEC printer for use in the Society’s office, particularly for publications, and I was able to produce the Annual Report on it that year. The funds for its purchase had been contributed by our friends in Bill Linder’s group [3329]. In 1987 the second edition of My ancestor was a merchant seaman, several other booklets, publication lists and many form letters were composed thereon. However, it unfortunately proved impossible to transfer the mailing list from a volunteer’s Torch Graduate to the Society’s Amstrad and the whole list had to be re-keyed by the Membership Secretary, Suzanne Spurgeon. In anticipation of my thirtieth anniversary with the Society, a second Amstrad was purchased in March 1987 and loaned to me for my personal use [3330].
In the early part of 1988, with the object of computerising the membership records and easing the production of addressed envelopes for the Magazine, three possible membership systems were evaluated by the Society’s staff assisted by John Addis-Smith. The Lodestar System was chosen and a new computer and printer purchased and installed in July. Suzanne Spurgeon then had the heavy task of re-entering the eleven thousand subscription and address records but the system was fully operational by the time of the despatch of the March 1989 Magazine. A major resulting improvement was the inclusion of membership cards as a part of the mailing labels, though naturally these were initially sometimes overlooked and discarded from the plastic sleeves by the less observant members. In September that year the Magazine was itself despatched through an agency, the labels being presorted in the office with Mailsort software [3331].
As a result of our talks in Salt Lake City in August 1985 I had convened a meeting of representatives of all the main bodies representing users of records at the Society on Saturday, 9 November 1985, to discuss ways in which assistance might be given to the Church’s microfilming and indexing programmes and a useful exchange of ideas and information took place. This and subsequent meetings of the group was basically limited to users of records rather than to their custodians and soon came to be called the British Genealogical Record Users Committee (BGRUC but christened ‘BugRug’ by Dr Watts!). It played a most important role over the next twelve years but was greatly weakened in its lobbying work when, after I retired, custodians were admitted. I acted as the Group’s convenor, minute taker and general dogsbody, and the Chair was taken at alternate sessions by representatives of the Genealogical Department (formerly the GSU), the SoG and the FFHS.
In preparation for the first meeting of the Committee, Jeffrey Packe brought Richard Ebert and Mark Bell from the Department’s Acquisitions Division to the Society on 7 November and we went through the agenda. Jeffrey, as noted above, had with great tact and discretion long represented the Church’s genealogical interests in the British Isles and personally knew the majority of those likely to be involved in any meeting. He was based at Ipswich (where much earlier he had been President of the Magic Circle) but was due to retire in 1986.
The particularly active President of the Church, Spencer Kimball, unfortunately died on 5 November, but Elder Scott came to England and was able to be present for the first part of the day-long meeting at the Society which was chaired by Chris Watts. I went early but found the eager Elder Scott with Jeffrey, Richard and Mark, waiting in their car outside. He outlined the LDS objectives as to store, to be able to retrieve, and to make available in libraries and then the home, the worldwide genealogy of man. The intention was to improve the accuracy of the computerised records, capturing the lineage links in original records. A Genealogical Information System (GIS) would be formed, comprising a Patron Access System for those using small computers, the Ancestral File which would eventually replace the IGI, Ordinance Files to check duplicated entries, Resource Files for census, birth, marriage and probate records, and a Research Guidance System. The objectives for the main System were that it should handle all kinds of genealogical data, be upgradeable as technology improved, be usable by unskilled persons, users having IBM compatible machines, and that little initial investment be required. The target was to add sixty million records to the System every year and that it be operational within six months. Elder Scott sought co-operation in the indexing of records, in the exchange of material in GEDCOM format, in acquiring genealogical records, and in sharing lineage-linked data. In the discussion which followed it was said that the Church might provide hardware and software to assist in the process but it needed information on what was available in the UK and its potential, which might then be evaluated. It could then adapt software for Personal Ancestral File and make it available here.
The Committee agreed to form a Project Co-ordination Sub-Committee (which was to meet on 11 January) and an Automation Sub-Committee, the latter consisting of representatives of the SoG and LDS together with Dr Edward Higgs from the PRO and Kevin Schurer from the Cambridge Group. BGRUC would itself next meet, chaired by FFHS, at the end of April.
After the meeting an old friend, George H. Fudge, who for years had been involved in the work of the GSU and was to die rather suddenly in January, toured our library and remarked how things had changed since we first met. It was he who had proposed the revolutionary system of performing sealings for individually extracted names (without the necessity of having them in family groups) and in 1977 had made the ‘inspired’ proposal (its description by Elder Packer) that the extraction work be decentralized to the local stakes, both of which suggestions had contributed enormously to the development of the Department.
The Society’s representatives on the Automation Sub-Committee on 7 March 1986 were Donald Francis, David Hawgood and Christopher Watts, and they discussed with others from the Genealogical Department standards for the holding and transferring of parish register material. Attempts were then made to transfer the Society’s recommendations for copying and indexing parish registers and monumental inscriptions into GEDCOM format and to transfer a register already on computer to GEDCOM. The Project Co-ordinators Sub-Committee had met on 11 January to attempt a revision of the Catalogue of Parish Register Copies: Part Two but the joint approaches to various local societies again met with little response.
It was then agreed that the Society, in consultation with the Federation, should undertake a survey of the equipment that family historians were then using [3332], and slightly differing questionnaires, drafted by Donald Francis, were sent out with the September Magazine and with Computers in Genealogy. The aim, as the forms said, was firstly to inform discussions with Salt Lake City on the possible development of Ancestral File by bringing together privately held material, and secondly to provide an index of users who might provide information and advice on the equipment and software available (such as had existed at the Society and proved useful for the last three years). By February 1987 about 400 returns showed that 33% were using BBC, 25% Amstrad and 10% Spectrum machines. A similar survey made by Mrs Lonnie Race in 1988, showed that about a third had IBM compatible machines and slightly less than a third BBC machines.
In the spring of 1987 the BGRUC’s statement ‘Records at Risk’, drafted by Chris Watts, which recommended the general microfilming of records, was circulated to many record offices. The Automation Sub-Committee met in June and October that year when the GEDCOM Standard was discussed and the LDS’ Automated Public Access Catalogue, a revised version of the Personal Ancestral File, and the Universal Data Entry software were demonstrated by L. Reynolds Cahoon [3333]. He came again from Salt Lake City to report progress in August 1988.
In August 1987 the Genealogical Department of the Church had been re-named the Family History Department and its library became the Family History Library and a month later on 26 September 1987, the groundwork having been laid, I convened another important meeting of BGRUC in London to which Richard Scott again came with Mark Bell and Rick Ebert. After giving a summary of progress with the IGI and demonstrating Ancestral File, Elder Scott put forward a possible project to transcribe and index one of the English census returns which would use the volunteer labour of Church members together with that of the members of the societies belonging to the Federation of Family History Societies. For me it was a typically busy day, with a talk to ninety visitors from the Birmingham and Midland Society in the morning, then the setting up of the room and the moving of chairs and tables for the meeting in the early evening. Although we all went to dinner nearby it was not until 10.30 that I came back to the Society with Mark and Rick to pack things up.
Subsequently the Project Co-ordinators Sub-Committee met on two occasions to discuss details of the indexing project which, it was agreed, would be limited to the 1881 Returns, the latest then available, and launched in 1988. The Church representatives had been keen to produce a national index to the 1851 returns and had already done a trial run on a few counties but much time, effort and resources had already been invested by member societies of the Federation in transcriptions and published indexes to the 1851 Returns. Although one centralised index to the latter would have been invaluable it was thought that such an index to the 1881 Returns would be equally valuable without undercutting the work of the local societies and the Church agreed that an 1881 index would provide ‘a useful platform from which family history researchers could begin their investigations into the past’, though, of course, the work involved would be appreciably larger.
The final agreement put the Federation in charge of transcription and the Family History Department was to provide paper copies of the census, data entry software and hardware, and outputs in the form of microfiche at cost. Work began in February 1988 when the first of 8-9,000 volunteers began copying the 26.5 million photocopied entries (weighing 3 tonnes) onto printed forms (another 13 tonnes). It was the largest cooperative indexing project ever attempted, covering England, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Overall direction was given by Mark Bell the Department’s Acquisitions Manager and Richard Alan Sowter (died 2017) of Bristol acted as registrar of the participating groups, both giving enormous time and energy to the project. In Salt Lake City Sarah Beth Galloway headed the Co-operative Indexing Unit which tracked the whereabouts of each census batch and at The National Archives at Kew it fell to Susan Lumas to organise the checking of the illegible copies by eight missionaries who travelled in twice a week for five years to work on the original returns. A report on the project’s progress was given to the full meeting of BGRUC in April 1988 when the Registrar General’s report ‘Historical Records’ was also discussed. Richard Scott himself was sustained to the Quorum of the Twelve that year and was succeeded as Executive Director of the Family History Department by J. Richard Clarke (born 1927), who had been in life insurance but was then another active General Authority in the Church.
Starting in 1989 a group of 7,500 Church members began the data entry, using 170 personal computers purchased specifically for the project, with Jack (died 1999) and Yvonne Hoare coming from Australia to England and acting as their National Co-ordinators until 1991. The Hoares were succeeded by Kenneth and Dorothy Poole and then by Stephen Young from Canada. In 1992 sixty-two data entry sites at LDS churches in England were working on the project, supported by a staff of thirty full-time missionaries and ten volunteers at Church headquarters. The first outputs for individual counties – Cambridgeshire, Denbigh and Flint – were published on microfiche in 1991. The transcription work in my home county of Hertfordshire was organised by Mrs Janet Pearson and in 1989-90 I joined the volunteers and transcribed for her the parishes of Ardeley and Benington.
By the end of 1994 some 99% of the census had been transcribed and 82% entered on computer discs. Index fiche had been produced for 42 of the 91 counties in the British Isles and the results were revolutionizing genealogical research in England and Wales [3334]. A separate project, co-ordinated by the GSU and the Scottish Association of Family History Societies, started much later and covered the 1881 census for Scotland.
In London the Record Users’ Committee received regular reports of the steady progress of this remarkable project and it was my pleasant duty to acknowledge receipt on behalf of the SoG Library of the regular stream of county microfiche indexes that were produced. Transcription came to an end in April 1995 and data entry was completed later that year. I represented the Society at a commemorative luncheon held at Wolverhampton on 7 October. By then the Record Users’ Committee was turning its attention to another possible joint project, intended to take the form of a series of local burial indexes, concentrating in its initial stages on the period 1813-50, which later evolved into the National Burial Index [3335]. At its meeting in October 1996 the Committee received a report on the completion of the 1881 Census project on microfiche and the Society’s thanks were expressed to the GSU for the enormous contribution of resources and motivation which it had provided. Work to produce a CD-ROM version of the index then proceeded [3336].
At other informal meetings, unconnected with BGRUC, at which the Society was represented in 1987 the launch of a group of Friends of the Public Record Office (FPRO) and of a London Archive Users Forum (LAUF) was agreed. I attended an informal meeting of the Friends on 9 August 1988 and their formal inauguration on 12 December when I was elected to its Council and I was present when LAUF was officially launched on 23 March 1988.
Further sums of £100 were donated in 1987 and 1988 to assist the advertising campaign of the Records Preservation Section of the British Records Association.
Together with the Chairman, Alan Reed, I represented the Society at a reception at the College of Arms on 7 January 1988 to celebrate the Centenary of the British Record Society’s Index Library (of which I had been a member for twenty years) and the eightieth birthday of its Honorary Editor, Dr Marc Fitch.
The Society’s Chairman, Alan Reed, was appointed to represent the Federation of Family History Societies on the newly formed National Council on Archives which was launched at a meeting in London on 9 March 1988 and was intended to act as a forum through which users could exchange views with archivists.
Following the Report of the Warnock Committee the Society had in 1984 made representations to the Department of Health and Social Security, the Executive Committee having agreed that the proposed falsification of the birth certificates of children conceived following artificial insemination by donor (A.I.D.) should be resisted at all costs. The Executive Committee believed that a register should be set up, similar to that for adopted children, which would record the name of the true father. It also believed that this information should become available to the child when it became an adult and that any birth certificate issued, whilst naming the mother’s husband, should be marked in some discreet manner to indicate that conception had followed artificial insemination by donor [3337].
However, the Family Law Reform Bill which dealt mainly with the rights of illegitimate children and came before Parliament in January 1987, proposed to allow children born as a result of A.I.D. to be registered as legitimate children. The Society gave support to its Vice-President, Lord Denning, who sought in Debates in the House of Lords to have the clause deleted or the birth certificate annotated to show the father ‘by donation’. He was unsuccessful and the Bill was carried into Law.
A possible opportunity to amend the Act came with the publication of the Government’s discussion paper Legislation on Human Fertility Services and Embryo Research: A Consultation Paper (Cm 46), on which the Society’s comments, based on a draft by Stephen Hale, were submitted to the Department of Health and Social Security in June 1987. The Society was partially gratified by the publication of a White Paper in November [3338]. This proposed a statutory centralised licencing authority to which clinics would return full details of donors in A.I.D. cases, though the Government was not of the opinion that these details should be available to the child or that the child’s birth certificate should be annotated in any way. However, any person over the age of eighteen would be able to enquire if he or she had been conceived following sperm or embryo donation.
Lord Denning returned to the attack on these matters in a Debate in the House of Lord early in 1988, the Society taking the view that the birth certificate should be annotated and that the child at the age of eighteen or its descendants should be able to discover the true identity of its father [3339].
The Second Reading of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill did not take place until 2 December 1989 when Lord Teviot spoke, indicating the Society’s interest, and he subsequently sought the Society’s assistance in the preparation of amendments to be put forward during the Committee stages. The Chairman (Stephen Hale), Garter King of Arms (Sir Colin Cole) and I met Lady Saltoun (who had also spoken in the Debate) and Lord Teviot, and the Chairman subsequently assisted in the drafting of amendments. These would have required birth certificates to be discreetly annotated to indicate whether the mother or father was so by virtue of the provisions of the Bill, would have allowed the child to have full identifying information about its genetic parents at the age of 18 after counselling, would have made that information available to the child’s descendants after its death as well as to its medical advisers, would have attempted to extend the provisions of the Bill to children already born, and would have required all the records to be permanently preserved and made Public Records after 115 years [3340].
The Society assisted Lord Teviot and Lady Saltoun to organise a meeting at the House of Lords to lobby peers on 23 January 1990 which was well attended. The Earl Marshal (The Duke of Norfolk), Garter King of Arms and the Lord Lyon King of Arms all participated. The Chairman and I attended the Debates during the Committee Stage of the Bill when Lord Teviot was unfortunately heavily defeated. Further Amendments were attempted at the Report Stage when the Government agreed that donor children should not inherit titles or, in Scotland, arms.
The Bill subsequently had its Third Reading in the House of Lords and then went to Committee in the Commons where further attempts were made to amend it. The British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering with the Association of Directors of Social Services and the British Association of Social Workers promoted amendments which would allow any child to establish whether it was conceived following donation and to obtain non-identifying information about the donor and, at the age of eighteen, to have the full identifying information. The Society wrote to all the members of the Commons’ Committee indicating its support for these amendments and suggesting an additional one which would extend the right of access to full identifying information to grandchildren and other descendants. The Chairman made a plea at the Federation Conference at Newquay for participants to write to their Members of Parliament and a letter along similar lines was published in the May issue of Family Tree Magazine. In June the Daily Telegraph surprisingly printed my angry letter pointing out that although the charity Relate was worried about the number of divorces in England and the Prime Minister was concerned with the importance of family life, the Government had spent many days considering how it might license the introduction of a ‘donor’ third party to infertile couples with a spare £8,000 and, so that the supply did not run out, how it might guarantee their anonymity. At the same time, I wrote, it was denying the importance of genetic descent or paternity and although the truth might be recorded, no one was to be told, least of all the child or those descendants who inherited or suffered. I asked, ‘What form of family life, based on such principles and lies, does the Government really want?’ [3341].
Unfortunately not one of our amendments was secured though the Government stated that if the climate of public opinion changed it would be prepared to amend the Regulations relating to access to information. This would not, however, be done retrospectively. The clause exempting titles (and arms in Scotland) which had been deleted at Committee Stage, was re-inserted by the Government, though, as birth certificates are not to be marked, it is not clear how it can be applied [3342]. Altogether, although the arguments would clearly continue, it was a most disappointing outcome.
In January 1992 I submitted a paper to the Inter-Departmental Review of Adoption Law and a Consultation Document was published in October. It made no mention of the problems of descendants of adopted persons with regard to access to the adoptees’ original birth certificates, about which we had been so long concerned, and this matter was then further stressed [3343].
After I had retired I was glad to note that public opinion was deemed to have changed and that in 2004 new Regulations put out by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which came into effect on 1 April 2005 [3344], enabled those born after that date who suspected that they were donor-conceived children (for their birth certificates continue to lie) to request and receive, when they reach the age of eighteen, the name and last known address of their sperm, egg or embryo donor. The Society’s Annual Report made no mention of this important development and my successor as President of the Federation of Family History Societies, in spite of her husband’s earlier involvement, told me that I should not meddle in such things. They seem quite fundamental to me.
In December 2005, as a result of the Adoption and Children Act 2002, which for the first time gave unmarried and same-sex couples the legal right to adopt children, those parents who had given up chidren for adoption were also given the right to trace their children through an intermediary, so long as the child agreed. In November 2014 new rules further allowed the birth relatives of those adopted before 30 December 2005 to find out about their family histories and medical backgrounds, the regulations ensuring that the consent of the adopted person was obtained before contact or information sharing was facilitated, unless only non-dentifying medical information was being sought, the adoptee had died, was incapacitated or could not be found [3345].
Thus I had the satisfaction of seeing that matters for which we had lobbied for so long had, to some extent at least, at last come to pass.
Membership cards were for the first time distributed by post with the March 1989 Magazine following the completion of the computeration of the records and in September the Magazine was itself despatched through an agency using labels presorted with Mailsort software. With the high level of interest rates then prevailing the surplus that year reached an unprecedented level, due also to the increase in subscriptions agreed in 1988, the number of consequential resignations having been quite low. Bequests of £500 each were received from G.W. Iredell and E.R. Campbell that year. The possible payment of subscriptions and bookshop purchases by credit card was considered but deferred.
The Society’s pension scheme had previously been restricted to senior and long serving employees but in 1990 it was agreed that all permanent and full-time staff should become eligible to join the scheme after six months’ service. The investment income in 1990 was £49,928 but the Annual Report [page 4] contained a stern warning that the investments could not be relied upon as a source of income and that interest rates were already falling. Mr R. Jacomb bequeathed the Society £500 that year.
At the Annual General Meeting on 28 June 1990 the Society’s General Regulations were amended and the category of ‘Married Couples’ was deleted and replaced by ‘Family Members’, defined as married couples or two or more related persons resident at the same address who opted to receive only one copy of the Magazine, they paying one normal rate subscription plus a concessionary rate for each additional family member. 1,434 new members were elected that year.
In 1991 the interest rates again fell but membership continued to grow, rising to 12,280, though the Gulf War and terrorist activity in London in the early part of the year reduced the number of visitors and day-searchers. The Society received £250 as a bequest from Colonel Stanley Marker, £500 under the will of Mr B. W. Leask and £2,039 for computer development under that of Alexander Sandison. The final £2,000 of the four-year anonymous covenanted donation for library use was also received this year and placed in a Special Donations Fund.
Membership continued to rise and in 1992 some 1,456 new members were elected, the total reaching 12,967. Interest rates, however, continued to fall and expenditure to rise, that on salaries in 1992 being the largest single increase. A bequest from Mr H. J. Hoby of £1,127 was received that year.
The Finance Officer, Sir Wilfred Robinson, retired at the end of June 1992 after twelve years which had seen a tremendous expansion in the Society; its then financial well-being owing much to his careful management. Tributes were paid and a presentation made at the AGM and Michael F. McEvoy, a former Branch Manager with Barclays Bank, was appointed in his stead.
Some 1,360 new members were elected in 1993, the lowest number for ten years, but at the end of the year membership stood at 13,346 including 1,489 who lived overseas. However, in view of the increased level of expenditure it was agreed at the AGM on 29 June 1993 that the annual subscriptions for new members from 1 October 1993 and for existing members from 1 January 1994 be increased to £30 for Town Members (concessionary £22.50) and £21 for Country Members (concessionary £15.75). The numbers elected fell in 1994 to 1,152 but the total stood at 12,904 including 1,496 overseas. In 1995 there were 1,240 elected and the total stood at 13,255 with 1,472 overseas. Some 537 copies of the Magazine were in addition distributed to subscribers or in exchange for other periodicals.
However, the covenanting of subscriptions was again allowed in 1994 and nearly a thousand members immediately joined the scheme, resulting in the recovery of £8,063 in tax. By the end of 1995 2,100 members had covenanted their subscriptions and that number increased to 3,000 in 1996 and produced nearly £16,000. The two-day Family History Fair with an increased entrance fee in 1994 achieved a surplus of £15,219. Salary rates were now being increased in line with the Retail Prices Index and reviewed annually and loans were being made to individual staff, repayable in instalments, for travel season tickets.
The careful Honorary Treasurer over the previous nine years, Victor Gale, was not eligible for re-election at the AGM in June 1994 when Alan Wood, FFA, was elected to the Executive Committee and appointed Treasurer in his stead. A bequest of £1,000 was received under the will of Mrs O. E. Green and covenanted donations of £1,000 each were received from Misses C. S. and P. A. Loveridge. Mr T. R. Behm generously gave amounts totalling £2,109 for Library equipment.
The Finance Officer, Michael McEvoy, resigned in May 1994 and in July we were fortunate to be able to appoint Roger Lawson, formerly Principal Accountant to Maldon District Council and Deputy Bursar at Brentwood School, in his stead. Mr H. Khansa had provided very effective interim assistance to me meanwhile.
It was agreed at the AGM on 27 June 1995 that for ease of administration the Society’s General Regulations be amended to require Members who wished to claim a concessionary rate subscription to do so by 31 October of the subscription year preceding that for which they first claimed the reduced rate. In 1995 Miss D. A. Hills bequeathed the Society £12,722 and Mr E. Ward Hind bequeathed £2,255. An anonymous covenanted donation realising £2,666 for library purposes was also received that year, Mr T. R. Behm gave £1,000 and Dr Joseph Druse gave $500. An upgrade to the computerized membership system was installed in August 1995 and an electronic credit card processor in December.
Slight but necessary adjustments to the Annual Accounts for 1994 reduced the surplus by about £8,000 and the 1995 Annual Report explained, ‘It is considered that showing the surplus for the year before the addition of any donations received, which are themselves unplanned, best indicates the financial results of the Society’.
Throughout 1996 and 1997 I attended the meetings of Towards Historic Clerkenwell which organised the Clerkenwell City Walk and I was present at the Walk’s inauguration on 12 July 1996, the Society featuring in a widely publicised explanatory booklet and other publicity material.
It was agreed in 1996 that the use of direct debits for the payment of subscriptions be introduced, where agreeable, in 1998, but as with the covenants there was initially only a modest response to Roger Lawson’s appeal sent with the December 1996 Magazine. In 1996 Mrs H. N. Smith gave £1,000 in memory of her late husband Colonel Leonard H. Smith, Jr., and Dr Joseph Druse gave a further $500. A covenanted donation realising £1,000 was received from David Squire and an anonymous donation realised £2,000.
In September 1996 the Executive Commitee agreed to dispense with sponsors for future members (though reserving the right to ask for them under the Society’s General Regulations) and to work towards a single-rate universal subscription for all future members. Some 1,428 members were elected in 1996 and at the end of the year the membership stood at 13,871 including 1,585 who lived abroad. 470 copies of the Magazine were in addition distributed to subscribers or in exchange for other periodicals.
In July 1997 it was agreed that in future the loyalty of those who had been members of the Society for more than fifty years should be rewarded with Life Membership. Accordingly, twenty-three Members were informed that they did not need to pay any subscription in 1998. In 1997 Stephen Hale gave £1,316 in memory of his father, Mr T. Behm gave £1,000 and the Misses C. S. and P. A. Loveridge made covenanted donations producing £1,948 and £2,2597 respectively. A generous bequest by Mrs Ada 'Joan' Goadby, the second wife and widow of Brigadier Goadby, herself interested in local and family history, who had died in 1987, came this year and amounted to £24,374. The anonymous member who paid for my retirement reception gave an additional covenanted donation worth £974. The overall surplus in 1997 was thus £86,919 (as against £34,687 in 1996).
At the AGM on 24 June 1997 substantial alterations were made to the members’ subscriptions in the Society’s General Regulations. These left unchanged the subscriptions of existing members paying the full rates, but increased the subscriptions of those paying concessionary rates to a more realistic level, requiring all future Members to pay one universal rate equivalent to the London Member rate, and removing for future Members any residence qualifiation and the possibility of concessionary rates. By the end of the year it did not appear that these changes had had any effect on the number of new members elected, but they greatly simplified the administration of the Society. The income from subscriptions in 1997 increased by £20,382.
Some 1,489 members were elected in 1997 and at the end of the year the membership stood at 14,097 including 1,410 overseas. 467 copies of the Magazine were in addition distributed to subscribers or in exchange for other periodicals.
In June 1989 the burglar bars on windows were extended to those of the Upper Library. Additional smoke detectors were installed in the Middle and Lower Libraries in 1990. Noise and dust from the continuing development of Litton House to the east of the Society continued throughout 1990, but a projected development of the St Bartholomew’s Medical School site on the south and west sides was delayed.
In July 1992 the entrance hall, bookshop, ground floor corridor and the windows on the side and rear elevations were re-painted. In November 1992 the Executive Committee agreed a plan to redevelop the garage but this was delayed whilst the possibility of expansion into the neighbouring property on the north in Charterhouse Buildings was investigated. The latter proved financially impossible and outline planning approval having been granted in April 1993, it was decided in May to obtain estimates for the necessary work. Tenders were sent out in August and work commenced in November, being completed in February 1994. These works cost £63,000 over two years, taken from the Development Fund. The garage was converted into an open-plan bookshop, through which all our visitors had to pass, the ugly garage shutters being replaced by a large window facing the road. Mobile shelving for stock and an increased locker area were provided at the rear, 24 new lockers being added in October 1994. At the same time a computer and microfilm reading room and a library workroom replaced former offices on the ground floor and the obsolete tank room in the basement was cleared to make space for the maintenance workgroup. The oversight of the bookshop was transferred from the Publications Committee to the General Purposes Committee in 1996 and from October the Bookshop Manager reported directly to that committee. In April its stock had been entered on a new cash register which accepted both bar-code readings and manual entries.
The roof of the tank room was reconstructed in 1995 when security lighting was installed at the front of the building and above the fire escape doors. The cost of the building’s insurance having fallen slightly in 1996 the opportunity was taken to increase substantially the insurance on the books and microforms. An intruder alarm system was installed early in 1996 and a new accounting system in February. A vending machine for drinks was installed in the Members Room for a trial period in December 1996 and a more superior one acquired for the common room in June 1997, a wall telephone for the use of members being then also installed. The common room, lecture room and toilets were decorated during the year.
It having proved difficult to find anyone with suitable qualifications and experience to administer the research department at its present level of income and without considerable expansion which would itself increase the already heavy level of financially unproductive enquiry, it was agreed in September 1989 to restrict the research carried out to specified searches in the Society’s library and for members only.
Lawson Edwards, the Librarian for 22 years, announced in September that he would take early retirement at the end of 1990 and an informal presentation was made on 18 December, but he continued working until the end of January 1991 when Mrs Susan Gibbons took up the post. She was a former member of the Society and of its Computer Group and had sixteen years library service with the London Borough of Southwark, latterly as a Branch Librarian.
Mrs Mary Gandy, the Publications and Conferences Manager resigned in November 2002 to become General Secretary of the Catholic Child Welfare Council, and Stella Colwell resigned from the Executive Committee to take up the vacated post in January 1993. Nicholas Harden, the Senior Library Assistant and Volunteers’ Organiser also resigned in December 1992 to take up a position with the South Warwickshire Hospital Library and in March 1993 was replaced by Mrs Fiona Jackson, formerly with Bromley Local Studies Library. The Librarian was unfortunately absent through illness from mid-January to the end of March 1994 and Miss Jackson took maternity leave in August and resigned in December. Miss Else Churchill, formerly Librarian at the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies, who had worked as a temporary cataloguer since July 1994 was appointed in Miss Jackson’s stead, taking up the appointment in January 1995.
Following Mary Gandy’s resignation and after the usual advertisements and interviews I decided to appoint Stella Colwell in her place, she undoubtedly being the most experienced applicant for the position, but fully realising that she had never been an easy person to work with. She took up the position of Publications and Conferences Manager in January 1993 [3348] and although she had herself been a member of the Executive Committee until the previous month she immediately began to raise questions about her salary and the administration of the Society. As noted the Librarian was unfortunately unwell and absent from the Society from mid-January to the end of March 1994 [3349] and the Finance Officer resigned in May [3350]. At the Annual Meeting on 28 June 1994 with the inexperienced Paul Blake in the Chair, Miss Colwell, a member of the Society but also a member of its staff, without due notice proposed in the most unpleasant language that the Executive Committee should give further consideration to staff salaries and that it should consider an independent review of the 'management, motivation and direction' of the Society. This was agreed by a narrow majority to be the view of the members present [3351].
The proposal was, of course, technically out of order, but a working group was set up from new members of the Executive Committee and consideration given to the points raised. The group found, as the Annual Report says, that the salaries were, in fact, in line with those of other learned societies and libraries (as the tables published by the Foundation for Science and Technology showed), if not in line with the commercial market place [3352].
However, a turbulent and deeply unpleasant period ensued. In March 1995 Miss Colwell walked out of the Society and in April commenced an action against both me and the Society in the Industrial Tribunal which we took active steps to defend [3353]. There was no development in 1996 [3354] and the action dragged on until settled in 1997 on terms that the parties agreed to keep confidential [3355]. Meanwhile her position was not filled and I took on her previous work with part-time secretarial assistance, arranging lectures and publications, although under great pressure until I left the Society. She resigned her membership in 2014.
Miss Marie B. Hickey had been appointed to succeed Miss K. Monnica Stevens as a Library Assistant in August 1992 but the latter continued her important work with the organisation of parish register transcription, working two days a week.
After six years with the Society, Mrs Dawn Jarvis resigned as Publications Assistant/Receptionist in November 1995, and in December Robert Thompson was appointed Publications Assistant in her stead. Wendy Anderson, appointed a receptionist in July 1993 continued to act throughout this period.
The popular Bookshop Manager, Mrs Barbara Merrall, retired in September 1997 having worked for the Society since 1985 and was succeeded by the Publications Assistant, Robert Thompson who was then replaced by Ian Wilde. The Saturday Receptionist, Harold Crocket, who had been with us for some years also retired in November that year.
With a greater income from high interest rates an increased expenditure on the library was now possible. Much binding and rebinding took place and substantial additions were made to the collection of parish register transcripts, many being jointly purchased with members under the Society’s sponsorship scheme.
In 1989 some 948 books and transcripts were re-bound, a further 615 in 1990, 550 in 1991, 482 in 1992, about 300 in 1993, 383 in 1994, 415 in 1995 and 372 in 1996. No figure was recorded in 1997 though £7,338 was spent on conservation work, binding transcripts and rebinding books that year.
Three valuable collections of Jewish material, the Colyer Fergusson, Hyamson and D’Arcy Hart Collections were placed on loan with the Society by the Anglo-Jewish Archives in November 1989 for microfilming with the assistance of a grant from the British Library. The Bank of England Will Extracts were filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah and a valuable collection of books, many on America, was donated by Mrs M. Agnieray. Consideration was given to an offer by the Ministry of Defence to deposit a large group of original records of Deceased Soldiers 1901-21 with the Society; alternatives were explored and they were placed with the National Army Museum. Additional shelving in both the Lower and Upper Libraries was constructed by volunteers this year.
The President, HRH Prince Michael of Kent, visited the rooms on 17 July 1990 and toured the building. The different aspects of the Society’s work were explained by the staff and volunteers and Prince Michael then met members of the General Purposes Committee and discussed the White Paper on the future of the General Register Office and its ‘historic’ records.
The use of the exceptional anonymous donation of £8,000 announced in 1988 received much consideration and it was agreed in May 1989 that it be used to purchase the General Register Office birth, marriage and death indexes when these became available on fiche. At the end of 1990 we thus ordered the Birth Indexes for 1837-1901 and by the end of 1991 all the Birth, Marriage and Death Indexes from 1837 to 1920 had been received and made available on carousels in the Lower Library. Part of this donation was used in 1993 to purchase name indexes to the Griffiths Valuation for seven Irish counties.
The Senior and two junior Library Assistants attended basic computer courses in 1990. The Librarian, Susan Gibbons, spoke to the Federation’s meeting on ‘Running a society’s library’ held at the Society, on 20 July 1991.
Permission to obtain films of parish registers in the National Library of Wales, granted by the Representative Body of the Church in Wales in November 1987, was withdrawn in June 1989, but reinstated early in 1991 and the sponsorship scheme then proved popular for purchases of these registers as well as for Scottish registers and census returns. The scheme was then extended to include the filming of books and manuscripts in our Library.
The loan of fiche to members was approved in October 1991 and from February 1992 all new additions to the Document Collection were microfiched and then made available for loan in that format. Some 117 items were acquired by sponsorship in 1992. A microfilm reader/printer was acquired in September 1991 and amongst donated equipment were two fiche cabinets given by Barry Faiers.
In 1991 the Thameside Family History Group together with three library authorities made very considerable donations of books to the Library, including many regimental histories, several multi-volume nineteenth century biographical dictionaries, a set of Crisp’s Visitations of England and Wales, runs of the Law List, Crockford’s Clerical Directory, the Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, the Cambridge University Calendar and the Annual Register. Microfilms of the Principal Probate Registry will calendars, 1858-1930, rearranged by initial letter and covering surnames A-L were purchased (the remainder coming over the next six years) as well as the indexes to the baptisms and marriages in the Scottish Old Parochial Registers, 1553-1854.
Films of the birth, marriage and death announcements in The Times, with indexes 1816-1920, were purchased in 1992 and other important purchases included the multi-volume Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland and a large number of Victoria County Histories. Miss Isobel Mordy presented her large collection of Jewish pedigrees and indexes in March 1993 and in July 1993 the British Rail Archives presented the original Great Western Railway Stockholders Probate Registers 1835-1932 in 270 large volumes.
The number of visits by members in 1990 increased to about 27,500 (falling to 21,800 in 1991) and fee-paying searchers 5,132 used the Library (again falling to 4,469 in 1991). Fortnightly tours for new members on Saturday mornings continued to be popular throughout 1991-7 as did lectures and tours for other groups. Member visits increased to about 29,600 in 1992 (29,300 in 1993; 27,760 in 1994; 26,525 in 1995; 31,600 in 1996; 29,688 in 1997) and fee-paying visitors to 4,688 (4,426 in 1993; 4,382 in 1994; 4,630 in 1995; 4,574 in 1996; 4,138 in 1997). There were also in 1992 some 34 tours for local and other groups. Some 1,062 items were loaned to Members (998 in 1993; 619 in 1994; 677 in 1995; 677 again in 1996; 580 in 1997), a quarter of those in 1990 being in microform and 55% being copies of parish registers. By 1997 some 9% of the figures were loans of audio casettes of lectures.
The involvement of volunteers within the library had by 1989 greatly increased and regular teams organised by Nicholas Harden staffed the Upper and Lower libraries. Others worked on the special collections and material accumulated in the Library Store. Groups led by Frank Hardy and Norma Allum met periodically to work in and tidy the Library, the names of the volunteers being recorded in the Annual Reports. By 1990 their number had increased to 57 and on 17 March 1990 some 35 attended a general meeting to discuss future work. A small Steering Group was then formed to report to the Library Committee.
A further appeal (on the back of the September 1990 Magazine) suggested that those with interests in particular counties might ‘adopt’ them and make recommendations for their development and in 1992, following my appeal and two meetings of volunteers in January, a team of counter volunteers was organised to work alongside staff at the busy Middle Library enquiry desk and thus free staff for more technical work. It was an important development and the initial organisation was taken over from Nicholas Harden by Fiona Jackson in March 1993 and then by Else Churchill in January 1995. Over fifty volunteers attended a tea party organised by the latter on 22 April 1995 and a similar number attended further parties on 15 June 1996 and 17 May 1997. In 1992 I had described recent changes to the Society’s facilities in The Local Historian [vol. 22 (May 1992) pages 68-73].
The results of the great 1881 Census Project began to arrive in the Library in 1990 with indexes and transcripts for Cambridgeshire and Flintshire that year, together with a fiche copy of the Family History Library Catalog. On 12 June 1991 Elder Richard Clarke, the President of the Genealogical Society of Utah, visited the Society and on 14 June I went with several members of the Executive Committee to the Hyde Park Stake Chapel when his Society’s work in the British Isles was discussed. The 1881 census indexes and transcripts for Denbighshire, Isle of Man, Rutland and the Royal Navy were received in 1992, and those for Anglesey, Cornwall, Devon, Guernsey, Huntingdonshire, Jersey, Merioneth, Radnor and Somerset in 1993. The remaining Welsh counties were received in 1994 along with sixteen English counties. Eleven further counties were received in 1995 and the remaining six (including London and Middlesex) in 1996. The meeting of the British Genealogical Record Users Committee in October 1996 was delighted to hear a report on the completion of the Project on microfiche and the Committee’s thanks were expressed to the Genealogical Society of Utah for the enormous contribution of resources and motivation which it had provided for the Project. Work to produce a CD-ROM version of the index proceeded in 1997.
Following Lawson Edwards's announcement that he would retire in 1990 we engaged as Librarian, Mrs Susan Gibbons, a Member of the Society and an Associate of the Library Association, who had been a Branch Librarian in Southwark and who commenced work on 4 February 1991. She proved an excellent choice, taking forward the cataloguing project and the development of the Library with great enthusiasm and retaining a positive approach and cheerful disposition in what must have been an increasingly difficult position in the retrenchments after I retired. She remained with the Society until her own retirement in the first week of September 2010. Although she had given plenty of notice there was some delay before her Deputy for seven years, Timothy Lawrence, who had been on the Library staff for twelve years, was appointed 'Head of Library Services', his former position not being filled until later. He remained loyally with the Society, providing continuity, until 2017.
The 1992 edition of the International Genealogical Index for the whole world was acquired in March 1993. Also in 1993 the Society purchased from Lambeth Palace Library some surplus microfilms of the Faculty Office and Vicar General Marriage Licence Allegations which together with purchases from the Genealogical Society of Utah provided a complete run of the latter from 1660 to 1851. At the same time Lambeth Palace Library presented a most valuable set of printouts of the calendars to both the Vicar General and Faculty Office series which the computer volunteers hoped to computerise in due course (but which meanwhile formed vast heaps on my office floor!). As mentioned below work on the Vicar General series was completed in 1997 and work on the Faculty Office series was by then well advanced, David Squire having generously sponsored the purchase of microfilms of the allegations themselves, they being vital for the checking stages of the project.
In December 1993 the British Genealogical Record Users’ Committee considered possible future joint projects and agreed to make representations to the Local Government Commission for England about the future secure funding of county record offices if and when unitary authorities are introduced. Copies were sent to the Minister for Local Government and the Society was pleased in 1994 to note the generally satisfactory nature of the Commission’s conclusions.
On 13 April 1994 I attended the opening of the new facilities at Hertfordshire County Record Office and Local Studies Library and on 28 October 1994 the opening of the new extension at the Greater London Record Office. I retired by rotation from the Council of the Friends of the Public Record Office at the Annual Meeting in July when the Librarian, Susan Gibbons, was elected in my place.
In July 1993 the Society’s Executive Committee had agreed to join the lobby of other organisations against the proposal of the Irish Government to re-locate the search room of the General Register Office from Dublin to Roscommon and forwarded a resolution to the Irish Minister for Health. In December 1993 the Committee had also agreed to apply for and was accepted as an Associate Member of the Scottish Association of Family History Societies. At meetings in May and September 1994 the Committee received reports of the rapid progress of the 1881 Census Project and a measure of agreement was reached on the need for a series of local burial indexes. The latter idea quickly became the National Burial Index project which was launched and promoted at various seminars around the country and about which a report was received at the BGRUC meeting in October 1996. In February 1997 on behalf of BGRUC I wrote to the General Register Office Scotland protesting at the delay in making the 1881 census indexes for Scotland available outside that country and at the proposed charge for microfiche copies. Copies of the letter were sent to several newspapers and the matter was taken up with some force by the Glasgow Herald. However, the indexes, compiled in good faith by thousands of unpaid volunteers around the world, remained unavailable outside Scotland at the end of the year.
In 1994 the Federation donated a country-wide microfiche edition of the British Isles Genealogical Register (Big R), Cambridgeshire FHS gave its burial index 1801-37, a member donated the Northumberland Marriage Index 1813-37 on fiche and Jack Baxter gave further volumes of his transcripts of Essex burial registers 1813-65. The Lincolnshire Marriage Index 1754-1812 and parts of the earlier period was purchased in 1994 along with marriage indexes for Cornwall 1813-37 and the pre-1837 Glamorgan Index on fiche. A valuable index to Irish Old-age Pension claims giving much information on claimants and relatives from the lost 1841 and 1851 Irish census returns was donated and a name index to the 1901 census of Fermanagh was purchased as were some 92 Suffolk parish registers on fiche.
Five microfilm storage cabinets were purchased in 1994 for the new room which had been developed on the ground floor together with two film readers and two fiche readers containing high magnification lenses for use with the General Register Office indexes. The rough wooden shelves donated in memory of Major Whitmore to house the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1958 were replaced with metal in 1995 when a considerable amount of new equipment was bought, including five film readers with zoom lenses, three fiche readers with dual magnification lenses, three microfilm cabinets and a fireproof cabinet for computer data.
In March 1995 the Society supported the Public Record Office’s successful application to the National Heritage Lottery Fund for funds with which to film the ‘Burnt documents’ (WO363) of the First World War Soldiers, 1914-20. The Director and Librarian represented the Society at the Federation’s Twenty-first Anniversary Reception at the House of Lords on 22 September 1995 and Dr P. Donlon, Director of the National Library of Ireland, recently appointed Chief Herald of Ireland, visited the Society of 11 December 1995 and toured the Library.
Also in 1995 Oxfordshire Family History Society donated a revised edition of the county marriage index 1538-1837 and Wiltshire Family History Society gave the first volumes of its new Wiltshire will beneficiaries index 1800-58 and burial index before 1837. The Bishopsgate Institute gave a microfilm of the wills and inventories of the Peculiar of the Chancellor of Oxford University 1436-1814. Also received was an index to the 1871 census of Ontario, Canada. Amongst microform indexes purchased in 1995 were a Durham marriage index 1813-37, the Cheshire Marriage Index 1801-1837 compiled by Bertram Merrell (1938-2015), will indexes to the Scottish Commissariot courts 1801-23, a surname index to the 1851 census of Hampshire, a run of Gloucestershire directories 1820-1939, and (using funds from the sale of second-hand books at the Society’s Fair) many Liverpool parish registers. Other large registers and the 1831 census of Londonderry were sponsored by members and the Catholic Family History Society part-sponsored several Lancashire Catholic registers.
In March 1996 a new photocopier was purchased for the Middle Library and part of a bequest from Alexander Sandison was used to purchase a computer for use with CD-ROMs. Some further wooden shelving was replaced with metal that year and a large number of cabinets and a quantity of metal shelving were obtained through the good offices of Stephen Hale.
In March 1996 the Genealogical Society of Utah generously donated a complete set of FamilySearch on CDROM, the remainder of the 1881 Census on fiche (as mentioned above) and the 1851 census of Norfolk on fiche. An anonymous donor gave the Estate Duty Office will indexes on film and the Public Record Office gave a large collection of films of the 1841, 1851 and 1861 census. Somerset and Dorset FHS gave a master index to the 1851 census of Somerset. The Society received for review the fiche 1901 census index for Tyrone and the first volume of a projected transcript of the 1851 census for Hertfordshire covering the Berkhampstead district. We also received copies of the Northumberland Burial Index 1813-37, of the Cambridgeshire baptismal index 1801-37, and of Stuart Tamblin’s Criminal Register Index 1805-16. Francis Winchurch (who died in 1997) paid for the Dictionary of National Biography, Mr T. R. Behm for the New England Register, and Mr. T. Williams for the Tasmanian Pioneers Index, all on CD-ROM. Other material purchased included the Welsh probate indexes prior to 1857, the probate indexes for Victoria, Australia, 1841-99, and CD-ROMS of the Ancestry reference library, of Who’s Who 1897-1996, and of the DA301 Open University course projects.
In April 1996 the Society was one of the members of BGRUC that endorsed the Statement of Principles and Policy Ojectives set out in the National Council of Archives’ report ‘An archives policy for the United Kingdom’. At that meeting concern was also expressed about the preservation of and access to the divorce records in England and Wales since 1858 and representations to the Lord Chancellor followed.
Following the receipt of FamilySearch on CD-ROM in March 1996 a postal search service was initiated to provide copy both on disk and in photocopy form and proved popular. A three-consecutive-day search card for non-members was introduced in February 1997.
In 1997 the Genealogical Society of Utah gave the current updates for FamilySearch on CD-ROM and the 1851 census indexes for Devon and Warwickshire on fiche. Oxfordshire Family History Society gave discs which included an index to the 1851 census and Oxfordshire monumental inscriptions, the Oxford city baptismal index 1813-37 and a revised county marriage index 1538-1837. Other donations included Part Three of the City of London burial index 1813-53. A bequest from Miss D. Hills enabled the purchase of some Dorset town registers and Dr Angela Barlow bequeathed a large amount of Lancashire material.
In 1997 the Quaker Family History Society sponsored the purchase of the Quaker Digest Registers on film and other purchases included film copies of many East Kent parish registers, the General Register Office fiche indexes of overseas and military births, marriages and deaths, a fiche index to the 1891 census of Scotland, the county Durham burial index on fiche 1813-37, an index to Durham marriages not included in Boyd’s Index 1798-1812, and a large collection of fiche relating to East Sussex including the Archdeaconry of Lewes wills index 1660-1857.
Donations to assist in the purchase of a further computer and additional fiche readers in 1997 were received from Mr T. Behm, the Misses C. and F. Loveridge, Mr J. G. L. Griffith-Jones, Dr E. G. Richards, Francis V. Winchurch and Dr D. J. Stoker. Other equipment purchased that year included lockers for the use of volunteers, staff and committee members.
Over eighty volunteers worked on the transcription and indexing of parish registers in the 1990s and 366 transcripts were passed to the Library in 1989, 349 in 1990, 321 in 1991, 292 in 1992, 272 in 1993, 260 in 1994, 433 in 1995, 310 in 1996, and 255 in 1997. A co-operative venture with Westminster Diocesan Archives initiated in 1990 and continuing to 1994 allowed for the photocopying and subsequent typing and indexing of a number of Catholic registers. In 1995-6 Mr E. J. Erith translated, transcribed and typed four volumes of the registers of the Catholic Church of St James, Spanish Place, loaned by the church, and in 1997 commenced typing and indexing the large manuscript copy of the Kingston-upon-Thames registers.
Much work was assisted by computer volunteers and as mentioned below some 170 volunteers came forward in 1991 as the result of an appeal in Computers in Genealogy. In 1992 they were busy indexing the Hertfordshire marriage registers 1538-1837 transcribed by Thomas Allen (completed in 1995), the Bank of England Will Extracts, 1717-1807 (completed in 1995) and the masters’ names in the Apprentices of Great Britain 1762-74 (completed in 1993).
The extensive transcription and indexing work of David Woolven in Glamorganshire was particularly noted in 1993-6 when other volunteers in 1993-5 were assisting Jack Baxter in typing manuscripts for his valuable Essex Burial Index. In 1994 Dorset FHS gave typed and indexed transcripts of 78 parishes. The indexing of the Crisp collection of original London Marriage Licences was completed in 1995 and the final sort of the Civil Service Evidences of Age was commenced. In 1996 a scheme to index on disc the brides in Boyd’s Marriage Index for Yorkshire was also commenced. Some 63 volunteers were being organised by Miss Stevens in 1996 but the number specifically working on parish registers had fallen to 35 in 1997 when the work of Mr Erith and of Mr N. Chaston and Mr L. A. Muriel on the Haydon Whitehead transcripts of Suffolk registers was particularly mentioned.
In 1989 some 613 transcripts of monumental inscriptions in various formats were received, a programme to type and index the older unbound manuscript copies in the Library being promoted by Doris Pullen, the M.I. Secretary. A further 512 transcripts were received in 1990, nearly 400 in 1991, nearly 340 in 1992, over a thousand in 1993, 282 in 1994, 260 in 1995, 325 in 1996 and 384 in 1997. Those in 1991 included copies of inscriptions at Baghdad made by Mr A. G. Peake whilst a hostage during the Gulf War and those in 1993 included 365 parishes (the whole of the county) donated by Wiltshire Family History Society as well as 28 volumes of the Cornish Index. Four more volumes of the latter and the Gloucestershire Monumental Inscriptions Index on fiche were received in 1996.
The Church Commissioners continued to send details of chuches and graveyards which were being altered or made redundant (and might thus put the inscriptions at risk) and notification of 120 was received in 1991 (of these 39 had already been recorded and deposited in the Library), followed by 109 in 1992 and 129 (of which 42 had been recorded) in 1993. Notification of 68 was received in 1994 of which ten had been recorded, and of 153 in 1995 of which 37 had been recorded, of 87 in 1996 (of which 16 recorded), and of 99 in 1997 (of which 22 recorded).
The maintenance work group consisting of Eric Balley, Les Crafer, John Pullen and John Rayment was augmented by the addition of Sidney D. Putnam in 1989, of Mrs Anne Prudames in 1992 and of William R. White in 1995, and all continued their highly valued work until after my retirement in 1997.
In June 1991 the Society purchased a Dell 320 LT computer and TINLIB cataloguing software and commenced entering all new accessions, enabling them to be searched by author, publisher and keyword. Cards for the old catalogue continued to be generated and were now filed monthly, instead of three-monthly following the publication of the quarterly Magazine. It was intended that copy for the lists of accessions published in the Magazine and for Library guides would now be generated semi-automatically and this was first done by Neville Taylor for the December 1992 Magazine and then regularly thereafter, a considerable reduction in costs thus being achieved. By September 1996 some 15,000 items had been catalogued by the Librarian and her small team of volunteer cataloguers.
However, late in 1995 a special meeting of the General Purposes Committee was held to discuss possible Society projects for which funding might be sought from the National Heritage Lottery Fund and it was agreed to apply initially for funds with which to computerise the Library catalogue prior to July 1991 and to provide online access. It was estimated that this would take three full-time cataloguers three years, the Society’s contribution in partnership funding being also three man-years provided by volunteer members and valued at £36,000. James Willerton drafted the application which I finalised and submitted in February 1996 and on 17 September we were delighted to hear that we had been awarded £152,400 to cover the salaries, accommodation and computer hardware involved.
A pilot project was commenced that month, the work being overseen by Christopher Watts, James Willerton and John Addis-Smith. They and the Librarian purchased a server with five networked computers, installed the software, appointed and trained the three cataloguers, formed a team of twenty volunteer checkers (coordinated by Nicholas Newington-Irving), and the main project commenced on 7 April 1997. Rosemary Metcalfe, the Project cataloguer who had started the pilot project, unfortunately left at the end of March and her post was filled by Angela Thomson. The three Project Cataloguers, Miss S. J. Brooks, Miss G. Edwards and Miss M. H. Miller started in April but Miss Miller unfortunately had to leave the Project just before the end of the year. In January 1997 I attended an interesting meeting at the Heritage Lottery Fund to discuss its application procedures and forms.
Major steps in the publication of the National Index of Parish Registers were taken over the next few years. The volume for Berkshire, edited by Anthony Wilcox, appeared in 1989, a fully revised edition of that for Surrey by Cliff Webb in 1990 and a volume for Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire and another for Northamptonshire, both edited by Cliff Webb, in 1991. Volumes for wiltshire and Buckinghamshire, again edited by Cliff Webb, were published in 1992 together with a revised edition of that for Staffordshire by Dr P. D. Bloore. A volume for Essex appeared in 1993 and another for Lincolnshire in 1995, both compiled by Anthony Wilcox. Volumes for Leicestershure and Rutland, London and Middlesex, Cheshire and Derbyshire, all compiled by Cliff Webb, and Mr W. T. Stott’s revision of Nottinghamshire all appeared in 1995.
Regular revisions and reprints of standard catalogues continued to be produced and a revised Catalogue of Parish Registers was published in June 1991, its revision by volunteers and the camera-ready copy being organised by Neville Taylor. This was the first in a new series of ‘Library Sources’, complimentary copies of which together with the new Library Guide, were sent to all the major family history societies in the British Isles and overseas. It quickly sold out and a revised edition was published in September 1992. The second volume in the ‘Library Sources’ series had been a revised edition of the catalogue of Marriage Licences in February that year.
Further library volumes were made available on microfiche; these included in 1989 Lorna Rosbottom’s abstracts of 3,973 Irish wills and the list of bankrupts 1774-86. Several more were published in 1990.
Cliff Webb’s Dates and Calendars for the Genealogist was published in 1989 and several new leaflets added to the Society’s series. A surprisingly popular postcard showing the Society’s Coat of Arms was produced in 1990.
Arrangements were finalised in 1989 for the Society to be responsible for the revision of future editions of Terrick FitzHugh’s Dictionary of Genealogy and he died on 20 November 1990. The first revised edition by Brian Christmas appeared in October 1991 and another, extensively revised by Susan Lumas (to which I had contributed some sections), in November 1994.
The bookshop stock was steadily increased in 1989 and bookstalls, as was now standard practice, provided at six conferences including the English Genealogical Congress at Exeter in August, these being manned by committee members and staff. They were provided at eight centres in 1990 and at five in 1991 and 1992. In the early part of 1992 the publications listing material in the Library and the card index of pedigrees in special collections were microfilmed for inclusion in the National Inventory of Documentary Sources. Review or library copies of all the Library Sources volumes, of the My Ancestor series and of the Library Guide were again sent to all major family history societies in 1992 and 1993. A catalogue of the books sold by the Society was sent to all members and an annotated list of the Society’s publications was sent to all the overseas members in 1992.
The first edition and a reprint of my Sources for Irish Genealogy in the Library of the Society appeared in 1990, as did the similar booklet compiled by Neville Taylor on Sources for Anglo-Indian Genealogy. Tony Benton’s Irregular marriage in London before 1754, breaking interesting new ground, was published in November 1993.
New volumes in the My Ancestors series continued to appear – Manorial Tenants by Peter Park in 1990; Congregationalists by David Clifford and British Army by Drs Michael and Christopher Watts in 1992 (the tenth volume in the series); English Presbyterians by Alan Ruston in 1993; Jewish by Isobel Mordy in 1995; Londoners by Clifford Webb in 1996; and Salvation Army by J. R. Wiggins in 1997. Reprints or revised editions for several were necessary.
The fifth volume of my Index to the Wills proved in the PCC 1750-1800, typed by Pauline Attrell and covering N-Sh, was published in February 1991 and that for Si-Z in January 1993. Later in 1991 the Society published an Index to the Bank of England Will Extracts 1807-1845 compiled by the Library volunteers and typeset by John Addis-Smith, a most valuable finding aid to the second part of the series of volumes in the Society’s Library.
A completely revised Library Guide was published in February 1991 and another in January 1992. In connection with the Family History Fair in May 1993 a ‘Family History Beginner’s Pack’ was assembled , containing details about the Society, a copy of the Library Guide, a new booklet for beginners, First steps in Family History, which I wrote and was available seperately, and a sample copy of the Magazine.
Two beginners’ packs were produced specially for the 1993 Family History Fair: Computers in Genealogy Beginners Pack and Family History Beginners Pack (£2 each). The latter included a new introductory guide, First Steps in Family History which I had written as a companion to Using the Library of the Society of Genealogists (which was also in the pack), and other details of the Society and its publications. I believed that the Society needed its own introductory guide and First Steps was written, typeset by Neville Taylor, and printed all in a matter of about ten days, in the absence through illness of the Publications Manager. It is difficult now to believe that after the event she persuaded the Publications Committee to resolve that I should not do such a thing again. The book sold separately at ninety pence and was a considerable success, being very favourably reviewed, and revised in 1995 and 1998. The intention had been to provide a cheap basic guide that might easily and regularly be brought up to date, but in 2005 after I had left the Society it was slightly expanded to sell at £6.99 and it has not since been revised.
The Society had in 1992 bought the unbound stock of European Rulers 1060-1981: a cross-referenced genealogy by Christopher Lake, originally published to mark the marriage of HRH The Prince of Wales, and in March 1993 the finely produced pedigrees were bound and made available in both hard and soft bindings.
The newly enlarged bookshop mentioned above was opened in February 1994, a small celebratory party being organised on 5 April. Its stock was then slowly expanded to include conservation material and further record office guides. The bookshop list was sent to Members in March and a list of the Society’s publications distributed in September. Review or library copies of publications, limited to those priced under £5, were sent to the major family history societies worldwide.
New editions of Greater London Cemeteries and Crematoria and of Dates and Calendars were published in 1994. In September a number of the leaflets were revised and reprinted in a new format. Other revisions and publications on fiche took place, the latter including Francis Leeson’s Index to the British State Tontine 1766 and Annuities 1745-79 which had been typed by Jenny Key, and the Indexes of Masters in the Apprentices of Great Britain, 1763-74.
In 1995 we published Nicholas Fogg’s list of the General Register Office One-Name lists in the Library (revised in 1997) and Miss E. I. Nichols’s evaluation of The International Genealogical Index 1992 edition. Neville Taylor agreed in April 1995 to act as editor of the series of Library Guides and he revised the Catalogue of Parish Registers and Nicholas Newington-Irving revised the Catalogue of Directories and Poll Books, extending it to include Almanacs and Electoral Rolls, both in 1995.
The Magazine was edited throughout this period by Francis Leeson. Neville Taylor had been computer typesettting the accessions lists and official sections and he compiled and computer typeset the Magazine Index to Volume 24 (1992-4) published in December 1994. Much thought had been given in 1995 to the production of the Magazine and its format was enlarged at the commencement of the new volume in March 1995, but a questionnaire about its scope and content was answered by only a small proportion of the membership and was inconclusive in almost every section
Bookstalls were provided at six conferences in 1995 and the Family History Fair. New editions of the Bookshop List were produced in June and December 1996. In September 1996, in order to reduce stock levels, the prices of six volumes of the National Index of Parish Registers produced before December 1992 were reduced by a third. Bookstalls were provided at seven two-day conferences and fairs in 1996 and at seven and the fair in 1997.
A major new series, London Apprentices, compiled and indexed by Clifford Webb, containing indexed transcripts of City Company apprenticeship registers prior to about 1800, was inaugurated in October 1996 with the publication of volumes on the Brewers, Tylers and Bricklayers, Bowyers and Longbowstringmakers, and Glovers. Seven further volumes of his series on apprentices appeared in 1997 covering Glass-sellers, Woolmen,Broderers, Combmakers, Fanmakers, Frameworkknitters, Fruiterers, Gardeners, Horners, Glaziers, Gunmakers, Needlemakers, Pinmakers, Basketmakers and Distillers. The Society had also published his Index of wills proved in theArchdeaconry Court of London 1700-1807 in March 1996.
In September 1996 the Society published Hilary Sharp’s How to Use the Bernau Index and two new Library guides: Marjorie Moore’s Sources for Scottish genealogy in November and Nicholas Newington-Irving’s Will Indexes and other probate material in December.
The first three sections of the surname index to the Vicar-General Marriage Licences, covering 1750-1825, which I was particularly keen to see in print, were published between September and November 1996 and the remaining sections to cover the whole of the period 1694-1850 came out in 1997. All were then available on microfiche. Also published in 1996 were revisions of the Library Guide, my First Steps in Family History, Neville Taylor’s Computers in Genealogy handbook and his School, university and college registers in the Library, and another reprint of W. S. B. Buck’s popular Examples of Handwriting. Further volumes from the Library were published on microfiche.
Fom the begining of June 1997 the bookshop was opened and staffed on Mondays when the Library was closed and in September that year the Society began to sell and accept book tokens. Catalogues of our publications and bookshop lists were then widely distributed.
1997 saw the publication of John Hailey’s Maritime Sources in the Library and Else Churchill’s revision of the Census copies and indexes in the Library. Also published that year was Clifford Webb’s revision of Greater London Cemeteries and Crematoria, Dr Andrea Tanner’s complete revision of the late John Unett’s Making a pedigree: an introduction to sources for early genealogy and revisions of various leaflets and of Using the Library. An enamel pin that incorporated the Society’s armorial Badge was also produced.
In 1996 I had corresponded with the member Mark Herber about his forthcoming book, Ancestral Trails: the complete guide to British genealogy and family history, and having seen the text I wrote that I was 'enormously impressed by the breadth and depth of its coverage' and that he might use that statement to promote the book. However, early in 1997 the Society’s Publications Committee, prompted by Paul Blake and with Lilian Gibbens in the Chair, agreed that it would not accept my recommendation and that before the book could be sponsored by the Society that the text should be submitted to another reader. The Executive Committee made no comment. The book was, of course, following a most cursory examination by the 'other reader', published by Sutton Publishing in association with the Society (with my comment on the dust jacket) in November 1997 and immediately proved an enormous success, being awarded the McColvin Medal by the Library Association as an outstanding work of reference. A carefully revised edition appeared in 2004.
The index to volume 25 of the Magazine (1995-7), again compiled and typeset by Neville Taylor, would normally have taken up the whole of the December 1997 issue but it was agreed that it be published separately and sent without charge to those who requested it before the end of October. Accordingly, some 2,300 copies were printed and distributed in March 1998.
As noted above the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies based at Birkbeck College in London University had for some years been providing classes in genealogy at two or three centres in London and in December 1985 I represented the Society of Genealogists on an advisory committee which usually met at the Centre in Tavistock Square and agreed the outline of a certificate and diploma course in ‘Genealogy and the History of the Family’ which would be offered at two centres in 1987.
These two-year courses were to be assessed at the standard required for first degree examinations of the University of London. The first year, ‘Genealogy and Genealogical Sources’ provided an introdction to source material and to the location and use of archives including palaeography. The second year, ‘Family History and Demography’, was to concentrate on the interpretation of the sources with particular reference to changes in rural and urban communities from the middle ages onwards, migration, land ownership and transfer, occupations, social mobility, welfare and industrialisation, and was to introduce students to the use of quantitive methods and family reconstitution. Assessment in the first year was on three pieces of written work (60%) and by a two hour unseen written examination (40%) and in the second it was on two pieces of written course work (40%) and a three hour unseen written examination (60%). Those who obtained the Certificate might then proceed to a third year which would concentrate on the preparation and presentation of a research project of not more than 10,000 words, topics being chosen in consultation with an appointed tutor, and regular seminars for the discussion of relevant problems taking place.
On receiving the forty-three sets of papers resulting from that first year in July 1988 I had a most difficult time reconciling the different scales of marking awarded by the two lecturers for their students’ course work and also in reconciling for one lecturer’s group a discrepancy between the marks received at examination and the high marks awarded for some types of course work, the nature of which had in future to be standardised. Those questions being resolved it was very apparent in the second year that many students found the statistical work involved in the ‘History of the Family’ particularly daunting. Many students had seen the certificate and diploma courses as a gateway to a professional qualification and were disillusioned at the amount of time which had to be spent on work which they considered irrelevant.
Before 1987 the two subjects, genealogy and the history of the family, had been taught separately and the University of London had refused to sanction a certificate course in genealogy alone. The possibility of such a course was frequently raised and it was therefore taken up by the Advisory Committee. In April 1991 Dr David Armstrong the Director of Extra-Mural Studies consulted the University’s Registrar who explained that the Centre’s powers to administer Extra-Mural awards, delegated by the Senate to Birkbeck College, required that ‘only subjects which are professed by the University should form the main subject of these awards’. He said that genealogy was not a subject taught at the University in that there were ‘no full-time teachers either in the College or in another School who teach it or conduct research in it’ and that this major difficulty could only be overcome by combining genealogy with the history of the family or demography, both of which figured prominently within history and the social sciences.
And so in 1991/2 the decision was taken to integrate the two subjects in the same course and in May 1991 a revised scheme of study was issued. There were to be two closely connected courses, the two components being taught in five week blocks, with a total of thirty class meetings and a short non-residential intensive component, making a total of 144 hours tuition over the two years. Assessment for the Certificate was on the basis of a three-hour unseen written examination (70%) in June of each year and on two pieces of course work each of about 1,500 words (30%) from both parts of the course in both years. For a Diploma in the third year there would be four introductory seminars on research methods and problems and up to six hours of individual tuition. The project had to contain 7,500 words.
As external examiner or assessor I had for eleven years seen varying numbers of samples of work resulting from the different examinations. Although some fine essays were produced the basic complaints continued. The integration of the subjects with different lecturers for the two strands had not worked well. Poor recruitment followed, probably influenced by the growth of genealogical research on the Internet and as Mary Kennedy later said, the unique marriage of the two subjects culminated in a sad divorce in 1997/8 when the syllabus was reverted. The following year (1998/9) the course was discontinued and subsumed into History. I received the final papers in 2001.
An enthusiastic society (SGFH) of students on the courses had been formed in 1991 when some 84 members joined (paying £7 a year) and a series of high quality talks was organised, usually at Birkbeck College, the Membership Secretary being Rosemary Oliver. The group’s Newsletter was upgraded into a Journal by Eddie Curties in April 2000. The many talks, regular summaries of which were provided by Brian Strong, were listed in its last issue in 2007 along with ninety-nine of the dissertations for Diplomas which had been received. I spoke twice to the Society and in September 2003 joined a fascinated group, led by Dr David Souden, to visit Kew Palace then in the process of extensive renovation. However, without new students the Society became less active and following the death of Eddie Curties in May 2006, at a meeeting on 12 July 2006 (with Jeff Burnard in the Chair and Ray Burridge as secretary) the members regretfully agreed that the Society be dissolved, its final meeting taking place on 30 October 2006. At that meeting the lecturer Mary Kennedy’s explanation of the divorce was that whilst the history of the family was an academic subject, genealogy involved only a number of techniques and that few institutions recognised it as an academic subject, though there were courses in it with the Open University, at the Central Lancashire University and at Suffolk University. Sharon Hintze, herself the holder of a diploma from London, pointed out that it was also a speciality within History at Brigham Young University.
The Society took another weekend conference, this on ‘Genealogy in the East Midlands’, to Nottingham University on 21-23 April 1989, organised by Gill Valentine, when there were two streams of talks, one specifically on Midland topics, when 83 attended. Our eighth biennial day conference, organised by Paul Blake and Patricia Kirkland on the theme ’Transport and Communications’ with three streams of talks, was held at Regent’s College, 4 November 1989, and attended by 182 members, the opening address being given by Professor Theo Barker.
A half-day tutorial course on Yorkshire was organised by the Conferences Manager on 15 April 1989 with three talks, 93 attending, and a day tutorial class on nonconformists, with 59 attending, on 21 October 1989. The high attendances suggested that more specialised sessions of this nature would be welcomed and during the summer of 1990 a series of five lunchtime lectures on sources to be found in the Library was organised as an experiment and attracted considerable interest. There was a half-day tutorial class on manorial records on 7 April with William Liddell and Peter Park when 91 attended and a day tutorial on Irish records on 3 November with Brian Trainor, Christine Kinealy and Mary Casteleyn, when 99 attended. In 1992 we held a full-day tutorial on ‘Continental ancestors’ in March which had 71 attendees and another on ‘Before parish registers’ in November with 72 attendees. There was also a half-day on ‘Scottish research’ in October with 64 attendees.
Joan Coburn coducted a two-day palaeography class in October 1989, two further two-day classes in 1990, and another in April 1991. Also in 1990 Mrs Susan Palmer held a two-day practical course in translating medieval Latin documents on 12 and 19 May. In 1991 Ian Pearson conducted an introductory course on palaeography on five evenings in October-November and Susan Palmer repeated her introductory medieval Latin class in June and followed it with a two-day advanced course in October 1991. The five-week evening palaeography course was repeated by Hilary Marshall in March-May 1992 and Joan Coburn conducted a day palaeography class in June, both were fully booked with 12 attending. Hilary Marsahll repeated her course in early 1993 and Miss A. Barlow led a two day course in June, both again fully booked. Susan Palmer had also taken a course in translating medieval Latin documents with 12 attendees on two Saturdays in October 1993.
There were two series of eleven beginners classes in 1989 with 26 and 34 attending, two of the talks concentrating on the Library and one taking place at the Public Record Office. Two similar series in 1990 had 33 and 34 participants. Similar series in 1991 had 28 and 34 attendees and those in 1992 had 36 and 17. In 1992 the new venture of a course with the same lecturers over two Wednesdays in early December surprisingly attracted 31 attendees. It was repeated on two Saturdays in July-August 1993 with 41 attendees, the usual eleven classes being held from September to December with 27 participants. No evening class was held in 1994 but two further series for beginners were held on two Saturdays in February-March and again in July-August with 24 and 23 attendees.
A second advanced course on further sources with Stella Colwell was held in April-June 1989 with 28 attending and another on ten evenings in April-June 1992 with 31 attendees.
I continued to act as External Examiner for the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies of London University in connection with the Certificate and Diploma Courses in genealogy and family history. These were offered at three centres in 1988-9 and the Society was pleased to act as a centre for both first and second year courses, Stella Colwell commencing a second 30-week first year course with 27 attending and Mary Kennedy commencing a second-year course with 21 attending. Both courses were repeated in 1990, Miss Colwell having 29 attendees and Mary Kennedy and Drs David Souden and David Armstrong having 40 attendees. In October 1991 Stella Colwell and Miss C. Davey commenced a fourth thirty-week first-year Certificate Course, with 25 attending and in September 1992 Mary Kennedy and Stella Colwell commenced a fourth thirty-week second-year Certificate Course with 14 attending.
A most successful Open Day and Forum for officers of local family history societies, organised by Peter Park, was held at the Society on 10 June 1989, when more than 70 delegates representing 41 societies attended. A similar open-day for officers of family history societies was organised by Marjorie Moore on Sunday, 2 October 1994, and attended by 60 representatives. In the course of 1989 the Conferences Manager assisted several local societies and other groups to hold major meetings at the Society. Some 43 tours of the Library were organised by the Librarian that year. Many similar meetings and tours were organised in 1990, 1991 and 1992, the Librarian speaking to nine visiting groups in the latter year. In 1991 they had included a Regional Meeting of the Society of Archivists (19 June) and a day conference of the Information Services Section of the South East Region of the Library Association (2 October) at which the Librarian and I spoke and tours of the Library were provided. In 1992 the Librarian spoke to nine organisations.
An important and highly successful day course for librarians and archivists entitled ‘All you need to know about genealogy’ was organised by Mary Casteleyn on 2 November 1992, at which she, Mr C.W. Harrison, the Librarian and I spoke and tours were organised, some 32 attending. The course was repeated on 15 November 1993 when 49 attended and again on 20 February 1995 when 33 attended. A further course, ‘Think you know the answer’, was held on 27 March at which Mary and I again spoke and the Librarian and Assistant Librarian assisted with a practical problem solving session, 14 attending.
The usual Winter Lecture Series of six free lectures took place in 1989 and David Hawkings kindly gave up five Saturdays between June and September to research surgeries when 22 were given advice on their problems. In 1990 two additional lectures were added to the traditional six and in 1991 we held instead a mixture of eleven ‘open’ mid-day, evening and Saturday lectures. Their number was increased to twelve in 1992 and included three by Susan Gibbons on the Library. Eleven ‘open’ talks on a variety of subjects including two on the Library also took place in 1993. By then regular meetings were being held at the Society by the London Branches of the Welsh Family History Societies, Cumbria Family History Society, Lancashire Family History and Heraldry Society, Norfolk and Norwich Genealogical Society, Northumberland and Durham Family History Society and the Catholic Family History Society.
A public address system became operational in September 1990 when some lectures, with the permission of the speakers, were recorded and made available in the Library and for loan, and a new projector and screen were then made available in the Meeting Room. In 1991 Les Crafer created a moveable storage desk to contain them.
Bookings for the growing number of classes and meetings taking place at the Society were at this time taken by the diligent and painstaking Jean Rutherford who had been appointed as Office Assistant, following the resignation of Beverly Wass, in September 1990.
In the absence through illness of the Chairman of the Congress Committee, Alan Reed (who sadly died in October 1990), it fell to me to chair throughout the highly enjoyable but extremely busy fifth English Genealogical Congress, under the Patronage of HRH Prince Michael of Kent, which Stella Colwell had organised at the University of Exeter on 21-26 August 1989 and at which there were 135 attendees. The Society was also one of the sponsors of the sixth Congress in the series, also under the Prince’s Patronage, which was held at the University of Warwick, 10-15 August 1992 and at which I spoke on different topics every day.
I was course director at three weekend courses , ‘Trace your ancestors’, held at Theobalds College, Hertfordshire, in June, July and November 1989. Amongst other meetings that year I particularly remember the pleasant Nodes Family Reunion at Shephall in Hertfordshire on 23 September, the text of my summary of families of the unusual name (which derived from The Node in neighbouring Codicote parish) then being published.
I had in 1990 spoken to more than a dozen organisations including the General Register Office on 21 May. During 1991 I had spoken to nine organisations and, as mentioned elsewhere, attended throughout and spoken at the First Irish Genealogical Congress at Trinity College, Dublin on 19-24 September 1991.
The Society’s Ninth Biennial Day Conference was held at the New Horticultural Hall, Westminster, on 2 November 1991, on the theme ‘All dressed up’, and was attended by 267 members. For it Paul Blake had organised three streams of lectures, one of which focused on the use of computers. There were 44 attendees at a day tutorial on the ‘Care and Preservation of Records’ on 21 March 1991 and 28 attendees at a half-day tutorial on Air Force records on 5 November 1991.
On 18 September 1992 I spoke to the North West Kent Family History Society having opened the ‘Family History for all’ exhibition organised by Elizabeth Silverthorne at Bromley Central Library that day.
A day tutorial class on Royal Navy records was held at the Society on 27 March 1993 when 36 attended and a popular day school on ‘Victorian Portrait Photography, Costume and Social History’ with speakers from the Documentary Photography Archive took place on 22 May 1993 when 51 attended.
The Tenth Biennial Day Conference, again with three streams of lectures at the New Horticultural Hall, took place on 6 November 1993 on the theme ‘The legacy of our ancestors’, being organised by Patricia Kirkland and Major Brian Oldham and with 263 attendees.
Following the success of the Family History Fair in 1993 (described below) a second National Family History Fair was organised over two days at a larger venue, the Royal Horticultural Society’s New Hall, Greycoat Street, Westminster, on 7-8 May 1994. The organising committee was amply rewarded by the attendance and success of the Fair, some 3,880 people attending. The Society’s display, manned by staff and volunteers, was organised by Paul Blake in a central position. The surplus of £3,229 on the Fair in 1993 was thus increased to £15,219 in 1994.
Stella Colwell conducted a six-week ‘Research Method Course’ in April-May 1994 with 15 attendees and was one of four speakers at a summer school which she organised at the University of York, 15-17 July 1994, with 117 attending, its four streams dealing with methodology, intermediate palaeography, family and local history, and the Public Record Office.
There was an eight-week palaeography course by Miss A. Barlow early in 1994 and a two-day palaeography course by Hilary Marshall in June. Susan Palmer repeated her two-day course in translating medieval Latin documents and Mr R. Perks gave two-days to ‘Interviewing techniques and oral history’ at the National Sound Archive in March. I spoke to eleven other organisations that year.
Six study days were organised in 1994: Jewish sources on 24 April (with 32 attendees), the inhabitants of London on 25 June (64), a Family Album on 2 July (10), Seventeenth Century Records on 17 September (57) and Heraldry on 8 October (29). A half-day course on ‘Researching ancestors in Gibraltar and Malta’ was held on 1 October 1994 with 25 attending. Some twenty five ‘open’ or free talks on a wide variety of subjects took place in 1994 (some being also repeated later) and for the first time eight popular talks and workshops were also organised elsewhere: three at the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane, two at Kew, and one each in the India Office Collections, the National Portrait Gallery and the Institute of Historical Research. In 1995 some thirty-one afternoon and three evening lectures also took place and I particularly remember chairing one by Dr Margaret Cox on ‘Life and death in Spitalfields 1700-1850: the evidence from beneath Christ Church’ which was attended by a number of descendants of some of those those exhumed and identified.
Following the successes of previous years a third national Family History Fair, organised by Paul Blake, was held over two days at the Royal Horticultural Society’s New Hall, Westminster, on 6-7 May 1995, and attended by 2,750 people. This was less than in 1994 and probably due to the VE Day celebrations but there was a sliight increase in the number of stallholders. It followed much the same format as in previous years and made a surplus of £6,410.
A further nine study days took place in 1995: ‘Anglo-German Genealogy’ on 25 February (with 19 attendees), ‘Citizens of London’ on 13 May (22), ‘How to draw up a pedigree’ on 3 June (17), ‘Eighteenth-century records’ on 24 June (35), ‘Poor Law old and new’ on 8 July (17), ‘Migrants’ on 22 July (27), ‘Tracing the history of your house’ on 23 September (38), ‘Maps for the Family Historian’ on 11 November (3) and ‘Roman Catholic sources’ on 25 November (38). Study days, organised jointly with the Public Record Office, also took place on ‘Military Records’ at Kew on 8 March (25) and on ‘Probate Records’ at Chancery Lane on 22 March (25). Heather Garnsey and Martin Killion provided a study half-day entitled ‘Catching Colonials: a tutorial on Australian family history research’ at the Society on 29 March 1995 with 19 attendees.
A ten-week beginners and library classs was held at Thursday lunchtimes in February-April 1995 with four lecturers, when 12 attended, and a two-day course was held on Saturdays, 5 and 12 August, when 26 attended. A successful nine-week course on the Library, ‘What’s in it for me?’, with five lecturers, was held at lunchtimes on Fridays in September-November 1995, when 28 attended. Hilary Marshall conducted an eight-week evening palaeography class from September to November (12); there was a day workshop on ‘Caring for and conserving your documents’ on 24 April (11); a two-day course in basic Latin (8); and a two day course on ‘Interviewing techniques and oral history’ at the National Sound Archive (6).
The Society’s Eleventh Biennial Day Conference took place on 4 November 1995 at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Cenference Centre on the theme ‘Birth and Death: the two great certainties’ when 168 attended, a relatively disappointingly low number. There were three streams of talks, organised by Patricia Kirkland and Lilian Gibbens.
However, low attendances were a feature of many events organised in 1995 and some projected classes and study days were cancelled owing to lack of support. The cost of the courses was perceived to have been a major deterrent and this was much reduced in 1996. In order to recover some of the costs of providing the extensive programme in 1995 a charge of £1 (collected at the door) was introduced at the beginning of the year for lectures not directly related to the Society’s collections and some were, perhaps consequently, very poorly attended.
However, visits and talks at other repositories in 1995 proved popular and several were repeated, groups meeting at Lambeth Palace Library, the Imperial War Museum archives, the National Maritime Museum, the Society of Antiquaries, the College of Arms, the National Art Library, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Post Office Archives, the Middlesex Registry of Deeds (at the Greater London Record Office), the Historical Manuscripts Commission and the House of Lords Record Office.
Following the successes of previous years a fourth national Family History Fair, organised by Paul Blake, was held over two days at the Royal Horticultural Society’s New Hall, Westminster, on 4-5 May 1996. About 3,656 people attended together with about 500 stallholders, somewhat more than in 1995 and there was a slight increase in the number of stalls taken.
A weekend residential course, organised by Paul Blake, and with Else Churchill, Brian Oldham and Geoffrey Swinfield as speakers, was held at the Warwick Arms Hotel, Warwick, on 25-27 October 1996 when 59 attended. A Second Stage Course with the same speakers was held on eighteen Thursday evenings from February to June 1996 (18 attending) and followed by a Third Stage Course with the same speakers on sixteen evenings from October 1996 to March 1997 (23 attending). A two-day Beginners Course was held on Saturdays in August with 23 attending and a second nine-week course ‘What’s in it for me?’ was held at lunchtimes on Fridays from September to November with 15 attending. Hilary Marshall conducted a practical two-day course in palaeography on 2 and 9 November when 13 attended.
Four day courses were organised in 1996 on ‘London Organisations’ on 30 March (25), ‘My ancestor was in trade’ on 18 May (21), ‘Both sides of the law’ on 20 July (28) and ‘London south of the river’ on 19 October (79). Six half-day courses were held that year, that on ‘Two hundred million names, making the most of FamilySearch’ on 24 February with talks by Paul Blake and David Hawgood, was repeated on 6 July both courses being attended by a maximum of 80 people. The five others were ‘Soldiers and the Army’on 23 March (30), ‘Prostitution, suicides and inquests’ on 29 June (43), ‘Chalk and talk: records of teachers and pupils’ on 31 August (26), ‘Lost bodies; cemeteries and finding the place of burial’ on 21 September (80), and ‘Why go to Salt Lake City’ at which I and Geoffrey Mawlam spoke (39).
There were twenty-three lunchtime or evening lectures in 1996 and I particularly remember that by Dr K. S. B. Keats-Rohan on ‘The Continental Origins of English Landholders Project: a Who’s Who of Domesday Book and Norman Families’ which produced her magisterial volumes Domesday Names (1997) and Domesday People (1999). There were ten further popular visits and talks at other repositories, this time including the Fawcett Society, the Huguenot Library and the Middlesex House of Detention.
Two weekend residential courses were held in 1997. The first, held in association with the University of Wales, was organised by John and Sheilah Rowlands at Gregynog, Newtown, Powys, on 19-21 September 1997, and opened by Dr Michael Siddons, Wales Herald since 1994, was attended by about 90 people. The second, held on 24-26 October 1997, saw a course with Paul Blake, Else Churchill and Geoffrey Swinfield provided at Lancaster with 60 attendees.
Four day courses were held in 1997: ‘The seventeenth century revisited’ on 26 April (53); ‘Guilds, companies, apprentices and freemen’ on 31 May (45); ‘Booze and brewing: licensed victuallers, publicans and their records’ on 19 July (61); and ‘Just for the fun of it: the theatre, circus, music hall and circuit players’ on 27 September (63).
Ten half-day courses were organised in 1997: ‘Two hundred million names: making the most of FamilySearch’ on 22 February (80) with talks by Jeanne Bunting and David Hawgood, repeated on 23 October (61); ‘’Spoof and proof: pitfalls, delusions and proof in genealogy’ on 22 March (82) at which I gave both talks, repeated on 2 October (63); ‘The West Indies’ on 21 June with talks by Guy Grannum and Mr S. Porter (65); ‘Dog collars and gaiters: Church of England records and the clergy’ on 9 August, with talks by Miss H. Wakely and Mr E. Pinsent (38); ‘Lost Bodies’ on 4 September, repeated from the course in 1996 (61); ‘The wrong side of the blanket: illegitimacy and its records’ on 20 September, with talks by Dr. R. Adair and Mr P. Ellacott (44); ‘Railways and Canals’ on 11 October, with talks by Dr B. Trinder and Mr. C. Edwards (32); and ‘Genetics and genealogy’ on 22 November, with talks by Lilian Gibbens and Dr Geoffrey Swinfield (62).
Six lunchtime and evening lectures were also organised in 1997, four of them being on the material on seven specific counties within the Library, I contributing those on Norfolk and Suffolk. The series of visits and talks continued with seven in 1997: the National Monuments Record, the Ragged School Museum Trust, Westminster Abbey Muniment Room (twice), the United Grand Lodge of England, Golders Green Crematorium, the Church of England Record Centre (twice) and the Irish Genealogical Research Society. On 19 June 1997 there was a special day visit to Chatham Dockyard which incorporated an afternoon cruise aboard the PS Kingswear Castle.
Following the successes of previous years a fifth national Family History Fair, organised by Paul Blake with a large group of volunteers and on the now well established model, was held over two days at the Royal Horticultural Society’s New Hall, Westminster, on 3-4 May 1997. About 4,000 people attended together with about 750 stallholders.
The Society’s 12th Day-Conference took place on 8 November 1997, again at the New Horticultural Hall, on the theme ‘Restricted Lives’, organised by Deana Godmon and Patricia Kirkland. The 188 attendees heard eleven talks about the impact of poverty, imprisonment and servitude on our ancestors’ lives.
A two-day beginners course was held on 26 July and 2 August 1997. The Librarian gave two talks on the Library and took part in the nine-week ‘What’s in it for me?’ course starting on 26 September with 14 attendees. A fifteen week beginners course started on 9 October. Hilary Marshall held a two day palaeography course in November 1997 with 11 taking part.
An open form ‘The Society and you’ was held on 22 March 1997 and on Sunday, 20 July, the Society’s first Open Day attracted 126 visitors, much of the day being spent greeting people at a table outside in the road!
The great conferences that I had attended in America always had as one of their major attractions a large area of booths publicising the work of the major societies and providing opportunities for the display of computer software and the sale of books, but in September 1991 I read that a simple Family History Fair, without a conference, was to be held in Manhattan to mark the start of New York Archives Week. Forty organisations and vendors, including all the societies in the New York area, had taken booths or tables, entrance was to be free and, based on the attendance at previous years, about 800 people were expected [Anthony Camp, 'The Family History Fair', in Family History News and Digest (vol. 9, no. 2 (September 1993) 42-43].
I again thought that this was something that the Society should be staging in London, not necessarily to make money, but to attract beginners and put them on the right road to the discovery of their ancestors. Some members of the Executive Committee did everything possible to obstruct the idea but after much nagging behind the scenes a group from the Lectures Committee seized on my suggestion and carried it through with considerable energy. They were Paul Blake, Vivienne Lawrie, Joan Marker, Marjorie Moore and Dennis Wakeling. In the event the outcome was an overwhelming success.
Our first Family History Fair was held at the Royal Horticultural Society's Old Hall in Westminster for just one day, 16 May 1993, and attracted over 4,000 people from all over the world. Some 130 tables were taken by 43 family history societies, 11 booksellers and publishers, and 33 organisations offering a variety of services including antique maps, calligraphy, postcards, computer software, archival aids, microfilms, photographs and genealogical research. There were also displays provided by the British Association for Local History, the National Army Museum and the Public Record Office. I was particularly keen that the British Records Association should also be represented and personally sponsored its costs. The candy-striped stand of the London and North Middlesex Family History Society was very attractive and the Society of Genealogists had a large central stand. The latter was designed by Paul Blake using a series of the now well known 'vile yellow' panels (obtained through the good offices of Peter Park) and manned by staff and volunteers. Here new and duplicate books were sold, advice on research topics and on computers in genealogy was given, and volunteers recruited.
As soon as the doors opened we knew that it would be a success, people poured in and engulfed the stalls. The Society’s staff, assisted by many volunteers, was magnificent. Some vendors had practically sold out by lunchtime and all the stallholders said that from their point of view it had been an outstanding success. Under the glass of the great dome in the Old Hall we were glad that the early morning sun had been replaced by a grey cold day, but outside in the cold wind it was another matter. The queue lengthened to encircle the building and tempers understandably frayed. Some who had travelled for several hours were faced with another long wait and, once inside, had to queue again for the small restaurant and lavatories. To get around the stalls, pushing against the crowds, was a major task. The numbers in the Hall were limited at any one time by the Royal Horticultural Society officials to about eight hundred but people tended to stay longer than was expected so that the turnover was slow and some went away in disgust. However, 84% of those who completed a questionnaire said that they had enjoyed the Fair and 93% said that they would come to another.
The Fair had taken a large investment in time and money and in spite of the few angry letters and complaints we felt that this had been amply rewarded. In view of the enthusiasm of the vast majority who came we had little hesitation in staging a similar event, this time over two days and in the much larger New Hall with its adjoining Conference Centre, on 7-8 May 1994, when stallholders were able to exhibit on one or two days as they wished.
In October 1989 I was one of the guest speakers on the Salt Lake City Tour organised by Family Tree Magazine which was attended by 83 family historians from various parts of the world. During the visit I spoke at the Utah Genealogical Association Luncheon and was surprised to be honoured with the Fellowship of the Association.
At Easter 1990 I was one of the guest speakers at the Sesquicentennial Genealogical Convention organised by the South Auckland groups of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists in Auckland which had over 500 nparticipants. I then spoke to its local groups at Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin and was a guest at the National Archives and the Turnbull Library, the kind hospitality of all those involved being truly outstanding.
In June 1990 I went to Washington and spoke at the four-day National Capital Tenth Anniversary Conference of the National Genealogical Society in Crystal City, which was attended by nearly 2,300 people. During the Conference I was also the guest speaker at the Council of Genealogy Columnists Supper. I returned to America in October as one of the guest speakers on the Salk Lake City Tour organised by Family Tree Magazine.
In May 1991 I visited Portland, Oregon, and spoke at the four-day National Genealogical Society ‘Conference in the States’ which was attended by over 2,500 people. During the Conference I was the guest speaker at the Oregon Visitors Association Breakfast.
I was always interested in particular problems in genealogy, in the sources for migration generally but in particular those relating to migrants to America and, of course, to Ireland, about which we received many enquiries. In 1989 after much delving in spare moments into the small but important Irish collection at the Society I contributed an article listing the major items to the periodical North Irish Roots. This I expanded and published the following year as Sources for Irish Genealogy in the Library of the Society of Genealogists (1990) which I again subsequently extended, producing a second edition in 1998. This latter, published after I had left the Society, involved considerable work and listed practically every item of Irish interest in the library including analytical entries from many periodicals. Meanwhile, those of us who had organised the English Genealogical Congress at Cambridge encouraged Paul Gorry and other Irish genealogists who had been present to hold a similar congress in Ireland, saying that if they did so we would give it every support. Paul rose to the challenge and organised the highly successful First Irish Genealogical Congress at Trinity College, Dublin, 19-24 September 1991. For this I expanded my original article into a lecture, 'Sources for Irish genealogy at the Society of Genealogists' and this was published in the Congress's proceedings, Aspects of Irish genealogy, in 1993.
In April 1992 I visited Jacksonville, Florida, and was the Banquet speaker at the four-day National Genealogical Society ‘Conference in the States’. I proceeded to Utah and was one of the guest speakers at the Salt Lake City Tour organised by Family Tree Magazine, 4-18 May 1992.
In May 1993 I visited Canada and was the keynote speaker at the four-day Seminar ’93 organised by Ontario Genealogical Society at the University of Toronto, 27-30 May. I then again visited the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.
In June 1994 I attended the four-day National Genealogical Society ‘Conference in the States’ at Houston, Texas, and in October I was again one of the speakers at the Salt Lake City Tour organised by Family Tree Magazine. Whilst there I delivered a lecture in a series marking the Centennial of the Genealogical Society of Utah on 6 October 1994.
In July 1995 I attended and spoke on two occasions at the three-day New England Historic Genealogical Society’s Sesquicentennial Conference at Boston and in December I again visited the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.
In October 1996 I was again one of the guest speakers at the Salt Lake City Tour organised by Family Tree Magazine.
The quarterly journal Computers in Genealogy continued to be edited by Eric Probert and now had some 1,217 subscribers, its March 1989 issue containing details of all the commercial software packages specifically written for genealogical or family history use (other than shareware) and available in the United Kingdom, a listing revised and repeated in June 1991 and again in December 1992. Enthusiasts met on six occasions in 1989 to hear evening talks on particular packages, John Addis-Smith organised a half-day conference on various packages on 13 May 1989 when 70 attended and there were two Saturday afternoon workshops on ‘Heritage’ organised by Don Francis.
In 23 September 1989 Eric Probert organised in association with Bristol and Avon Family History Society the first of a series of highly successful computer day conferences held around the country over the next few years and with remarkable attendencies, similar to that which he had organised at the Society in 1986 and usually including workshops, lectures and a panel of experienced users. The first was held at Transport House, Bristol, and had 119 attendees. The second, organised in association with North West Kent Family History Society, was at Sevenoaks School for Girls on 27 October 1990 and had 180 attendees. The third, in association with Northumberland and Durham Family History Society, was at Gosforth High School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 16 November 1991, and had 140 attendees. The fourth, in association with Devon Family History was at the Queen’s Building in the University of Exeter on 4 April 1992, and had 150 attendees. Later that year, 24 October, in association with Oxfordshire Family History Society, David Squire organised a similar conference at Exeter Hall, Kidlington, Oxfordshire, with about the same number. In 1993 Eric Probert organised his fifth conference in association with the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry at Westhill College, Selly Oak on 2 October 1993, with 98 attendees. His sixth, in association with the Essex Society for Family History, at Christ Church, New London Road, Chelmsford on 25 March 1995 had 140 attendees. His seventh (organised with David Hawgood) in association with Cheshire Family History Society, at Queen Park chool, Chester, on 18 Mau 1996 had 140 attendees. His eighth in association with the Devon Family History Society at St Loye’s College, Exeter on 12 April 1997 had 125 attendees.
On 16 June 1990 Mrs L. Race organised a day-conference at the Society on genealogical programs with 78 attendees and on 17 November David Squire organised a similar half-day on the ‘Pedigree’ Program with 76 attendees. There were six of the usual evening meetings and in October (assisted by funds donated in memory of the late Alexander Sandison) the Society purchased a ‘Datasplay’ projection panel for the magnification of a computer screen through an overhead projector.
In 1991 Neville Taylor organised a half-day conference for beginners at the Society on 29 June 1991 when 50 attended. Five other meetings were organised that year and the number of subscribers to Computers in Genealogy rose to 1,385. Its March 1991 issue contained a questionnaire and appeal, organised by Mrs Lonny Race, which resulted in some 170 volunteers offering to assist with transcription and indexing projects for the Library.
Similarly on 20 June 1992 Mrs Lonny Race organised a half-day computer conference at the Society with demonstrations of genealogy software, when 54 attended and there were five evening meetings of enthusiasts, members of the Computer Committee giving considerable assistance to the Senior Library Assistant in organising the volunteers mentioned above.
Jeanne Bunting organised a ‘hands on’ practical session on group computer transcribing and indexing at the Society on 10 July 1993, with 22 attendees, and there were five meetings for computer enthusiasts in the course of the year.
An advice surgery was provided throughout the Family History Fair in May 1993 when several shareware programs were copied and sold and a running display provided by Neville Taylor. A Computers in Genealogy Beginners Pack, consisting mainly of advisory leaflets and prepared especially for the Fair, proved popular and was reprinted in December. This pack was revised and expanded in 1994 and launched as The Computers in Genealogy beginners handbook at the second Fair.
Neville Taylor was now typesetting the quarterly issues of Computers in Genealogy and a questionnaire on the main trends in computer use organised by Mr M. C. Marriette was circulated with the June 1993 issue. Those for December in 1993 and 1994 again contained details of the many programs marketed in the UK.
A day of computer software demonstrations was held on 16 July 1994 with demonstrations of Pedigree, Personal Ancestral File, Brother’s Keeper and Reunion for Windows. There were six meetings for enthusiasts and at the suggestion of David Hawgood a computer help-line was inaugurated in February 1994 so that members who telephoned the Society with computer problems could be given the number of a member to assist them.
A major project to alphabetise the calendars of the Vicar General marriage allegations 1710-1837, using a program devised by David Squire, was launched in October 1994 with Colin Allen as organiser. On 11 February 1995 David Squire organised a hands-on practical day-workshop centred on these calendars, when 24 attended.
A highly successful six week evening theoretical course ‘An introduction to computers for genealogists’, devised by David Squire and with talks by David Hawgood, Dr D. W. Jopling, Peter Livock and David Squire, was held in March-April 1995 with 23 attending. The course was repeated in February-April 1996 with 20 attending and again from February 1997, when Neville Taylor took the place of Peter Livock, and 20 attended.
Also in 1997 David Hawgood orgaised a day of computer software demonstrations on 5 July and a day symposium on ‘Advances in genealogical computing’ on 30 August when 30 attended. There were five evening meetings across the year. Peter Christian’s widely acclaimed Web publishing for genealogy had been published in February.
Five evening meetings for enthusiasts were organised in 1995 and through the good offices of Professor Brian Randell details of the Society first featured on the Genuki website on the Internet. A membership application form, copies of the Library guide, the lecture programme and the bookshop list with an order form, were all included. On 16 December 1995 members of the Computer Committee met at the Cafe Internet for a practical exploration of the Internet’s genealogical possibilities. By the end of the year Computers in Genealogy had 1,501 subscribers.
A day of computer software demonstrations was organised by Dr Jopling on 22 June 1996 when 67 attended and through the kind offices of Peter Christian a ‘hands on’ experience of the Internet was held at Goldsmith’s College on 13 April 1996 when 18 attended. There were five evening meetings in both 1996 and 1997 and members of the Committee provided demonstrations (one in 1996 by David Squire of a voice recognition program) and advice surgeries throughout the Family History Fairs in both years.
At the end of 1996 Eric Probert announced his resignation as editor of Computers in Genealogy after ten years in the post and Peter Christian was appointed in his stead. Also in 1996 David Hawgood, the founder editor of the journal was awarded the Fellowship of the British Computer Society specifically in recognition of his pioneering contribution to genealogical computing.
The Census Search Room was moved from the Land Registry in Portugal Street to newly refurbished rooms in the basement of the PRO building in Chancery Lane in 1991 and the 1891 census returns were released there in January 1992.
The census records remained here until March/April 1997 when they were again moved, this time to the expensive and lavish first floor of the Family Records Centre, the remainder of the records going to Kew and the Chancery Lane Building being then closed.
I had known Marc Fitch (1908-1994) and his second wife Ismini (nee Georgacopoulo; died 1999) since my earliest days at the Society of Genealogists and had long been appreciative of Marc’s hard work on the British Record Society’s indexes and his unfailing generosity through the Fund which he had established in 1956 and which is several times mentioned above. He was a contemporary and lifelong friend of Anthony Wagner who had done extensive research on the Fitch family in Essex and with the Essex (later Sussex) archivist Francis Steer and both had been highly influential in the Fund’s creation and its promotion of scholarly causes including local history, genealogy and heraldry. The Fund had itself initiated two major projects. With the assistance of Professor W.G. Hoskins and as Wagner had suggested, it had in 1965 endowed a Readership in the History of Surnames (later upgraded to a Research Fellowship) within the Department of Local History History at Leicester University. Its first county monograph, as described above, had been published in 1969 and Richard McKinley had been succeeded as Research Fellow in 1988 by Dr David Postles. The Fund paid some sixty per cent of his salary and he taught palaeography to undergraduates as well as other teaching and supervising within the Department. The Fund’s second major project had been to sponsor the cataloguing of the records and collections of the College of Arms, Francis Steer working on these until his death in 1978, though the first and only volume of the catalogue to appear, edited by Louise Campbell, did not appear until 1988, the cost of the volume being a personal contribution from Marc to mark the College’s 600th anniversary.
By 1988 the Fund had supported almost 650 projects, mostly publications, and by the autumn of 1991 had given away a million pounds in grants and loans, the majority of its awards having been to assist publication in the fields of archaeology, art history, genealogy, local history and topography. I was thus pleased and honoured in January that year to be asked by the architectural historian John Cornforth (1937-2004), then the Fund’s Chairman, to join its small Council of Management, ostensibly to strengthen coverage in the genealogical field.
By then another old friend, Ismini’s son-in-law Roy Stephens had succeeded Francis Steer as the Fund’s Secretary. Roy was also the practical co-ordinator for the printing of the British Record Society volumes and his considerable expertise in printing and publishing enabled the Fund’s subsidiary, the Leopard’s Head Press, founded in 1975, to publish some of the results of the research projects which had been assisted by the Fund. The Press’s name had been taken from the Arms and Crest granted to the Fund in 1979. By the year 2000 it had published some eighty-two titles including the first volume of the catalogue of the College of Arms and seven volumes of the Survey of English Surnames.
The Council usually met twice yearly in the Mortimer Wheeler Room at the Society of Antiquaries, but occasionally we met in colleges at Oxford or Cambridge. These meetings to consider applications for grants were always most pleasant occasions though initially somewhat daunting in the breadth of the subjects covered. About thirty-five applications were considered at each meeting, full details of each with the supporting comments of the sponsors being circulated in advance. Since 1987 a number of larger awards, usually running for two or three years, had also been made towards the cost of cataloguing or research, including salary, and by 1992 some 37 of these ‘Special Projects’ had been assisted. In 1993 there were, for example, eight of these in progress, those approved in 1990-91 being grants over three years towards the preparation of the indexes to The Gladstone Diaries being published by Oxford University Press, the cataloguing of the Blunt collection of English coins at the Fitzwilliam Museum, the provision of a photographic studio at the Irish Architectural Archive, the research costs of the Buildings of Scotland series, the research into British colonial architecture in Calcutta and the establishment of a Research Studentship in Agricultural History at the University of Reading. By the year 2000 some £833,457 had been awarded by way of these Special Projects since their inception in 1987. At the Council meetings in London there was often a break for lunch in the Antiquaries’ Council Room and these lunches were an opportunity to meet some of those involved in the larger Special Projects and in the case of the important Surnames Survey their supervisors, visits to Leicester being undertaken by Council members
After his research on the surnames of Leicestershire and Rutland (published in 1998), David Postles concentrated on the Northern onomastic region, building on work already completed on Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire but entailing research into Cumberland, Westmorland, Durham, Northumberland and the other Ridings of Yorkshire. Marc Fitch had given his library to the Department of Local History at Leicester and the house allotted to it by the Department had, in April 1989, been named Marc Fitch House and opened by the Fund’s President, the Duke of Norfolk. After I had left the Council David Postles decided in 2005 to take early retirement, but remained a University Fellow in the School of English and his regional volume eventually appeared in 2007 as The North through its names (volume 8 in the English Surnames Survey series), he having produced a general volume Naming the People of England, c.1100-1350 in 2006.
John Cornforth stood down as Chairman of the Fund early in 2001 when Alan Scott Bell (1942-2018), recently Librarian of The London Library was elected in his stead. Roy Stephens retired as Secretary in February 2003 and was succeeded as Executive Director by the energetic Elaine Paintin (1947-2010), formerly of the British Museum and Library, but meetings then began to take place alternately in London and at Oxford and with the pressure of other things at that time I very reluctantly decided on 14 September 2003 to resign my membership of the Council which was doing such wonderful work in Marc’s name.
Under the arrangement with the Federation of Family History Societies, Alan Reed had been the Society’s most active and appreciated representative on the latter’s Executive Committee in succession to Sir Andrew Noble since 1979, but that position he also resigned and in September 1989 Mrs Gill Valentine was nominated in his place. In November 1989 the formal representation of the Federation on the Society’s Library and Computer Committees was brought to an end by mutual agreement, but the useful liaison in the field of publications continued through Mrs Susan B. Lumas. I joined the Federation's Education Sub-Committee in April 1994.
By then the Federation of Family History Societies had been in existence for almost twenty years and hardly a year had passed in which someone said that the Society of Genealogists had no role to play in it. Back in 1975 Michael Burchall had said that 'the Federation was for small and local societies'. And yet even before the Federation had come into existence the first joint venture of the local societies, in September 1973, had been to place a combined advertisement in the The Genealogists’ Magazine which, as Fred Markwell said at the time, 'was of great economic advantage to the participating societies'. I reminded the Extraordinary General Meeting of the Federation held at Birmingham on 12 November 1994 of these points when it was proposed that the Society should lose its status as a Nominating Member under the Federation’s new constitution as a limited company.
I said then that we all recognised that the promotion of the subject was something done by small as well as large societies and that much more could be done with the practical co-operation of all concerned. I reminded those present that all the societies contained beginners and experts, all contained amateurs and professionals, and that all had the same challenges and problems. The Society of Genealogists elected over a hundred new members every month. Many were already members of local societies but a great number were complete beginners. As an international society with 13,000 members we had members in most countries around the world. However, one of the challenges of being a large and old society was that there was a library to maintain, a building to repair, and staff to man it all. There were, of course, advantages too: we had built up over eighty years a working relationship with many societies and organisations worldwide, both official and unofficial, for the benefit of all genealogists everywhere. I was very proud, I said, of what had been accomplished. That combined experience and expertise had always been at the service of the Federation and it had been drawn upon on numerous occasions.
I went on to say that the old constitution of the Federation had said that the Nominating Societies should be chosen 'from among societies in the UK who are leaders in genealogy, heraldry, and kindred studies, and whose collaboration with the Federation is considered likely to be of direct aid to its work'. In order to ensure that a closer collaboration took place not only then, but also in the future, changes were made to the constitution and the Society of Genealogists was given 'a special and privileged position'. It was the view of the Federation's Executive Committee that the arrangement made twenty years earlier had worked very well. A paper circulated by that Committee in August had said that the involvement of the Nominating Members over the last twenty years had been fundamental to the Federation's success; it had been a close and productive association. I recalled that I had had some distinguished predecessors as the Society's representative, people who had worked long and for many hours on the Federation's behalf - including Sir Andrew Noble (died 1987) and Alan Reed - but that two years ago it was felt that an even closer association would be beneficial and that was why I had been asked to represent the Society. I didn't particularly enjoy turning out early on Sundays for all day meetings in Birmingham but I was glad to do so because I had no doubt it was worthwhile. It ensured that for any matter about which the Society of Genealogists had experience, that experience was immediately available to the Federation, and vice versa, and that any joint problem or venture could be followed up immediately. I pointed out that we were both international organisations with large memberships and yet the number of people with time and knowledge that they were willing to give to the subject was small indeed. I urged them to do everything possible to make the best use of the knowledge that was available, not only to avoid duplication but also to promote cooperation, and said that could be done much more easily by direct representation on the Executive Committee. It had worked well for twenty years and I could see no good reason for changing it.
As a result the proposal was rejected and I followed Mrs Valentine as the Society’s representative on the Federation’s Executive Committee from 1992 to 1998 when I was elected President (1998-2000) and Robert Gordon was named the Society’s representative on the Federation’s Executive Committee.
In 1997 I completed forty years service with the Society of Genealogists, but the last few years had been particularly difficult ones in which I often felt overwhelmed by the pressure of work, correspondence and meetings. I therefore, after much deliberation, on 17 December 1996, gave a year’s notice of my intention to resign. At my last Annual Meeting on 24 June 1997 the Chairman of the Exeutive Committee said that I was, ‘Regarded world-wide as ‘Mr Genealogy, his work for the Society seems to increase daily. He represents the Society on many other bodies, lectures frequently at home and abroad, His ‘Diary’ in Family Tree Magazine is often the first page to which many readers turn. There will never be another Anthony Camp, I feel sure that no one in the future will ever devote so many hours to the Society. More will be said later this year, but I cannot let this opportunity go by to wish him a long and happy retirement and thank him for his long and devoted service to the Society’. Similar wording was used in the Chairman’s note published in the Genealogists’ Magazine [vol. 25, no. 11 (September 1997) 468].
The considerable generosity of a member enabled the Society to hold a farewell reception for me in the magnificent Chapter Hall of the Order of St John at neighbouring St John’s Gate on 16 December 1997. The Hall was beautifully decorated for Christmas and I was honoured by the presence of the Society’s President, HRH Prince Michael of Kent, the Registrar General (the statistician Dr Timothy Holt), the Keeper of Public Records (Mrs Sarah Tyacke), the Mayor of Islington (Councillor Rupert Perry), Cecil O. Samuelson representing the President of the Quorum of the Twelve (Dr Boyd K. Packer who was also a Vice-President of the Society) and by representatives of many genealogical and archival organisations (including AGRA, the Federation, the Scottish Association and the Extra-Mural Society) together with about 140 members and staff. Also present were a number of former staff including John Phillips the Society’s Secretary in the 1950s when I first arrived there.
Prince Michael spoke warmly and generously of his term as President which had coincided with mine as Director and presented a cheque contributed by members of the Society and readers of Family Tree Magazine. Michael and Mary Armstrong, the proprietors of the latter journal, recalling my provision of 150 monthly instalments of ‘The Diary of a Genealogist’ and my refusing tp take any fee, most generously presented travel insurance and an airline ticket to Salt Lake City so that I could work in the library there. A statement by Kenneth Knight, President of the Society of Australian Genealogists, was read announcing my election on 14 August 1797 as an Honorary Member of that Society for ‘outstanding services to genealogical studies’ [GM vol 26, no. 1 (Mch 1998) 14-15]. The New Zealand Society of Genealogists also kindly gave me a subscription to their Journal until 2006. All those attending had entered their names in a presentation album inscribed ‘in recognition of his dedication, integrity and enthusiam during forty years of service’.
Although I had written to the Genealogists’ Magazine saying that the overwhelming number of kind letters and other expressions of goodwill received were too numerous to acknowledge I did in fact later send a card to all those whose addresses I was able to locate. For the card I used a reproduction of the ‘London Laughs’ cartoon about the Society published in the London Evening News on 1 November 1938 (described above), I having purchased the original artwork by Joseph Lee (‘Lee’; 1901-1975) from a dealer in 1994.
On 18 May 1999 I was surprised to receive a letter from 10 Downing Street saying that the Prime Minister had it in mind ‘on the occasion of the forthcoming list of Birthday Honours, to submit your name to the Queen with a recommendation that Her Majesty may be graciously pleased to approve that you be appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire’. Having assured him that this would be agreeable to me the announcement was made in the Birthday Honours List on 12 June, the citation being ‘for services to the Society of Genealogists’ [The London Gazette, Number 55513, 11 June 1999, Supplement No. 1] and I was invested with the Insignia of the Order by HM The Queen in the Ballroom at Buckingham Palace on 20 July. The Queen was escorted by the Lord Steward (The Viscount Ridley) who announced the names of the recipients, the Master of the Household (Major General Sir Simon Cooper) and the Equerry in Waiting (Squadron Leader Simon Brailsford), and was attended by two Gurkha Orderly Officers and five members of her Body Guard of the Yeomen of the Guard. I was permitted to have three guests present and these were my sister, my niece and Mrs Barbara Merrall who had co-ordinated the many recent representations kindly made on my behalf. Major Arthur Greenwood in Canada had taken considerable trouble to collect letters and make similar representations in 1995. As I wrote to him afterwards I was particularly pleased that, so far as I could find, this was the first time that any award had been made in the field of genealogy in the UK, other than to officers of the College of Arms. My only slight disappointment was that it was made for services to the Society of Genealogists and not to the subject in general, the improvement of which had always been and remained my aim. The twentieth of July was one of the hottest days of the year but the four of us walked over afterwards to have a lovely lunch at Franco’s of St James in Jermyn Street. On 16 June HRH Prince Michael of Kent most kindly sent a Telemessage of congratulation. The Warrant received later was signed by the Queen and by the Duke of Edinburgh as Grand Master of the Order.
In 1997 I completed forty years service with the Society of Genealogists, but the last few years had been particularly difficult ones in which I often felt overwhelmed by the pressure of work, correspondence and meetings. I therefore, after much deliberation, on 17 December 1996, gave a year’s notice of my intention to resign. The Society’s trustees who formed the Executive Committee and were chaired by Marjorie Moore made little attempt to find a successor until relatively late in 1997 when an advertisement in the September Magazine said that the successful applicant would be ‘responsible for the overall direction and co-ordination of the Society’s affairs’ and that the ideal candidate would have had ‘a considerable experience with genealogical matters and working in a management role’ [GM, vol 25, no. 11 (September 1997) page iv]. Two trustees without administrative experience applied for the position, thus making the process controversial and unpleasant, but probably explaining why discussion of a deputy to me, which would have eased pressures and ensured some continuity, had previously made no headway.
The person appointed in November 1997 was the forceful and ambitious Robert Ian Neilson Gordon (1952-2017), formerly a solicitor and borough councillor at Watford in Hertfordshire who for ten years had been trying to enter national politics. He had stood unsuccessfully as a Parliamentary Candidate at Torfaen in 1987 and at Watford in 1997 and as a Euro-candidate for the Eastern Region in 1999.
Suggestions that he might work alongside me for a while or that I should be retained temporarily in an advisory capacity were quickly dismissed by the Executive Committee and I had only a short discussion with him on 9 January 1998, several days after he had actually started work. Although a member of the Society since 1994, he showed little knowledge of the genealogical world (he did not know, for instance, the difference between the commercial Family Tree Magazine and the Federation’s Family History News & Digest) and he had no experience of working with committees or volunteers in a charitable context. It transpired that he would generally take a legalistic and aggressively commercial view, seeing other organisations in the same field, such as the Federation of Family History Societies and the Genealogical Society of Utah, as competitors. He certainly did not believe that he could learn anything from the past history of the Society and few expected him to stay long in the post, though we noted that ‘former director of a national charity’ subsequently appeared on his promotional literature. One of those who had interviewed him said that he would ‘lead’ the Executive Committee, the quality of the members of which he soon began to disparage and he led the Society for three years with the most unfortunate consequencies.
On my last day at the Society I had left on Robert Gordon’s desk a lengthy memorandum setting out many internal office procedures, deadlines and details of the part that he would be expected to play in upcoming events in 1998, the diary for which had already largely been finalised, together with a lengthy ‘job description’ which set out in considerable detail all the tasks which I had been undertaking on the Society’s behalf.
I was in America from 19 January to 10 February and on 23 February 1998 Robert Gordon sent me a draft of the Annual Report for 1997 worded by the General Purposes Committee. It made an early impression that not all was well as no attempt had been made to go through the Minutes of the various committees to summarise the Society’s activities or to check doubtful points. I made a great number of changes and included four pages of additional text to be incorporated at various places, making the point that the Society’s Annual Report was its main opportunity to place on record to the world what it had done in the year and adding ‘if the committees cannot be bothered to do even that then the Society is indeed in unworthy hands’ [2 March 1998].
It had been agreed in the General Purposes Committee whilst I was in post as Director that I might have continued access to the Society’s older files and Minute Books in connection with the early history of the Society and the biographies of former Fellows on both of which I had been working intermittently for some years. However, Robert Gordon wrote on 22 January that ‘your final text must be submitted to the Society for approval prior to publication so that the Society can consider if any matters are inappropriate for publication on the grounds of confidentiality or otherwise’, adding ‘The Society’s judgement [sic] on any such issue would be final’. He asked that I sign a copy of the letter giving my assent to this condition. He rashly likened me to a previous applicant who had waged an active campaign to discredit the Society and who had been asked to sign a similar document. I could not believe the insensitivity, though I soon saw how all-pervading it was, and I eventually replied on 9 March making it clear that I would sign no such thing. It was a great disappointment but as a result my work on the files at the Society came to an end.
I went, however, several times to the Society’s library, in preparation for two weeks in Salt Lake City in January 1998 (going there again with the Family Tree Group in October),l ectured at the Society on agricultural labourers on 21 February, attended a lunch given by David Squire to mark the completion of the final volume of the Vicar General Project (from 1694 to 1850) and to present a copy to Lambeth Palace Library on 4 March, and on 4 April took the first session, ‘Land Ownership and Ocupancy since 1660’, of the Society’s important day course ‘Changing Landscapes’ which I had organised with Professor David Hey, Dr Brian Short and Professor Ian Whyte.
On 26 April 1998 Marjorie Moore said that she had been asked at the British Genealogical Record Users Committee on 22 April to see whether I would like ‘to continue your crusade concerning access to records’ under the umbrella of BGRUC and saying that my recent article in Family Tree Magazine [‘Easier & cheaper access to older civil registration records’, Family Tree Magazine, April 1998], ‘has sent everyone buzzing’. I replied at length on 6 May 1998 saying that I was finding it difficult to go back to the Society in view of the questions from those who knew little of why I had left and I said that ‘in the last couple of months the situation has been made much worse by the number of letters, telephone calls and questions about recent developments’, which I was finding draining and exhausting, a situation not helped by meeting members of the staff almost in tears in the road. Indeed, as I said in the letter, the volunteers (with whom Robert Gordon, shut in his room, refused to be involved and consistently ignored) were in despair, with everything uncertain and unhappy, the atmosphere so unpleasant. I had no doubt that a number of changes would take place but I had hoped that these would build on what had been accomplished in the past. I did not expect them to be of ‘such an absurdly expedient nature’ by someone without experience in the field and without the slightest foresight or knowledge of the repercussions which they might have in other areas. I had now heard that three members of staff were to be made ‘redundant’ and that they had not been told until the day adertisements appeared for their successors. I said that it was a despiccable and unworthy, a contrivance, with a dreadful effect on the other staff. The trustees had apparently been written to and told that if they could not keep these matters confidential they should not come to the meetings. I said that the new Director seemed to be ‘intent on passing all the work which he himself should be doing to others’ and the situation was a complete travesty of what had been intended last year. It pained me greatly to say that I would not be asociated with such a shameful regime, let alone work closely with it in the way that she suggested. The work of BGRUC was vital and closely allied to the prestige and standing of the Society and if the Director could not be bothered even with that (his presumed lobbying skills being the main reason for his appointment and he being on a nine month probation) then he should go. She did not reply. In November one of those made redundant gained a most favourable settlement by taking action against the Society in the Industrial Tribunal, a matter not mentioned in the Annual Report.
In July 1998 I completed work on the revision of my Sources for Irish Genealogy in the Library of the Society of Genealogists and sent the text to the Society for publication. The book listed practically every Irish item in the library and provided analytical entries for the main Irish periodicals. It was given no publicity and my request to be paid a royalty on it was ignored, as was my later letter about a decision in 2008 to dispose of the remaining stock.
Extremely apprehensive as to future developments I heard from Susan Lumas in August 1998 that because of ‘the present constrictions on space’ the ‘membership papers’ at the Society were being considered for destruction and as an archivist she was naturally alarmed. I replied saying that I could not believe that anyone would destroy the older (pre-1954) correspondence files without going through them (as I had offered to do) and that I used regularly to consult the current ones; those who saw the members as merely the providers of an annual subscription would not understand their importance. The more recent ones were then quickly destroyed. In December 1999 a short-term member of staff was allowed to list the ‘surviving internal papers created by the Society’ for the National Register of Archives [NRA 42592, GB 2034 Soc Gen] but the list did not include the large collection of committee minutes then in the Director’s office and its compiler had apparently not been shown the detailed list of the files in the basement store which I had made in January 1998 and left for the new Director. In March 2000 he advertised for copies of many of the Society’s previous Annual Reports [GM, Vol. 26, No. 9 (March 2000) 352] though there was a complete set in the Director’s office and large numbers of duplicates in the store.
At the AGM on 29 June 1999 the General Regulations of the Society, originally made in 1979, were substantially altered to give greater powers to the Executive Committee. The level of the annual subscription (in future to be determined by the Executive and not by Members in Annual Meeting) was fixed at £33 p.a. The ‘non-London members’ (previously called ‘Country Members’) elected before 8 July 1997 were to pay £24. All the members, including about 1,500 who had qualified for concessions (as Retired, Student or Family Members) before 1997, would be entitled to a reduction of £3 if they paid by variable Direct Debit (to which older members had a great resistance) but not if they paid by Bankers Order. The Entrance Fee would in future be determined by the Executive Committee. These changes would, it was estimated, produce an extra £45,000 in the Society’s income [AR 1999 page 4] and produced £404,447 in the year 2000 as against £372,447 in 1999, though the figures (as was later admitted) were unreliable.
The Annual Report for 2000 [page 5] said that new membership software was acquired at the end of 1999 but not fully implemented until 2000 when it was found that the total membership previously reported was incorrect and at 31 December 2000 was actually 14,243 of which 1,197 lived overseas (as against the 1,341 reported in 1999). The number paying the reduced concessionary rate was 1,234 as against 1,404 in 1999. Comments made in 2003, however, threw much doubt on the accuracy of these figures.
Although the Society regularly lost about ten per cent of its membership every year there was a core of older members (about 60% were aged over 60) paying, as has been described above, various rates which could not be altered and the simplification that I had aimed for was now partly abandoned in that discounts were to be allowed to those who paid by direct debit but not otherwise. Computerisation had simplified the recording of subscriptions (reminders, standing orders, direct debits, and the two periodicals) but the introduction of these discounts and the careful attention and oversight that they required inevitably caused further problems for the office.
Back in 1996 the committees had been exploring ideas for a more active presence on the Internet and the possibility of making source material available there at variable rates for members and non-members [AR 1996 page 12]. In 1998 Peter Christian developed a website for the Society so that it could be contacted by e-mail, with direct mail boxes for sales and the library [AR 1998 page 3]. Two electronic mailing lists were established and managed by Geoffrey Stone, one for news from the Society and the other for discussion amongst its members. The bookshop went online in September 1998 and offered a secure credit card ordering facility, though the Society’s leaflets were made available there without charge.
The decision was also taken in 1998 to begin to make digitised Library material available ‘as soon as reasonably practical’ and to publish online the Library’s computerised catalogue once the work with Heritage Lottery funding had been completed [AR 1998 page 3]. The Chairman of the Executive wrote in May 1999 that the Executive Committee had agreed ‘to make greater use of the Internet in making our material more easily available. This initiative will develop slowly at first but will impact substantially over many years’ [AR 1998 pages 1-2]. The 1999 Report said, ‘Such a project will be costly and will have technical and administrative aspects beyond the Society’s capability’ [AR 1999 page 3]. However, three possible partners were immediately considered and in September 1999 a ten-year contract with one was prepared, the project’s stated intention being to increase the Society’s income, particularly from non-members. This was, of course, at the start of the ‘dot-com boom’. Robert Gordon, without any experience or background in genealogy, was, as I was told, encouraging the trustees to believe that they could obtain ‘more money than they would know what to do with’ through the marketing of books and indexes on the Internet.
The agreement, with Origins.net Ltd (a firm founded as OMS Services Limited in 1997, which had operated the Scots Origins service since early in 1998), was signed on 5 May 2000 and was set to start in the third quarter of that year. A separate trading company, Society of Genealogists Enterprises Ltd, was formed in April 2000 [AR 1999 page 1] and was ‘expected to make a significant contribution to the Society’s income in future years’ [AR 2000 page 10]. It had been formed on the advice of the Society’s new auditors ‘particularly to take forward the Origins project’ [GM, vol. 26, no. 10 (June 2000) 386]. The Society’s long serving and highly competent auditors, BDO Stoy Hayward, who had taken a close personal interest in the development of the Society for a number of years, ‘did not seek re-appointment’ and had been replaced by Messsrs F W Stephens & Co at the Annual Meeting on 29 June 1999 [Minutes in GM vol 26 No 7 Sep 1999 page 254].
When EnglishOrigins.net went live on 2 January 2001 it contained indexes to the Vicar General and Faculty Office marriage licences, the Bank of England and Archdeaconry Court of London will indexes, the London Consistory Court depositions, and the published London City apprenticeship indexes being compiled by Clifford Webb [AR 2000 page 4]. About 1.5 million entries in Boyd’s Marriage Index were also added that year.
A further 3.5 million entries from Boyd’s Marriage were added in 2002 (the names of the Yorkshire brides becoming available for the first time) as well as some 208,000 names, without informing me or mentioning my name, from my PCC Will Index 1750-1800 and the Trinity House Petitions. Two million further entries were added in 2003 from parts of Boyd’s Miscellaneous Series and the Blacksmiths’ Company apprentices.
Members of the Society were being allowed a free access session once every quarter of the year. This was suspended for a month from 14 September 2004 for a redesign of the site and a name change to ‘British Origins’ but in that year more of Boyd’s Marriage Index, his London burials and further London apprentices were added [AR 2004 page 3]. The ‘guaranteed’ income from this venture is discussed below. Origins.net was absorbed into Findmypast on 16 March 2015.
Early in 1996 I had taken an interest and looked over a building for sale immediately behind the Society but facing Aldersgate Street, its extensive basement being easily accessible from our Members’ Room via a small yard between the two buildings. We knew that the Society’s income to support a larger building was completely lacking (as was stressed in the Annual Report that year, the Society’s then financial bouyancy being largely due to the interest arising from its reserves) [AR 1996 page 12] but a little later I was told that about 1,300 square feet of storage space, already fitted out with racking, had become available there to rent. The possibilities were explored and in April 1997 we signed a five-year lease on this large room for £3,609 per annum. Following the necessary work an initial move of little used material and files took place in September, much assisted by the donation of several cabinets and additional shelving by Stephen Hale. It proved a relatively cheap but important extension to our storage facilities.
Meanwhile a committee to consider the future needs of the Society had its first meeting in March 1997 and in October received detailed plans for the possible upward extension of the building by the addition of two further storeys. The annual report for 1997 (put together by the Executive Committee early in 1998) said that although the likely costs involved were far beyond the then resources of the Society, it had been agreed that a planning application should be made to test the future possibilities. The results of this were awaited at the end of the year. That report also noted with regard to the Development Fund which stood at £279,294, that ‘Any future development will reduce these holdings and therefore income currently enjoyed from them - £30,866 this year and £27,823 in 1996. The effect of this reduction in income and the increase of running expenses must be a major consideration in any decision regarding future premises’.
However, the Annual Report for the first year of the new Director struck a quite different note, saying that the premises ‘are too small for current purposes – let alone for further expansion. The working conditions for members and visitors are too cramped, the lack of facilities for people with disabilities is unacceptable, the lecture hall is barely adequate and the library has insufficient space to accept a major deposit of new material, should one be offered’. In May 1998 the Society was advised by Messrs Boon Godbold, the only real estate advisers in the neighbouring City of London, that ‘a move to significantly larger premises in broadly the same part of London might be achievable’ and as a result that firm was appointed to advise on a search and the disposal of 14 Charterhouse Buildings, preparations for a fundraising appeal being put in hand [AR 1998 page 2].
Although the Annual Report for 1998 said that the Society had reserves of ‘approximately £500,000’ and the value of its freehold building, it also said that about a million pounds would ‘need to be added to its value to secure suitable premises’ [AR 1998 page 2], in fact the Development Fund stood at £309,294 [AR 1998 page 27] and was only increased to the more impressive £500,000 in the Annual Accounts for 1999 by including all the Society’s available reserves [AR 1999 page 11]. The Society had previously taken the prudent view that a proportion of the funds should always be held in reserve and that the income from bequests and unplanned donations should be shown quite separately in the Annual Accounts as best indicating the financial position. The book value of the building was £330,786 [AR 1998 page 24].
However, late in 1998 a fundraising committee was established under the chairmanship of the Vice-President, Patric Dickinson, with Prince Michael of Kent as Patron. A specialist firm, Opus, was engaged as fundraising consultants with Messrs Field Fisher Waterhouse as solicitors. The Annual Report for 1998, worded in May 1999, said that the appeal would be launched ‘as soon as new premises have been identified’. It made no mention of the planning application for an upward extension of the existing building mentioned in the previous Report. The ‘Notes and News’ in the Society’s Magazine for March 2000 said that the Executive would continue the search ‘until the right deal can be done’ but put the cost of ‘the 20,000 square feet [i.e. double the existing space] we would like at about four million pounds!’.
Islington and the City fringe areas were, however, witnessing substantial increases in property prices, and no attempt was made to involve the Society’s membership in the search as had been done so successfully in 1984. The Chairman’s overview for 1999, worded in May 2000, said that ‘the last few months have proved a very busy and somewhat frustrating time ... We had hoped to be able to see the Society re-located to larger and more suitable premises – but it was not to be. Strenuous efforts continue to find the right property within our limited financial resources’.
A suitable building, of which no details were published, had apparently been identified in Farringdon Road and the Society applied for planning permission on another in Goswell Road on 31 January 2000. This related to part of the lower ground, ground and first floors of Straus House, 41-53 Goswell Road, EC1, a red-brick building dating from 1928 on the corner of Great Sutton Street. Although consent with conditions on this was granted on 24 February 2000 the owners had already accepted a higher offer ‘in early January’.
Accordingly the Annual Report adds ‘some might consider a move well-nigh impossible’ [AR 1999 page 2] and shortly before the Society’s Annual Meeting in June 2000 the Executive Committee had agreed that due to the increase in property prices a move would not be possible. The Meeting was told that the Society would ‘remodel and refurbish the current premises’ the Annual Report saying that this would ‘expend some of our reserves’.
For many years the Standing Orders of the Society had contained specific regulations to control the expenditure of money by the Society’s ‘Spending Committees’. The General Purposes Committee was required, at the start of each financial year, to produce budgets based on estimates of the expenditure and income in the coming year. That Committee was also required to monitor the Society’s overall financial position, receiving at each of its meetings account balances and at each quarterly meeting accounts of its total receipts and payments as compared to the budget.
However, the exemplary Finance Office, Roger Lawson, a Fellow of the Association of Accounting Technicians and of the Institute of Financial Accountants, who was familiar with and expert in these necessary and fundamental procedures, retired in January 2001 and the Society appointed Mrs June Perrin, without formal accountancy qualifications and quite unfamiliar with the administration of a limited company, to the new post of Assistant Director (Finance & Administration) ‘to oversee the Society’s more complex financial and administrative requirements’ [2000 AR page 7]. The careful divisions between the General Purposes Committee and the Executive had, however, been blurred under the weak chairmanship of the self-important Marjorie Moore (1938-2006) and the General Purposes Committee together with the Computer Committee which had served to chanel support and practical experience to the editor of Computers in Genealogy were now most unwisely abolished in a ‘simplification’ of the Committee structure following the Annual Meeting in June 2000 [GM vol. 26, no. 11 (September 2000) Notes and News]. Mrs Moore had described her Vice-Chairman, Frank Hardy, in 1998 (when proposing him for Fellowship of the Society) as ‘particularly effective on his work on budgets and procedures’ but the tragedy of the next few years shows how little they understood and appreciated the need for competent budgeting or for procedures according to the established rules.
Although the income from Origins in 2001 reached a remarkable £71,819 with expenses of only £72, the Annual Report said that the initial ‘take-up’ was ‘far short of expectations’. This, the Report said, ‘failed to compensate for the loss of investment income resulting from the expenditure of our reserves on the Premises Refurbishment Project’ [AR 2001 pages 1, 3 and 26]. It also failed to meet the income that had been guaranteed under the ten-year contract. Of course a significant proportion of the material placed online had been widely available in other formats for some years, so that expectations of an even greater income were quite unwarranted. The undertaking that the income from internet marketing ‘will be re-invested in the Society’s collection, premises and facilities’ [GM, vol. 26, no. 10 (June 2000) 386] was altogether ignored where the collections were concerned and the whole of the income was given over to the refurbishment programme.
In 2002 the income from Origins was a further remarkable £110,016 with expenditure of £23,775 [AR 2002 pages 2 and 21] and in 2003 it was £43,020 with expenditure of £494 [AR 2003 pages 3 and 21]. However, Mark Herber revealed in questions at the AGM in June 2003 that the contract with Origins had guaranteed a monthly income of £5,000 for the Society and a minimum income of £100,000 in 2002 (the project’s second year). The figures in the Annual Reports were, as he said, ‘not an actual account of site usage’, but the Honorary Treasurer said that the firm was not yet in breach of its contract [2002 AGM Minutes] the exact details of which were never published.
At the AGM in 2003 we were told that a new agreement with Origins had been reached at the end of 2002 and that ‘the site would continue to give the Society a modest income’. No further details were provided. In 2004 and subsequent years the income and expenditure figures for Origins were said to be commercially sensitive and were not itemised in the Society’s ‘consolidated statement of financial activities’, the income seemingly being hidden in that of the ‘Book shop & Magazine’. One has to assume that in spite of the considerable time given by staff and volunteers to digitising library material for inclusion on the site, the income from this source has continued ‘far short of expectation’.
Meanwhile the cost in Professional Charges to the Society had unsurprisingly increased from £5,958 in 1998, to £10,754 in 1999 and to £28,145 in 2000, and no appeal had been launched. Under the incoming Chairman of the Executive Committee, the overly casual James Willerton, the Society had decided that in order to free up about 1,000 square feet of space in Charterhouse Buildings it would relocate the staff dealing with finance, membership and publishing to smart rented rooms at nearby 9 Dallington Street, EC1. These were leased in the autumn of 2000 and the removal to this ‘Administration Centre’ took place on 13 November [GM 26/12 p.497], the Annual Accounts indicating that the rent for the remainder of that year would be £4,500, but £52,000 p.a. in 2001 and subsequent years. The Library staff were that day astonished to find that three tables from the Middle Library had been purloined for use there and had to be replaced with three collapsible tables (to the dismay of the volunteers who used them daily) brought up from the basement. The Director now moved his office to the small room to the right of the entrance at Charterhouse Buildings.
For Charterhouse Buildings a ‘design and build contract’ was entered into with City Office Interiors and scheduled to run from November 2000 to March 2001, though the installation of a new lift in the old lift shaft (the maintenance and insurance of which would be a major continuing expense) would take a little longer. The library was closed for four weeks in February whilst some of the work was carried out, re-opening on 6 March. The meeting and common rooms in the basement were converted to house the document and special collections on new rolling stacks and to make space for additional computers and microfilm and microfiche readers. On the ground floor the former microfilm reading room was turned into a much smaller meeting room with a hearing loop and air conditioning and my former office and that of the Finance Officer became a common room. The two main library floors above were refurbished, the former heavy oak shelves being replaced with metal.
The Annual Report for 2000 noted that ‘a generous bequest of more than £200,000’ had been received from the late Eileen Amy Brock and had ‘made it possible to add or enhance a number of capital items in the refurbishent’ [AR 2000 page 3]. No tribute to this lady, not a member of the Society, had appeared in the Magazine but enquiries revealed that she had died on 3 October 2000 and that her will, made in 1994, had been proved on 27 November 2000. Her bequest was ‘to be used for the copying of parish registers and monumental inscriptions and for the general purposes of the Society’. An unrestricted bequest of ‘about £25,000’ had also been received under the will of the late Derek Milledge of Bracknell in Berkshire, who died on 26 July 2000 and whose will, also dated in 1994, was proved 13 November 2000 [AR 2000 page 10]; he again receiving no obituary or death notice in the Magazine.
By the end of the year 2000, in spite of these unprecedented bequests, the Society’s overall trading surplus, which had been £53,000 in 1997, had been turned into a deficit of £169,000 and there were capital commitments of £28,544 for fixtures and fittings and £309,400 for the refurbishment then taking place [AR 2000 page 37]. The total cost of the refurbishment had been £504,475 of which £48,875 had been spent in 2000 [AR 2000 page 29] and £455,600 in 2001 [AR 2001 page 29]. The Annual Report said that ‘some of the enhancements will increase future revenue expenditure’ and that the Executive Committee would ‘monitor future income and expenditure with particular care’ [AR 2000 page 3]. It was, however, too late; the trustees had already proved themselves quite incapable of keeping any form of financial control and they had mortgaged the future for unknown years to come.
An extraordinarily unrealistic Refurbishment Project Equipment Appeal sent out with the March 2001 Magazine listed ‘just a small selection’ of required items from 160 upholstered chairs at £52 each to four photocopiers at £4,000, and totalling £147,580, but the unsigned appeal and its result were not even mentioned in the Annual Report.
Devastated and very angry at these developments I made a lengthy intervention at the Society’s Annual Meeting at the Royal Over-Seas League on 19 June 2001 questioning many underlying trends in the Annual Accounts and saying that the refurbishment and the present and future reliance on an income from online marketing was little more than an uninformed gamble which was putting the Society’s existence at risk. It was, as I said, ‘a gamble which should never have been taken’. If the donations and bequests were removed from the income there was a deficit of £169,000. The audit fee had doubled and the Accounts were unreliable: the subscription income stated on page 5 was £21,000 less than that stated on page 26. The number of new members was not shown but the income from Entrance Fees had fallen by a third. Subscriptions paid in advance were only £19,000 as compared with £107,000 in 1997. Bank and credit card charges had trebled in one year. Statistics as to library use were lacking. The publication figures were particularly alarming, expenditure on the Society’s publications having jumped from £23,000 to £86,000 so that the profit of the previous year had turned into a deficit of £18,000. The cost of staffing had increased by £167,000 on the 1996 figure. Of the total expenditure of £1,014,000 only £14,000 had been spent on the Library. The Chairman of the Executive Committee, James Willerton, said that he had seen no administrative accounts throughout the whole of the above period and that the specific terms of Miss Brock’s will had not even been discussed, something that I said added a lack of integrity to the overall incompetence of those involved. The Honorary Tresasurer said in 2002 that without the bequest the Society ‘would not have gone ahead with all the refurbishment costs’ but it is obvious that there was no attempt to curtail them. In 2003 Frank Hardy, who would accept no criticism, wrote that once work had started ‘the Executive Committee was already committed to the refurbishment so it had to go ahead’ which was obviously not the case.
On the Society’s online Discussion List Barney Tyrwhitt-Drake described the 2001 AGM as ‘Annual Geriatric Mumblings’ and Willerton replied there, not quoting but distorting my wording (I had given him a copy after the meeting) by drawing his comments from ‘hasty jottings made at the time’, and admitting that the Society’s response had been ‘somewhat disjointed and inadequate’. In a typical post the unpleasant Roy Stockdill (1940-2019) drawing on his many years experience at The News of the World, had used the online Discussion List to say that I reminded him of a sacked football manger, ‘As a man who resisted all attempts at change in the Society for years, he clearly resents it now’ (22 June 2001). The motion to approve the Accounts was, however, approved by a small majority, but with a significant number of abstentions. The resignation of Robert Gordon ‘the Director of the Society’ was reported later in the Meeting ‘to become effective September 2001’.
Robert Gordon had continued to keep his political options open and, although the Society’s members were not informed of the changes, the records of the Company Registrar show that he had in fact resigned as Company Secretary on 31 December 2000 and that June Perrin had, on the following day, been appointed in his place. The only intimation of this change was in the list of Society officers inside the cover of the March 2001 Magazine where June Perrin is named ‘Assistant Director and Company Secretary’. It was not until the Annual Meeting on 19 June 2001 that it was announced that Gordon would leave the Society’s employ in September. The chairman wrote two days later that his resignation ‘was not the result of any disagreement or dispute ... He (Robert Gordon) recognized some time ago that the Executive were keen to reassert the Society’s role in two areas which have recently received less attention than desirable, i.e. the academic side of our subject and the campaigning and lobbying function. He felt his talents did not lay in that direction and had thus intimated to me and the Executive some time ago that we should probably be seeking someone better (or, I should say, differently) qualified’.
One might, perhaps not unkindly, think that Robert Gordon foresaw in December 2000 the pending economic collapse but did not wish to be thought responsible and so delayed resigning as ‘Director’ until after the results of the UK’s Local Elections on 7 June 2001 when he became Leader of Hertfordshire County Council. He remained company secretary of the Society’s trading subsidiary Enterprises until 23 April 2001, June Perrin not being appointed to that position until 17 July 2001. He had also retained his position as the Society’s nominated director on the Federation’s Executive Committee but unfortunately had made himself so unpopular by his domineering attitude that the status of the nominating societies, considered so important in 1975 and beneficial for so long, was now being widely questioned. A proposal that the status be abolished appeared on the agenda of the Federation’s Annual Meeting on 21 April 2001 but was withdrawn and not discussed, but Robert Gordon resigned on 29 November 2001, and the status was formally abolished on 13 April 2002, a very sad outcome which received no mention in the Society’s Magazine or its Annual Report. It was said in 2018 that Gordon ‘was largely instrumental in preparing the Society for the 21st century’ [GM32/10 (June 2018) 419] but in truth he had used the organisation to promote his own ambitions and caused the Society’s financial collapse with long-term results from which it has not fully recovered. The Society remained an ordinary member of the Federation but (as noted below) was obliged to withdraw even that on financial grounds in 2009.
The Annual Report in 2000 also mentioned a query which had been raised by the Inland Revenue as to whether or not Gift Aid (the tax recoverable on subscriptions paid under covenant) was now allowable on the members subscriptions ‘given the various benefits of membership’; a question which remained unresolved at the year-end [AR 2000 page 5]. I have above described the importance attached to Gift Aid in the earlier history of the Society. The Inland Revenue had decided in 1986 that no new covenants should be allowed (except on donations) and this had been a great blow to the Society. The income from existing covenants steadily decreased and in 1993 had been just £28. However, in 1994 the Inland Revenue reversed that decision and new covenants were successfully promoted by the Society so that in the year 2000 they added £33,621 to the Society’s income. However, this questioning of Gift Aid was not mentioned in the Annual Report for 2001 [page 4] which showed that £31,143 had been received in the tax year 2000/2001 [AR 2001 page 26] but nothing at all from this source in 2002 [AR 2002 page 26]. My repeated questions about the loss of this income and its possible return by abolishing discounts to members were then consistently ignored. The 2001 Report, apparently not at all concerned at yet another loss in income, said that a ‘decision to reduce the initial joining fees has been well received’. No detail was given, but the income from Entrance Fees which in the past had been an excellent guide to the number of new members, now became little indication of anything. In March 2002 an unsigned general appeal to offset the effect of the loss of Gift Aid was issued with the Magazine which suggested that each member contribute £10 and according to an insert in the September 2002 issue, signed by Frank Hardy, raised £26,000. It noted that the administrative staff would be brought back from Dallington Street, hopefully by mid-September, which itself would be a benefit ‘with all the staff being on the same premises’.
There was further discussion about the level of the annual subscriptions (and the inclusion of VAT in the calculations) at the Annual Meeting in June 2002 when it was agreed to limit the power of the Executive Committee just recently given under the General Regulations passed in 1999, so that it could not charge a subscription of more than £43 (instead of £33), country members elected before 1997 paying a maximum of £33 (instead of £24) a year, these figures being inclusive of VAT. The rates for overseas members were agreed at £40 or, if elected before 1997, £31. In addition it agreed that the Executive Committee should set the annual amounts for 2003 and future years, ‘taking into account factors such as inflation, suitable rounding and any discounts which may be offered’.
As within the Federation there was considerable staff concern and unease within the Society and in November 2001 two alienated staff members wrote reports highly critical of the Society’s administration, one saying that ‘morale is non-existent’ and perceptively questioning the long-term income from Origins, as well as commenting on the disparity in salaries between the staff in Charterhouse Buildings and those in Dallington Street. The majority of the staff boycotted the annual Christmas party that year.
The Society’s new Honorary Treasurer, Geoffrey Stone, a computer projects manager and a member since only 1997, had been elected in 2001 to replace the admirable Alan Wood who had not been re-appointed on 3 July. Stone admitted that he had no financial experience but gave an exposition at the Annual Meeting in June 2002 about the Society’s subscription income, suggesting that it should have been regularly increased in line with inflation (so, as John Blight later remarked, that there was more to spend now!).
By the end of the year 2001 there was a bank overdraft of £62,979 [AR 2001 pages 34 and 36] which increased to £71,822 in 2002 [AR 2002 page 32] and to £113,279 in 2003 [AR 2003 page 32]. Frank Hardy and Geoffrey Stone generously made personal interest free loans to the Society in 2001 totalling £50,000 and Frank Hardy continued his loan of £10,000 through 2002 and 2003 [Annual Reports, 2001 page 36; 2002 page 34; 2003 page 34].
Under the headline ‘Financial Crisis at SoG’ the February 2002 issue of Family History Monthly revealed that three members of the library and bookshop staff had been made redundant and that the Customs and Excise Department had ruled that it would charge VAT (then at 17.5%) on the annual subscriptions of members. The three staff were an archivist, a recently appointed library assistant, and the General Manager of Enterprises (appointed on 3 April 2000) who were all summarily dismissed on 7 December 2001.
At the Annual Meeting at the Royal Over-Seas League on 25 June 2002 the horror of several members at the developments of these last two years was again expressed and Mrs Deana Godmon asked when during the year it had become apparent that the Society would need to cut staff costs, particularly as monthly management accounts had been introduced in June 2001, but the Treasurer said that ‘cash flows were not completed until the latter end of the year’ and Willerton lamely added that ‘whilst we had felt finances were on a sound footing the need was there to appoint roles such as the archivist, an extra library assistant and extra staff for Enterprises’. Mrs Susan Bourne asked if the library collections had been offered as security for any loan, overdraft or mortgage and was told ‘Categorically no’, but the Treasurer had subsequently to admit that he had not realised that the bank overdraft was secured on all the Society’s assets, as indeed the particulars given to the Company Registrar by HSBC Bank made clear. No statement of the overdraft’s satisfaction has since been registered but the Honorary Tresaurer reported to the AGM in 2003 that the Bank had written saying, ‘The library of books and Special Genealogical Collections are excluded and released from our Debenture’.
Another member asked if the Executive Committee did not feel that it had been ‘naive in its dealings’ but Willerton replied that they may have acted as incompetent old fools but they were the only fools to stand for election. That, in my opinion, says it all where lack of oversight and foresight were concerned. The Committee had powers to co-opt and should have found an experienced and qualified person as had been done in the past. The trustees, if aware of the monthly income and expenditure and if receiving statements from the trading company, should have realised quite quickly in 2001 the inevitable outcome but it appears that they did not see bank statements and the usual accounting reconciliations until late in the year, the first bank overdraft not being agreed until 12 October 2001.
The offices in Dallington Street were hurriedly vacated in 2002, the staff being brought back to Charterhouse Buildings where space was now tight, the recently allocated staff common room being quickly dispensed with [AR 2002 page 9], but the expensive vacated and rented offices proved difficult to sub-let on a short lease. A new tenant eventually took the end of the Society’s term and by the time of the AGM in June 2003 the remainder of the lease had been surrendered though the Society was liable for 10 months rent in that year [2003 AGM Minutes]. The lease on the large basement room in Aldersgate Street at the rear of 14 Charterhouse Buildings remained at the relatively modest cost of £8,500 a year.
In the early part of 2002 I had come under considerable pressure from several volunteers and members of staff to organise the calling of an Extraordinary General Meeting in order to remove those responsible for the financial collapse from the Executive Committee but I delayed until I had seen the Annual Reprt for 2001. Sadly the administrative incompetence continued unabated, Frank Hardy obstinately refusing to accept any responsibility for the disaster for which he and Marjorie Moore were much at fault, those involved being very unwilling to face up to the situation or to take any remedial action. The directors had even spent £15,000 on a Management Survey which, as I said, laughed all the way to the bank, having concluded that ‘the overall leadership of the Society needed to be on a sound business footing whilst maintaining our ethos and achieving our aims and purposes’. The Charity Commission, of course, recommended without charge that a charity should have a realistic reserves policy, forecasting expenditure in future years on the basis of planned activity, analysing future needs and risks and assessing the likelihood of those needs being met, none of which had been done. The Commission also said that every charity should be keenly aware of its need to secure its viability beyond the immediate future by putting aside a reserve against future uncertainties.
On 23 May 2002 I received a letter from June Perrin suggesting that we meet to ‘swap shared experiences’ and to answer any questions that I might have about the annual report for 2001 which had just been published. I took considerable trouble to reply at length on 14 June about the developments of the last three years, naming some of those particularly involved and asking that copies of the letter be circulated to the Executive Committee.
Criticism continued at the Annual Meeting held at the Royal Over-Seas League on 25 June 2002 when unusually 135 members were present. Some basic Minutes of the Annual Meeting in 2001 had been printed in the Genealogists’ Magazine for September 2001 [Vol. 27, No. 3 (September 2001) page 103] and thus circulated to members, but the Meeting in 2002 agreed not to approve them, many members asking that a more comprehensive account be provided which truly reflected the high level of criticism at the meeting and contained details of the undertakings then given.
With the financial collapse of the Society no member of the Executive Committee wished to be its chairman, but the railway engineer and counter volunteer Frank Hardy, a member since 1981, who always had so much to say on every topic, had been elected Chairman after the Annual Meeting in June 2002 and served for a year. He had once referred to me as ‘the conscience of the Society’ and there was great need for one now. At this June meeting James Willerton retired from the Committee, but Marjorie Moore, who had withdrawn her involvement in the Family History Fair in January 2002, was re-elected to the Committee despite my public objection at the Annual Meeting she having chaired the committee that took the Society into this shambles, but she resigned on 3 September 2002. Perhaps by then she had realised the extent of her responsibility for the Society’s difficulties. I had again taken exception to the Agenda for the Meeting which said ‘there being fewer nominations than vacancies, all those nominated are elected automatically’, saying that it was a matter of Company law that a shareholder, i.e. a member of the Society, could ask for any formal proposal, such as the appointment of individual trustees, to be put to the Meeting.
After this meeting I wrote again to June Perrin, 29 June 2002, asking for the names of the proposers and seconders of the four new Executive Committee members (which should have been given to the Annual Meeting), questioning the number of vacancies, correcting several statements on the Agenda about the rotation and eligibility of some of its members including the Treasurer and querying the attendance at Executive Meetings of an ‘ex-officio member’ not allowed for in the Articles. I added that the Auditor was required under Article 62 to read his Report to the Meeting and that the Society was required to make ‘consistent application of accounting policies’ but that there had been several unexplained changes to established policies which had made yearly comparisons difficult or impossible. I reminded the former Chairman of his presence at meetings from 1995 to 1997 when he received detailed management accounts and budgets (filed with the Minutes of the General Purposes Committee) and I named the other committee members to whom these procedures were familiar. I asked who in May-June 2000 had proposed and seconded the deletion of the relevant sections of the Standing Orders with all their safeguards. I mentioned the undertakings that had been given ‘to answer the main points raised, to record the number of votes and abstentions on the motion to approve the Annual Accounts, to record in some permanent way within the building Miss Brock’s bequest, and to answer the very damaging point that it appeared that the trading company was being supported by charitable funds’. June Perrin replied briefly on 18 July 2002 saying that the second letter ‘was particularly constructive’ but, without answering any of the questions raised she said that ‘one or two items seemed to be slightly factually wrong’! Frank Hardy replied the same day saying that my naming of those involved was ‘deeply regrettable’ and had overshadowed my criticisms of the management of the Society’s affairs. He said that revised and expanded minutes for the Annual Meetings in 2001 and 2002 were being prepared, but showed his lack of experience by maintaining that the requirement that the Auditor’s Report ‘be read before the meeting’ meant only that it be available prior to the meeting. My many questions remained unanswered and my letters were not seen by the incoming members of the Committee.
In 1997 the bookshop had stocked 469 items and taken £131,933, making a surplus of £48,845 after allowing for the bookshop catalogue and other expenses of £5,191. The surplus had, in fact, more than paid for the salaries of the Society’s receptionist and the bookshop manager. Orders for new stock were always approved either by the bookshop manager or myself and we were very aware of the narrow profit margins involved but in January 1999 the Executive Committee agreed that the discounts to members be increased to twenty per cent to equal the discounts on the fees for lectures and courses [Notes and News insert in Gen Mag, December 1998]. A ten per cent royalty was already payable on many of them and since 1986, under considerable pressure from the Federation of Family History Societies, a discount of a third on those for re-sale had been given to member societies of the Federation. Thus in effect much of the publications’ profit was already being given away. The User Survey in January 2003 very unwisely continued to call discounts one of ‘the most important benefits’ of Society membership.
As noted above I had at the Annual Meeting in 2001 said that the publication figures were ‘alarming’, the expenditure on publications having jumped from £23,000 to £86,000 (a figure corrected to £89,152 in the 2002 Accounts) so that the profit of the previous year had been turned into a deficit of £18,000. No heed was taken of the warning and on 26 February 2003 members were shocked to hear that the Society’s bookshop had been closed having ‘failed to meet the targets that were set for it’, but that the Society would continue to publish and sell its own works. My requests for exact figures separating Society and non-Society publications since 2000 were ignored. The Honorary Treasurer wrote that ‘the paperwork and staff effort behind the scenes is too costly to be efficient’ [sic] but at the Annual Meeting in 2003 Frank Hardy said that ‘over ordering had taken place’ and later that there had been a downturn in sales [Genealogists’ Magazine, vol. 27, no. 10 (June 2003) 471-2]. He said that 6,000 items were stocked but that their administration was a problem, only about 250 selling regularly.
The bookshop closure had apparently been recommended by Enterprises Ltd (which the Treasurer said on the Society’s Discussion List ‘ran the bookshop’) and was accepted by the Executive Committee but the Annual Report for 2002 gave no indication as to which of the Society’s activities were the responsibility of Enterprises Ltd and reflected in its accounts. The Report did not provide the names of that company’s directors or say how staff costs were apportioned. What control, if any, its officers had over the bookshop budgeting and expenditure was nowhere stated. Large amounts had clearly been spent but the number of 6,000 items stocked seems hardly credible. It was rumoured that many books sent to the Society for review had found their way into the bookshop for sale and that few were being reviewed in the Magazine. Indeed the Annual Reports show that the number of books received for review dropped from 267 in 2000 to 60 in 2001. It appears that the great amenity value of a bookshop, attracting many into the building, had been destroyed by a complete lack of competent oversight.
In retirement the small amounts that I received from royalties on the two books of which I held the copyright but were published by the Society (one of which included income from America) were naturally of concern to me. I had always attached importance to the Society’s relationship with its authors, considering the regular payment of royalties a courtesy that any publisher, hoping for further contributions, would extend to its authors. The process for dealing with payments on books published by the Society was therefore set out in the memorandum that I had left for Robert Gordon in January 1998 and the payment of royalties early in the year was, in fact, its first item. However, presumably as a result of the formation of the new trading company, I received on 4 August 1999 an unsigned letter from the Society, ‘Revised Royalty Process’, which took no note of individual contracts with authors and said that in future the bookshop would purchase stock from the Society and pay royalties in units of 100 copies, firstly on publication and then when a further 100 copies were needed.
However, a year later, on 12 September 2000, I was told that from 1 January 2001 royalties would be paid on actual sales, meaning that any royalty advances would have to be re-adjusted. Chaos resulted, blamed on the ‘premises refurbishment, extensive staff sickness and the revamping of till, stock and financial operations’. The General Manager of Enterprises, was one of those made redundant on 7 December 2001. There were considerable delays and June Perrin wrote on 14 October 2002 that ‘royalties were a task that slipped through the net of everyone’s responsibility’. She repeated this excuse on 30 July 2003. On 9 February 2004 she claimed that royalty statements on the American editions had not been received since December 2000. ‘It may be’, she uncaringly wrote, that there had not been any sales and some stock had been written off. On 25 February 2004 she promised that she would contact me about the royalties when the Finance Manager had looked into them. I did not hear and wrote again in June 2004, she replying that the American royalties had in fact been received but posted incorrectly and that two boxes of books in Dallington Street had been missed in the stock check. In December 2007 I was obliged to complain that small cheques were being sent to me without any indication as to what they were for!
One of the members of the Executive Committee newly elected in 2002 was Sharon Hintze the Director of the LDS Hyde Park (now London) Family History Centre, a concerned member of the Society since 1998. She had considerable business experience and was a friend of the President of the Quorum of the Twelve, Dr Boyd Packer (died 2015), who had always taken a close personal interest in the Society and had been elected a Vice-President in 1997. Like me Sharon Hintze was anxious that a balanced account of the Society’s difficulties be made available through the Minutes of the Annual Meetings in 2001 and 2002 and we were concerned to find new members for the Executive Committee on which there were several vacancies.
On 17 May 2003 I wrote to her and to June Perrin again setting out my concerns about the Minutes, referring to my letter of 29 June 2002 and saying, amongst other things, that I would propose the Minute’s amendment at the forthcoming AGM (specifically to record what I had said in 2001 about the terms of Miss Brock’s will and to record the undertakings given to the Meeting by the Chairman) if the Executive Committee did not itself do so. I noted that Item 10 of the 2002 Minutes was a request that the Executive ‘be more open and keep members informed more’ which had been accepted, but that a decision had immediately been taken not to circulate the Minutes to the Members!
The Society’s use of the bequest by Miss Brock had been questioned with the Charity Commission in June 2001 and in May-June 2003 members of the Society raised further queries with the Commission about the lack of cash flow or bank statements in 2000 and 2001, the lack of adequate financial control following unexplained changes in the format of the Annual Accounts over the last three years, and concerns that the trustees and Honorary Treasurer did not have sufficient financial expertise to perform their roles. Some changes of trustees had been contrary to the Articles and one had been appointed, without advertisement, the paid Editor of the Magazine and was being described as an ‘ex-officio’ trustee [AGM agenda 27 June 2000].
Lack of basic knowledge of the constitution had led to the announcement that the Annual Meeting in 2003 would be held on 15 July when Article 62 required that it be held within six months of the annual accounting period, i.e. before the end of June. The notice had to be revised and the meeting was held at the LDS Church at 64-68 Exhibition Road on 10 June 2003.
The Agenda had as its first item the published minutes of the Annual Meetings in 2001 and 2002 and these were now cancelled and withdrawn, new substituted minutes being unanimously approved. A recording of the meeting in 2002 was available and Sharon Hintze had spent considerable time making a summary which was eventually agreed between us and Frank Hardy. The Chairman said that these ‘would be put on the Society’s web site and issued to anyone requesting them from the Society’. When, seven months later, I noticed that they had still not appeared on the website I wrote to June Perrin, 1 February 2004, and she said that the webmaster, Geoffrey Stone, had put them on the site ‘sometime ago but did not put the link in required to access them’.
When pressed at this June 2003 meeting the Chairman agreed that he was quite unable to say what proportion of the members’ annual subscriptions (due on the first day of January and forming half the Society’s income) had yet been paid. As a result the March Magazine had been sent to all the members regardless of payment and no reminders for unpaid subscriptions had yet been issued. I said that in earlier years it had always been possible to sort out those who had paid by the time of the March Magazine, the non-payers being then sent a first reminder, and that as ‘almost half’ the total membership was now paying by direct debit [as stated in AR 2000 page 5] the whole process should now be a great deal easier.
Remembering the arguments in 1986 I said that the discounts offered to members on publications and courses had affected gift aid, but Frank Hardy failed to see the connection and their importance when coupled with the increase in charges for access by non-members which had been publicised as ‘making your membership even better value’ [Notes and News insert in Gen Mag December 1998] and in the words of a publicity leaflet, ‘With just 3 library visits you could recover the cost of your subscription’.
These access fees had been increased in January 1999 (from £3 an hour, £7.50 for 4 hours and £10 for a day) to £3, £8 and £12 respectively and had been further increased in 2002 to £3.30, £8.80 and £13.20 [AR 2002 page 3]. They were again increased in 2003 to £3.50, £9.20 and £14.50 [2003 AR page 3] and then in 2005 to £4, £10 and £18 [2005 AR page 10]. Even in 1999 an accountant could have argued, as we were well aware, that this free access was thus worth about £50 a week. At the Annual Meeting in 2003 I asked leave to propose a vote of no confidence in the Society's internal accounting procedures but only a minority supported me and no vote was taken.
The members’ subscriptions had meanwhile been increased, though unaccountably no details are given in the Magazine or Annual Report, and as a result by the end of 2003 the total number of members had fallen by two thousand from 14,051 to 12,055 [2003 AR page 3] though there was a slight increase to 12,275 in 2004 [AR 2004 page 3]. The Annual Report says that the number at the end of 2005 was again 12,055, a figure which in all the circumstances seems likely to be a mistake rather than a coincidence.
Several members were actively involved in the continuing criticism of the Society’s administration. On 13 August 2003 June Perrin told Mrs Susan Bourne (a member since 1982 whose subscription payment had escaped record) that she had no secretarial support and that ‘workload prevents me corresponding individually’ but that there were problems with the membership system going back to when it was first installed ‘and the conversion was carried out badly’. She said that when first employed she had been told that ‘Membership was never part of her remit’. The present accounts, she claimed, ‘were more accurate than the Society has ever had in the past’ and again ‘I don’t think the Society ever previously had monthly management accounts and cash flows to aid efficient decision making’. The reality, as previous Minutes clearly show, was that detailed accounts and bank statements had been provided to the General Purposes and Executive Committees in alternate months for many years prior to her arrival at the Society, but her claim to providing ‘the first monthly management accounts ever’, was repeated in the Centenary history in 2011 [(2011) page 147; those as early as March 1983 are, by chance, in my SoG files].
William Michael Wood, of Luton (1937-2018), a Fellow of the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management who had joined the Society only in 1999, was elected Chairman of the Executive Committee after the General Meeting in 2003. A new General Purposes Committee was constituted and met for the first time on 5 August 2003. I met William Wood at the Family Records Centre the following day and in response to a request from him I made extensive comments on the vague generalities of the Society’s so-called ‘Business Plan’ on 25 August 2003. In the covering letter I also said that ‘If there is the slightest interest, attention to detail, or pride in one’s work, within the administration of the Society, it is far from apparent’. All the Society’s corporate memory had been destroyed and every vestige of continuity had been broken. There were too many trustees with differing agendas in the promotion of other organisations or who saw genealogy as merely a hobby the pursuit of which did not need improvement and the results of which were of no permanent value, so that every proposal was an up-hill struggle. Differing views had led to so many changes in the presentation of the Annual Accounts that a consistent view on most items was almost impossible. I urged the abolition of the trading company which he said existed solely because of the agreement with Origins [Diary, 20 August 2003]. Of the Business Plan I said that ‘I had really hoped to see a clear forward-looking finance based statement’. That, of course, he was quite unable to provide and I lost patience with his public relations speak, angrily leaving a chance meeting on 8 January 2004, saying ‘Do something!’. In March 2004 he was spending three days a week at the Society and the ‘Business Plan Summary 2003-2006’ was handed out at the Annual Meeting in June, but the Society continued to survive only on bank overdrafts and bequests.It was not until late in 2004 that the discounts to members on publications were reduced to ten per cent.
In late 2003, in an effort to save money on the audit (the cost of which had been £5,400 in 1999 but which had increased to £9,500 in 2002 and 2003), a re-tendering process was initiated and a considerable saving achieved [AR 2004 page 19]. Messrs F. W. Stephens consequently resigned as auditors on 8 December 2004 and the audit was carried out by Messrs Kingston Smith, their charge being reduced to £4,000 in 2004, though it increased somewhat in 2005.
Also in late 2003 Sharon Hintze had lined up several volunteers to help with the input of the membership subscriptions in 2004 so that those who had not paid would not get the March Magazine. That worked well with reminders going out in early February. However, as a result of the increase in subscriptions large numbers of members, particularly those living overseas, had resigned and by April 2004 the numbers of the latter had fallen dramatically from the 1,341 of 1999 to ‘about 400’. The Membership Secretary resigned in February 2004. No figure for the overseas membership has since appeared in any Annual Report.
In 2004 the Society received a bequest of £152,875 from the estate of Annabelle Montague-Smith who had died in 2003 [AR 2004 page 10] and was the widow of another old friend, Patrick Montague-Smith, mentioned above. She, like Miss Brock, received no tribute or obituary in the Magazine even though they had made the largest bequests that the Society had ever known. However, the Society was thus enabled to repay in 2004 the personal loans made by the two Committee members.
A further remarkable bequest followed in 2006 when the Society received £100,000 under the will of the regular counter volunteer Ernest Henry Angell who died on 30 June 2006, leaving the Society a large collection of books and papers, the money being specifically in memory of his late wife Esme Evelyn Angell, nee Constable, another regular volunteer, who had died on 6 September 2004. This much liked and dependable couple had lived just across the road from the Society at Speed House in the Barbican.
The periodical Computers in Genealogy published by the Society since 1982, that owed much to the input and ideas from the very active Computer Committee which had been abolished in 2000 (following lobbying by Paul Blake), was discontinued in 2005 when thanks were given to Sean Brady its editor for some years but the Annual Report [2005 AR Page 14] gives no reason or circulation figures (and it is not mentioned in the Accounts).
Prior to a change in the Articles at the AGM in 2005 the trustees of the SoG were elected for four years and could serve a maximum of eight years without a break, the Vice Presidents being re-elected annually. Under the new Article 40 the trustees were to be elected for three years and could serve a maximum of only six years. There was no special provision exempting existing trustees from these regulations and yet some existing trustees continued to serve and be listed in the Magazine. Similarly under the new Article 37 the Vice-Presidents could be elected for three years and might be re-elected for a maximum of nine years, but the names of the existing Vice-Presidents continued to be put forward in 2005 and 2006 although some had served for more years that now allowed. I wrote to the Chairman of the Trustees on 23 May 2006 urging him to regularise the position and those Trustees affected agreed to stand down at the AGM on 27 June 2006. In reply to a further letter about the Vice-Presidents I was absurdly told that they were beginning new terms, thus completely ignoring the intention of the change.
As a result of building work on the adjoining site by St Bartholomew’s Trust, notice of which had been received in 2005, the Society lost some of its ‘right to light’ and a compensation settlement was agreed with the developers, the Society receiving £78,500 which was to be reflected in the 2007 accounts [AR 2006 ‘Post Balance Sheet Event’ page 33]. In 2006 the Acting Director, June Perrin, was designated Chief Executive Offcer, ‘to bring us into line’, the Chairman of the Trustees wrote, ‘with other organisations of our stature’ [Centenary History, page 103].
In 1999 the membership of the Federation of Family History Societies consisted of two nominating societies, 135 family history societies in the UK (either local societies or one-name societies),16 associate societies and 69 overseas associate societies. Membership was open to any properly constituted group with at least forty members, an approved constitution and a regular newsletter, magazine or journal, which had been in existence for a year and held meetings at least once annually. It represented the great majority of family history societies in the United Kingdom, in the total membership of which there had been an annual increase of about 4% per annum for six years, though it fell by 1.2% in 1999.
The Federation received about a thousand letters a year from individuals about their ancestors and these were normally passed to the local societies, but many of the latter were struggling to find committee members and volunteers, though in general they appeared to have sufficient financial resources. The demands on their volunteers caused by publicity on the Internet had become a frequent cause for complaint and one society did not even want its address published anywhere. However, the individual members of the various societies knew little of the Federation and its work which had relied greatly on its income from the sale of its own publications. This income was now declining and causing concern about the future of the organisation, but the channels of communication between the separate publications company (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Federation to which the editors of Family History News and Digest reported) and the Executive Committee of the Federation were poor and ‘interference’ by the latter was unwelcome and indeed resented. The Executive Committee, in reality the trustees of the charity, in my experience had little corporate or collective feeling, its individual members having quite separate responsibilities through the sub-committees which they chaired.
I had, of course, usually attended annual meetings of the Federation of Family History Societies since its foundation in 1974 and had attended meetings of its Executive Committee, alternately in Birmingham and London, every three months since 1992. I was a member of Education Committee from 1994 to 1998. I generally disapproved of honorary officers getting involved in the administration of their organisations but following my election as President of the Federation in April 1998. I almost immediately became involved in work on its constitution and structure. The Chair of the Executive Committee, David Lambert, early in 1999 set up a small working group on the ‘Future of the Federation’ which he asked me to chair. Why I agreed to do so I shall never know. My place as the Society of Genealogists’ representative on the Federation’s Executive Committee had been taken by Robert Gordon in early 1998 but the necessary involvement of so many volunteers on which the Federation relied and its lengthy meetings (one of which I had taken the Minutes in 1995 typically lasted from 11 a.m. to 5.45 p.m. and had sixty-two sections) were quite alien to the commercially-minded Robert Gordon and those who supported him in ‘streamlining’ both organisations and there was clearly trouble ahead.
The working group on the Federation’s future first met at the Family Records Centre on 15 December 1998. The other members of the group were Colin Chapman a Vice-President, David Hawgood the Federation Computer Adviser, Richard Ratcliffe and Pauline Saul the Federation Administrator. I had drafted an outline statement as a basis for discussion which included many relevant points from a think-tank weekend held on 19-20 February 1994 (when Richard Ratcliffe had been Chairman) and other points from papers submitted by Susan Lumas, Pauline Saul and John (and Sheila) Rowlands and we received many useful comments from David Lambert, Clifford Debney, Brenda Smith, Beryl Hurley and Brian Salter.
We met again on 8 January 1999 and the first draft of our conclusions was sent to the Executive Committee for discussion on 13 February 1999. A number of important suggestions about staff salaries and conditions of service and about the Finance and General Purposes Committee were made seperately to the Executive Committee, when it agreed that the Finance and General Purposes Committee should meet – it had not done so for more than a year – and start work on some Standing Orders. I had asked for comments by 10 March and optimistically thought that our final paper might be ready for the Federation AGM at Winchester on 10 April 1999 when Clifford Debney was elected Chairman of the Executive Committee in succession to David Lambert who had served for five years.
The final version of our consultation document was sent to the Federation Administrator for duplication to the member societies in March and we asked for comment by 30 June 1999. My intention was to summarise the comments received and to attempt then to formulate a document which would form the basis of an agreed statement of the Federation’s policies and aims for the immediate future which might be put to a members’ meeting in September 1999. Forty-six societies responded, some in considerable detail, and I incorporated all their comments into a forty-page document which was sent to the members of the working group on 26 July 1999. After study by the group a two page summary of the main points was produced which included its recommended actions. The document and the group’s suggestions were then put on the Federation’s website. We recommended that several specific points on the more controversial questions be put to the member societies in the form of a questionnaire and thought that any resulting constitutional changes might perhaps be made at the Annual Meeting in April 2000.
However, I was told that there was no time for this to be discussed and at the Executive Committee meeting on 13 November 1999 Clifford Debney said that a seminar to consider the document would be held in Birmingham on 22 January 2000 and that ‘suggestions for discussion’ should be sent to him. The resulting seminar, chaired by him, was attended by some 58 delegates. These included representatives from eight one-name societies only two of which had submitted observations on the original document but who were concerned to retain their voting rights at annual meetings and the receipt of free copies of publications.
The position of the growing number of one-name societies was, in my view, one of the main problems to be decided. Regardless of how much they paid I did not basically think that a small one-name society should have the same voting rights as a large and active county society. Some provided platforms for representatives who remained the same for many years but who represented very little except themselves. Figures from the Treasurer showed that in 1998 the Guild of One-Name Studies had 1,486 members and it paid an annual subscription to the Federation of £297. The 35 one-name societies together paid a further £1,101. If the Guild and the one-name societies became associate members the Federation would gain £124. If the Guild became a Nominating Member and represented the one-name societies, an alternative that I tended to favour, it would pay £400 and the Federation would lose £998. However, in the latter case the Federation (or its publications company) would save about £1,400 on the free publications then given yearly to each member society.
Clifford Debney, out of his depth but enjoying the attention, had taken votes on some specific points at the meeting and seems to have thought that that was an end to the matter. At the Executive Committee on 29 April 2000, with Debney in the Chair, it was agreed that discussion of the paper on the Future of the Federation would be postoned until the next meeting. I was in America but on my return wrote a detailed letter to him on 22 May saying that ‘I thought the organisation of the AGM [at Bath on 15 April] a disgrace, only confirming a widely held view that the Federation is one of the worst administered organisations in the field, run like some small third-rate society, but with one or two competent and committed people on the fringe desperately trying to keep things going and give the apparance that all is well’. I criticised the omission of items from the agenda and from the annual report and the wording of many sections of the latter which the Executive Committee had obviously not seen, stressing the corporate responsibility of the Executive (the members of which were the trustees of the organisation), the lack of communication within the organisation and with the trading company, the lack of minutes of the Finance and General Purposes Committee, the demoting of the Projects Committee, committees chosing their own members, the unwillingness to circulate and discuss the annual accounts of the publications company and the false importance attached to ‘Council Meetings’ when that word did not appear in the Federation’s Articles of Association. I said that the recommendations of the working party on the future of the Federation, which had found warm and general acceptance amongst the majority of the member societies, had not been formally adopted, that I was exasperated by the delay, the fact that the few controversial points had not been formulated and put formally to the member societies as recommended, and that the other sections had not been put to the appropriate sub-committees. Instead ad hoc decisions had been taken under pressure from one or two people. I wondered why I had wasted so much time on it. At the end I said that copies of my letter should be given to the members of the Committee and to the others that received its Minutes and that I was considering my personal situation as President.
Debney replied on 31 May saying that my comments and concerns ‘are just what is needed to enable the Executive to discuss our future inter-relationship with the membership in a constructive manner’ and that he would put the letter to the Finance & General Purposes Committee. That was the last thing that I wanted to hear as that newly constituted Committee was dominated by those who were creating havoc at the Society of Genealogists and on 6 June 2000 I wrote again saying that I was not looking for further discussion, but for action. I said that the recent history of the Finance & General Purposes Committee and his intention not to circulate the letter did not inspire me with confidence. I again asked for the letter to be circulated to the Executive and said that I would have circulated it myself but that although the AGM had taken place seven weeks earlier and the first Executive of the new year five weeks earlier, I had not yet received a list of its members and their addresses.
He did not reply until 1 August, saying that in order to save money the Executive would now only meet twice a year and that there would be a further discussion about the document at its meeting on 16 September. Consequently on 3 August I formally resigned as President with immediate effect, saying that I no longer wished to have my name associated with an organisation in the administration of which I had so little confidence and which seemed to have lost all idea of its priorities and the purpose of its existence. The day after I resigned I was surprised to receive a letter dated 2 August from Pauline Saul, the highly popular Administrator of the Federation since July 1985, also announcing her intention to leave on 3 November. Our resignations were announced by Debney to the Federation at its meeting at Lincoln on 2 September 2000, but my reasons for resigning were not given. One delegate who had watched with dismay the bizarrely incompetent shilly-shallying and prevarication wrote that I was ‘well out of it’, but my ‘friends’, of course, could not wait to take the name of ‘yesterday’s man’ out of the Federation’s Annual Reports for 1999 and 2000. The personal animosities which were then afflicting the Society of Genealogists (and for which genealogy has always been notorious) then became commonplace also in the Federation.
As President I had attended the Federation’s AGM at Crewe, 18 April 1998 (when I was elected President), the ‘Getting-to-know-you day’ at Birmingham, 13 June 1998, the Council Meeting at Nottingham, 5 September 1998, the AGM at Sparsholt College, Winchester, 10 April 1999, the launch by Sarah Kennedy and Michael Fish of the rose ‘Ancestry’ to mark the 25th Anniversary of the Federation at the Hampton Court International Flower Show, 6 July 1999 (my photograph appearing on the cover of the September 1999 issue of Family History News and Digest), and the AGM at Bath University, 15 April 2000, and I had opened the Federation meetings at Greenwich University, Avery Hill, on 4 September 1999. My successor as President of the Federation, Lady Teviot, was elected at the AGM at Leicester in 2001.
Richard Ratcliffe was anxious to preserve something from this fiasco and on 22 July 2000 had persuaded the Federation’s Executive Committee to arrange a Council Meeting in November to discuss ways of implementing our report, but this was postponed and in December he was asked to produce a summary document for the January meeting of the Executive which could be sent to member societies with the Newsflash. Following correpondence between us he drafted a brief resolution under twelve headings which, although it omitted all the detail, was approved by the Executive Committee on 27 January 2001 and eventually agreed at a General Meeting of the Federation at Leicester University on 21 April 2001. It committed the Federation’s Executive to take positive action towards the twelve objectives and to report annually on the progress made. Dr Richard Baker, the Institute’s nominated member of the Executive retired at that meeting and was not replaced and Robert Gordon similarly resigned on 29 November 2001, the nominating status being altogether abolished by a Special Resolution that Alec Tritton, Acting Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Federation, brought to its Annual Meeting at the University of Warwick on 13 April 2002. Tritton said that the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies had, following the increase in the Federation’s subscription, resigned its nominating status in 2001 and ‘it was felt that Members no longer wished to have Nominating Societies’. Marjorie Moore, representing the Society of Genealogists said that the Society ‘would prefer the status to remain’ but 43 societies voted for the motion and only 5 against. The motion was thus carried and the possibility of such a status was then removed from the new Articles of Association agreed by the Federation in 2004. The Society remained an ordinary member of the Federation but withdrew even that, on financial grounds (it paying a subscription of £600 p.a.), in 2009. Brenda Smith, the popular assistant-administrator, had retired in August 2001.
Debney’s ‘two very turbulent years’ (as his successor described them) as Chairman also ended in April 2002 and there being no other candidate Alec Tritton was appointed Acting Chairman by the Executive and, following formal election, he served until April 2006. In September 2002 he reported at some length on the recent developments (in the notes given to the member societies before the General Meeting at Coventry), using the headings of Richard Ratcliffe’s summary. There the matter rested, it not being mentioned in the minutes of that meeting. In June 2005, when a further Think Tank weekend was being planned, the circulated papers included a note from Maureen Selley, the chair of Devon Family History Society, pointing out that the Executive Committee had not reported annually and that it and the sub-committees had not met four times a year and its minutes had not been circulated or posted on the web site, all as previously intended and agreed [page M42].
The genealogical world was going through a period of rapid change and there were strongly differing perceptions as to its future, reflected in submissions to this further Think Tank, ‘Footpaths to the Future’, in 2005. Pauline Litten, a Vice-President, recounted the unpleasant words recently used to describe the Federation’s attitude (i.e. arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian, dictatorial, hectoring). She thought that it was concentrating almost totally on its pay-to-view databases and the production of CDs whereas many individuals still preferred to read books to learn more about their hobby and how to pursue it. With its new ‘business’ image the Federation was in danger of losing the ‘volunteer’ ethos. She warned that the necessity to run the Federation in a businesslike way did not mean that it should adopt the management style of the worst businesses which were often seen as uncaring and intolerant. Currently, she wrote, the Federation had ‘a dire reputation for its treatment both of its staff and of volunteers’ [Pages E13-E14]. Colin Chapman, another Vice President, submitted a thoughtful paper saying that the original aims of the Federation were charitable, major decisions being discussed and taken by the Council and the member societies thus having a feeling of belonging. He said that an individual, expert in a particular field, might not possess adequate personnel-management or financial skills to join a committee. If members preferred paper-based publications it was ‘senseless’ to concentrate solely on electronically accessible materials.
In the same document Derek Palgrave wrote that there should be a wide-ranging questionnaire on the needs of the societies and that the links with them should be emphasised, arguing that representation from the regional groups on the Executive and the sub-committees should be sought. He believed that the Publications Company should have a substantial measure of autonomy and restored to its position prior to 2000, saying that it should not ‘be undermined by overloading the Board with Non-Executive Directors from the Federation Executive ... who have by-passed incumbent managers/directors and precipitated their resignations’ [pages F15, K37 and AA77]. The joint-editors of Family History News and Digest, John and Sheila Rowlands, had retired in March 1999 after eleven years.
Geoffrey Riggs (1940-2011) questioned the Federation’s ability to continue to man itself ‘with suitable candidates with the experience and more importantly time and effort to contribute meaningfully’ to its running. He thought the way forward might be to engage further paid staff, including a Research Officer to liaise with government and other national bodies [Page N45].
Riggs was elected Chairman in April 2006 and when that year Tom Wood indicated that he wished to stand down as editor of Family History News and Digest it was agreed that the journal would cease publication in September. The valuable Digest section, coordinated by Derek Palgrave, who thought the whole decision ‘incomprehensible’, also ceased to be compiled. The Executive had agreed that the Newsflash would now be published six times a year, sent freely to all member societies and placed on the Federation’s website, but that too was discontinued in December 2006, the two journals being combined into a single bi-monthly Ezine or electronic newsletter, commencing in February 2007. The Federation committees were aware that a very large proportion, some estimates said fifty per cent, of its members were still not using computers and these very unwise decisions marked, in my view, the start of a steady decline in the Federation’s visability and effectiveness.
I had been a member of the Federation’s Education Committee since 1994 and amongst the proposals put forward in our recommendation for the ‘Future of the Federation’ in 1999 was that it should encourage family history with youth organisations and that this should not only be with schools. In February 2001 I wrote to Richard Ratcliffe suggesting that the Executive Committee set up a sub-committee of the Education Committee and call for volunteers from amongst the many teachers interested in family history who had practical experience of teaching and of implementing the national curriculum. I suggested, for instance, that it organise a ‘Young Genealogists’ Day’ to be held once a year or every other year and I drafted a programme which would include project work and an exhibition of the results. Hoping to galvanise the committee I offered to covenant £1,000 a year to cover the cost of room hire, prizes to the applicants and other expenses, my only condition being that it be called the ‘Anthony Camp Award’.
However, instead of setting up a sub-committee, a suggestion blocked by the Chair of the Education Committee, Dominic Johnson, the matter was left in her hands and her response was slow and lukewarm. She appeared unaware of the recommendations in the paper on the ‘Future of the Federation’ and seven months later was still asking in Family History News and Digest, ‘Has the time now come to encourage this study amongst the younger element of the population?’ [FHN&D Aug/Sep 2001 vol 13 no 2 page 52]. In the December 2001 Newsflash she unbelievably asked for comment ‘good or bad, on ‘young genealogists’, for or against the idea’. By then I had noticed that when Education Liaison Officer for Nottinghamshire Family History Society and in response to the Federation’s survey, her Society had expressed the view that the involvement of young people was, ‘Not a good idea. Teachers are already overloaded with work without dragging them into this as well. Family HIstory is a hobby not a compulsory item. Young people want to be out and about not sitting in libraries and archives or chatting to elderly relatives.’
Because I saw that the project would clearly not be carried forward with any enthusiasm I wrote on 6 January 2002 withdrawing my name from the proposal and saying that my financial commitment would cease after the first year. However, under pressure from other members of the Executive Committee and following a resolution at the Federation’s AGM that year, the project went ahead, being described by Dominic Johnson as ‘a very low key affair as much as anything a trial run’. Twenty-three high quality entries were received and judged by Richard Baker and Michael Gandy, the youngest entrant being only 9 years old. At the Federation meeting at Coventry, 7 September 2002, Dominic Johnson thanked me for my ‘vision in proposing and sponsoring the inaugural award of the Genealogists Award for Young People (GAYP)’ and Jane Starkie wrote an enthusiastic report for Federation News and Digest [vol 14, no 1, April 2003, page 11].
In the same journal there was a lengthy account by Lynda Raistrick of her practical involvement in a family history project which she had been invited to introduce into several primary schools in Yorkshire that year, ‘Working with Young Family Historians’, [pages 17-19], which it is interesting to compare with Donald Steel’s account in Family History in Schools (1973) of his experiences in Surrey and Hampshire. Ten of her children had produced entries for the Federation’s competition. An appeal for further sponsporship of the Federation’s project followed and S & N Genealogy Supplies kindly came forward to sponsor it in 2004. With the demise in 2006 of both the Federation News and Digest and its printed Newsflash, however, I like many others, lost track of developments within the Federation and it does not appear that any further competition was held.
In January 2001 a project was launched to identify and map national research resources for Caribbean Studies and the history of Black and Asian people in Britain and in June that year Dr Deborah Jenkins, the Head Archivist at the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), wrote to me saying that the LMA had successfully applied to the British Library to fund a project which would attempt to identify Black and Asian Londoners in the period 1536-1840, by analysing the content of parish registers held there.
Dr Jenkins hoped that I would assist in the recruitment of a team of four or five record agents for the work. It sounded an interesting project and I said that I would try to help, but advertisements and an approach to AGRA produced very few volunteers, two of whom came to be ‘interviewed’ at the LMA in July. The two agreed the hourly rate of £8 but afterwards one said that he had been ‘mugged’ and did not appear again. The other came only for a very short period in order to see specific registers that had not previously been accessible. As a result I felt duty bound to help and started work later that month. The record agent Margaret Monger helped as did several students found by Helen Wood, an Assistant Archivist at the LMA, who with the Senior Archivist Charlotte Shaw, had made all the practical arrangements.
Appropriate entries in the 1,108 original baptismal registers held at the LMA, from which the work was mainly done, were all ‘marked’ with slips and then scanned in the photographic department. I started with the registers of the four parishes in Hertfordshire, continuing with 27 registers for Kensington and Chelsea, 86 registers for Islington and 63 registers for Westminster, finishing these at the end of January 2002.
One of the earliest entries that I had found, on 6 August, was for Charles, a ten or twelve year old boy, ‘brought from Guiana’ as a servant to Sir Walter Raleigh and baptised at St Luke, Chelsea, on 13 February 1597/8. The finished index was launched by Diane Abbot, M.P., as a computer database at Hackney Library on 17 September 2002 in connection with Black History Month. In 2006 Emily C. Bartels calculated from the burial entries that by 1750 some 1-3 per cent of London’s population were black.
It had not been an altogether pleasant experience. Working at the back of the main document production room I had escaped the crashing microfilm drawers in the first room but then I suffered from the continually banging iron door to the strong rooms immediately behind me. However, I used some of the material noted for a series of articles which I was contributing to Family Tree Magazine, in particular that in June 2003 on the importance of checking any surviving day or rough books for the possible additional information frequently recorded in baptismal and burial registers.
For light relief I had for some time been typing in the evenings the index slips to the Administrations in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 1750-1800, which Michael Wood had sorted into order, checking thousands of entries against the calendars on the shelves at The National Archives and bringing together and cross-referencing many notes of former and later grants. Now, greatly aided by a word processor, I had continued Michael Wood’s work, checking the many inconsistencies between the slips taken from the old PROB 13 volumes and the more modern ‘copies’ in the PROB 12 series on the shelves at the Family Records Centre.
Where noted these many discrepancies were included in the index. That the calendars were not entirely complete had long been recognised, but this cross-referencing of surnames with aliases, of former with later grants, and of surnames entered under prefixies such as De, De La, Mc, O’, Van and Von, with their main elements (something that we had not been able to do with the wills), again showed that the calendars were sometimes far from accurate, different spellings being quite frequently found. Stated places of residence had sometimes resulted from a most cursory examination of the Act, so that Canterbury Way could appear in the Calendar as ‘Canterbury’ or Oxford Street as ‘Oxford’. A third of all the entries in the index related to persons who died in Foreign Parts (calendared as Pts), reflecting the great number of sailors and soldiers killed at sea or overseas in the latter part of the eighteenth century. However, the names of the ships, which generally appear in the calendars from 1781 onwards were often garbled. I noted ‘Overyssel’, for instance, appearing as two ships, ‘Overy’ and ‘Stale’, and the ship ‘Glory’ appearing as ‘Celery’.
The completed alphabetical typescript covered 2,331 pages. These I put in plastic sleeves and delivered to the Family Records Centre in early November 2002, the staff there arranging them in the eight binders now on the shelves at Kew.
In October 2002 Helen Wood moved to the Public Record Office/National Archives and became the Project Manager for ‘Moving Here’, a digitisation project which would record the immigration experiences of Jewish, Irish, Caribbean and Asian communities coming to England from 1840 to the present day. The PRO was the lead of thirty heritage partners which were contributing images of objects, archives and related meta data to a ‘virtual archive’ and the British Library had contributed scans from its newspaper collection then at Colindale relating to Irish and Caribbean communities. The library was not able to fill in all the metadata required by the project but would pay for a searcher to do this work and Helen Wood again asked if I would like to be involved.
It meant extracting material from microfilms of a great number of journals and newspapers and I started in February 2002. Helen said that there were 8,875 pages in the 491 issues and thought that it would take no longer than fifteen minutes to scan each issue on micofilm, noting any particularly pertinent articles, suggesting that it would take 123 hours or about seventeen days each of seven hours. I knew instinctively that it would probably take much longer and suggested that the work be spread over several months.
I started with the Belfast Protestant Journal 1846-7 noting items about the famine and emigration, and continued with the other Irish and English papers already selected by the British Library for appropiate years. These included the Catholic Standard 1853, Cheltenham Examiner 1847, Cork Examiner 1847 and 1921-2, Galway Observer 1930, Irish Echo (Stockport) 1994, Irish Freedom (London) 1939-40, The Irish Liberator 1863-4, Irish Programme (Liverpool) 1884, Liverpool Mercury 1847, Manchester Guardian 1847 and Pictorial Times (London)1846-7.
The level of detail abstracted was considered ‘fine’ but I found the older newspapers extremely tiring to search, even with the largest magnifications available at the Family Records Centre. In late August 2002 the number of large mechanised machines available there had reduced to about six and although I went early it was not always possible to get one, they being popular with census users, and I then used machines at the London Metropolitan Archives. I reckoned in early October that I had done 8,323 pages. Counting a maximum of about four hours a day and not allowing for the typing it had taken more than twice the estimated time.
The Caribbean material consisted of 1,002 pages of the Jamaica Times 1904-20 and a run, under its various names, of the particularly interesting official organ of the League of Coloured People 1933-51 and of the League’s annual reports 1937/8 -49, in each of which I noted almost every item. I completed work on 3 December 2003 and then had a holiday from the crashing and banging at the London Metropolitan Archives, telling Helen Wood that I did not think that there was a more unpleasant place in London in which to work. That was, of course, prior to the more recent great refurbishment of the public search rooms.
I expressed the hope that my abstracted material, which together covered 254 typed pages (all copied on the ‘meta data’ forms), would be available somewhere on the 'Moving Here' website, but I have not been able to find any mention of it there. The site was archived by the National Archives in 2013 and is no longer updated.
Geoffrey Stone had ended his term as a trustee and thus as Honorary Treasurer in July 2007 and Carole Thomas, an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers, was co-opted in his place having joined the Society the previous year. The Annual Accounts for 2005 and 2006 had noted that wherever possible the Society’s costs were allocated directly to its activities. Costs common to a number of activities were allocated ‘on a basis appropriate to the cost’, including a proportion of the space occupied or of the time spent.
In a small organisation like the Society where multi-tasking was encouraged I knew well that such criteria were extremely difficult to apply and there was, of course, a further complication because of the existence of the separate trading company. The Annual Accounts for 2007 said that this apportionment process had been refined in the current year but that the Trustees did ‘not consider restatement of prior year figures on a comparable basis, to be an appropriate use of resources’.
I had, however, noticed that since 2005, taking into account the staff costs involved, the organisation of events included the Family History Fair, had made a loss of £14,000 in 2005, of £19,000 in 2006 and of £62,000 in 2007. The Accounts for 2007 showed staff costs of £64,043, incidental costs of £65,090, other support costs of £12,465, and the loss at £62,385. The simplified pie-charts in the Annual Report for 2007 had shown Events and Lectures as providing 10% of the Society’s income and 19% of its expenditure. Over all the Society had in 2007 made a trading loss of £103,251 but the Annual Report gave a very upbeat assessment of the situation. Of course the events had side effects and benefits which were difficult to quantify, in particular in the sale of books and the recruitment of new members and one would not suggest that they all be dispensed with, but it seemed to me that the Society needed to take a very hard look at the real benefits of all this activity. I believed that if there was £62,385 to give away annually there were perhaps other ways in which it could be used to greater advantage.
In January 2009 I was told in confidence that because of the financial position and the need to economise by about £65,000 a year, that if three of the staff did not take voluntary redundancy that all were to accept a one-fifth reduction in their salaries and that the Society would close on Fridays. I wrote on 24 January 2009 to the Chairman of the Trustees, Colin Ernest Allen (a volunteer and former power station engineer who had become a member in 1988), saying that this was a tragedy for those who had given loyal service to the Society in difficult times. Later that year when the figures for 2008 became available, they confirmed my fears and showed that the Society had made another trading loss of £99,243. Some 7% of income and 14% of expenditure had been attributed to events and the Annual Report called it ‘a very successful year’ and the Fair ‘a major success’. The events in 2008 had provided an income of £45,000 but the direct and support staff costs had been £80,000 (less about £10,000 depreciation, premises and administration). If the annual income continued to decline (it was now about £635,000 but had been £845,654 in 2001) one could see that trouble lay ahead. It seemed to me, however, that little if anything had been learned from the experiences of 2003 with its threat of ‘complete stagnation’. I had asked how that level of staff involvement could be justified and I repeated my general point that too much reliance was being placed on electronic publishing when the Society’s major asset was its open-access library, remarking that it had been truly said that the digitisation of books and films, although making them of easier access, did not in any way increase the resources available to researchers. The Chairman did not reply to my letter until eight months later but an open letter to AGRA about the Society’s problems eventually drew some comments about staff apportionments which were relayed to me by June Perrin.
The chairman Colin Allen himself eventually replied on the Society’s Discussion List on 12 September 2009, making an offensive comment about ‘charging members who currently make no contribution at all to the Society’ (as an Honorary Fellow I paid no subscription). By then the library staff had been put on a four day week and two administration/ reception/ retail posts had been dispensed with. The Society had been closed on Fridays in addition to Mondays as from 1 April 2009. No ‘security charge’ on the building had been necessary but an unspecified part of the designated fund of £255,665 had been spent in 2008 on digitising the Civil Service Evidences of Age and the Great Western railway records (the latter a pet project of Frank Hardy) though, of course, no exact details of expenditure or income from this source were provided.
As mentioned above the Annual Accounts for 2006 had included a note on ‘Resources Expended and Basis of Allocation of Cost’ saying that, ‘Costs common to a number of activities are calculated on a basis appropriate to the cost, this includes proportion of space occupied or time spent. This has been refined in the current year. The trustees do not consider restatement of prior year figures on a compatible basis, to be an appropriate use of resources’ and further noted that ‘the allocation of costs to activities has been refined in the year and meaningful comparatives are not readily available for the revised format’ [2006 AR pages 27 and 29]. The obligation of the trustees and auditors ‘to select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently’ had thus been abandoned where ‘activities’ and staffing were involved. This note continued to appear in the Accounts for the next three years 2007-2009 [2207 AR page 22; 2008 AR page 23; 2009 AR page 22] until I wrote to June Perrin and she admitted, 17 June 2009, that it had been included in error and that the mistake would be mentioned at the Annual Meeting when the accounts were discussed. If that were done it was not mentioned in the Minutes of the Meeting and it was to me another indication that the trustees were not closely scrutinising the Accounts.
I wrote again to Colin Allen on 12 September 2009 about the use of non-recurrent income being used to support recurrent expenditure, saying that although £255,665 had been ring-fenced in 2008, in the five years 2004-8 a further £282,787 had not been ring-fenced and had been taken as general income. The lack of budgeting and monitoring of income and expenditure in 2007 and 2008 seemed confirmed when Colin Allen wrote, 16 September 2009, that ‘it became apparent towards the end of 2008’ that ‘some drastic action had to be taken in order to be able to balance our books’. He regretted his earlier comment and apologised for it, but he now seemed to be saying that the apportionment of staff salaries shown in the Reports for 2007-8 was quite incorrect. As I said on the Society’s Discussion List, it was a fairly important point when people’s salaries and jobs were at stake. The List’s Administrator, Geoffrey Stone, although no longer a trustee, did not like what I was saying and on 2 September 2009 he told me that I had used the List to express ‘personal dissatisfaction with the Society in a way that is unhelpful and not accurate on the facts underlying some of your opinions’. The comments, he claimed, ‘could be libellous’ and he banned me from the List.
Throughout this period following my retirement from the SoG I had been busily engaged in other London repositories and libraries expanding my notes on the mistresses and illegitimate children of the Royal Family, with frequent visits to the London Metropolitan Archives, the British Library, the Institute of Historical Research and to the splendid collection of biographical material at Kensington and Chelsea Public Library. However, in spite of the considerable amount of new material contained, my attempts to find a commercial publisher were all in vain and in 2007 I published what I considered to be the second part, covering the years 1714-1936, myself. I gave it the title Royal Mistresses and Bastards: Fact and Fiction: 1714-1936.
On 11 September 2007 I wrote to Anthony Mortimer, the Bookshop or Retail Manager for Enterprises Ltd since March, asking if the Society would act as the main distributor of the book which was just about to be delivered by the printers. In view of the ‘immense contribution you have personally made to the Society’ he agreed to my suggestion that he sell copies in the Society’s bookshop and deal with credit card orders, I allowing the Society £8 on each book sold for £30. Only a few hundred copies had been printed and I thought that the book might just take off and earn a little for the Society. I delivered copies as needed and the arrangement worked well, the Society selling over the next nine months about 120 copies.
However, following the above correspondence about the Society’s Accounts and in what seemed to be unnecessarily vindictive actions (after an excellent review of the book as ‘indispensable’ by Professor Jane Ridley in The Spectator for 21 November 2009) I found that the Society was turning inquirers away, saying that that it no longer stocked the book, the transaction involved being ‘unprofitable’ and that it did not have permission to give my address (printed in the book itself and in Who’s Who for more than twenty years) to prospective customers. The Society, I was told on 9 December, would also cease to stock and sell My ancestors came with the Conqueror and royalties on the American edition would in future be paid to me directly by the American publisher. That has since been done, most efficiently, by the Genealogical Publishing Company.
Fortunately the sale and distribution of Royal Mistresses and Bastards was taken over by the bookshop ‘Heraldry Today’, by Family Tree Magazine and Amazon, and by the Librairie Gaston Saffroy which stocked it in Paris, until in October 2013 the print run was exhausted. I received as a result a considerable number of interesting letters some of which led to important additional research. I accordingly began to place additions and corrections to the work on a website which I developed at anthonyjcamp.com and which contained outline lists of all the persons mentioned in the book. Professor Ridley herself gave me further publicity and acknowledgment in her most excellent Bertie: a life of Edward VII (2012), which again led to further research.
In 2008 the Thirty Year Rule at the National Archives once more came up for discussion and I wrote in February to the reviewing body to say that in view of the shortage of funds available at the National Archives and the interests of the majority of its readers, a larger proportion of the general public would be better served by making available there three classes of record, presently only available on payment of fees, in two cases after 150 years and in the third only after 240 years.
However, where the review of the Thirty Year Rule was concerned, the points that I had made were completely ignored in the final report. The review team, chaired by Paul Dacre, Editor in Chief of Associated Newspapers, naturally had other interests in mind. The Society of Genealogists made no comment about possible alternative uses for the money involved (the cost of moving to a 15-year rule being estimated at £75 million) - that point was technically outside the review team's terms of reference - and supported the move to modify the rule though it was concerned at the possible consequential reduction of services at The National Archives. My three points were:
As noted above I had beeen much influenced throughout my campaigning career by Anthony Wagner's stress that his first 'Desiderata Genealogica' was the institution of 'a form of registration of births, deaths and marriages, which would lead from one to another'. He wrote that, 'If entries which link marriage entries with the parties' baptisms or births, baptismal or birth entries with the parents' marriage, and death or burial entries with the deceased's birth and parentage have been feasible in France and Germany for three centuries or more and in Australia for one, they should by now be possible in England'. It was a simple point to which we returned again and again. Happily as described above some progress was made by the registration changes of 1969 when, from 1 April that year in England and Wales, the date and place of birth of a deceased person, his or her usual address and the maiden names of married women were included on death certificates, and the places of birth of each parent and their usual addresses were included on birth certificates. Marriage entries remained the same.
Our later attention had therefore centred on access to the records themselves. The records of civil registration of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales, in local Register Offices from 1837, their centralised copies at the General Register Office also from 1837, together with a great number of original and copy records of similar events overseas and in the forces, dating back to 1761, also at the General Register Office, had unfortunately been exempted from the 1958 Public Records Act.
We had drawn attention to the basic facts that the 1836 Registration Act which had brought the main series of these records into existence and the 1949 Marriage Act both spoke of the registers being kept 'so that they may be most readily seen and examined'. The 1953 Births and Deaths Registration Act also said that the local registrar must 'allow searches to be made in any register of births or registers of deaths in his keeping'. The registers had thus been open to public search centrally in London until 1898 and locally in Register Offices until 1974 when the Registrar General, concerned at the inconvenience caused by the growing number of searchers, closed them. The Acts remained in force but no information was available except in the form of certified copies for ever increasing fees.
The position about public access to these records, as I have recounted above, was long argued and the main points about what might be done without legislation were set out in a talk, ‘Facing the Future: the challenge of the Citizen’s Charter for the Registration Service’, which I gave to the officers of the Registration Service at their conference in Chester on 11 February 1993 and which was printed in the Genealogists’ Magazine [vol. 24, no. 8 (December 1993) pages 329-34] and is now available online.
However, the Registrar General continued to dodge every attempt to make these records more easily available and then, at considerable public expense, embarked on a project to digitise the centralised copies, ignoring suggestions that the Genealogical Society of Utah be allowed to film, index and make available the more accurate local originals at no cost to the public. If that had been done in the manner suggested and all the material over a hundred years old released to county record offices and/or the National Archives, an enormous and immediately valuable service would have been done to many thousands of interested persons.
The Registrar General's digitisation project ran into difficulties long ago, but he clearly had no intention that any of the records, even after 180 years, should be made freely available to the public. He is now in 2018 using the digitised copies in a ‘pilot’ project without a planned end date which provides uncertified copies (something suggested many decades ago) of the birth 1837-1917 and death 1837-1957 entries for £6 each.There is no doubt whatever in my mind, however, that the public would be best served by the transfer of the more accurate local records since 1837 to the appropriate local record offices and the microfilming and digitisation by FamilySearch of those more than a hundred years old and, in the case of marriages and deaths to more recent dates, so that they can be seen without charge on the Internet.
Large sections of the older Miscellaneous Records since 1761 remain un-indexed and so-called 'official searches' have been shown to produce different results depending on the member of the registration staff who makes them.They should be transferred to the National Archives and made immediately available for microfilming.
The second group of records that I again suggested should be made publicly available were the unique indexes to divorce decrees nisi and absolute held at the Principal Registry of the Family Division from 1858 to the present day. They are not accessible to the public, but officials carry out paid searches (then £20 for a ten year period). The indexes are in several different formats: manuscript lists by year 1858-1946, on microfiche 1947-1969, on cassettes 1970-80, and on computer from 1981 to date. I said that in view of the uncertainties surrounding the coverage of the incomplete divorce indexes held by The National Archives, copies of these unique indexes should be freely available there. They should, of course, be made more widely available, lust like the public indexes of births, marriages and deaths.
The third group of records were the Register Copy wills proved throughout England and Wales in the years 1858-1925 which for many years had been available at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City on microfilm. In 2008 the wills were not available to public search anywhere in the United KIngdom and copies were available only on payment of fees on personal application at the Principal Registry of the Family Division in London or by post (after considerable delay) from the York District Probate Registry. At that time a plan to digitise the wills and make them available for fees on the Internet had run into problems and meanwhile I could not see any reason why copies of the films chould not be made freely available at the National Archives together with microfilms of the probate and administration act books.
Copies of the calendars of wills and administrations from 1858 to 1958 were available at the Family Record Centre until its closure in 2007 and in 2008 the LDS Family History Centre in London’s Exhibition Road obtained copies of the films of the wills 1858-1925 and of their calendars 1858-1958 from Salt Lake City. These films, which were later available at the LDS Centre in the National Archives at Kew, were donated to the Society of Genealogists in 2017 where they may be seen by Members of the Society and by others on payment of the Society’s usual hourly and day search fees. The Society also has a set of films in which the yearly calendar entries were filmed letter by letter from 1858 to 1930 and are a good deal more convenient to search over long periods.
The actual annual indexes or calendars of wills and administrations from 1858 had, of course, been available on the open shelves at First Avenue House in High Holborn since they were brought from Somerset House in 1998, but there was for some time a concern at the Registry’s charges for copies of original wills and register copies. In earlier years a fee of £0.25p per sheet had been charged for copies, but in 1994 a flat fee of £0.75p was introduced, no matter the number of pages and in April 1999 the fees were suddenly increased to £5 for a copy and £15 for the inspection of an original. Those fees were increased to £6 and £20 by a further Fees Order in 2011.
In March 2009 an official at the Courts Service (of which the Probate Registry forms a part) had held a brief public consultation about the possibility of placing the probate calendars online. I responded saying that if this were done the calendars should be digitised in the manner of The Times Digital Archive or The London Gazette so that one could recover all the subsidiary names and addresses in the entries, as that would be of great value to anyone searching out family relationships and next-of-kin. I also said that any digitisation of the calendars should only be undertaken from the old calendars on the shelves at the Registry as these contained many manuscript additions relating to further grants, etc., as well as the folio numbers needed to locate the register copy wills, and not from the new copies of the calendars which had sometimes taken their place when the old ones needed re-binding.
Nothing official happened but later in 2009 an incomplete set of the un-amended calendars covering many years between about 1862 and 1941, indexed by the name of the deceased only, appeared on the subscription website ancestry.co.uk and this was later extended to cover all the period from 1858 to 1995 excepting only the years 1967-72 and this is presently (2018) the situation.
Meanwhile, in September 2014 the Probate Registry had itself placed online annual indexes from 1858 to the present day (though new grants of probate and administration may take fourteen days to appear) which up to 1995 link to digitised copies of pages in the un-amended calendars and indexes. From 1996, however, the annual indexing of grants is highly unsatisfactory, unhelpfully showing only the name of the deceased, his or her date of death, the date of probate/administration, and the Probate Registry involved. The identification of those with relatively frequent names is almost impossible unless their exact dates of death are already known. The address of the deceased does not appear and the name of the first executor/administrator is not included in the index entries. Copies of the wills and administrations are, however, available at £10.00 each regardless of their length. Recovery of the other subsidiary names mentioned in the calendars from 1858 to 1996 is not possible although a very few have occasionally been picked up, it seems almost by accident, in their indexing by Ancestry.
Forty years ago Francis Leeson wrote, 'until somebody provides the Society with a computer programmed to show what and where original registers, transcripts, indexes, etc. are available for any given parish or group of parishes, boundary maps showing this information are useful' [GM vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 169]. Definitive maps showing the situation in 1844 are now provided by T.C.H. Cockin, The parish atlas of England: an atlas of English parish boundaries (Malthouse Press, 2017).
Although much material about the transcription and indexing of parish registers and bishops transcripts is available on sites such as GENUKI and FamilySearch I believe that the detailed information collected over the years by the Society of Genealogists and published in the various volumes of the National index of parish registers should now be made freely available on the Society’s website and that the co-operation of the Federation of Family History Societies and the various repositories involved should be sought so that it is regularly updated to form a basic tool for all genealogists. The lists published in the Phillimore atlas and index of parish registers used to provide an extremely rough guide as to which parishes were not covered in the main indexes and it should now be possible to devise county tables which would quickly show at least that same level of detail and thus highlight the main gaps in registers, transcripts and indexes.
In May 2009 I was approached by Colin Allen, then Chairman of the Society’s Trustees, in connection with possible contributions to the proposed Society of Genealogists: a century of family history (2011), to be edited by a committee formed of Else Churchill, Nicholas Newington-Irving and the violently abrasive Roy Stockdill (1940-2019). An elaborate draft outline was enclosed which would involve many other writers, the deadline being August 2010. Recognising the amount of work entailed and the relative urgency for decisions I replied on 16 June saying that I would help but in view of my unpleasant experience in 1998 and, indeed, daunted by the conflicting personalities of those who would be involved, I needed clarification on a couple of points. I said that I would need access to the minutes of the Executive Comittee prior to the 1960s but I would not sign any document about confidentiality or copyright arising from that access and that I would not be involved unless the copyright of any texts that I provided remained with me as contributor.
Three months passed and I had heard nothing and so I wrote on 20 September 2009 saying that judging by my experience with My ancestors came with the Conqueror it would be another two years before anyone thought that a reply was called for and I accordingly said that ‘in all the resulting uncertain circumstances I regret to say that I am reluctantly obliged to withdraw my offer in connection with the History’. Another month later I was asked to reconsider the position but declined. When the book appeared I was not amused to hear that the author of one major section had been told not to mention my name.
On 2 February 2011 I was invited to the Society’s Gala Dinner at the Royal Overseas League on 6 May 2011 to celebrate the Society’s 100th anniversary, but having given it consideration, I declined the invitation, ‘in view of all that had happened in the years since I resigned as Director’. Prince Michael of Kent who was present prior to the dinner resigned his patronage of the Society in December 2012.
I had vaguely thought that one day I might bring together all the articles that I had contributed to Family Tree Magazine and Practical Family History on particular sources, but encouraged by Sharon Hintze, then Director of the LDS Family History Library in London, and with the permission of Michael Armstrong, the proprietor of those two journals, I began in December 2008 to re-edit them and place them on the Wiki part of FamilySearch. By 2011 I had completed nearly forty articles on slightly lesser known sources and then expanded and adding references to those available on microfilm at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City (and thus through its centres worldwide), usually limiting myself to sources in England and Wales though including ‘The Irish in England’ . They are to be found at https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Main_Page. They are: Aliens and Immigrants; Apprenticeship in England: overview; Apprenticeship in London and Borough Towns; Parish, Factory and Charity Apprenticeships; Bank of England Will Extracts; British Births, Marriages and Deaths Overseas; Church Courts; Civil Service Evidences of Age; Clergy of the Church of England; Admission to Copyhold Property; County Records; Court Records; Directories; Divorce; Doctors: Physicians, Surgeons, Dentists and Apothecaries; Electoral Rolls or Registers; Guardianship Bonds; Hearth Tax; Illegitimacy; Sources for Labourers in an Agricultural Community; Land and Property; Lawyers; The London Gazette; London Foundling Hospital: Reclaimed Foundlings; Marriage Allegations, Bonds and Licences; Marriage Settlements; Marriage by Registrar’s Certificate or Licence; Non-Parochial Registers; Parish Administration; The Parliamentary Archives; Poll Books; Probate Fees and Valuations; Removal Orders; Schools and their records; Settlement Examinations; Public Schools and their records; Trinity House.
I also contributed three articles on general topics: ‘Proving a Pedigree in England’, ‘Six Short Lessons in Family History in England’ and ‘Dead End or New Beginning’.
I had worked in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City on many occasions over the years. I had also regularly taken groups from the British Isles to work there, explaining with detailed handouts major items in the collections. Latterly I had been most kindly assisted by Darris Williams and had got to know the strengths and weaknesses of the library catalog fairly well, sometimes helping others with advice on their Forum and then expressing my frustrations and concerns with the shortcomings of the catalog and, in particular, of the indexing instructions for some of the projects being undertaken by FamilySearch about which there were daily arguments on the site’s Forum.
I had first been struck, for instance, in the Irish Wills project that someone appearing in a record a ‘Arthur, Duke of Wellington’ should, because his surname did not appear, be indexed merely as ‘Arthur’ – the name ‘Wellington’ was not to appear. Somebody else pointed out that a similar rule had applied in the Cheshire Land Tax Project and that as a result the various properties of any titled landowner (between which any family might move) could not be collectively identified. Because ‘Mary’ and ‘John’ in an entry such as ‘Mary child of John & Sarah Smith’ have no surname only the name of ‘Sarah Smith’ is to be indexed. However, in an entry such as ‘ Mary child of John Smith and Sarah’ only ‘John Smith’ is to be indexed.
I could not believe that anyone familiar with records in England could have devised such a bizarre series of project indexing guidelines and on 16 May 2012 I wrote to Elder Dennis Brimhall, the newly appointed Chief Executive Officer of FamilySearch (he retired in 2015), briefly setting out these points and asking him to look at some of the recent posts on the Forum (under ‘General Indexing Discussions’, ‘UK and Ireland Projects’, ‘Indexing Projects’, ‘FamilySearch Wiki Contributors Corner’, and under ‘Latin America Projects’ about the Barbardos Records & Surname fields) and to discuss them with a competent genealogist with knowledge of English records. I said that an urgent survey needed to be undertaken of all the Project Instructions (other than those for the Census) by competent genealogists. I had little doubt that there were several, perhaps many, projects which would need to be done again, because as a result of the present instructions great numbers of entries would never be found and it was a deeply unsatisfactory situation. In November 2012 I placed an expanded version of my letter on the User Page of the FamilySearch Wiki, https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/User:AnthonyJCamp, but, so far as I am aware, altogether failed to obtain any modification of the programs.
Typical family historians begin their searches, as I did when a child, through a limited range of sources, believing that their families are unique and that they can learn nothing about them from the experiences of others. They may be vaguely aware that enormous resources of information are available at the press of a computer key, but what these represent in the total scheme of matters genealogical is a mystery to them. Many are still unaware that there are organisations today with a vast expertise and collective knowledge of the subject, built up over the last century, that may save them much time and heart-ache in their searches, and above all that will help them to put what they find into an historical perspective instead of just confirming all the prejudices about the past that they had when they began.
In December 2010 I read a comment on one of the FamilySearch Forums saying that genealogy consisted of 'best guesses' and I drafted an angry reply that in the end, fearing to cause offence, I did not post, saying that genealogy is, or at least it should be, a very exact science that makes a clear distinction between the facts that have been proved and those that have not, and has nothing to do with 'best guesses'. The Internet is littered with pedigrees which are valueless because they consist mainly of 'best guesses' which are in fact little more than wishful thinking by those without experience or knowledge of the subject. The discovery of a name roughly at the right time and place may be a valuable clue but one's expertise and knowledge of sources is then called upon either to prove that it is relevant to the family history or that it should be consigned to a footnote or omitted altogether for fear that some uninformed third party will chance upon it and enter it on one of the worthless pedigrees that I have mentioned. There is usually in such cases much to be done to develop the pedigrees of both families and eventually, perhaps, to find the elusive clue that will prove them connected. Of course some informed speculation along the way is often beneficial but a clear line must always be drawn between speculative possibilities and the facts. No family historian with only a few months experience of genealogy is qualified to make such judgments.
[1] GM, vol. 2, no. 2 (June 1926) 41.
[2] Gerald Curtis, Mansion and cottage home: views on a Hertfordshire estate - Walkern Hall -1875-1935 (Unpublished Typescript, n.d.) Chapter 14.
[3] Igor Schwezoff, Borzoi (1935) 441.
[4] TPR, vol. 1 (June 1909) 270.
[5] TPR, vol. 1 (March 1910) 366.
[6] Later Roman historians, concerned by the impossible chronology, made Aeneas the founder, not of Rome itself, but of Lavinium, the head of the Latin League.
[7] As recounted in Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid.
[8] Joseph Stevenson, Historia Britonum (1838); History of the Britons, translated from Stevenson’s text by Rev. J. A. Giles in Six Old English Chronicles (Bohn’s Antiquarian Library, 1840).
[9] Galfredi Monemutensis de Origine et Gestis Regum Britannorum (Paris, 1508); also in Six Old English Chronicles (1840).
[10] Genesis, X, 2.
[11] Kenneth Sisam, ‘Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogies’, in Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 39 (1953) 287-348.
[12] Kenneth Sisam, op. cit., quoted in Anthony Wagner, English Genealogy (1983) 14-15.
[13] Many were extracted between 1880 and 1904 and published by George Wrottesley in his Pedigrees from the Plea Rolls, 1200-1500 (1906) but he made no systematic search for examples before 1327.
[14] William Page, ed., Family origins and other studies (1930) 199.
[15] Sir John Maclean, ed, The Lives of the Berkeleys by John Smyth of Nibley (3 vols. 1893).
[16] Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 369-71, quoting J. H. Round, ‘Our English Hapsburgs: a Great Delusion’, in Peerage and Family History (1901) chapter v.
[17] Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 376.
[18] Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 368.
[19] Both are quoted on the title page of Stacey Grimaldi, Origines Genealogicae (1828).
[20] The figure is given by Stacey Grimaldi, op. cit. (1828) 4. A further 49 claimed ancestry before 1100 and another 29 before 1200.
[21] It curiously finds no mention in Donald Steel's account of the history of parish registers in volume 1 of the NIPR (1968).
[22] Nicholas Herbert in C. R. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis, eds., English county histories: a guide (1994) 157; see also John Wintrip, 'The influence of Ralph Bigland on the Evolution of Parish Registers', in Genealogists' Magazine, vol. 33, no. 8 (December 2020) 267-272.
[23] ‘A Register Booke of Ixworth, Transcribed May Anno Dm 1675, by Simon Boldero’ (SoG, Accession 25986, 19 February 1957).
[24] NIPR, vol. 1 (1968) 183.
[25] R. E. C. Waters, Parish Registers in England (1883) 95.
[26] Patrick Polden, op. cit., 350.
[27] Rex v. Smallpiece, 2 Chitty's Reports, 288, quoted in R. E. C. Waters, op. cit. (1883) 87.
[28] Steele v. Williams, Exchequer Reports, viii, 825, quoted in Waters, op. cit. (1883) 87.
[29] ‘Important to Clergymen: Court of Exchequer, 7 May 1853, Steele v. Williams’, in Carlisle Patriot, 5 November 1853, 6.
[30] Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart, On parochial registration of baptisms, marriages and burials (1833).
[31] Parish Register Abstract: 1831 (London, 1833).
[32] Francis Green, ‘The Selby Romance’, in Y Cymmrodor, xix (1906) 89-123; Bowen is said to have been convicted for these activities at Cardigan Assizes in July 1838 but there is no mention of the case in the Criminal Registers; Charles H. Savory, Life and anecdotes of Jemmy Wood, the eccentric banker, merchant and draper, of Gloucester; also an account of the remarkable trial with reference to his will (1883).
[33] Worcester Herald, 27 July 1844, 4.
[34] 1841 Census of King’s Arms, 27 Aldersgate Street, St Botolph Aldersgate, where he was arrested.
[35] The Selby claims ceased on appeal in 1900 by reason of the Statute of Limitations.
[36] The Home and Foreign Review, no. 4 (April 1863).
[37] Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald, 26 August 1882, 2, and 13 October 1888, 8.
[38] Royal Cornwall Gazette, 22 January 1891, 7; Cornishman, 14 May 1891, 6.
[39] N&Q 2S vi (1858) 380.
[40] Parish Registers. A Bill to make provision for the better preservation of the ancient Parochial Registers of England and Wales (Prepared and brought in by Mr. Borlase, Mr. Bryce, Mr. Cochran-Patrick, and Mr. Mellor.) Ordered, by The House of Commons, to be printed, 19 April 1882. [Bill 132].
[41] Walter Rye, Records and record searching: a guide to the genealogist and topographer (1897) 89 and footnote.
[42] House of Commons, Minutes, 5 July 1882, vol. 271, c1509.
[43] R. E. C. Waters, Genealogical memoirs of the extinct family of Chester of Chicheley (2 vols. 1878).
[44] R. E. C. Waters, op. cit. (1883) 98.
[45] R. E. C. Waters, op. cit. (1883) 95.
[46] W. Raymond Powell, John Horace Round: historian and gentleman of Essex (2001) 52-3.
[47] J. P. Earwaker, A Lancashire pedigree case: or a history of the various trials for the recovery of the Harrison estates, from 1873 to 1886 (Warrington, 1887) viii.
[48] e.g. 'The Bankruptcy of Mr. W. C. Borlase' in The West Briton, Monday, 14 November 1887.
[49] A. J. Jewers, The registers of the parish of St Columb Major, Cornwall, from the year 1539 to 1780 (1881).
[50] William C. Borlase to A. J. Jewers, 15 February 1882.
[51] Marriage by Licence at St John, Islington, 20 July 1887 [Entry 489, Page 245].
[52] 1891 Census of 19 Chamberlain Street, Wells, Somerset, RG12/1913-121-12.
[53] 1891 Census of 7 Endsleigh Road, Plymouth, 1891 Census, RG12/1725-69-4; 1901 Census of 41 Torrington Place, Plymouth, 1901 Census RG13/2093-149-26. She died at Plymouth in 1920, aged 70.
[54] 1901 Census of 31 St Mary's Terrace, Paddington, RG13/1-67-25; 1911 Census of 1 Keats Grove, Hampstead.
[55] S. B. Gould to A. J. Jewers, 27 November 1884.
[56] R. T. Gunton for Marquis of Salisbury to Arthur J. Jewers, 4 April 1885.
[57] George W. Marshall to Arthur J. Jewers, 12 July 1885.
[58] Sir John Lubbock to A. J. Jewers, 7 February 1885; notation by Jewers, 'Since this letter was written I have seen Sir John Lubbock and Mr Borlase and they approve of a Royal Commission'.
[59] A. J. Jewers, Wells Cathedral: its monumental inscriptions and heraldry (1892).
[60] Undated printed form-letter with copy of Memorial to the Queen in Jewers' correspondence.
[61] Subsequent undated note by A. J. Jewers attached to the correspondence.
[62] Ernest L. Ridge, Chaplain to the Archbishop, to A. J. Jewers, 21 July 1894.
[63] Alwyne [Bishop of] Ely to A. J. Jewers, 15 February 1897.
[64] 12 December 1893.
[65] J. Cumming Macdona to A. J. Jewers, 24 January 1897 and 1 March 1897.
[66] House of Commons, Debates, 26 January 1897, vol. 45, c516.
[67] E. A. Fry to A. J. Jewers, 28 January 1897.
[68] Guildhall Library, MS 2480/1-5, now London Metropolitan Archives, CLC/256; GM, vol. 6, no. 3 (September 1932) 107.
[69] Charles H. Athill, Richmond Herald, to A. J. Jewers, 18 November 1918.
[70] A. C. Fox-Davies, Armorial Families: a directory of coat-armour (1899) 455.
[71] D. J. Steel, NIPR, vol. 1 (1968)183-6, quoting N&Q 4S ii118 (1 August 1868) and 142 (8 August 1868).
[72] The marriage, baptismal, and burial registers of the collegiate church or abbey of St Peter, Westminster [1607-1875], edited and annotated by Joseph Lemuel Chester (Harleian Society, Visitation Series, vol. 10, 1876).
[73] The register booke of christnings, marriages, and burialls within the precinct of the cathedrall and metropoliticall church of Christe of Canterburie [1564-1878], edited by Robert Hovenden (Harleian Society, Register Section, vol. 2, 1878).
[74] The registers of St Paul's Cathedral [1697-1899], edited by John W. Clay (Harleian Society, Register Section, vol. 26, 1898).
[75] The registers of the abbey church of SS. Peter and Paul Bath [1569-1800], edited by Arthur J. Jewers (Harleian Society, Register Section, vols. 27-28, 1900-01).
[76] R. E. C. Waters, op. cit. (1883) 98.
[77] N&Q 8S viii, 173.
[78] '100 years of Phillimore & Co' in Local History Magazine, no. 64 (November-December 1997) 12-16.
[79] George W. Marshall, 'Printed Parish Registers', in The Genealogist, New Series, vol. 2 (1885).
[80] London Post Office Directories, and 1904 Poll for St Andrew, Holborn.
[81] 1911 Census of 1 Castellain Road, Maida Vale, RG14/32 image 2.
[82] W. P. W. Phillimore, How to write the history of a family (1888) 153-4; and his Pedigree Work (3rd edn. 1936) 41.
[83] Richard Sims, A manual for the genealogist, topographer, antiquary, and legal professor (1861) 356.
[84] Advertisements in International Genealogical Directory (1907) 108, and (1909) clvi.
[85] Marriage Index of London Churches the property of Messrs Pallot, No 2 New Court, Lincolns Inn, London, undated typescript (c. 1935) in the possession of the author.
[86] Tribute by the Master of the Rolls in The Times, 1 November 1944, 7, column f.
[87] G. H. Martin & Peter Spufford, The Records of the Nation (1990) 124-5.
[88] Roger Ellis, ‘Records preservation from BRS to BRA’, in Jubilee Essays: The British Records Association 1932-1992 (BRA, 1992) 25.
[89] Ursula Bloom, Parson extraordinary (1963)180-9; J. H. Bloom to J. B. Whitmore, 24 February 1941.
[90] 1939 Register; 1911 Census, Montrose, St Martin’s, Jersey.
[91] London Gazette, 15 July 1949, Issue 38666, 3518, and 23 February 1962, Issue 42606, 1648; also PPR Calendar. Mrs Sayers died on 7 June 1962 [PPR Calendar].
[92] According to Cecil Humphery-Smith in an article 'British Ancestry: Pallot Index' (dated 18 January 2006) on http://www.britishancestry.org/articles (accessed 6 June 2011) the Index was started in 1813, continued by the 'Bernardi [sic] brothers', inherited and continued by Cox, Sayers & Co, Pallot made the largest contribution, the Misses Stokes and Mr Challen extended it, and John Andrews (sic) augmented it. I have not been able to confirm the involvement of the De Bernardy family in the early Index. That it evolved partly from an index maintained by Phillimore & Co and assisted Percival Boyd in the compilation of his index is not borne out by the facts.
[93] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 131,
[94] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) xi.
[95] The Index is described in Family History, vol. 20, no. 168 (July 2001) 297-298, but that it was based largely on surviving Bishops Transcripts is not there mentioned.
[96] Pallot's Marriage Index 1780-1837 (Ancestry.com, CD-ROM, 2001).
[97] Although not concerned with genealogy Margaret Paston wrote to her son in 1471, ‘It is a shame and a thing that is much spoken of in this country that your father’s gravestone is not made’; quoted by R. Emmerson in ‘Margaret Paston’s brass’, in Monumental Brass Society Bulletin, 17 (February 1978) 13.
[98] Sir Henry Chauncy, The historical antiquities of Hertfordshire (1700) 554-555.
[99] Ralph Bigland, Observations on Marriages, Baptisms and Burials, as Preserved in Parochial Registers (1764).
[100] Reprinted in Bristol and Gloucester Archaeological Society Record Series (4 vols. 1989-95),edited by Brian Frith.
[101] ‘Mutilation and Destruction of Sepulchral Monuments’, in Stamford Mercury, 19 July 1861, 6.
[102] Lincolnshire Church Notes (Lincolnshire Record Society, vol. 31, 1936) 369-70.
[103] His preface, quoted in D. J. Steel, NIPR, vol. 1 (1968) 265-266.
[104] Frederick Teague Cansick, A collection of curious and interesting epitaphs copied from the monuments of distinguished and noted characters in the ancient church and burial grounds of Saint Pancras, Middlesex, 2 vols. (1869-72) ...[and] in the churches and churchyards of Hornsey, Tottenham, Friern Barnet and Hadley, Middlesex (1875).
[105] Ursula Bloom, Parson Extraordinary (1963) 145.
[106] It was printed as Testamenta Lambethana ... 1312-1636 by Sir Thomas Phillipps in 1854.
[107] Stacey Grimaldi, Origines Genealogicae (1828) 225.
[108] James Raine, ed., Wills and inventories illustrative of the history, manners, language, statistics, etc., of the northern counties of England, from the eleventh century downwards (1835).
[109] Harris Nicolas's summary of his activities appears in his cogent submission (s 103-8) to the Fourth Report made to His Majesty by the commissioners appointed to inquire into the law of England respecting real property (1833).
[110] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 92-96 and 168.
[111] Daniel Joseph Kirwan, Palace and hovel: or, phases of London life (1871) chapter xi.
[112] Kirwan, op. cit. (1871) chapter xi.
[113] Richard Sims, Manual for the genealogist (1861) 344.
[114] N. H. Nicolas, Testamenta vetusta, vol. 1 (1826) 13.
[115] Report of the Council of the Camden Society elected 3rd May, 1847 (1848) 5-10.
[116] Report of the Council of the Camden Society (1853) 5-6.
[117] John Gough Nichols and John Bruce, eds, Wills from Doctors' Commons: a selection from the wills of eminent persons proved in the prerogative court of Canterbury, 1495-1695 (1863).
[118] Kirwan, op. cit. (1871) 159.
[119] Morning Post, 14 October 1874, 7, and other newspapers, e.g. Alnwick Mercury, 31 October 1874, 2.
[120] By 1915 the 'literary searchers' had free access to wills a hundred years after probate.
[121] Walter Rye, op. cit. (1897) 138.
[122] Walter Rye, op. cit. (1897) 104.
[123] Walter Rye, op. cit. (1897) 105.
[124] Calendar of grants of probate and administration and of other testamentary records of the Commissary Court of the Venerable the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, 1504-1829 (HMSO, 1864).
[125] I have a copy of the Returns respecting ... Ecclesiastical Courts (1830) that belonged to Coleman, given to me by Alice Stanley.
[126] His account of the work, dated August 1865, is in Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 2 (1914) 93-96; he is named as the author in the response to Question 5811.
[127] W. P. W. Phillimore, op. cit. (1888) 151.
[128] Ida Darlington, ed., London Consistory Court Wills 1492-1547 (1967) ix-xxii.
[129] Walter Rye, op. cit. (1897) 139-40.
[130] D. M. Barratt, ed., Probate records of the courts of the bishop and archdeacon of Oxford 1516-1732, vol. 1 (1981) vi.
[131] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 47.
[132] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 42-43.
[133] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 46
[134] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 44.
[135] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 46-47.
[136] Lincolnshire Church Notes (Lincolnshire Record Society, vol. 31, 1936) xi.
[137] There is a partial account of his family in TPR, vol. 2 (December 1910) 71-76.
[138] GM, vol. 2, no. 4 (December 1926) vii. 1891 Census of 29 Priory Park Road, Willesden, in which he is described as a genealogist (RG12/1045-74-60/61).
[139] 'American Ancestry', publicity note by Gerald Fothergill, n.d.
[140] A List of MSS and Indexes in possession of Mr. G. Fothergill, publicity leaflet, n.d.
[141] Fothergill Papers, specimen letter, 4 March 1903.
[142] H. R. Plomer to Gerald Fothergill, 18 May 1903.
[143] Fothergill Papers, Somerset House, 19 June 1903; The Times, 20 June 1903, 6.
[144] H. R. Plomer to Gerald Fothergill, 14 June 1903.
[145] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 54.
[146] The outcome is mentioned by Fothergill in his evidence to the Royal Commission.
[147] TSGL: Fifth QR, September 1912, 2.
[148] Dictionary of National Biography, sub John Caley (died 1834),apparently quoting Commons’ Report on Record Commission, 1836.
[149] As it had become in 1540 when the Abbey was dissolved. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Historical memorials of Westminster Abbey (1882) 381-2; for John Ireland see Edward Carpenter, ed., A house of kings: a history of Westminster Abbey (1966) 214.
[150] Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Historical memorials of Westminster Abbey (1882) 378-382.
[151] Elizabeth M. Hallam, ‘Nine centuries of keeping the Public Records’, in The Records of the Nation (1990) 23-42.
[152] John Gough Nichols & John Bruce, Wills from Doctors’ Commons (1863), ii footnote.
[153] Jane Cox, ed., The Nation’s Memory: a pictorial guide to the Public Record Office (1988) 7.
[154] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 84-86.
[155] John Cantwell, ‘The making of the first Deputy Keeper of the records’, in Archives, vol. xvii, no. 73 (April 1985) 22-37.
[156] Quoted in Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 114.
[157] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 139-40.
[158] Christopher Kitching, ‘A Victorian pioneer in the records: Walter Rye’s Records and Record Searching in context’, in Archives, vol. xxxiii, no. 119 (October 2008) 130.
[159] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 141-42.
[160] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 224-5.
[161] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 170-4, 262.
[162] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 181.
[163] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 183.
[164] Kitching, op. cit. (2008) 127; cf. Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 209.
[165] William Page in Family Origins and Other Studies (1930) xviii.
[166] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 199, 213.
[167] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 272.
[168] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 218.
[169] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 225.
[170] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 232.
[171] John Physick and Michael Darby, ‘Marble Halls’: drawings and models for Victorian secular buildings (Victoria and Albert Museum, 1973) 134 (page 191); Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 232, 258, 260-1, 295.
[172] Walter Rye, Records and record searching (1897) 118-119.
[173] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 243, 262.
[174] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 272-7.
[175] Pym Yeatman, ‘Genealogical Research in America’, in Notes & Queries, 9S vii (30 March 1901) 244-5; observations confirmed by ‘G. K. C.’ in Notes & Queries, 9S vii (4 May 1901) 350-1.
[176] C. R. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis, English county histories: a guide (1994) 112-13.
[177] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 292; Modern Public Records: selection and access … 1981 (Cmnd. 8204) Appendix 3, pages 223-4.
[178] Geoffrey Martin in The Records of the Nation (1990) 20.
[179] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 299.
[180] ODNB; Frederick Boase, Modern English Biography, vol. 3 (1901); Christopher Kitching, ‘Walford Dakin [sic] Selby (1845-1889),Superintendent of the Round Room’, in Magna: Magazine of the Friends of The National Archives, vol. 24, no. 1 (April 2013) 18-20. He was baptised and his birth registered as Walford Daking Selby.
[181] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 299, 339.
[182] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 287-304.
[183] Geoffrey Martin in The Records of the Nation (1990) 20.
[184] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 310.
[185] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 332-33; PRO Guide, I (1963) 64.
[186] PRO Guide, II (1963) 275; Cantwell, op.cit. (1991) 394.
[187] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 334.
[188] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 351.
[189] Public Record Office: Museum Catalogue (London, 1948, 1974); J. D. Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 310-11..
[190] Alexandra Nicol, ‘Liaison: Public Records held in other record offices’, in The Records of the Nation (1990) 139-48.
[191] TPR, vol. 1, no. 9 (June 1909) 263-4, quoting the Deputy Keeper’s Seventieth AR (1909).
[192] DNB; her England under the Angevin Kings was published in 1887.
[193] J. H. Round, Family Origins and other Studies (1930) 8.
[194] George Sherwood to J. B. Whitmore, 31 December 1940.
[195] Audrey Deacon & Peter Walne, eds., “A Professional Hertfordshire Tramp”; John Edwin Cussans, Historian of Hertfordshire (Hertfordshire Record Society, 1987) 84-85.
[196] Obituary of Howard by G. J. A. in Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, 3rd Series, vol. 5 (1904) 41-43.
[197] George Burnett, Popular Genealogists (1865) 99.
[198] Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 390.
[199] Morningt Post, 15 April 1897, page 2.
[200] Derby Mercury, 12 May 1897, page 6.
[201] Round, Peerage and Pedigree, ii (1910) 307-84.
[202] DNB; G. C. Baugh in Currie & Lewis, English County Histories: a Guide (1994) 341-2.
[203] Josiah Wedgwood in DNB; M. W. Greenslade in Currie & Lewis, English County Histories: a Guide (1994) 362-4.
[204] Family Origins and Other Studies (1930) xvii-xix.
[205] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 345-47.
[206] Walter Rye, Records and Record Searching (2nd ed. 1897) 124.
[207] C. R. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis, English county histories: a guide (1994) 194-95, 275-76.
[208] Family Origins and Other Studies (1930) xix.
[209] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 295.
[210] Aleyn Lyell Reade, The Reades of Blackwood Hill (1906) 141.
[211] Walter Rye, Records ad Record Searching (2nd ed. 1897) 11.
[212] History of Yorkshire, vol. 1 (1879) page 14 et seq.
[213] Page 168.
[214] Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal, Clarence Volume (1905) 506, Exeter Volume (1907) 725, and Mortimer-Percy Volume (1911) 219.
[215] Volume vi, page 13, note c; see also The Complete Peerage, xii/2 (1959) 559, note k.
[216] A. L. Reade, The Reades of Blackwood Hill (1906) 185; A. R. Wagner, English Genealogy (1983) 359-60.
[217] Abstract of the Pedigree of Field Marshal George Henry de Strabolgie Neville Plantagenet-Harrison (c. 1850); re-printed in A. L. Morton, ‘The hero as genealogist: General Plantagenet-Harrison’, in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, xl, 351-70.
[218] Morning Post, 21 July 1847, 1; Morning Chronicle, 15 February 1848, 7.
[219] Morning Post, 13 February 1849, 6.
[220] London Daily News, 1 May 1849, 2.
[221] London Daily News, 30 May 1849, 5.
[222] Perry’s Bankrupt Gazette, 25 September 1852, 7.
[223] Morning Post, 21 June 1869, 7.
[224] Evening Mail, 1 April 1850, 1; Freeman’s Journal, 1 April 1850, 2.
[225] The History of Yorkshire: vol. 1, Wapentake of Gilling West (1879),page viii of Preface.
[226] Morning Chronicle, 5 February 1851, 6.
[227] HO18/324 Criminal Petitions, 21 January 1852; HO19/12 Prison Registers, 22 January 1852.
[228] London Gazette, 20 July 1852, 2033; London Gazette, 27 August 1852, 2358; Perry’s Bankrupt and Insolvent Gazette (from The Times, 14 September 1852),25 September 1852, 623-4; London Evening Standard, 14 September 1852, 4.
[229] Morning Chronicle, 17 September 1853, 6.
[230] London Daily News, 2 May 1854, 5; Hull Packet (from The Times),19 May 1854, 7.
[231] London Daily News, 21 June 1855, 6.
[232] Hull Packet, 22 June 1855, 6.
[233] Morning Post, 18 November 1857, 7.
[234] Morning Post, 4 February 1858, 7.
[235] London Daily News, 29 July 1858, 6.
[236] London Gazette, 19 October 1858, 4525; London Gazette, 30 November 1858, 5293. London Daily News, 15 December 1858, 6; Windsor and Eton Express, 18 December 1858, 3.
[237] Morning Post, 27 August 1859, 1 (also 31 August and 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14 September).
[238] Morning Post, 24 April 1862, 1.
[239] Morning Post, 16 December 1862, 1.
[240] A. L. Reade, The Reades of Blackwood Hill (1906) 182-3.
[241] Morning Chronicle, 6 November 1861, 4; London Gazette, 15 November 1861, 4623; London Gazette, 31 January 1862, 567.
[242] Morning Post, 2 January 1863, 7.
[243] Western Times, 4 February 1863, 1
[244] Morning Post, 21 June 1869, 7.
[245] London Gazette, 29 October 1867, 5759; London Gazette, 22 November 1867, 6314.
[246] London Daily News, 19 November 1867, 3, and 10 January 1868, 6.
[247] The time in Spain and the action are described in A. L. Morton, ‘The hero as genealogist: General Plantagenet-Harrison’, in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, xl, 361-5.
[248] Morning Post, 21 June 1869, 7.
[249] RG10/214-16-23.
[250] Later census returns show that she was born at Tetsworth, Oxfordshire, about 1835, and she seems likely to be the Maria Eeley, aged 17, dressmaker, born at Tetsworth, with her father, an agricultural labourer, at Holly Bush Row, St Thomas, Oxford, in 1851, and (describing herself as a widow),aged 26, a lodger of no occupation, at 124 Upper Seymour Street, Pancras, in 1861.
[251] The Herald and Genealogist, vii, 12.
[252] York Herald, 1 February 1873, 3, also 8 and 15 February, 8 March, 12 and 19 April and 3 May.
[253] A. L. Reade, The Reades of Blackwood Hill (1906) 141.
[254] Yorkshire Post, 16 July 1879, 3; Nottingham Evening Post, 26 July 1890, 2.
[255] Francois Weil, Family Trees: a history of genealogy in America (2013) 161-4; New England Historical and Genealogical Register (1889) 423-4.
[256] Manchester Courier, 17 July 1876, 3; The Graphic, 23 December 1876.
[257] York Herald, 7 February 1877, 6.
[258] Sunderland Daily Echo, 16 February 1878, 4.
[259] John D. Cantwell, The Public Record Office 1838-1958 (1991) 250-1.
[260] Westminster Rate Books, 1883-8.
[261] A. L. Reade, The Reades of Blackwood Hill (1906) 185.
[262] Notes and Queries, 7S xi (21 March 1891) 222.
[263] Notes and Queries, 7S xi (25 April 1891) 333 and (13 June 1891) 470-1.
[264] John D. Cantwell, The Public Record Office 1838-1958 (1991) 319.
[265] Walter Rye, Records and Record Searching (1897) 11, note 2.
[266] Memoir and bibliography of Round in Round’s Family Origins and Other Studies (1930) ix-lxxiv.
[267] Biography of Round in Dictionary of National Biography.
[268] W. Raymond Powell, John Horace Round: historian and gentleman of Essex (Essex Record Office, 2001).
[269] Powell, op. cit., 107.
[270] As announced in The Times, 30 January 1914.
[271] Powell, op. cit., 32.
[272] Powell, op. cit., 46.
[273] Powell, op. cit., 48.
[274] Powell, op. cit., 49-50.
[275] Powell, op. cit., 51-53.
[276] Powell, op. cit., 54-58.
[277] Family Origins and Other Studies (1930) xxiii.
[278] Powell, op. cit., 103-4.
[279] Powell, op. cit., 133-4.
[280] Powell, op. cit., 120-26.
[281] Powell, op. cit., 133.
[282] Powell, op. cit., 114.
[283] Powell, op. cit., 69-70.
[284] Powell, op. cit., 116-20.
[285] Powell, op. cit., 136-37.
[286] Powell, op. cit., 139.
[287] Powell, op. cit., 140-42.
[288] Powell, op. cit., 146.
[289] Powell, op. cit., 156-57.
[290] Powell, op. cit., 165.
[291] The Ancestor, xii (1905) 53; Peerage and Pedigree, ii (1910) 58-62, 64-8, 70-4.
[292] Powell, op. cit., 159.
[293] Powell, op. cit., 165.
[294] These carefully constructed articles, each of about a thousand words, appeared almost daily for more than thirty years; a selection was published as Day In and Day Out, by “The Londoner” of The Evening News, in 1924.
[295] Family Origins and Other Studies (1930) xxxiii-xxxiv.
[296] J. Horace Round, Peerage and Pedigree, ii (1910) 240.
[297] Family Origins and Other Studies (1930) xl; Powell, op. cit., 166-68.
[298] John D. Cantwell, The Public Record Office 1838-1958 (1991) 365.
[299] Family Origins and Other Studies (1930) xl-xli. The text of ‘Historical Genealogy’ is given in full, pages 1-12. The second (also printed in the same work, pages 252-65),‘The Garrison Theory of the Borough’, was a typical attack on Professor Maitland who had first promulgated this theory of the origin of boroughs and on those who had accepted and/or developed the idea.
[300] Powell, op. cit., 168.
[301] Powell, op. cit., 120, 187.
[302] ‘Earldoms and Baronies’, in The Complete Peerage, vol. 4 (1916) Appendix H, page 722.
[303] J. H. Round, ‘Barons’ and ‘Peers’, in English Historical Review, vol. 33 (1918) 453-71.
[304] Powell, op. cit., 169-79.
[305] Obituary in GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 113-14, corrected in no. 4 (December 1969) 165; The Times, 8 March 1969, 10.
[306] Powell, op. cit., 179.
[307] Powell, op. cit., 185.
[308] Powell, op. cit., 190-1.
[309] Geoffrey H. White, in GM, vol. 5, no. 7 (September 1930) 218.
[310] GM, vol. 5, no. 1 (March 1929) 1.
[311] Essex Archaeology and History, vol. 29 (1998) 155-182.
[312] The Herald and Genealogist, vol. 4 (1867) 466-67.
[313] Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 400.
[314] Morning Post, Wednesday, 11 March 1846, 1b.
[315] ‘The London Genealogical Society’, in Punch, vol. 10, issue 240 (14 February 1846) 81; the Punch Historical Archive attributes the article to Douglas Jerrold; the Society received unsympathetic notice also in the Hereford Times, 14 March 1846, 7.
[316] List of Subscribers in Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick, Heraldic Visitations of Wales, vol. 1 (1846) viii, where the name appears as ‘H. Wyrelle M. Weber, Esq. Marshal of the London Genealogical Society’.
[317] Advertisement in London Standard, 13 February 1847, 1.
[318] London Gazette, 20 February 1849, No 20947, 534.
[319] N&Q, 2nd Series, vol. v (10 April 1852) 353-4.
[320] Bell’s Weekly Messenger, 8 March 1846, page 1; Hereford Times, 14 March 1846, page 7.
[321] Chelmsford Chronicle, Friday, 7 May 1847, 3.
[322] N&Q 5 (27 March 1852) 297.
[323] N&Q 5 (10 April 1852) 353-4.
[324] London Gazette, 19 November 1850, page 3090; London Gazette, 20 December 1850, page 3472.
[325] Court sat 3 January; Evening Mail, 6 January 1851, 3.
[326] Richard Sims, Manual for the genealogist (London, 1861) 457.
[327] N&Q 7S iv (1887) 234-35.
[328] Chester Chronicle, 10 September 1853, 5 and 17 September 1853, 8.
[329] ‘Genealogical Society’, in Morning Chronicle, Thursday, 15 September 1853, 3.
[330] N&Q 12 (7 and 14 July 1855),advertisements facing 1 and 36.
[331] Morning Post, 9 November 1855, and 15 November 1855, 4.
[332] He was of 3 Oak Terrace, Battersea, aged 29, writer on the public press, 1851 (HO107/1577-31-20); of 19 Brompton Crescent, Kensington, aged 40, Secretary to the Genealogical Society, writer on general literature and genealogist, 1861 (RG9/20-100-59); of 11 Brompton Crescent, Kensington, aged 50, clerk to literary society, 1871 (RG10/50-33-57); of the same address, aged 57, art critic, 1881 (RG11/43-97-28); of 25 Oakley Street, Chelsea, aged 69, genealogist, 1891 (RG12/64-40-5); of 96 Edith Road, Fulham, aged 79, journalist, 1901 (RG13/63-76-41); he had married at St Luke, Chelsea, 1843, Eliza Adkins, and they had several daughters; he died in Wandsworth RD, March Quarter 1911, aged 91 [GRO Death Indexes].
[333] Morning Post, Saturday, 20 December 1856.
[334] London Daily News, Tuesday, 2 June 1857.
[335] London Post Office Directories, 1861-1882.
[336] William Thomas Lowndes, The Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature, new edition by Henry G. Bohn, vol. iv (1871),Appendix, 133 (apparently compiled late in 1864).
[337] ‘Genealogical and Historical Society of Great Britain’, in The Ipswich Journal, 21 August 1858, 3.
[338] Morning Chronicle, Thursday, 5 May 1859, 4.
[339] Morning Chronicle, Monday, 11 July 1859, 3.
[340] Morning Chronicle, Wednesday, 18 July 1860, 5f.
[341] For example the Wells Journal of 25 June 1853, 8, ‘At a meeting of the Council and Fellows of the Genealogical Society, last week, John Davies esq formerly of this City, was elected an Honorary Fellow of that institution, and received his diploma accordingly’.
[342] ‘Collier v. Reeve’, in Hereford Times, Saturday, 15 August 1863, 3.
[343] The Complete Peerage, vol. xi (1949) 41-45 sub ‘Roche’.
[344] The Complete Peerage, v (1926) 55-56.
[345] William Thomas Lowndes, The bibliographer's manual of English literature (1871), Appendix Volume (1864) 133.
[346] W. P. W. Phillimore, How to write the history of a family (2nd edn. 1888) 82; the Society is similarly mentioned in the Addenda to George Gatfield, Guide to printed books and manuscripts relating to English and foreign heraldry and genealogy (1892) 623, as though it still flourished. Walter Rye, Records and record searching (1897) 184, knew that it was 'extinct'.
[347] ‘Gossip of the Clubs, from a London Correspondent’, in Lancaster Gazette, 14 November 1874, 3.
[348] N&Q 7S iv (1887) 68-69 and 234-35.
[349] N&Q 10S iv (1905) 230.
[350] General Register Office, Death Indexes.
[351] N&Q 11S iii (8 April 1911) 266.
[352] London Gazette, 21 August 1855, No 21766, 319.
[353] Bury and Norwich Post, 22 February 1854, 1.
[354] London Gazette, 13 May 1854.
[355] Pall Mall Gazette, 31 October 1872, 6, and 26 November 1872, 6.
[356] The Herald and Genealogist, vol. 4 (1867) 466-67.
[357] ‘A fraternal offer’ in Punch, 23 March 1867, page 124.
[358] The Herald and Genealogist, vol. 4 (1867) 574.
[359] See Dictionary of National Biography.
[360] N&Q, 8S xii (1897) 289.
[361] GM, vol. 11, no. 16 (December 1954) 546.
[362] A. R. Wagner, Records and Collections of the College of Arms (1952) 45.
[363] Burke’s Landed Gentry of Great Britain: The Kingdom of Scotland (2001) 716-720; Old Bailey Proceedings, 31 October 1810, re a robbery at his shop; his Administration (with Will dated 26 October 1824 as of Fleet Street and Hatton Garden) granted PCC 3 March 1825; obituary in Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 22 November 1824.
[364] Obituaries of Maria Innes in Dundee Advertiser, 22 December 1880, page 6, and Cheltenham Chronicle, 28 December 1880, page 2.
[365] The words are those of Horace Round in Peerage and Pedigree, ii (1910) 221.
[366] Susan Hood, Royal Roots - republican inheritance: the survival of the Office of Arms (Dublin, 2002) 23-24.
[367] Frances-Jane French, 'Nepotists and sinecurists: a history of Ulster's Office 1552-1943' in The Irish Genealogist, vol. 10, no, 3 (2000) 350.
[368] Susan Hood, op. cit. (2002) 1-24.
[369] Percy Fitzgerald, Recollections of Dublin Castle and of Dublin society by a native (1902) 30.
[370] Michael Sharpe, Family matters: a history of genealogy (2011) 68; the statement that he worked at the College of Arms is incorrect.
[371] Hansard, 13 September 1886, 309, 272, quoted in Susan Hood, op. cit. (2002) 4.
[372] Interview with Anthony Adolph, for Family History Monthly, 2004.
[373] Sir Bernard Burke, History of the Landed Gentry (6th ed. 1882) Prefatory Notice.
[374] Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, 'The Abuse of Arms', in Armorial Families: a directory of gentlemen of coat-armour (1929) xv.
[375] Sir Bernard Burke, A genealogical history of the dormant, abeyant, forfeited, and extinct peerages of the British Empire (New edition, 1883) ix.
[376] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 180-81.
[377] Mark Bence-Jones, 'The trust of landowning', in Burke's Landed Gentry, vol. 1 (1965) xv-xviii.
[378] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 102.
[379] GM, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1969) 164.
[380] James Leasor, 'The Landed Gentry lower the drawbridge', Express, 1952.
[381] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 180-81.
[382] Burke’s Irish Family Records (1976) vii.
[383] However, some 33 volumes of Irish pedigrees and 69 volumes of his genealogical notes were aquired by the College of Arms after the death of Sir Henry Farnham Burke in 1930 [A. R. Wagner, Records and Collections of the College of Arms (1952) 30-31, 52]; to what extent these have been indexed or systematically examined I do not know.
[384] Advertisements in Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica.
[385] W. H. Godfrey and Sir Anthony Wagner, The College of Arms (1963) 165; as a Herald he is said to have had the largest practice of his day, earning up to £2,000-£3,000 a year.
[386] Anon, Popular genealogists or the art of pedigree-making (1865) 20-21.
[387] E. A. Freeman, 'Pedigrees and pedigree makers', in The Contemporary Review, vol. 30 (1877) 12-13.
[388] W. R. Powell, John Horace Round (2001) 79.
[389] Complete Peerage, xi (1949) 49 note b.
[390] Bibliography and memoir (ed. William Page) in J. H. Round, Family Origins (1930).
[391] For his ancestry and descendants see Burke's Landed Gentry, vol. 1 (1965) 99-101.
[392] Walter H. Godfrey, &c., The College of Arms (1963) 70-71.
[393] N&Q, 8S vi, 21-23 (14 July 1894),155 (25 August 1894) and 235 (22 September 1894).
[394] Ashworth P. Burke, Family Records (1897) vi.
[395] B. C. Trappes-Lomax, 'Moonshine from Burke', in GM, vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1940) 84-86.
[396] Anthony R. Wagner, 'Burke's Peerage, 1949', in GM, vol. 10, no. 11 (September 1949) 407-409.
[397] Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 130, 416.
[398] Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 133.
[399] Richard Sims, Records and record searching (1897) footnote 7.
[400] George Burnett, Popular Genealogists (1865) 99.
[401] Publicity leaflet, 'Culleton's Heraldic Library' (n.d.; pre-1887).
[402] Arlene H. Eakle and others, Descriptive inventory of the English collection (1979) 164; there are microfilms of the Index at the British Library and at the Society of Genealogists (MF 542-6).
[403] A point mentioned by Harry Pirie-Gordon in his Preface to the 1937 Landed Gentry and discussed at some length in A. C. Fox-Davies, Armorial Families (1929) Preface, many correspondents asking for the date not to be published.
[404] His father Thomas Edmond Davies (1839-1908) had adopted the surname Fox-Davies in 1894.
[405] J. H. Round, ‘Heraldry and the Gent’, in Peerage and Pedigree, ii (1910) 307-84.
[406] J. H. Round, Studies in peerage and family history (1901) xxvii; repeated in his Peerage and Pedigree, ii (1910) 321.
[407] Peerage and Pedigree, ii (1910) 336.
[408] The Times, 21 May 1928.
[409] GM, vol. 4, no. 4 (December 1928) 92, he is quoting Round’s criticism in Peerage and Pedigree (1910) of Fox-Davies’ Complete Guide to Heraldry (1909).
[410] Walter Rye, Records and record searching (1897) footnote 3; the question raised by Edmund Robertson, MP for Dundee, 13 November 1888, does not mention the Marsh family. The claimant, Arthur Marsh, born at Swanage in 1856, had been in the merchant navy and was latterly a stevedore at Southampton where he died unmarried in 1934.
[411] Patrick Polden, 'Stranger than fiction? The Jennens inheritance in fact and fiction: Part two: The business of fortune hunting' in Common Law World Review, vol. 32, no. 4 (2003) 338.
[412] Douglas Woodruff, The Tichborne claimant (1957).
[413] Theodore Besterman, The Druce-Portland case (1935).
[414] TPR, vol. 1 (March 1908) 112; GM, vol. 5, no. 6 (June 1930) 187.
[415] A catalogue of books ... the property of John Russell Smith ... on sale ... by Alfred Russell Smith, 36 Soho Square, London (n.d.) 16, says it 'contains double the matter of another hasty production'.
[416] W. H. Godfrey and Sir Anthony Wagner, The College of Arms (1963) 165.
[417] 1871 Census of 14 Regent Square, St Pancras, RG10/220-82-89.
[418] A. R. Wagner, Records and collections of the College of Arms (1952) 47 note 2.
[419] Simon Eliot, ‘Common Bonds: John Camden Hotten and the Transatlantic Trade in Family History and Pornography’, in Swapan Chakravorty and Abhijit Gupta, eds. New Word Order: Transnational Themes in Book History (Delhi, 2011),80-93.
[420] Eliot, op. cit., 89-90.
[421] 1881 Census, RG11/4024-22-38.
[422] 1891 Census, RG12/1042-28-47.
[423] Reference Catalogue of British Topography and Family History, offered for sale by Henry Gray, 47 Leicester Square London WC, 1887.
[424] 1901 Census, RG13/1201-72-18; his book label.
[425] It is attributed to Marshall as a useful supplement to Bridger in A catalogue of books ... the property of John Russell Smith ... on sale ... by Alfred Russell Smith, 36 Soho Square, London (n.d.) 16.
[426] Patrick Polden, op. cit., 357.
[427] London Gazette, Issue 21031, 23 October 1849.
[428] London Gazette, Issue 25315, 5 February 1884, 552.
[429] London Gazette, Issue 28280, 17 August 1909, 6310.
[430] Defined as an illegal agreement in which a person with no previous interest in a lawsuit finances it with a view to sharing the disputed property if the suit succeeds, or 'buying into someone else's lawsuit'.
[431] Rees v De Bernardy [1896] 2 Ch 437.
[432] Wedgerfield v De Bernardy [1908] 24 TLR 497.
[433] Fraser v Buckle [2003] WTLR 1389.
[434] M. A. Pinhorn, ‘Unclaimed Monies’, in GM, vol. 13, no. 3 (September 1959) 81-83.
[435] Colin Price-Beech, ‘What’s a windfall worth?’, in Daily Mail, 3 November 1971.
[436] Georgia Bedworth, 'Tracing the missing beneficiary - heir locators and contingency fees', online at http://www.lawskills.co.uk/articles/counsels_opinion/ (2010; accessed January 2012).
[437] ‘Widow faces 10pc fee on £3m bequest’, in Daily Telegraph, 27 October 1994.
[438] See http://www.titlesearch.com.
[439] H. B. Guppy, Homes of family names in Great Britain (1890) 6.
[440] Patrick Hanks, Flavia Hodges, A. D. Mills and Adrian Room, eds, The Oxford Names Companion (OUP, 2002) xi.
[441] Fothergill’s announcement is in N&Q, 10S vii (4 May 1907) 347; Marshall’s reply 10S viii (20 July 1907) 52, and Fothergill’s answer 10S viii (24 August 1907) 153.
[442] TSGL: Fifth QR, September 1912, 4; ‘Pedigree Analysis Forms’ letter printed 10 July 192.
[443] TSGL: Sixth QR, December 1912, 3.
[444] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 13.
[445] Walter Rye, Records and record searching (1897) 124-125.
[446] ‘Well-known historian dead’, in Aberdeen Journal, 12 February 1938, 5.
[447] J. D. Cantwell, The Public Record Office 1838-1958 (1991) 176-9, 213-4, 253-5, 307.
[448] He died at 127 Farringdon Road, Middlesex, 16 January 1898, aged 50. His administration granted (to his widow) 12 January 1901, Effects £50. He was a Freeman of the City by Redemption, 1881; of The Hope, 90 Cow Cross Street, 1881; of various addresses, bankrupt, residing at 85 Charterhouse Street, 1886; of 12 Dagnall Road, Stroud Green and 83 Charterhouse Street, 1890 [Electoral Registers]; of 28 Cloth Fair, coffee house keeper, witness at Old Bailey, 2 May 1892. His first wife Ellen died 1880, aged 37; he married 2ndly, 1882, Louisa Linton Allen, who died 1888, aged 27; he married 3rdly, 1890, Mary Ann Bruce.
[449] He died at 45 Alma Square, 25 September 1886. His will proved PPR 15 December 1886, Effects £600 16s 4. He was of Thetford, clerk to a wine merchant, 1871; of 6 Sussex Place, Hammersmith, professional antiquarian, 1881 (as Greigson). See Burke’s Landed Gentry, Grigson of Saham Toney (1858) and Rye’s Norfolk Families. She was of Worthing, Norfolk, 1861; of 24 Cedar Road, Clapham, companion lady, 1881; married at Holy Trinity, Clapham, 2 August 1881; at Whinburgh, Musgrave Road, Durban, Natal [Ruvigny, Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal: Mortimer-Percy, Part 1 (1911) 460]. The couple were at 10 Alma Square in 1884 and 1885 [baptisms of children at St Mark, Hamilton Terrace].
[450] She died at 22 Plato Road, Brixton, 18 March 1916. Her will proved PPR, 27 April 1916, Effects £1,137 5s. Clarence Hopper (described as a record & literary agent in 1861) had died at 2 Grove, Margate, Kent, 10 June 1868, from 1 Albert Place, Denmark Road, Lambeth. His administration granted PPR, 12 March 1870. His genealogical collections are in British Library ADD MSS 28015-20; his transcripts relating to the Channel Islands in Egerton MS 2416 and ADD MSS 30188-189; and his correspondence with James Halliwell-Phillipps, 1863-9, in Edinburgh University Library, LoA.
[451] Kitching, op. cit. (2008) 139.
[452] The couple lived at 14 Montpelier Row, Twickenham, in 1861 and 1871. His will was proved PPR, 20 February 1880, Under £16,000. She died at 16 Cleveland Road, Barnes, 3 February 1902. Her administration with will was granted PPR, 25 February 1902, Effects £25 5s 4d.
[453] Rye (1897) 5, quoted in Kitching, op. cit. (2008) 139.
[454] Quoted in Joan Thirsk, ‘Women local and family historians’, in David Hey, Oxford Companion to Family and Local History (2nd ed 2008) 105.
[455] W. R. Powell, John Horace Round (2001) 159 (11 November 1905) and 186 (22 november 1907).
[456] W. R. Powell, John Horace Round (2001) 159-161.
[457] 1911 Census of St George’s Hostel, 77 & 79 Gloucester Street, Belgrave, St George Hanover Square.
[458] David Dymond, ‘Suffolk’, in C. R. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis, eds, English County Histories: a Guide (1994) 369.
[459] 1911 Census of 13 Chenies Street Chambers, London, W. C.
[460] 1911 Census of 4 Strathray Gardens, Hampstead, Middlesex.
[461] 1911 Census of 30 Dennington Park Road, West Hampstead, Middlesex.
[462] Not ‘less than 30’ as stated in Family History Monthly, No. 193 (March 2011) 32.
[463] Way down East, Hal Hungerford, The quest of the golden pearl (1897), The Press Gang Afloat and Ashore, The Grenadiers of Potsdam, etc.
[464] Documented pedigree (Hutchinson (VJ) Family Tree by ‘bobfilm’ on ancestry.co.uk.
[465] 1891 Census of 26 Malfort Road, Camberwell, RG12/466-31-43.
[466] Public Record Office, J 77/979/9749.
[467] North Devon Journal, 17 January 1924, page 5, and Western Morning News, 12 January 1924, page 3..
[468] Quarterly Queries, No. 8, March 1919, page 30, and No. 9, June 1919, page 33.
[469] Based on searches for specific occupations in the online database provided by Findmypast.
[470] Reginald L. Hine, Confessions of an Un-common Attorney (1945) 137-9; identification in copy formerly owned by Sherwood and now with Anthony Camp.
[471] Robert Cowtan, Memories of the British Museum (London, 1872) 382.
[472] http://www.thesociety.org/pasadena/hpb-spr/hpb-spr.htm accessed 27 November 2011.
[473] 1861 Census, RG9/121-105-6; 1881 Census, RG11/183-85-9; 1891 Census, RG12/1059-6-4.
[474] W. P. W. Phillimore, How to write the history of a family (1888) 1 and 6.
[475] Phillimore, op. cit. (1884) 12.
[476] W. P. W. Phillimore (revised by Bower Marsh), Pedigree Work: a handbook for the genealogist (1936) 18-19.
[477] ‘Provincial Records’, in The Times, 10 October 1888, 4.
[478] W. P. W. Phillimore, The "Principal Genealogical Specialist"; or Regina v. Davies and the Shipway genealogy (1899) 17 and introductory Note printed on cover.
[479] Shipway was a director of Hammond & Co, a family breeches-making firm in Oxford Street, and was later responsible for the purchase and restoration of Hogarth’s House at Chiswick which he presented to Middlesex County Council [James Wilsdom & Val Bott, ‘Col Shipway’s Pedigree’, in Brentford and Chiswick Local History Journal (Spring 1996) 17-21].
[480] Phillimore says that he was the son of a small tradesman in Birmingham but his birth, in the name Major Herbert Albert Davies on 1 February 1873, was registered in Marylebone [1a 603].
[481] He was the father of the author Francis Lawrance Bickley (1885-1977).
[482] ‘A tree and a trial’, in Pall Mall Gazette, 24 November 1898, 1.
[483] ‘The custody of local records’, letter from Secretary of Congress in Northampton Mercury, 11 August 1899, 8; Report of The Congress of Archaeological Societies in union with the Society of Antiquaries to the Committee on the Preservation of Local Records appointed by H. M. Treasury, adopted 28 March 1900.
[484] The Morning Post, 20 October 1899, quoted in Deposit of Parish Records in the Guildhall Library with Suggested resolution of Vestry (n.d.; foolscap printed sheet); he was born in Bermondsey, 1837; was Master of the Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks, 1892-3 and 1901-2, and author of The churches & chapels of old London (1901); he lived at St Monica, Micheldever Road, Lee, Kent [1901 Census, RG13/547-74-31] and died there 3 April 1906, aged 69 [PPR Calendar].
[485] William Le Hardy, Guide to the Hertfordshire Record Office: Part I (1961) ix-x.
[486] TPR, vol. 2, no. 17 (June 1911) 158.
[487] Peter Spufford, 'The Index Library: a centenary history, 1988', in The Records of the Nation (1990) 119-137.
[488] Who Was Who 1897-1916 (1920) 561.
[489] Noel Osborne, '100 years of Phillimore & Co', in Local History Magazine, no. 64 (November/December 1997) 12-16.
[490] Christopher Kitching, ‘A Victorian pioneer in the records: Walter Rye’s Records and Record Searching in context’, in Archives, vol. xxxiii, no. 119 (October 2008) 126-139.
[491] Hassell Smith and Roger Virgoe, 'Norfolk', in C. R. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis, eds. English county histories: a guide (1994) 285; also obituary in The Times, 26 February 1929.
[492] There is a pedigree of George Samuel Fry in TPR, vol. 2, no. 17 (June 1911) 152-3.
[493] Sir Anthony Wagner, English Genealogy (1983) 303.
[494] Anthony Richard Wagner, The records and collections of the College of Arms (1952) 46-47, and op. cit. (1983) 303 and 403.
[495] James B. Allen, Jessie L. Embry & Kahlile B. Mehr, Hearts turned to the fathers: a history of the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1894-1994 (BYU Studies, 1995) 34. It was he who, as President in 1890, wrote the Manifesto testifying that the Church had ceased teaching the practice of plural marriage.
[496] Dr Arthur Adams in A century of genealogical progress (1945) quoted in Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 404.
[497] Francois Weil, Family trees; a history of genealogy in America (2013) 75-6.
[498] ODNB; Herald and Genealogist, iii (1866) 266-73, 464-5; GM, viii (1939) 333-4, 398; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xi (1857) 259-71.
[499] Richard Sims, A Manual for the Genealogist, Topographer, Antiquary, and Legal Professor (2nd ed. 1861) 309-17.
[500] 1861 Census of 5 New North Street, Finsbury, RG9/182-83-78; 1871 Census of 16 Linden Villas, Bermondsey, RG10/639-24-42; 1881 Census of 124 Southwark Park Road, Bermondsey, RG11/572-45-19. He died at the latter address 26 May 1882; will proved in Principal Probate Registry, 22 July 1882; Personal Estate £2,047-11-6.
[501] The statement that Cokayne sold the register transcripts to the College of Arms for £3,000 in John Titford, 'The Chester Manuscripts', in GM, vol. 25, no. 19 (June 1997) 402, which puts Cokayne in a bad light, seems contradicted by Sir Anthony Wagner, The records and collections of the College of Arms (1952) 46, who states that the College paid £700 in 1886 to which Cokayne first made a substantial contribution and then repaid the whole balance.
[502] New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, October 1872, 200.
[503] She had confessed to Chester that two wills provided to Stephen Whitney Phoenix were fabricated; Paul C. Reed, ‘Whitney Origins Revisited’, in The American Genealogist, number 69 (1994) 9-14; Francois Weil, Family trees; a history of genealogy in America (2013) 154-5.
[504] Eliot, op. cit., 89-90.
[505] '10,000 names of early settlers of U.S.', in The Times, 15 October 1935.
[506] James A. Emmerton and Henry F. Waters, Gleanings from English records about New England families (Salem, Mass: 1880).
[507] Gurdon Wadsworth Russell, An account of some of the descendants of John Russell the Emigrant, ed. E. S. Welles (Hartford, Connecticut, 1910).
[508] The first book of any size to be printed entirely on a Gestetner duplicator.
[509] TPR, vol. 3, no. 33 (June 1915) 288.
[510] The 85 articles and 745 pages were reprinted as Virginia gleanings in England (GPC, 2007).
[511] James B. Allen, Jessie L. Embry and Kahlile B. Mehr, Hearts turned to the fathers: a history of the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1894-1994 (Provo, Utah, 1995) 17-22.
[512] James B. Allen and others, op. cit. (1995) 22-23.
[513] James B. Allen and others, op. cit. (1995) 33-35.
[514] James B. Allen and others, op. cit. (1995) 36.
[515] James B. Allen and others, op. cit. (1995) 27, 36-37.
[516] James B. Allen and others, op. cit. (1995) 39-40, 45; he had married at South Norwood in 1887, converted in 1888, re-married at Logan, Utah, in 1889, described himself as a provision dealer in Holborn in 1891 and as a carpenter at Draper, Utah, in 1900.
[517] The provisional council approved the rules of the new society, 9 December 1907.
[518] Quoted by Bernau in 'The genealogy of the submerged' in his Some special studies in genealogy (1908) 67, from Camden's Remains concerning Britain (1674).
[519] Bernau, op. cit. (1908) 69.
[520] That Bernau was a member of the Eugenics Education Society is stated on the title page of the 2nd Supplement of the 2nd Edition of his Directory (1910) which contains lengthy statements from the Secretary, Mrs Gotto, and the Chairman of Council, Dr J. W. Slaughter, of the Society, as well as another letter from Slaughter appealing for copies of pedigrees, and reviews of The Eugenics Review and The Mendel Journal.
[521] His baptismal entry at St Augustine, Kilburn, 30 May 1888 (sic),says that he was born 7 November 1878, but his birth was registered at St Olave in the December Quarter of 1877.
[522] ‘’Hereditary Paupers’, in Shoreditch Observer, 20 November 1886, page 3.
[523] 'Report of the Committee appointed to consider the eugenic aspects of Poor Law Reform: Section 1, The eugenic principle in Poor Law administration' in Eugenics Review, 2 (1910-11) 167-177, quoted in Pauline M. H. Mazumdar, 'Eugenics: the pedigree years', in Robert A. Peel, Pedigree studies (1999) 20.
[524] Mazumdar, op. cit. (1999) 23.
[525] Bernau, op. cit. (1908) 70.
[526] Veronica di Mambro, 'The University of Cambridge Eugenics Society', in Newsletter of the Galton Institute (June/September 2003).
[527] Robert Resta, ‘A brief history of the pedigree in human genetics’, in Robert A. Peel, ed., Human Pedigree Studies: Proceedings of a Conference organised by the Galton Institute, London, 1998 (1999) 62-84.
[528] Mazumdar, op. cit. (1999) 43, note 10.
[529] Francis Galton, Natural inheritance (1889),quoted in Peel, op. cit. (1999) vii.
[530] TPR, vol. 1, no. 8 (March 1909) 234-5.
[531] TPR, vol. 3, no. 33 (June 1915) 285.
[532] 1871 Census of 2 Brunswick Place, Fulham, RG10/67-14-20; 1881 Census of 150 Earls Court Road, Kensington, RG11/49-53-45; 1891 Census of 40 Claverton Street, Pimlico, RG12/76-95-5.
[533] 1901 Census of 14 Market Place, Wallingford, RG13/1139-43-28.
[534] Principal Probate Registry, 27 February 1905. His widow, Fanny Elizabeth, died at Brockley in 1913 (Principal Probate Registry, 30 July 1913).
[535] TSGL: paper read at the Quarterly Meeting, 10th November, 1916, by George Sherwood, on "How to make pedigrees interesting" (1916) 3 and 4.
[536] GM, vol. 12, no. 14 (June 1958) 465.
[537] Publicity Reference Books, 1889-1914, 1914-42, on FHL MF 402,924.
[538] 1891 Census, The National Archives, RG12/51-46-11.
[539] TPR, vol. 1 (March 1909) 238; GM, vol. 6, no. 1 (March 1932) 23.
[540] Copy bound in George Fry's set of Genealogical Queries and Memoranda at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London.
[541] Baptismal Register of St John the Evangelist, Brixton, 18 November 1894, Page 290, Entries 2314-5.
[542] 1901 Census, The National Archives, RG13/555-72-31.
[543] TPR, vol. 1 (June 1907) 21.
[544] TPR, vol. 1 (September 1907) 47.
[545] 1881 Census, The National Archives, RG11/732-66-6, and 1891 Census, The National Archives, RG12/519-130-51/52.
[546] His obituary in GM, Official Section, June 1962, 5. He has not been found in the UK in the 1901 Census Returns; in 1911 he described himself as ‘steamship chartering agent, employer’.
[547] 1900 Electoral Register, Parliamentary Borough of Lewisham, Parish of Lee, Lodgers, 710.
[548] Charles Bernau, 'Descent of Bernau from the Dukes of Normandy’, in The Genealogical Magazine (March 1901) 507-509.
[549] Charles Bernau to Rene Droz, 3 September 1908, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[550] N&Q, 9S vii (1 June 1906) 426-7.
[551] Charles Bernau to Rene Droz, 3 September 1908, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[552] TPR, vol. 1 (September 1907) 48.
[553] TPR, vol. 1 (December 1908) 206.
[554] George Sherwood to Beach Whitmore, 31 December 1940.
[555] TPR, vol. 1 (September 1907) 44.
[556] TPR, vol. 1 (June 1909) 272.
[557] TPR, vol. 1 (September 1907) 144-48 and 160.
[558] Charles Bernau, International Genealogical Directory, 2nd Edition, 2nd Supplement (1910) xxxi.
[559] Charles Bernau to Rene Droz, 3 September 1908, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[560] Anthony Wagner, A herald's world (1988) 163.
[561] See the later discussion about the appointment of a Director of Research.
[562] Charles Bernau to Rene Droz, 10 September 1908, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[563] Charles Bernau to Rene Droz, 17 September 1908, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[564] Advantages stressed in the joint Introduction by Francis Leeson and Malcolm Pinhorn to the International genealogical directory: originally founded 1907: a directory of surname, family & individual interests, with lists of genealogists record-searchers & useful addresses on a worldwide basis (Pinhorns, 1971-72) and later directories.
[565] TPR, vol. 1 (March 1910) 366.
[566] International Genealogical Directory, 2nd edition, 2nd supplement (1910) xlxix-liii dated 1 December 1909.
[567] N&Q, 8S ii (16 July 1892) 44.
[568] N&Q, 11S i (5 March 1910) 187-8.
[569] N&Q, 11S i (12 March 1910) 205.
[570] N&Q, 11S i (9 April 1910) 285.
[571] N&Q, 11S i (5 March 1910) 286.
[572] N&Q, 11S i (1910) 251.
[573] N&Q, 11S i (23 April 1910) 337.
[574] N&Q, 11S i (21 May 1910) 401-2.
[575] N&Q, 11S i (25 June 1910) 510-11.
[576] The date of the first meeting of the 'Provisional Committee' appears in The Antiquary, vol. 47 (August 1911) 314.
[577] GM, vol. 4, no. 1 (March 1928) 15; the four volumes of the Armory were received in 1921; Tenth Report, 1921, 18. Joseph Eedes was born in Southwark, Surrey, 25 August 1821, son of John Eedes, citizen and stationer (died 1847); apprenticed to his father, 1835; of 2 George Street, St Pancras, herald painter, 1871; of 11 George Street, 1890-91 (Electoral Register); there, lawyer’s clerk, 1891; died at 26 Rutland Street, Middlesex, 1 September 1891, aged 70; PPR Administration. The surname Eedes is often rendered incorrectly.
[578] London Evening Standard, 13 May 1896, page 2, and 15 May 1896, page 6; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 17 May 1896, page 5 (with sketches of Briggs, his wife and Emir Hafiz).
[579] Obituary (in the alternative spelling of ‘Bradbrooke’) in The Times, 11 May 1940, in GM, vol. 9, no. 2 (June 1940) 57 and N&Q, 25 May 1940; his father’s ancestry is in TPR, vol. 1 (September 1908) 159. The article in the British Medical Journal appeared 11 January 1908 and is summarised in TPR, vol. 1 (March 1908) 109-110; inter alia it tested the suggestion of Mr Marcus Rubin that the population of a parish could be estimated by multiplying its average number of baptisms by thirty. He was apparently also the ‘W.B.’ who with ‘J.R.C.’ wrote ‘Vital Statistics from old parish registers’, in The British Medical Journal, 13 January 1940, 67-68, based on the registers of Petworth. In the 1911 census he recorded his son Edward, aged 4, as ‘Unemployed’ and himself as ‘Head (titular)’ of the family!
[580] The Antiquary, volume 47 (January 1911) 3.
[581] TSGL: Notice, Report and Balance Sheet and Accounts: As on 15th June 1911.
[582] N&Q, 11S i (25 June 1911) 511.
[583] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962),Official Section, 6. His widow Dorothy Olivia Holworthy died in 1962.
[584] 1891 Census, RG12/629-109-16; 1901 Census, RG13/1310-64-29.
[585] 1881 Census, RG11/809-74-42; 1891 Census, RG12/774-55-43; executor to father, William Merritt Crow, 1933 [PPR].
[586] E. E. Squires, 'William Blyth Gerish, Antiquary', East Herts Archaeological Society Transactions, vol. 7 (1923) 1.
[587] Anthony Camp, 'William Gerish and the Society of Genealogists', Hertfordshire's Past, no. 25 (Autumn 1988) 8-13; E.E. Squires, 'William Blyth Gerish, Antiquary', East Herts Archaeological Society Transactions, vol. 7 (1923) 1-3; W. Branch Johnson, 'Thank You Mr Gerish', Hertfordshire's Past and Present, no. 8 (1968) 48-52; Nicholas Connell, 'An indefatigable antiquarian: the life and work of William Gerish', Hertfordshire's Past, no. 51 (Autumn 2001) 23-31.
[588] Charles Bernau to Lady Elizabeth Cust, 7 October 1910, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[589] Lady Elizabeth Cust was the daughter of the 5th Earl of Darnley.
[590] Memorandum and Articles of Association of TSGL (1911) 20, paragraph 22.
[591] Marquis of Ruvigny, The titled nobility of Europe (1914) 932. He seems to have called himself 'Marchese De Liveri Di Valdausa'.
[592] Charles Bernau, International Genealogical Directory, 2nd edition, 3rd Supplement (1911) No 1585.
[593] Fountain Lodge, 38 Larkhall Rise, built by Sir Francis Pettit Smith (died 1874) who invented the screw propeller.
[594] He was John Allan Rolls (1837-1912),created Baron Llangattock at the recommendation of Lord Salisbury on leaving office in 1894. His third and youngest son, Charles Stewart Rolls, killed in 1910, was one of the founders of Rolls-Royce [Complete Peerage, viii (1932) 98].
[595] Charles Bernau to George Apperson, 27 November 1910, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[596] The Antiquary, volume 47 (January 1911) 3-4.
[597] Charles Bernau to William Gerish, 26 April 1912, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[598] The Times, 15 February 1911.
[599] A suggestion in 1927 that the Society ‘register the pedigrees of those Russian refugees of noble birth who have settled in this country’, discussed in an editorial in the Magazine (vol. 3, no. 1, March 1927, 1) was not taken further.
[600] Obituary in The Times, 16 August 1921, 11b.
[601] He was knocked down by a cart outside The Temple Gates; The Times, 10 May 1919, 15b.
[602] George Sherwood, George Sherwood: Credentials, printed leaflet circulated by him in March 1940. Frank Evans was the father of Edward Ratcliffe (Evans),1st Lord Mountevans (1881-1957),known as 'Evans of the Broke' for his exploits on HMS Broke in 1917 and commander of the British Antarctic Expedition after the death of Captain Scott. The father does not seem to have been a genealogist as the Evans pedigree in Burke's Peerage (2003) does not show his date of birth or parentage.
[603] Obituary in GM, vol. 4, no. 1 (March 1928) 15. The obituary of Briggs is not signed but is in the style of George Sherwood.
[604] Sir Henry Arthur White, a Founder Member, resigned before 1919 and died 5 January 1922.
[605] The Antiquary, volume 47 (July 1911) 268-69.
[606] Malcolm Pinhorn, op. cit., note 10.
[607] George Sherwood, Credentials (1940) 2.
[608] The Antiquary, vol. 47 (August 1911) 314.
[609] Sir Walter Besant and G. E. Mitton, The Strand district (1902) 70.
[610] The Antiquary, vol. 47 (August 1911) 314.
[611] TSGL: Second Quarterly Report, Dec. 1911, 2. They were perhaps the rooms of the Women's Aerial League of the British Empire or the Surrey Engineering Company. Both organisation were at No 227 & 288 in the 1912 Directory but not listed in 1913.
[612] TSGL: Income and Expenditure Account. For the period 16th June, 1911, to 31st December, 1911. The firm Spencer, Santo & Co was then in liquidation; see London Gazette, Issue 28549, 10 November 1911, 8177.
[613] TSGL: Notice, Report and Balance Sheet and Accounts, as on 31st December, 1911.
[614] List (dated 15 August 1911) in TSGL, First QR, September 1911, 4.
[615] TPR, vol. 2, no. 18 (September 1911) 186.
[616] Charles Bernau, International Genealogical Index, Second Edition, Third Supplement (1911) xlv-xlvi.
[617] Malcolm Pinhorn, 'Foundation of the Society of Genealogists: a footnote' in GM, vol. 22, no. 5 (March 1987) 179-181.
[618] SoG 58th AR 1969, 1; obituary by Pirie Hogarth in GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 303-304; pedigree in Burke's Landed Gentry of Great Britain: The Kingdom in Scotland, sub 'Pirie-Gordon of Buthlaw' (2001) 531.
[619] TSGL: Ninth AR 1920, 9.
[620] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 1 and 4.
[621] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 4.
[622] Articles of Association, ‘Privileges’, 1911, pages 14-15; TSGL: Fellows' Interests, Form 1, printed March 1911.
[623] TSGL: Reporting Form, Form 3, printed March 1911.
[624] Quarterly Queries, No. 6, September 1918, page 21; postage of 6d in advance was requested in Quarterly Report, No. 8, March 1919, page 29.
[625] TSGL, Seventh AR 1918, 6.
[626] The Antiquary, vol. 47 (August 1911) 314.
[627] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 2.
[628] TSGL: Third QR, March, 1912, 2.
[629] TSGL, Incorporated 8th May, 1911, 1911-12, 10.
[630] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 6-23.
[631] He joined the Society in 1916, was elected a Fellow in 1924, and died on 1 July 1927 [obituary in GM, vol. 3, no. 3 (September 1927) 62-63]. He designed the Society's bookplate, based on the Seal, but it is not clear that he designed the Seal itself.
[632] TSGL: Eleventh AR, 1922, 6.
[633] Glencross's advertisement in the International Genealogical Directory (1907) 108.
[634] Obituary by George Sherwood in TPR, vol. 3, no. 32 (March 1915) 255-6 and (with photograph) in The British Archivist, vol. 1, nos. 19-20 (1914-5) 153-4.
[635] He advertised herald-painting in TPR (September 1911) back cover.
[636] TSGL: Income and Expenditure Account. For the period 16th June, 1911, to 31st December, 1911; Sixth QR, December 1912, 2.
[637] TSGL: Fifth QR, September 1912, 2.
[638] TSGL, 1911-12, 20-21.
[639] TSGL, First AR, 1912, 10.
[640] TSGL: Third QR, March, 1912, 2.
[641] Charles Bernau to George Apperson, 20 May 1912, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[642] TSGL: Sixth QR, December 1912, 2.
[643] TSGL: Sixth QR, December 1912, 2.
[644] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 21.
[645] 9 April 1913. TPR, iii, 25.
[646] The Times, 3 June 1913, 3.
[647] I have been unable to prove the identity of the secretary Constance Agnew with this person but it appears that it is the same lady.
[648] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 2.
[649] TSGL: Twelfth QR, June 1914, The Ancestor, vol. 50, 230.
[650] TSGL: Eleventh QR, March 1914, 107.
[651] TSGL: Seventh AR, 1918, 6; Quarterly Queries, No. 28, January 1924, page 112.
[652] GM, vol. 4, no. 1 (March 1928) 15.
[653] TSGL: Fifth QR, September 1912, 2.
[654] TSGL: First QR, Sept. 1911, 2.
[655] TSGL: Ninth QR, September 1913, in The Antiquary, Vol. 49, 351.
[656] TSGL: Specimen Index-Slips, examples dated 18 February 1911.
[657] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 2.
[658] TSGL: Fourth QR, June 1912, 2.
[659] TSGL: Fifth QR, September 1912, 3.
[660] TSGL: Eleventh QR, March 1914, in The Antiquary, vol. 50, 108.
[661] TSGL: Sixth QR, December 1912, 2.
[662] TSGL: Seventh AR 1918,7, 8 and 23.
[663] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 3.
[664] TSGL: Sixth QR, December 1912, 2.
[665] TSGL: Seventh QR, March 1913, 4.
[666] TSGL: Ninth QR, September 1913, 351.
[667] TSGL: Ninth QR, September 1913, 351.
[668] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 8.
[669] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 7.
[670] TSGL: Tenth QR, December 1913, 468.
[671] TSGL: Eleventh QR, March 1914, 108.
[672] TSGL: Seventh AR 1918, 6 and 23.
[673] TSGL: Seventh AR 1918, 8; Eighth AR 1919, 6.
[674] TSGL: Fourth QR, June 1912, 2.
[675] TSGL: Fifth QR, September 1912, 2; form letter, ‘Deeds – Letter to Landowners’.
[676] TSGL: Seventh QR, March 1913, 2.
[677] TSGL: Tenth QR, December 1913, 468.
[678] Quarterly Queries, No. 2, September 1917, page 12.
[679] Quarterly Queries, No. 6, September 1918, page 22
[680] Quarterly Queries, No. 7, December 1918, page 25.
[681] TSGL: First AR, 1912, 12-13.
[682] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 14-17.
[683] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 14-17.
[684] GM, vol. 5, no. 12 (December 1931) 406-8 etc.
[685] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 4 (December 1962),Official Section, 4.
[686] Anthony Camp, 'Records of the English Abroad', in Family History, vol. 12, Nos. 91/92 (August 1982) 203-17.
[687] He had seen active service with the 24th Regiment throughout the Punjab Campaign, 1848-9; Lieutenant, 1843; Half-Pay Captain, 1858; Major, 1881. He latterly called himself Lawrence-Archer. He was at Buckingham Road, Aylesbury, in 1871 as J. Henry L. Archer, birthplace ‘does not know Baptised in Jamaica’ [RG10/1411-71-31]. He died at Umberslade Parva, Bedfont Park, Chiswick, 14 February 1889; his will proved 5 March 1889, Effects £100.
[688] Philip Wight, Monumental Inscriptions of Jamaica (1966) v.
[689] Obituary of V. L. Oliver in GM, vol. 9, No. 6 (March 1942) 238.
[690] Obituary by Kathleen Blomfield in GM, vol. 10, No. 6 (June 1948) 182.
[691] TSGL: First QR, Sept. 1911, 3.
[692] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 2.
[693] TSGL: Seventh QR, March 1913, 2; Eighth QR, June 1913, 26l; Second AR, 1913, 4. The text does not survive.
[694] ‘Parish Pump History’ in Manchester Courier, 5 April 1913, 6.
[695] Nature, vol. 91 (17 April 1913),165-166.
[696] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 2.
[697] TSGL: Third QR, March 1912, 2.
[698] My diary, 6 January 1969, at 24 Melody Road, Wandsworth.
[699] Anthony Camp, ‘Mad Annie Druce and the saving of the Census’, in Family Tree Magazine (January 2002) 4-6.
[700] GM, vol. 11, no. 6 (June 1952) 215.
[701] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 2.
[702] TSGL: Third QR, March 1912, 2.
[703] TSGL: First AR, 1912, 13-14.
[704] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 3-4.
[705] TSGL: Fourth QR, June 1912, 2-3.
[706] TSGL: Sixth QR, December 1912, 3.
[707] TSGL: Seventh QR, March 1913, 3.
[708] TSGL: Ninth QR, September 1913, The Antiquary, vol. 49, 351.
[709] TSGL: Fifteenth AR, 1926, 6.
[710] TSGL: Fourteenth AR, 1925, 5.
[711] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 3-4.
[712] Typed circular sent with copies of the Third QR, April 1912; Fourth QR, June 1912, 2.
[713] TSGL: Fifth QR, September 1912, 2.
[714] Royal Commission on Public Records: Appendices to the Second Report; volume II (Part II) (1914) 290-91.
[715] TSGL, Seventh QR, March 1913, 1; he was already a Founder and Fellow but had decided to resign from the Executive Committee.
[716] TSGL: Seventh QR, March 1913, 2. The date 27 January there given is incorrect; no evidence was taken on that date.
[717] Royal Commission on Public Records: Minutes of Evidence and Index to the Second Report; volume II (Part III) (1914) 44-46.
[718] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 2 (1914) 204.
[719] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 50-54.
[720] In 1913 he submitted ‘Some notes on the ancient ecclesiastical records now deposited in the Principal Probate Registry’ to the Royal Commission (Appendices to the Second Report, vol. 2, part 2 (1914) 92-94. His talk to the Royal Historical Society on 13 January 1921, ‘Notes from the Ecclesiastical Court Record at Somerset House’, was printed in its Transactions, Fourth Series, vol. 4 (December 1921) 103-139. In it he says that the records had been inaccessible for the last 60 or 70 years but that the position had recently been ‘somewhat modified’.
[721] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 2 (1914) s, 36-37 and 137.
[722] Appendices to the Second Report of the Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 2 (1914) 291-292, and vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 40-42.
[723] Appendices to the Second Report of the Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 47-48.
[724] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 45.
[725] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 2 (1914) 201.
[726] A list of the Lancashire wills proved within the archdeaconry of Richmond ... from 1793 to 1812, Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society, vol. 66 (1913) v-vi. The Probate Registry now operated an hundred year rule for the publication of indexes by private societies.
[727] TSGL: Seventh QR, March 1913, 2.
[728] TSGL: Fourth QR, June 1912, 2.
[729] TSGL: Eighth QR, June 1913, 2.
[730] Editorial in The British Archivist, vol. 1, no. 1 (March 1913) 1-4.
[731] A detailed listing of some 495 cases with first plaintiffs’ surnames beginning with ‘A’, from the Country Depositions in C22, which had been abstracted by Frederick Simon Snell.
[732] Prospectus for A thoroughly exhaustive genealogical work: Sixteenth Century Marriages, circulated with TPR, June 1911.
[733] TPR, vol. 2, no. 19 (December 1911) 224.
[734] 1911 Census of 5 Dryden Mansions, Queen's Club Gardens, West Kensington, London W.
[735] GM, vol. 8, no 5 (March 1939) 279.
[736] Evening News, 25 October 1921.
[737] TSGL: Fifth QR, September 1912, 2.
[738] TPR, vol. 3, no. 27 (December 1913) 96.
[739] TSGL: Tenth QR, December 1913, in The Antiquary, vol. 49, 468.
[740] TSGL: Eleventh QR, March 1914, in The Antiquary, vol. 50, 108.
[741] TPR, vol. 3, no. 26 (September 1913) 62.
[742] TPR, vol. 3, no. 26 (September 1913) 62; Second AR, 1913,4-5.
[743] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 22.
[744] TPR, vol. 3, no. 27 (December 1913) 94-95.
[745] Suggestions for Hon. Local Secretaries [April 1914].
[746] The Antiquary, vol. 50 (June 1914) 231.
[747] TPR, vol. 3, no. 27 (December 1913) 94; Eleventh QR, March 1914, in The Antiquary, vol. 50, 107.
[748] The Antiquary, vol. 50 (June 1914) 230.
[749] Notice inserted in Seventh Report, 1918.
[750] Advertisement on back cover of TPR, June 1913.
[751] Advertisements on back covers of TPR, December 1913 and March 1914.
[752] Not all were covered; see Society of Genealogists: a century of family history (2011) 131.
[753] The Genealogical Co-operative Search Club: The Hon. Treasurer's and Secretary's Report for the Year 1914/15, 2.
[754] The Antiquary, vol. 50 (June 1914) 230.
[755] TPR, vol. 3, no. 31 (December 1914) 223.
[756] TPR, vol. 3, no. 36 (March 1916) Preface.
[757] This had been stated by J.T. Smith, Nollekens and his times, ii (1828) 206-8, and E. B. Chancellor, The eighteenth century in London (1920).
[758] W.L. Rutton, 'Bloomsbury Square: Isaac Ware and Isaac D'Israeli, Residents' in Home Counties Magazine, iv (1902). At a meeting at the Society on 24 May 1924, Mr. H.W. Peel said that the rate books showed that although the house had masqueraded as No 23 Hart Street for some years, it had always been No 5 and not No 6, but Mr Duncan Moul thought that No 5 was formerly part of a fine private residence, No 6 [The Morning Post, 25 May 1924].
[759] Dictionary of National Biography, sub John Radcliffe.
[760] Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert, eds, The London Encyclopaedia (1995) 78.
[761] Page 356.
[762] Open House London: Architectural Information: Pushkin House, 5A Bloomsbury Square WC1 (September 2011).
[763] TSGL: Income and expenditure account: For the year ended 31 December 1914.
[764] TSGL: Seventh AR 1918, 27.
[765] TSGL: Seventh AR 1918, 6.
[766] ’50 years of rock climbing’, in The Times, 13 April 1936.
[767] Note on 'Finance' in TSGL: Report of Quarterly Meeting, 22 October 1915, 3.
[768] TSGL: 12th QR, June 1914, in The Antiquary, vol. 50 (1914) 230.
[769] They are listed in TPR, vol. 3, no. 36 (March 1916) 371-4.
[770] Circular from J. Leonard E. Hoopell, Chairman of Library Sub-Committee, 30 0ctober 1915.
[771] Note on 'The Library' in TSGL: Report of Quarterly Meeting, 22 October 1915, 3-4; The antiquary, vol. 50 (June 1914) 230.
[772] Balance Sheet, 1916, 'Pedigree Papers, 7s 3d'.
[773] The British Archivist, vol. 1, nos. 19-20 (June 1915) 154.
[774] Second AR, 1913, 22.
[775] TSGL: Seventh Quarterly Report, March 1913, 4.
[776] The British Archivist, vol. 1, no. 18 (August 1914) 152.
[777] The British Archivist, vol. 1, nos. 21-22 (April 1920) 165.
[778] Subsequently Sir Gerald Woods Wollaston, Garter King of Arms, 1930-44, died 4 March 1957, aged 82.
[779] Sir Henry Howorth (1842-1923) was a Vice-President of the Society, 1915-22.
[780] TSGL: Report of Quarterly Meeting, 22 October 1915.
[781] TPR, vol. 3, no. 35 (December 1915) 352.
[782] He resigned in 1939 and died at Norwich in 1944, aged 87.
[783] TPR, vol. 3, no. 36 (March 1916) 382-3.
[784] Well known local antiquary, died aged 68; obituary in Shrewsbury Chronicle, 21 April 1860.
[785] An illuminator and designer of book-plates, she was the daughter of Robert Lucas Pearsall, madrigal composer, and married John Hughes, barrister of the Inner Temple; obituary in The Musical Times, 1 March 1917, page 117.
[786] Quarterly Queries, No. 12, March 1920, page 45.
[787] The Church Times, 11 March 1917.
[788] Quarterly Queries, No. 15, December 1920, page 59.
[789] Quarterly Queries, No. 4, March 1918, page 13; TSGL: Seventh AR 1918, 6.
[790] The list of 'Lectures delivered to the Society of Genealogists' published in GM, vol. 5 (March 1931) 289-90, is not complete.
[791] Quarterly Queries, No. 27, December 1923, page 108.
[792] TPR, vol. 3, no. 35 (December 1915) 352.
[793] Circular letter to Members, 19 April 1916.
[794] Quarterly Queries, No. 4, March 1918, page13: No. 6, June 1918, page 17; No. 6, September 1918, page 21; No. 7, December 1918, pages 25-26; No. 11, December 1919, page 41.
[795] The Spectator, November 1918.
[796] TSGL: Seventh AR 1918, 7.
[797] Quarterly Queries, No. 31 (December 1924) 1.
[798] TPR, vol. 3, no. 35 (December 1915) 351-2.
[799] Prospectus for Dramatis Personae, circulated with TPR; it was not a ‘new journal’ as stated in Michael Sharpe, op. cit. (2011) 113-4.
[800] George Sherwood, The Pedigree Directory 1917 (1917) 67.
[801] Advertisement in TPR, vol. 3, no. 36 (March 1916) back cover.
[802] I was told by Duncan Harrington in 1996 that he had seen a suggestion that Charles Edward Banks paid for their extraction; Duncan Harrington to Anthony Camp, 23 September 1996.
[803] The Genealogical Co-operative Search Club: Prospectus for Minor Search 18, 15 September 1921, 2.
[804] ? County, by Charles A. Bernau (Breage, 1932) Explanation.
[805] Electoral Registers.
[806] GM, vol. 9, no. 15 (September 1946) iv.
[807] The Times, 17 July 1939, 1a. She moved back to the Lewisham area after his death and died in 1988.
[808] Principal Probate Registry; his estate was proved at £3,741-2-3.
[809] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962),Official Section, 5-6.
[810] His The planters of the Commonwealth was published in 1931.
[811] He described himself as 'county council record keeper' when acting as executor to his aunt Annie Josephine Holworthy in 1937. Felix Hull said that he brought together a great quantity of private and other archives in the Record Office.
[812] SoG 51st AR 1962, 2.
[813] Society of Genealogists of London: Seventh AR 1918, 8.
[814] Quarterly Queries, No. 20 (March 1922) 79.
[815] Quarterly Queries, No. 21 (June 1922) 84.
[816] Society of Genealogists of London: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 2 and 4.
[817] Eighth AR 1919, 7.
[818] Although the records are not complete, of the 126,593 persons baptised into the Church by the British missions between 1837 and 1937, over 52,000 emigrated to America; V. Ben Bloxham, &c., op. cit. (1987) 355.
[819] She had joined prior to 1919 and remained a member until her death in 1933; GM, vol. 6, no. 9 (March 1934) 411.
[820] James B. Allen, &c., op. cit. (1995) 59-80.
[821] Eighth AR, 1919, 7.
[822] Quarterly Queries, No. 6, September 1918, page 22.
[823] Quarterly Queries, No. 6, September 1918, page 22.
[824] Quarterly Queries, No. 4, March 1918, page 14.
[825] Eighth AR, 1919, 8-9.
[826] Quarterly Queries, No. 13, June 1920, page 51.
[827] Ninth AR, 1920, 7.
[828] Tenth AR, 1921, 7.
[829] Eleventh AR, 1922, 8.
[830] Quarterly Queries, No. 13, June 1920, page 51, and No. 22, September 1922, page 88.
[831] Quarterly Queries, No. 11, December 1919, page 41.
[832] Quarterly Queries, No. 22, September 1922, page 88.
[833] Quarterly Queries, No. 20, March 1922, page 80.
[834] Twelfth AR, 1923, 7.
[835] Thirteenth AR, 1924, 8.
[836] Thirteenth AR, 1924, 28.
[837] Fourteenth AR, 1925, 6.
[838] Quarterly Queries, No. 4, March 1918, page 13.
[839] Quarterly Queries, No. 30, September 1924, page 119.
[840] ‘Book Plates: Ex-Libris Society’s Successor’, in The Times, 22 March 1919, page 9.
[841] Eighth AR, 1919, 10; also Quarterly Queries, No. 9, June 1919, page 33.
[842] Ninth AR, 1920, 18.
[843] Thirteenth AR, 1924, 28; he was of 78 Worsley Road, Leytonstone, chartered accountant, in 1901; there, MA, PhD, in 1914 [Kelly’s Directory]; and there genealogist (retired) in 1911.
[844] Eleventh AR, 1922, 8; Quarterly Queries, No. 24, March 1923, page 96, says 58 volumes.
[845] Eleventh AR, 1922, 26; Quarterly Queries, No. 23, December 1922, page 91.
[846] Twelfth AR, 1923, 8.
[847] Twelfth AR, 1923, 8 and 28.
[848] Quarterly Queries, No. 23, December 1922, page 91.
[849] Fourteenth AR, 1925, 6.
[850] The Times, 20 February 1919.
[851] I have undated cuttings of these letters but they do not appear in The Times Digital Archive.
[852] The Times, 12 June 1919.
[853] Church Times, 30 May 1919.
[854] Written Answer by Mr Baldwin, Secretary to the Treasury, to Mr Perkins, 22 April 1920.
[855] Eighth AR, 1919, 8.
[856] Ninth AR, 1920, 6.
[857] 'All about your family', in Evening News, 14 October 1921.
[858] Brigadier-General H. C. Surtees to Gerald Fothergill, 1 May 1922.
[859] Eighth AR, 1919, 8.
[860] He was a nephew of the SoG's earlier President the Marquess of Tweeddale.
[861] Obituary in The Field, 13 December 1923.
[862] 'The value of old records: a plea for their preservation', in Wiltshire Gazette, 9 December 1920; TSGL, Ninth AR, 1920, 6-7.
[863] Eleventh AR, 1922, 9.
[864] TSGL, Seventh AR, 1918, 7.
[865] TSGL, Eighth AR, 1919, 9.
[866] Quarterly Queries, No. 10, September 1919, page 37.
[867] TSGL, Eighth AR, 1919, 7.
[868] TSGL, Ninth AR, 1920, 7.
[869] TSGL, Ninth AR, 1920, 7-8.
[870] Though he was not listed in the AR.
[871] Society of Genealogists: a century of family history (2011) 170.
[872] In 1951 the Whitmore papers showed that she had a regular stream of work from John B. Whitmore.
[873] 49th AR, 1960, 1; GM, vol. 13, no. 5 (March 1960) 156.
[874] Unfortunately no record that I have seen provides her forename.
[875] TSGL, Tenth AR, 1921, 7.
[876] TSGL, Eleventh AR, 1922, 7.
[877] Quarterly Queries, No. 23, December 1922, page 91: No. 24, March 1923, page 95: No. 25, June 1923, page 99: No. 26, September 1923, page 103.
[878] TSGL, Twelfth AR, 1923, 8.
[879] Quarterly Queries, No. 26, September 1923, page 103; ‘Society of Genealogists: progress of research work’, in The Times, 28 June 1923.
[880] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 26 (September 1923) 103.
[881] TSGL: Twelfth AR, 1923, 6, 9 and 31.
[882] TSGL: To my fellow members: George Sherwood, August 1923.
[883] Quarterly Queries, No. 29, June 1924, page 115.
[884] The Society of Genealogists: Fifteenth AR 1926, 5 and 8.
[885] ‘The pedigree hunters: Americans who hustle the London genealogists’, in Evening News, 17 September 1925.
[886] ‘Pedigree hunting is so thrilling’, in The Evening News, 30 March 1926.
[887] ‘Expensive searches for noble ancestors’, in Nottingham Evening Post, 8 December 1927, 6.
[888] Kathleen Blomfield to Francis Humphrey-Davy, 9 October 1935.
[889] Anthony Powell, ‘A Veteran Membership’, in GM, vol. 23, no. 11 (September 1991) 419.
[890] Ninth QR, September 1913, in The Antiquary, Vol. 49, 352.
[891] ‘Public School Registers’, in The Times, 16 October 1919.
[892] His father, Cholmeley Austen Leigh (died 1899),was the son of Revd James Edward Austen Leigh (died 1874),the son of Jane’s brother James Austen by his second wife Mary Lloyd [Burke’s Landed Gentry, ii (1969) 381, sub Knight of Chawton].
[893] GM, vol. 5, no. 1 (March 1929) 18.
[894] George Sherwood, Credentials (March 1940) 2.
[895] James Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary 1867-1953 (1959) 46.
[896] James Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary 1867-1953 (1959) 49.
[897] Evening News, 25 October 1921.
[898] The Society of Genealogists, Tenth AR 1921, 8; The Times, 29 October 1921 (which only mentioned Hooppell).
[899] Eleventh AR, 1922, 8.
[900] Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 234, note 3.
[901] Introduction by Roger Ararat to Charles Skilton's reprint of The Jacobite Peerage (1974) ix-xxxi.
[902] W. Raymond Powell, John Horace Round (2001) 180.
[903] TSGL, Tenth AR 1921, 8.
[904] The Evening News, Saturday, 16 October 1920.
[905] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 12 (March 1920) 1; The Times Literary Supplement, 16 February 1922. Some 31 volumes of Baigent's notes, mainly on the ecclesiastical history of Hampshire, were given to the British Library; see C.R.J. Currie and C.P. Lewis, English County Histories: a Guide (1994) 172. He was the co-author with James Millard of a History of Basingstoke (1889).
[906] John Challenor Covington Smith, in evidence to the Royal Commission on Public Records, 23 January 1913 (Vol. II, Part III) 48.
[907] Douglas Woodruff, The Tichborne Claimant (1957) 204. For Baigent's involvement see 67-68, &c.
[908] Woodruff, op. cit. (1957) 239.
[909] The Times, 12 October 1921; Westminster Gazette, 12 October 1921; Daily Chronicle, 14 October 1921; Evening News, 14 October 1921.
[910] Morning Post, 15 October 1921.
[911] Evidence of Samuel Minnis, Royal Commission of Public Records: Appendices to the Second Report: Volume II (Part II.) (1914) 127.
[912] Gerald Fothergill to S. Minnis, Inland Revenue, 1 December 1914, and his reply, 8 December 1914.
[913] Quarterly Queries, No. 20, March 1922, page 80, and No. 21, June 1922, page 84, and No. 23, December 1922, page 91; Eleventh AR 1922, 7.
[914] Twelfth AR, 1923, 7.
[915] Eleventh AR, 1922, 8; Quarterly Queries, No. 24, March 1923, thanked him for presenting six boxes of index slips to the Registers which suggests he had completed the task.
[916] Sixteenth AR, 1927, 5.
[917] Sixteenth AR, 1927, 6; she resigned her membership in 1937 and died 27 June 1950; obituary in GM, vol. 11 (September 1951) 110.
[918] AR, 1932, 1.
[919] GM, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1937) 18 and 22.
[920] GM, vol. 7, no. 7 (September 1936) 366.
[921] GM, vol. 7, no. 11 (September 1937) 595.
[922] 'Index to Chancery Proceedings on the Defendant Side', publicity note by Gerald Fothergill, n.d.
[923] We were still selling copies in the SoG bookshop in the 1960s when Phyllis Shield sold the world rights to the Genealogical Publishing Company for $50.
[924] GM, vol. 2, no. 4 (December 1926) 106 and vii; Fifteenth AR, 1926, 7.
[925] Obituary in GM, vol. 15, no. 14 (June 1968) 615. Phyllis Winifred Shield was the daughter of Dr Robert Delafosse Shield, of Chelsea, and after his death her mother married Gerald Fothergill. She had a high reputation for careful genealogical work, became an Associate Member in 1935, and prepared many thousands of slips for the PCC will indexes published by the British Record Society.
[926] The title became extinct in 1964.
[927] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 22 (September 1922) 87.
[928] Tenth QR, December 1913, in The Antiquary, vol. 49, 468.
[929] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 21 (June 1922) 83.
[930] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 22 (September 1922) 87.
[931] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 23 (December 1922) 92.
[932] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 24 (March 1923) 95.
[933] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 25 (June 1923) 99.
[934] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 26 (September 1923) 103.
[935] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 27 (December 1923) 107.
[936] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 28 (January recte March 1924) 111.
[937] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 29 (June 1924) 115; Moul was an insurance manager but well known for his pen and ink illustrations in journals and ‘picturesque’ county volumes.
[938] GM, vol. 1, no. 3 (September 1925) 91.
[939] GM, vol. 1, no. 4 (December 1925) 122.
[940] ‘Those terrible initials’, in Morning Post, 25 February 1929.
[941] GM, vol. 6, no. 5 (March 1933) 208.
[942] TSGL: Anglo-Irish Genealogy by Revd H. L. L. Denny, a paper read ... 12 May 1916, 8.
[943] Arthur Vicars, Index to the Prerogative Wills of Ireland 1536-1810 (Dublin, 1897).
[944] The insignia of the Order of St Patrick as worn by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in his capacity as Grand Master of the Order and then valued at upwards of £50,000.
[945] Susan Hood, Royal Roots - Republican Inheritance: The survival of the Office of Arms (Dublin, 2002) 63.
[946] Susan Hood, Royal Roots - Republican Inheritance: The survival of the Office of Arms (Dublin, 2002) 114-15.
[947] He gave 2,430 sheets in 6 bundles in 1921, Tenth AR, 1921, 18, and 769 sheets in 1922, Eleventh AR, 1922, 8.
[948] SoG AR 1986, 7; SoG AR 1987, 5.
[949] ‘Family histories: full records of 2,000,000 different surnames’, in Evening News, 11 February 1925.
[950] ‘Last of the Shansfields: origin of family name lost in the mists of time’, in Daily Chronicle, 29 July 1925.
[951] The Morning Post, 21 July 1924.
[952] ‘Pedigree peddling’ and ‘The pedigree pedlars: bogus family trees for Americans’, in Daily Mail, 30 April 1926.
[953] The Times, 5 November 1924.
[954] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 30 (September 1924) 119; SoG, AR, 1928, 3.
[955] SoG, AR, 1925, 8.
[956] SoG, AR, 1925, 7.
[957] GM, vol. 4, no. 4 (December 1928) 73.
[958] Obituary by Cregoe Nicholson, in GM, vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 516-17.
[959] Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage (2003) sub Denny of Castle Moyle.
[960] GM, vol. 5, no. 11 (September 1931) 349.
[961] Revd Sir Henry Denny died in 1953, aged 74; obituary in GM, vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 516-17.
[962] SoG AR 1925, 7.
[963] GM, vol. 1, no. 1 (April 1925) 21.
[964] GM, vol. 1, no. 2 (June 1925) 33, and no. 4 (December 1925) 122.
[965] SoG AR 1926, 6.
[966] SoG AR 1927, 6; SoG AR 1928, 7.
[967] SoG AR 1933, 2.
[968] GM, vol. 1, no. 1 (April 1925) 19 and vii.
[969] Obituary in GM, vol. 11, no. 10 (June 1953) 352-53.
[970] George Sherwood to John Beach Whitmore, 31 December 1940.
[971] GM, vol. 1, no. 3 (September 1925) 65.
[972] ‘Gypsy Blood’, in The Times, 18 December 1933.
[973] ‘“F.E. Smith’s” Gipsy blood’, in Observer, 17 December 1933.
[974] ‘Lord Birkenhead’s “Gipsy Blood”: daughter not certain’, in Daily Telegraph, 18 December 1933.
[975] SoG AR 1933, 2.
[976] Anthony R. Wagner, ‘The Royal descent of Mr Neville Chamberlain’, in GM, vol. 8, no. 4 (December 1938) 204-5.
[977] ‘Mr Chamberlain’s ancestry’, in Birmingham Post, 6 October 1938.
[978] ‘Genealogical Nonsense’, in Truth, 30 December 1938; ‘Royal Descent Deduction’, in Bristol Evening Post, 9 January 1939.
[979] GM, vol. 2, no. 1 (March 1926) 2.
[980] GM, vol. 2, no. 3 (September 1926) 65-66.
[981] GM, vol. 10, no. 6 (June 1948) 187.
[982] Obituary by B. S. Bramwell, in GM, vol. 9, no. 14 (March 1946) 540-41, and The Eugenics Review (1946) 48; see also Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes.
[983] His article 'School Registers in the possession of the Society' in GM, vol. 9, no. 4 (March 1941) 113-16, deals only with the nine schools examined by the Public Schools Commission in 1862, i.e. Charterhouse, Eton, Harrow, Merchant Taylors', Rugby, Shrewsbury, St Paul's, Westminster and Winchester.
[984] ‘Colonel Parker: squire and antiquary’, in The Times, 25/26 February 1938.
[985] He advertised in GM, December 1933 to September 1934, based at Norwich.
[986] SoG AR 1932, 2.
[987] GM, vol. 6, no. 7 (September 1933) 286.
[988] GM, vol. 6, no. 11 (September 1934) 511.
[989] SoG AR 1934, 1-2.
[990] SoG AR 1935, 2.
[991] SoG AR 1936, 2.
[992] GM, vol. 5, no. 10 (June 1931) 309, and no. 11 (September 1931) 352; review in The Observer, 18 September 1932.
[993] GM, vol. 7, no. 9 (March 1937) 480.
[994] SoG AR 1936, 2.
[995] B. S. Bramwell, 'Genealogy and the Order of Merit', in GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) 493-99.
[996] Obituary by Kathleen Blomfield in GM, vol. 10, no. 8 (December 1948) 267.
[997] GM, vol. 5, no. 7 (September 1930) 226.
[998] The statement in Subject Index to Volumes 1 to 26 of GM 1925-2000 (2002) 4 that it was published separately is not correct.
[999] SoG AR 1924, 2.
[1000] SoG AR 1938, 2.
[1001] He tried to answer his critics in 'Pauperism and heredity' in The Eugenics Review, vol. xiv (April 1922) 152-163.
[1002] 'Family ability: persistence of cleverness through generations', and 'The descent of Man', in The Morning Post, 6 December 1923.
[1003] 'The descent of genius', in Westminster Gazette, 7 December 1923.
[1004] The Londoner, 'The goodly heritage', in Evening News, 7 December 1923.
[1005] GM, vol. 5, no. 7 (September 1930) 221.
[1006] Mazumdar, op. cit. (1999) 37-38.
[1007] Andrew Parkin, 'Henry Twitchin and the expansion of the Eugenics Society between the Wars', in Galton Institute Newsletter, March 2006.
[1008] Mazumdar, op. cit. (1999) 38; see also Robert A. Peel, ed., Essays in the history of eugenics (Galton Institute, 1998).
[1009] Obituary in The Eugenics Review, January 1949, 188; another by Mrs Blomfield in GM, vol. 10, no. 8 (December 1948) 267.
[1010] Kathleen Hodson, The Eugenics Review 1909-1968, 169.
[1011] Obituary in GM, vol. 12, no. 13 (March 1958) 451. He called himself ‘Beach Whitmore’ but to friends usually signed himself ‘John’.
[1012] An editorial in GM, vol. 2, no. 4 (December 1926) 89, saying that a new edition of Marshall's Guide was one of the great needs of the day revealed that Whitmore had been working intermittently on a supplement for five years, hoping for publication in 1929 [GM, vol. 3, no. 4 (December 1927) 73]. A later plea by William F. Carter that the Society itself start to compile such an index, appeared in GM, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1935) 25.
[1013] J. A. Venn to J. B. Whitmore, 17 June 1953.
[1014] Obituary by Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 20, no 11 (September 1982) 388.
[1015] Jointly published at £4.00 by the Research Publishing Company and the Society; reviewed in GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 359.
[1016] Anthony J. Camp, 'British pedigrees and interests: who else has been working on this family' in Genealogical Research Directory: National & International (Melbourne, 2000) 17-25.
[1017] GM, vol. 1, no. 1 (April 1925) 21.
[1018] Catalogue of Parish Registers in the possession of the Society of Genealogists (1924) 4.
[1019] GM, vol. 1, no. 3 (September 1925) 72.
[1020] GM, vol. 1, no. 4 (December 1925) 122; that issue did not appear until after 11 February 1926 as is apparent from other entries on that page.
[1021] SoG AR 1926, 6-7.
[1022] SoG AR 1927, 6.
[1023] SoG AR 1929, 2.
[1024] SoG AR 1930, 2.
[1025] SoG AR 1931, 2.
[1026] SoG AR 1932, 2.
[1027] GM, vol. 6, no. 10 (June 1934) 433.
[1028] Obituary in GM, vol. 15, no. 9 (March 1967) 344.
[1029] ‘East Anglian Miscellany’ in East Anglian Daily Times, 4 August 1934.
[1030] SoG AR 1935, 1; obituary by Kathleen Blomfield in GM, vol. 7, no. 6 (June 1936) 311.
[1031] GM, vol. 7, no. 3 (September 1935) 122.
[1032] GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 141 and 146-47.
[1033] e.g. 'Thirty Million Romances', from our own correspondent, Upper Warlingham, The People, Sunday, 1 August 1937.
[1034] ‘How your ancestors are traced’, in Dundee Evening Telegraph, 26 January 1939.
[1035] SoG AR 1939, 2.
[1036] GM, vol. 9, no. 10 (March 1944) 397.
[1037] GM, vol. 10, no. 5 (March 1948) vi.
[1038] GM, vol. 10, no. 6 (June 1948) vi.
[1039] SoG AR 1955, 1.
[1040] GM, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1935) 23.
[1041] SoG AR 1934, 2.
[1042] SoG AR 1935, 1; the amount given is not specified in the Annual Accounts.
[1043] GM, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1935) 26.
[1044] GM, vol. 7, no. 2 (June 1935) 76.
[1045] GM, vol. 7, no. 3 (September 1935) 121.
[1046] SoG AR 1935, 1.
[1047] J. B. Allen, J. L. Embry and K.B. Mehr, op. cit. (1995) 144.
[1048] Editorial, GM, vol. 3, no. 2 (June 1927) 25.
[1049] Lord Farrer, TS 'Draft of suggested petition to the Lord Chancellor' [c.1926].
[1050] B. G. Bouwens, Wills and their whereabouts (1939) 25.
[1051] B. G. Bouwens, Wills and their whereabouts (1939) 1-2.
[1052] 'Preservation of parish records', in The Times, 18 October 1920.
[1053] ‘Parish Registers’, in The Church Times, 1 May 1925.
[1054] Dorothy L. Powell, ed., Guide to archives and other collections of documents relating to Surrey: Parish records, civil and ecclesiastical (1927).
[1055] ‘The care of parish registers’, in GM, vol. 4, no. 3 (September 1928) 62-63.
[1056] By the Law of Property Acts of 1922 and 1924 and the Land Registration Act of 1925 the preservation of manorial records was no longer a legal necessity.
[1057] ‘The preservation of ancient documents’, in GM, vol. 5, no. 11 (September 1931) 368.
[1058] ‘The British Records Association’, in GM, vol. 7, no. 4 (December 1935) 197.
[1059] GM, vol. 5, no. 6 (June 1930) 161.
[1060] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) page 389.
[1061] GM, vol. 5, no. 8 (December 1930) 246-247.
[1062] Guy Parsloe, ‘Migrations of Historical Manuscripts’, in GM, vol. 5, no. 6 (June 1930) 168-169.
[1063] ‘County Muniment Room Opened’, in The Western Morning News & Mercury, 20 April 1931.
[1064] J. E. King, ed., Inventory of parochial documents in the Diocese of Bath and Wells and the County of Somerset (Somerset County Council County Records Committee, 1938).
[1065] ‘Access to Records’, in The Times, 21 November 1933.
[1066] Obituary by Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 25, no. 6 (June 1996) 235-7.
[1067] F. G. Emmison, 'The genealogical sources of the Bedfordshire Record Office’, in GM, vol. 7, no. 4 (December 1935) 172-6.
[1068] Page 176.
[1069] The Lord Farrer, 'English Genealogy', in GM, vol. 7, no. 4 (December 1935) 179-182.
[1070] ‘Ecclesiastical News: preserving parish registers’, in The Times, 20 December 1933.
[1071] The Englishman (Calcutta),7 May 1921.
[1072] Hugh Eyre Campbell Beaver (1890-1967) was Knighted, 1943.
[1073] GM, vol. 2, no. 2 (June 1926) 57.
[1074] GM, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1935) 25.
[1075] GM, vol. 7, no. 4 (December 1935) 179-80.
[1076] GM, vol. 5, no. 3 (September 1929) 81.
[1077] SoG AR 1931, 1-2.
[1078] GM, vol. 6, no. 7 (September 1933) 326.
[1079] GM, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1935) 25.
[1080] GM, vol. 9, no. 1 (March 1940) 14. The typed volume for 1706-1709 was not accessioned until September 1946; GM, vol. 9, no. 15 (September 1946) 39.
[1081] GM, vol. 4, no. 3 (September 1928) 68.
[1082] William Brock, A young Congo missionary: memorials of Sidney Roberts Webb, M.D. (1897); review in The British Medical Journal, vol. 1, no. 1886 (20 February 1897) 468-9.
[1083] Notice of AGM 16 May 1928.
[1084] GM, vol. 5, no. 9 (March 1931) 288.
[1085] GM, vol. 12, no. 9 (March 1957) 313. In 1938 she commenced a slip-index to the marriages in the registers of the Society of Friends [GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 146].
[1086] GM, vol. 12, no. 9 (March 1957) 313; GRO Death Indexes, March Quarter 1955, Tonbridge, 5b 1142.
[1087] The Hamilton Advertiser, 3 November 1928, following a talk by A. E. Stamp; Robertson’s name is appended to an article in the 7 December 1929 issue following a talk by G. W. Wollaston, Norroy.
[1088] ‘Pharaoh’s lost daughter’, in Daily Graphic, 7 March 1926.
[1089] The Hamilton Advertiser, 28 July 1928.
[1090] For Harold Waring Atkinson see Alumni Cantabrigienses; he received the MBE (1919) as Hon. Librarian to the British Prisoners of War Book Scheme; joined SoG, 1923; elected Fellow 1931; author of Families of Atkinson of Roxby and Thorne and Dearman of Braithwaite (1933); incorrectly called Harold Blaxland Atkinson in SoG History (2011).
[1091] GM, vol. 5, no. 1 (March 1929) 21.
[1092] GM, vol. 5, no. 2 (June 1929) 45.
[1093] Specimen Index Slips.
[1094] GM, vol. 5, no. 9 (March 1931) 288.
[1095] She was born in Fulham RD, 17 July 1895 [GRO Birth and Death Indexes].
[1096] GM, vol. 5, no. 9 (March 1931) 288.
[1097] 1901 Census Returns for 57 Victoria Road, Hornsey, Middlesex; The National Archives, RG13/1239-80-37/37; in the 1911 Census he said that he was born in London.
[1098] The National Archives, Divorce Court File J77/2188/8545; they had married in 1917.
[1099] Who Was Who 1941-1950; GM, vol. 6, no. 6 (June 1933) 237.
[1100] Daily Graphic, 5 July 1949.
[1101] GM, vol. 7, no. 3 (September 1935) 115.
[1102] GM, vol. 7, no. 6 (June 1936) 299.
[1103] GM, vol. 7, no. 9 (March 1937) 479
[1104] GM, vol. 7, no. 11 (September 1937) 575.
[1105] GM, vol. 5, no. 5 (March 1930) 129.
[1106] GM, vol. 6, no. 3 (September 1932) 102.
[1107] SoG AR 1930, 1.
[1108] Obituary in GM, vol. 5, no. 10 (June 1931) 327.
[1109] ‘With the pedigree hunters’, in Liverpool Post, 10 July 1931.
[1110] GM, vol. 5, no. 11 (September 1931) 349.
[1111] SoG AR 1931, 1.
[1112] SoG AR 1932, 1.
[1113] SoG AR 1933, 1.
[1114] GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 142 (he retired from the Executive Committee in July 1938).
[1115] His Arms, registered at the College of Arms and at Ulster Office, are detailed in A. C. Fox-Davies, Armorial Families (1929) 462-3.
[1116] Reprinted with many corrections in Anthony J. Camp, My ancestors came with the Conqueror: those who did, and some of those who probably did not (1988, 1990).
[1117] T. R. Thomson, 'The Falaise celebrations', in GM, vol. 5, no. 12 (December 1931) 394-97; ‘The Conqueror’s Companions: claims of descent questioned’, in The Observer, 17 January 1932; ‘Simple Faith and Norman Blood’, in Sunday Times, 17 January 1932; ‘The Conqueror’s Companions’, in Sunday Times, 7 February 1932.
[1118] GM, vol. 5, no. 12 (December 1931) 389.
[1119] ‘Companions of the Conqueror: genealogists’ doubts on descent’, in The Times, 15 February 1932; ‘Companions of Conqueror’, in Daily Telegraph, 15 February 1932; ’New Battle of Hastings: to settle claims to Norman blood’, in Sunday Times, 14 February 1932; ‘Simple faith or Norman blood’, in Observer, 14 February 1932; ‘Companions of the Conqueror’, in Guardian, 19 February 1932; ‘The Conqueror’s Companions’, in Melbourne Argus, February 1932; Saturday Night (Canada),14 March 1932.
[1120] GM, vol. 6, no. 2 (June 1932) 50-57.
[1121] ‘”I’m a Norman, aren’t we all?”: and all except the Chinese agreed’, in Sunday Express, 14 February 1932.
[1122] When young he contributed a pedigree of his Clack ancestry to TPR, vol. 1 (December 1908) 185-8, and was then a frequent contributor, but in June 1909 (vol. 2, 129-30) he wrote that his family’s ‘gentle origin’ and ‘ultra-Tory state of mind forbids any familiar intercourse with the proletariat’. Sherwood added a note that no family is really of gentle origin and that Clack descended from an innkeeper! The livid Clack countered that the inn was sub-let and that his ancestor lived elsewhere (vol. 2, 349-50) but he did not contribute to TPR again.
[1123] The Times, 20 February 1932.
[1124] Sunday Times, 28 February 1932.
[1125] L'Echo de Falaise, 27 June 1931, and Journal of the United Associations of Great Britain and France, Autumn 1931.
[1126] M. Jackson Crispin and Leonce Macary, Falaise Roll: recording prominent companions of William Duke of Normandy at the conquest of England (1938) reprinted with important additions and corrections by G. Andrews Moriarty (Baltimore, 1985).
[1127] Review of The Falaise Roll in The American Genealogist, vol. xvi, no. 1 (July 1939) 56-63.
[1128] Professor D. C. Douglas, 'The Companions of the Conqueror', in History, vol. 28, 129-147.
[1129] GM, vol. 9, no. 11 (September 1944) 417-24.
[1130] The main articles are reprinted in Anthony J. Camp, My ancestors came with the Conqueror: those who did and some of those who probably did not (Society of Genealogists, 1988; corrected reprint, 1990; Genealogical Publishing Company: Baltimore, 1990).
[1131] ‘Lord Raglan on “faked pedigrees” of famous families’, The Daily Mail, 8 September 1933.
[1132] ‘Family Trees “all a fake”’, The Evening News, 7 September 1933.
[1133] ‘Ld. Raglan hits out again’, Daily Express, 9 September 1933.
[1134] Punch, 20 September 1933.
[1135] “Saxon Descent” in Morning Post, 16 September 1933.
[1136] GM, vol. 6, no. 8 (December 1933) 337-38. Charles Evans wrote later that the criticism of Saxon descents was just, with the exception perhaps of the descent of the Berkeleys from Eadnoth, Staller to Edward the Confessor; GM, vol. 6, no. 11 (September 1934) 497.
[1137] GM, vol. 6, no. 2 (September 1932) 92.
[1138] ‘GM’ in The Northern Whig & Belfast Post, 24 September 1932.
[1139] Obituary in GM, vol. 13, no. 1 (March 1959) 17.
[1140] GM, vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1955) ii.
[1141] GM, vol. 7, no. 5 (March 1936) 259.
[1142] GM, vol. 7, no. 8 (December 1936) 432.
[1143] His pedigree is in TPR, vol. 1 (June 1908) 124-5; there was a tradition of French descent but at that time could not be traced beyond John Lart (1719-1790) of Nottingham.
[1144] GM, vol. 7, no. 9 (March 1937) 488
[1145] The object of his enmity was Hugh O’Bryen Horsford (1881-1958) a clerk in the Registry since 1902.
[1146] Obituary in GM, vol. 12, no. 6 (June 1956) 203.
[1147] GM, vol. 6, no. 4 (December 1932) 175, quoting Sydney Morning Herald, 30 August 1932.
[1148] GM, vol. 6, no. 8 (December 1933) 369.
[1149] Herbert J. Rumsey, ' Genealogy in Australia', in GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 125-41.
[1150] Obituary by Herbert Rumsey in GM, vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1947) 13.
[1151] John Stewart and Anthony Syme, ‘Dare you climb your family tree?’, in The Reader’s Digest (January 1968) 52-56.
[1152] GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 685.
[1153] GM, vol. 6, no. 3 (September 1932) 102.
[1154] The Times, Classified Advertisement, 15 September 1932.
[1155] GM, vol. 6, no. 4 (December 1932) 141.
[1156] Nature, no. 129 (20 February 1932) 272-73.
[1157] W. A. Munford, A history of the Library Association 1877-1977 (1976) 194-5.
[1158] GM, vol. 6, no. 4 (December 1932) 141
[1159] GM, vol. 6, no. 6 (June 1933) 237; Munford (1976) 195, 218-9.
[1160] GM, vol. 5, no. 11 (September 1931) 364.
[1161] SoG AR 1932, 2.
[1162] GM, vol. 6, no. 7 (September 1933) 286; SoG AR 1933, 2.
[1163] GM, vol. 9, no. 10 (March 1944) 395.
[1164] SoG AR 1934, 1.
[1165] Francis H. M. N. Humphrey-Davy to Mrs Blomfield, 8 October 1935; Mrs Blomfield to him, 28 April 1934.
[1166] Her description in the 1939 Register.
[1167] SoG AR 1933, 1.
[1168] Dr T. R. Thomson to Anthony Camp, 22 April 1961.
[1169] GM, vol. 6, no. 5 (March 1933) 217.
[1170] SoG AR 1933, 2; SoG AR 1934, 1.
[1171] SoG AR 1933, 1 and 2; GM, vol. 6, no. 7 (September 1933) 281, and vol. 6, no 8 (December 1933) 337 and 349 (where some of the exhibits are described); The Times, 12 October 1933, report and list of principal attendees.
[1172] SoG AR 1934, 1.
[1173] SoG AR 1935, 1.
[1174] GM, vol. 7, no. 3 (September 1935) 115.
[1175] GM, vol. 7, no. 3 (September 1935) 115.
[1176] SoG AR 1935, 1,
[1177] GM, vol. 7, no. 7 (September 1936) 365.
[1178] TPR, vol. 1 (June 1908) 140.
[1179] SoG AR 1933, 1.
[1180] Kathleen Blomfield to John E. N. Walker, 27 March 1935.
[1181] SoG AR 1933, 1.
[1182] GM, vol. 7, no. 7 (September 1936) 365-66.
[1183] SoG AR 1935, Balance Sheet.
[1184] Obituary by Kathleen Blomfield in GM, vol. 9, no. 9 (September 1943) 356-57. For his life see his daughter Ursula Bloom's Parson Extraordinary (1963) and 'A clerk in unholy orders' in Reginald L. Hine, Confessions of an un-common attorney (3rd ed. 1946) 28-30. A fund for the benefit of his widow was opened in March 1944; GM, vol. 9, no. 10 (March 1944) 402.
[1185] Lord Farrer to J. Harvey Bloom, 4 May 1937.
[1186] His name appears on the inside cover of the Magazine for September and December 1937.
[1187] GM, vol. 3, no. 2 (June 1927) 39.
[1188] GM, vol. 3, no. 4 (December 1927) 89, et seq.
[1189] GM, vol. 4, no. 2 (June 1928) 42.
[1190] GM, vol. 5, no. 11 (September 1931) 349.
[1191] GM, Official Section, xiv, no. 3 (September 1962) 7.
[1192] SoG AR 1931, 2.
[1193] GM, vol. 6, no. 3 (September 1932) 103.
[1194] SoG AR 1932, 1.
[1195] GM, vol. 6, no. 11 (September 1934) 512.
[1196] GM, vol. 6, no. 7 (September 1933) 293
[1197] GM, vol. 6, no. 8 (December 1933) 368.
[1198] Obituaries in GM, vol. 12, no. 13 (March 1958) 451-52, and The Times, 23 December 1957.
[1199] GM, vol. 6, no. 9 (March 1934) 385.
[1200] SoG AR 1933, 2.
[1201] GM, vol. 7, no. 3 (September 1935) 122.
[1202] GM, vol. 6, no. 10 (June 1934) 453-56.
[1203] SoG AR 1933, 2.
[1204] GM, vol. 6, no. 10 (June 1934) 456-60.
[1205] GM, vol. 6, no. 11 (September 1934) 512.
[1206] GM, vol. 6, no. 12 (December 1934) 560.
[1207] SoG AR 1934, 1.
[1208] SoG AR 1935, 2; Ainsworth was Honorary General Editor for the British Record Society, 1937-40, and then worked for the Irish Manuscripts Commission; he was the first person to be granted Arms by the new Genealogical Office in Dublin in 1943; he succeeded his father as a Baronet in 1971.
[1209] GM, vol. 7, no. 5 (March 1936) 253.
[1210] GM, vol. 8, no. 4 (December 1938) 223.
[1211] 149 names are listed in GM, vol. 8, no. 7 (September 1939) 397.
[1212] GM, vol. 9, no. 6 (March 1942) 241.
[1213] drawing attention to the importance of the latter in GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 102-3.
[1214] The News Chronicle, quoted in Star (London),31 July 1934.
[1215] GM, vol. 6, no. 2 (June 1932) 77.
[1216] GM, vol. 8, no. 4 (December 1938) viii.
[1217] Margaret Blunden, The Countess of Warwick (1967) 154-5, 163, 165.
[1218] GM, vol. 5, no. 11 (September 1931) 365.
[1219] GM, vol. 5, no. 11 (September 1931) 366.
[1220] GM, vol. 5, no. 12 (December 1931) 411.
[1221] Kathleen Blomfield (Secretary) to Messrs Fudge & Co Ltd, 22 July 1937.
[1222] GM, vol. 8, no. 5 (March 1939) vi.
[1223] GM, vol. 10, no. 6 (June 1948) i.
[1224] GM, vol. 6, no. 1 (March 1932) vi.
[1225] K. Bell (Secretary) to L.A. Spikesman, Artcards Ltd, 15 December 1931.
[1226] Folkestone Herald, 19 March 1932; Daily Mirror, 11 May 1932.
[1227] Obituary by Pirie Hogarth in GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 303-4. He edited the 1937 edition of Burke's Landed Gentry and died 8 December 1969; see The Times, 10 December 1969.
[1228] Harry Pirie-Gordon to William Gun, 19 April 1932.
[1229] ‘”Public Plunderer”: four years for former St Leonards Resident’ (with photograph),in Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 28 January 1928, 3.
[1230] GM, vol. 6, no. 7 (September 1933) 281.
[1231] K. Blomfield to Roderick K. Eskew, 14 November 1934.
[1232] TPR, vol. 1 (March 1908) 112.
[1233] Francis Green, ed., The National Library of Wales: Calendar of Deeds & Documents; vol. 1, The Coleman Deeds (Aberystwyth, 1921).
[1234] Obituary by Kathleen Blomfield in GM, vol. 9, no. 11 (September 1944) 445.
[1235] GM, vol. 7, no. 8 (December 1936) un-paginated extra .
[1236] GM, vol. 5, no. 6 (June 1930) 187.
[1237] GM, vol. 7, no. 8 (December 1936) 426.
[1238] GM, vol. 5, no. 9 (March 1931) vii.
[1239] Truth, Wednesday, 8 March 1933, 371.
[1240] Daily Mail, Tuesday, 18 July 1933.
[1241] Associated Newspapers Limited, Legal Department, to Colonel E. A. Loftus, 31 December 1935.
[1242] Miss P. W. Shield to Mrs K. Blomfield, 17 October 1933.
[1243] Obituary by Henry P. Armstrong in GM, vol. 22, no. 10 (June 1988) 386.
[1244] Janson & Co to Colonel E. A. Loftus, 28 November 1935.
[1245] Faculty of Genealogical Research to Louis V. Amend, 30 April 1936.
[1246] Mrs K. Blomfield to Joseph A. Amend, 11 March 1940.
[1247] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 1 (March 1962),Official Section, 4.
[1248] E. A. Impey to Mrs K. Blomfield, 14 March 1948.
[1249] I am indebted to Dr Maureen Ille of the I’Anson One-Name Study for some of these biographical details.
[1250] His signature as ‘A. Bryan I’Anson’ on his daughter Frances Beryl’s 1929 marriage entry at Epsom has striking similarities to that of ‘Janson & Co’ on a 1936 letter to Colonel Loftus.
[1251] Daily Mail, 14 July 1933.
[1252] GM, vol. 7, no. 2 (June 1935) 78-79; Ian Coster, 'Money in 'missing heir' hunts', in The Evening Standard, 16 March 1935, 11.
[1253] John Bull, 18 December 1937.
[1254] Evening Standard, 8 February 1939; News Chronicle, 9 February 1939; The Times, 9 February 1939.
[1255] The Genealogical Quarterly to Mrs K. Blomfield, 27 June 1933, 25 July 1933, 28 June 1937.
[1256] GM, vol. 7, no. 3 (September 1935) 122.
[1257] ‘Agreement set aside as champertous’, Yorkshire Post, 13 July 1935, 7.
[1258] GM, vol. 6, no. 10 (June 1934) 433.
[1259] GM, vol. 6, no. 12 (December 1934) 565.
[1260] GM, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1935) 21. D. J. Steel speculated that the group may have been shown ‘a few pre-Reformation missals or even rough books with English entries’ [NIPR, vol. 1 (1968) 25, footnote 14].
[1261] GM, vol. 6, no. 11 (September 1934) 490-92.
[1262] SoG AR 1938, 2.
[1263] GM, vol. 16, no. 8 (December 1970) 430.
[1264] Mrs M. E. Duggan, 'Trinity House Apprenticeships', in GM, vol. 16, no. 8 (December 1970) 427-9.
[1265] GM, vol. 6, no. 11 (September 1934) 510.
[1266] SoG AR 1935, 2; GM, vol. 15, no. 2 (June 1965) 86.
[1267] A key to the handwriting used in ancient parish registers (The Society of Genealogists; undated).
[1268] GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 142.
[1269] SoG AR 1935, 2.
[1270] GM, vol. 7, no. 4 (December 1935) 195.
[1271] The Law Times, 14 December 1935; Preston Guardian, 4 January 1936.
[1272] SoG AR 1935, 2.
[1273] SoG AR 1937, 1.
[1274] GM, vol. 7, no. 4 (December 1935) 196; vol. 7, no. 5 (March 1936) 254; vol. 7, no. 6 (June 1936) 331; a further part to 1790 had been indexed on slips.
[1275] SoG AR 1935, 2.
[1276] GM, vol. 7, no. 7 (September 1936) 365.
[1277] GM, vol. 7, no. 7 (September 1936) 369.
[1278] SoG AR 1937, 1.
[1279] GM, vol. 7, no. 5 (March 1936) 249.
[1280] SoG AR 1936, 2.
[1281] GM, vol. 7, no. 11 (September 1937) 575.
[1282] 'New interest in genealogy', in The Daily Telegraph, 18 March 1937.
[1283] SoG AR 1935, 2.
[1284] 'Invisible Ink' in Swindon Evening Advertiser, 29 June 1937.
[1285] SoG AR 1937, Income and Expenditure Account.
[1286] Mazumdar, op. cit. (1999) 24, 29, 32.
[1287] Robert Resta, 'Social, ethical and technical implications of pedigree construction: what the maps tells us about the mapmakers', in Robert A. Peel, ed., Human Pedigree Studies (1999) 107-114.
[1288] Society of Genealogists, Exhibition of genealogical and heraldic records (1937) 26-27.
[1289] The Daily Telegraph, 29 June 1937; Morning Post, 29 June 1937.
[1290] 'Family skeletons are no secret here' in News Chronicle, 2 June 1937; 'Looking for ancestors' in Daily Sketch, 24 June 1937; 'Family History Secrets' in News Chronicle, 28 June 1937.
[1291] 'Guide to research into heredity' in The Daily Telegraph, 1 July 1937; Sheffield Independent, 30 June 1937; 'Study of family pedigrees' in Northampton Daily Chronicle, 1 July 1937; 'What pedigrees show' in Northern Whig (Belfast),30 June 1937.
[1292] 'A Diary' in Birmingham Post, 29 June 1937; 'Twenty-five years in the trees' in Liverpool Daily Post, 25 March 1937.
[1293] 'Pedigrees' in Manchester Guardian, 30 June 1937; 'It pays to be modest' in The Evening News, 28 June 1937.
[1294] Yorkshire Observer, 3 July 1937; Nottingham Journal, 5 July 1937; Northern Evening Despatch, 3 July 1937.
[1295] 'Genealogy made Easy' in The Observer, 20 June 1937.
[1296] 'Pedigree Research: exhibition by Society of Genealogists' in The Times, 29 June 1937.
[1297] 'Genealogical Exhibition' in Irish Independent, 1 July 1937.
[1298] 'Hunting for Ancestors', in Exchange & Mart, 8 July 1937.
[1299] Society of Genealogists: Exhibition of Genealogical and Heraldic Records: held at Chaucer House, Malet Place, London, June 28 [sic] to July 3 1937 (1937).
[1300] SoG, Income and Expenditure Account, 1937.
[1301] GM, vol. 7, no. 12 (December 1937) 650.
[1302] GM, vol. 8, no. 6 (June 1939) 335.
[1303] The story of the General Register Office and its origins from 1538 to 1937, Compiled by the Registrar General and illustrated by certain exhibits shown at the General Register Office, Somerset House, Strand, W.C.2, in commemoration of the centenary 1837-1937 of the General Register Office and Registration Service in England and Wales (HMSO, 1937).
[1304] Evening News, 1 November 1938; many years later I was able to purchase the original cartoon.
[1305] The News Chronicle, quoted in Star (London),31 July 1934.
[1306] 'Proving Aryan pedigrees is new British "Industry"', in News Chronicle, 11 June 1936. There is some evidence that information from the 1861 Census was occasionally given at an earlier date: Gerald Fothergill mentions it as a possible source in TPR, vol. 2 (December 1910) 76.
[1307] 'Genealogists in Germany: new professional status', in Observer, .. March 1936.
[1308] 'Nazis seek English ancestors to prove pure blood' in Natal Daily News (Durban),3 December 1938.
[1309] 'Horace Thorogood, '9,000,000 index items to find ancestry', in Evening Standard, 28 August 1945.
[1310] The Times, 14 August 1940.
[1311] The Times, 16 August 1940.
[1312] The Times, 19 August 1940; presumablythe solicitor Charles L. Nordon, of Croydon.
[1313] Obituary in GM, vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1955) 61.
[1314] GM, vol. 10, no. 10 (June 1949) 352.
[1315] GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 141.
[1316] GM, vol. 9, no. 11 (September 1944) 439.
[1317] GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 146.
[1318] A list of the Poll Books and Registers of Electors held had been published in GM, vol. 5, no. 3 (September 1929) 78-79; the 1939 list, Library of The Society of Genealogists: Poll Books (March 1939),followed the donation by Harry Anderson Pitman of fifty poll books; its insertion is noted at vol. 8, no. 5 (March 1939) 281.
[1319] GM, vol. 8, no. 5 (March 1939) 280.
[1320] GM, vol. 8, no. 6 (June 1939) 335.
[1321] GM, vol. 8, no. 5 (March 1939) 280.
[1322] GM, vol. 8, no. 7 (September 1939) 397 and 409.
[1323] GM, vol. 9, no. 10 (March 1944) 385.
[1324] GM, vol. 10, no. 7 (September 1948) v.
[1325] Percival Boyd to John B. Whitmore, 5 October 1948.
[1326] GM, vol. 11, no. 16 (December 1954) 547.
[1327] Executive Committee Minutes, February 1955.
[1328] GM, vol. 12, no. 3 (September 1955) 96.
[1329] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 398; he had joined the Society in 1920 and was elected a Fellow in 1929.
[1330] GM, vol. 12, no. 3 (September 1955) 99.
[1331] '100 years of Phillimore & Co' in Local History Magazine, no. 64 (November-December 1997) 12-16.
[1332] GM, vol. 7, no. 2 (June 1935) 78.
[1333] Obituary by R. F. Wilkinson in GM, vol. 10, no. 8 (December 1948) 268.
[1334] His encyclopaedic knowledge is acknowledged in W. E. Tate, The Parish Chest (1946) Preface.
[1335] GM, vol. 7, no. 4 (December 1935) 193.
[1336] Obituary in GM, vol. 12, no. 13 (March 1958) 449-50.
[1337] GM, vol. 7, no. 2 (June 1935) i.
[1338] GM, vol. 7, no. 3 (September 1935) v.
[1339] Marion J. Kaminkow, A new bibliography of British genealogy with notes (Baltimore, 1965); reviewed in GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) 255-57.
[1340] Cecil R. Humphery-Smith, A genealogist's bibliography (1977; Phillimore, 1985).
[1341] GM, vol. 7, no. 7 (December 1936) 426.
[1342] GM, vol. 7, no. 12 (December 1937) vii.
[1343] GM, vol. 8, no. 4 (December 1938) 222.
[1344] Obituary in The Times, 28 January 1939.
[1345] ‘A Somerset Dictionary Maker’, in Taunton Courier, 28 December 1932, 10.
[1346] Some details of its contents are given in Society of Genealogists: a century of family history (2011) 127-8.
[1347] C. A. Higgins, 'Fees for Searching Parish Registers', GM, vol. 11, no. 4 (December 1951) 144-145.
[1348] To one shilling and sixpence for the first, and nine pence for subsequent years.
[1349] For example the Rev J. H. Butcher at Duston Vicarage, Northamptonshire, charged all entries noted on a ‘certificate’ basis and asked a guinea for ‘facilities’ for every three hours or part thereof; Rev J. H. Butcher to Messrs Lambert & Raggett, genealogists, 16 January 1952.
[1350] For example F. H. L. Errington, Chancellor of the Diocese of Newcastle, to Mr Lazenby, 24 February 1926. See also 'Parish Registers: Fees for Searchers' in GM, vol. 7, no. 5 (March 1936) 248.
[1351] W. E. Tate, The Parish Chest (1983) 55.
[1352] F. G. Emmison, 'Our Parish Registers: their interest to the village teacher, historian and student' in Library List, no. 10 (September 1931) 8.
[1353] SoG AR 1992, 10.
[1354] GM, vol. 6, no. 12 (December 1934) 560.
[1355] SoG AR 1937, 2.
[1356] Obituary by Brian Fitzgerald-Moore in GM, vol. 18, no. 5 (March 1976) 258-59.
[1357] Principal Probate Registry, General Calendar of Grants; he died at 10 Marine Terrace, Barmouth, Merionethshire, 12 July 1928, probate being granted at Lichfield to Hubert Kendall Percy Smith, 19 September 1928.
[1358] Stephen Selby to Anthony Camp, 27 February 1992.
[1359] The National Archives, Divorce Court Files, J77/3484/6284 and J77/3517/7289 (she first petitioning for restitution of conjugal rights and then for divorce). The couple both appear in the Electoral Registers at 23 Thirlmere Road, Streatham, 1933-6, whilst he appears alone at 7 Eardley Crescent, Earls Court, 1929-35, and then with an unidentified Kate Smith at 134 Portsdown Road, Maida Vale, 1935, and at 90 Fordwych Road, Kilburn, 1937. He was alone there in 1938.
[1360] 1901 Census of Dunstall Hill, Wolverhampton, RG13/2678-26-43; his birth does not appear to have been registered.
[1361] SoG AR 1938, 1-2; SoG Income and Expenditure Account, 1938.
[1362] SoG AR 1938, 1-2, as ‘Byrd’.
[1363] SoG AR 1936, 2.
[1364] SoG AR 1937, 1.
[1365] It sold for 12s 6d and was remaindered at 6s in 1961; GM, vol. 13, no. 9 (March 1961) v.
[1366] The letter and Leader were printed in GM, vol. 8, no. 2 (June 1938) 80-83.
[1367] SoG AR 1938, 2.
[1368] K. Blomfield, Memorandum for the Executive Committee, 16 March 1938.
[1369] GM, vol. 9, no. 4 (March 1941) 129.
[1370] Executive Committee Minutes, 16 March 1938.
[1371] Executive Committee Minutes, 18 May 1938.
[1372] GM, vol. 8, no. 2 (June 1938) 82.
[1373] GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 141.
[1374] Executive Committee Minutes, 20 July 1938. The grant was announced in GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 147.
[1375] SoG AR 1938, 1.
[1376] Report of the Fact-Finding Sub-Committee set up 11 February 1953.
[1377] GM, vol. 8, no. 6 (June 1939) 336.
[1378] GM, vol. 8, no. 7 (September 1939) 393.
[1379] SoG AR 1939, 1-2.
[1380] GM, vol. 8, no. 4 (December 1938) 222-23.
[1381] ‘Pedigree wanted’, in Picture Post London, 18 February 1939, 36-38.
[1382] Evening Standard, 10 July 1939; Northampton Echo, 11 July 1939; Dundee Evening Telegraph, 15 July 1939.
[1383] ‘Smith by any other spelling’, in News Chronicle, 28 June 1939.
[1384] SoG AR 1941, 1.
[1385] The Daily Telegraph, 5 June 1940.
[1386] ‘Smith by any other spelling’, in News Chronicle, 28 June 1939; ‘Your Pedigree’, in Tit Bits, 9 September 1939; cost of binding in SoG AR 1939, 3.
[1387] GM, vol. 8, no. 7 (September 1939) 388-91.
[1388] 'A. R. P. and record preservation' in Liverpool Post, 17 August 1939.
[1389] The News Chronicle, 27 January 1950.
[1390] James B. Allen, Jessie L. Embry and Kahlile B. Mehr, Hearts turned to the fathers: a history of the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1894-1994 (Provo: Brigham Young University, 1995) chapter 6, 'Gathering the records'.
[1391] H. K. Percy-Smith to K. Blomfield, 3 & 4 September 1939.
[1392] K. Blomfield to H. K. Percy-Smith, 13 September 1939.
[1393] Minutes of the Executive Committee, 11 July 1940.
[1394] Report of the Fact-Finding Sub-Committee set up 11 February 1953.
[1395] Eastern Daily Press, 30 July 1940.
[1396] GM, vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1940) 83, and 'Parish Registers in War Time', 89.
[1397] SoG AR 1940, 2.
[1398] GM, vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1940) 90.
[1399] Minutes of Executive Committee, 1 March 1941.
[1400] Minutes of Executive Committee, 1 March 1941,
[1401] Kathleen Blomfield, 'Micro-Photography of Parish Registers', in GM, vol. 9, no. 4 (March 1941) 126-27.
[1402] Its letterhead called it the 'Committee for Micro-Filming Parish Registers'.
[1403] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 193.
[1404] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 178. If so, there had been a rapid increase; Bethell Bouwens had told the Annual Meeting on 24 April that 57 had been received in the last year (page 176).
[1405] Minutes of Executive Committee, 23 April 1942.
[1406] GM, vol. 9, no. 6 (March 1942) 238.
[1407] Minutes of Executive Committee, 25 November 1942.
[1408] Report of the Fact-Finding Sub-Committee set up 11 February 1953.
[1409] GM, vol. 9, no. 8 (March 1943) 305-7.
[1410] GM, vol. 9, no. 9 (September 1943) 354. See his obituary by Wilfred Samuel in GM, vol. 11, no. 2 (June 1951) 66-67.
[1411] GM, vol. 9, no. 11 (September 1944) 445-47.
[1412] Western Morning News, 30 March 1943; The Post and Weekly News, 3 April 1943.
[1413] ‘Use of Libraries’, in The Times, 13 September 1939.
[1414] SoG AR 1939, 2.
[1415] GM, vol. 8, no. 8 (December 1939) 417.
[1416] GM, vol. 9, no. 6 (March 1942) 238.
[1417] GM, vol. 8, no. 5 (March 1939) 282.
[1418] GM, vol. 8, no. 8 (December 1939) 418.
[1419] GM, vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1940) 96.
[1420] SoG AR 1939, 2.
[1421] George Sherwood to H. K. Percy-Smith, 1 August 1940.
[1422] SoG AR 1940, 2; the lectures were on the ancestry of John, 1st Earl of Bedford, and on Gretna Green Marriages.
[1423] GM, vol. 9, no. 1 (March 1940) 14
[1424] SoG AR 1940, 1.
[1425] GM, vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1940) 94.
[1426] GM, vol. 9, no. 2 (June 1940) 58. In 1948 members were causing problems by parking within the gates; GM, vol. 10, no. 5 (March 1948) 147.
[1427] GM, vol. 9, no. 4 (March 1941) 136.
[1428] GM, vol. 9, no. 7 (September 1942) 257.
[1429] GM, vol. 9, no. 4 (March 1941) 133.
[1430] SoG AR 1945, 1.
[1431] GM, vol. 9, no. 15 (September 1946) 18 and 24.
[1432] GM, vol. 9, no. 10 (March 1944) 402, and vol. 10, no. 3 (September 1947) 76.
[1433] She is described as his niece in SoG AR 1968 1.
[1434] GM, vol. 8, no. 7 (September 1939) 393, and vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1947) 17.
[1435] SoG AR 1939, 2.
[1436] GM, vol. 8, no. 8 (December 1939) 431.
[1437] SoG AR 1939, 2.
[1438] George Sherwood to H. K. Percy-Smith, 1 August 1940.
[1439] GM, vol. 8, no. 8 (December 1939) 418.
[1440] George Sherwood to H. K. Percy-Smith, 1 August 1940.
[1441] GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1940) 88, and vol. 9, no. 4 (March 1941) 139-41.
[1442] GM, vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1940) 90-91 and 95.
[1443] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 176.
[1444] George Sherwood to H. K. Percy-Smith, 1 August 1940.
[1445] Obituary by Kathleen Blomfield in GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 193.
[1446] Quarterly Queries, September 1917, 5, and Membership List, 1919.
[1447] e.g. GM, vol. 6, no. 10 (June 1934) ii.
[1448] George Sherwood, The sources of family history: 3, leaflet inserted in GM, September 1930.
[1449] The material collected, with the two books and his cash accounts for them, is on Family History Library microfilm 402,920.
[1450] GM, vol. 6, no. 12 (December 1934) iii.
[1451] George Sherwood, Irish Family History Catalogue (1936) Item 46.
[1452] GM, vol. 7, no. 4 (December 1935) ii, and no. 6 (June 1936) ii.
[1453] Advertisements in GM [vol. 8, no. 1 (March 1938) viii].
[1454] TPR, vol. 2, no. 17 (June 1911) 157.
[1455] Simon Fowler, 'Paying for a past with pedigree', in BBC History Magazine, vol. 2, no. 9 (September 2001) 41.
[1456] The National Archives, J77/2295/1888.
[1457] GM, vol. 1, no. 4 (December 1925) 123 (as Mrs Mary Ethel McIntyre); GM, vol. 5, no. 4 (December 1929) 124.
[1458] Casper L. Redfield, The Dynamics of Evolution (1916) summarised in TPR, vol. 3, no. 36 (March 1916) 381-2.
[1459] TPR, vol. 3, no. 36 (March 1916) 382.
[1460] Circulated with the March 1940 issue of GM.
[1461] George Sherwood to J. B. Whitmore, 31 December 1940.
[1462] GM, vol. 9, no. 4 (March 1941) 134.
[1463] Anthony Camp to Robert E. F. Garrett, 22 April 1963.
[1464] Lilian J. Redstone, 'The saving of records in wartime', in GM, vol. 9, no. 14 (March 1946) 525-29.
[1465] George Sherwood, Credentials (March 1940) 2.
[1466] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 176.
[1467] GM, vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1940) 100.
[1468] Kathleen Blomfield to H. K. Percy-Smith, 1 October 1942; also H. K. Percy-Smith to Cregoe Nicholson, 28 September 1955.
[1469] Juliet Gardiner, The Blitz (2010) 332.
[1470] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 176
[1471] Electoral Registers, 1934 (at number 29) to 1939 (at number 19).
[1472] The Australian Genealogist (1941) 229-30.
[1473] SoG AR 1941, 2.
[1474] W. A. Munford, A history of the Library Association 1877-1977 (1976) 227-28.
[1475] Laurence Ward, The London County Council bomb damage maps 1939-1945 (2015) map 49, page 79.
[1476] Cyril Hankinson, My forty years with Debrett (1963) 29-30; obituary Daily Telegraph, 5 October 1984.
[1477] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 196.
[1478] GM, vol. 8, no. 4 (December 1938) 223. His executors gave a large collection of books including further Poll Books to the Society in 1942; GM, vol. 9, no. 6 (March 1942) 237 and 251.
[1479] GM, vol. 9, no. 6 (March 1942) 249.
[1480] GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) 508. Mr Harrison's initials are incorrectly given as G. H. in the List of Members 1936. He was the last surviving son of Edward Francis Harrison (1829-1887),Bengal Civil Service, and married Marjorie Frances Delves-Broughton (died 1946) in 1905; his death noted in The Times, 12 August 1949.
[1481] Marquis de Ruvigny, The nobilities of Europe (1910) 273.
[1482] GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) 508-9.
[1483] A. R. Wagner, The records and collections of the College of Arms (1952) 53.
[1484] London Survey Committee, The College of Arms (1963) 26-28.
[1485] GM, vol. 10, no. 6 (June 1948) 178.
[1486] SoG AR 1941, 1.
[1487] SoG AR 1942, 1.
[1488] GM, vol. 9, no. 6 (March 1942) iii.
[1489] He wrote to J. B. Whitmore, 3 January 1940, from Yeoford, Devon, that ‘16 windows became paneless and 3 or 4 ceilings came down’ in his house at 176 Worple Road, Wimbledon.
[1490] SoG AR 1941, 2.
[1491] GM, vol. 9, no. 6 (March 1942) 236-37. James Reginald Morshead Glencross, MA, LLB, was killed in a road accident in June 1944; GM, vol. 9, no. 11 (September 1944) 444.
[1492] In 1913 local enthusiasts put up a headstone to him at Satley which incorrectly gives his date of birth as 1862. He was born at Woolley Close, by Brancepeth, 14 April 1867 and died at 1 Newbiggin Road, Lanchester, from Holly Cottage, Satley, 20 March 1942 (and not in 1943 as sometimes stated); he had married Mary Heaviside in 1916.
[1493] Unsigned obituary in GM, vol. 9, no. 8 (March 1943) 317.
[1494] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 176. She died unmarried at Bognor Regis in 1984.
[1495] George Sherwood to H. K. Percy-Smith, 1 August 1940.
[1496] Cyril Hankinson, My forty years with Debrett (1963) 30.
[1497] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 176-77.
[1498] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 178.
[1499] SoG AR 1941, 2.
[1500] GM, vol. 9, no. 6 (March 1942) 222.
[1501] GM, vol. 9, no. 8 (March 1943) 312.
[1502] GM, vol. 9, no. 10 (March 1944) 392.
[1503] GM, vol. 9, no. 12 (March 1945) 477.
[1504] GM, vol. 9, no. 14 (March 1946) 539.
[1505] GM, vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1947) 12.
[1506] SoG AR 1941, 2; GM, vol. 9, no. 7 (September 1942) 273.
[1507] SoG AR 1942, 2.
[1508] The GRO indexes show that Rita K. Drenon was born at Barnet in 1928 and married at Hendon in 1955.
[1509] Obituary in GM, vol. 12, no. 9 (March 1957) 311-12.
[1510] GM, vol. 9, no. 7 (September 1942) 273.
[1511] GM, vol. 9, no. 8 (March 1943) 319.
[1512] GM, vol. 9, no. 9 (September 1943) 361 and 364.
[1513] GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) 509.
[1514] GM, vol. 9, no. 15 (September 1946) 24.
[1515] GM, vol. 10, no. 3 (September 1947) 72.
[1516] ‘Look before you waste’, in Radio Times, 7 November 1939.
[1517] Kathleen Blomfield, ‘The British Records Association’, in GM, vol. 9, no. 8 (March 1943) 299-301.
[1518] GM, vol. 10, no. 3 (September 1947) 77.
[1519] GM, vol. 10, no. 5 (March 1948) 148.
[1520] GM, vol. 13, no. 2 (June 1959) 33.
[1521] Observer (London),17 March 1936.
[1522] SoG AR 1943, 1-2.
[1523] Kathleen Blomfield, 'Retrospect and Prospect: the Society and its work', in GM, vol. 9, no. 10 (March 1944) 395-98.
[1524] SoG AR 1944, 1.
[1525] GM, vol. 9, no. 11 (September 1944) 438.
[1526] GM, vol. 9, no. 11 (September 1944) 448-49.
[1527] SoG AR 1944, 1.
[1528] SoG AR 1944, 1-2.
[1529] 'Scots Ancestry Research', in The Scotsman, 17 March 1945, quoted in GM, vol. 9, no. 12 (March 1945) 478-79.
[1530] Gerald Hamilton-Edwards, In search of Scottish ancestry (1972) 170.
[1531] GM, vol. 9, no. 12 (March 1945) 486-89.
[1532] SoG AR 1944, 1.
[1533] GM, vol. 10, no. 15 (September 1950) 581.
[1534] GM, vol. 11, no. 16 (December 1954) 555.
[1535] GM, vol. 8, no. 1 (March 1938) 34.
[1536] GM, vol. 8, no. 7 (September 1939) 398.
[1537] GM, vol. 10, no. 12 (December 1949) iv. She became a Member in 1947, was elected a Fellow in 1955, and died in 1982. She was the sister-in-law of the Honorary Treasurer, Sir William Elderton.
[1538] 'Searches in the Society's Library and Collections', paper inserted in GM for March 1944.
[1539] SoG AR 1945, 2.
[1540] GM, vol. 10, no. 5 (March 1948) 147 and vi.
[1541] ‘Searches for Members in the Society’s Library’, leaflet inserted in Magazine, 1951.
[1542] GM, vol. 11, no. 2 (June 1951) ii.
[1543] SoG AR 1945, 1.
[1544] GM, vol. 9, no. 2 (June 1940) 54.
[1545] GM, vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1940) 89.
[1546] GM, vol. 9, no. 11 (September 1944) 439.
[1547] SoG AR 1945, 2; GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) 508.
[1548] GM, vol. 9, no. 14 (March 1946) 542-43. The appeal was renewed at the AGM in June 1946; GM, vol. 9, no. 15 (September 1946) 24,
[1549] GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) 511.
[1550] SoG AR 1941, 1.
[1551] SoG AR 1945, 2.
[1552] Guy Morgan, 'You can change your name for about £3', in Strand Magazine, September 1946, 38.
[1553] SoG AR 1946, 2.
[1554] SoG AR 1945, 1; GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) 511. Other volumes that he brought with him are listed on 515-16 and 552-53.
[1555] GM, vol. 11, no. 12 (December 1953) 420.
[1556] GM, vol. 10, no. 9 (March 1949) 317.
[1557] ‘Whose library?’ in Daily Telegraph, 31 May 1955; ‘Breaking up a library: claims to India records”, in Daily Telegraph, 1 June 1955.
[1558] SoG AR 1949, 2.
[1559] Walter Hayes, 'The Smiths went to India ... and now their having difficulty in finding their way home', in Daily Graphic, 5 July 1949.
[1560] 'Tracing their ancestry' in Evening Standard, 19 August 1949; 'Anglo Indians must choose their nation', in Evening Standard, 1949.
[1561] SoG AR 1951, 1.
[1562] GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) 508.
[1563] SoG AR 1946, 2; SoG Income and Expenditure Account, 1947.
[1564] SoG AR 1946, 2; SoG Income and Expenditure Account, 1947.
[1565] SoG AR 1946, 1.
[1566] SoG AR 1946, 1-2.
[1567] St John's Evening Telegram (Newfoundland),8 December 1947.
[1568] The Spectator, 14 and 21 January (? 1948).
[1569] The Sketch, 31 March 1948, 172.
[1570] GM, vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1947) 18.
[1571] GM, vol. 10, no. 3 (September 1947) 73.
[1572] SoG AR 1947, 2.
[1573] SoG AR 1947, 1-2.
[1574] GM, vol. 10, no. 3 (September 1947) 73.
[1575] SoG AR 1948, 1.
[1576] SoG AR 1949, 1.
[1577] GM, vol. 10, no. 11 (September 1949) 410.
[1578] GM, vol. 10, no. 8 (December 1948) 268.
[1579] SoG AR 1947, 2.
[1580] GM, vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1947) 14.
[1581] H. S. Pocock, 'Five Generations', in GM, vol. 9, no. 15 (September 1946) 19-21.
[1582] J. N. Deacon, 'Twelve Generations', in GM, vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1947) 7-10.
[1583] Gerald Hamilton-Edwards, 'Six Generations', in GM, vol. 10, no. 5 (March 1948) 141-44.
[1584] Obituary by Alan Rolfe in GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 149. A well known actor and professional genealogist, he became a Member in 1929 and was elected a Fellow in 1969, having been a member of the Executive Committee, 1965-69.
[1585] Erik Chitty, 'Nine Generations', in GM, vol. 10, no. 6 (June 1948) 186.
[1586] Gerald Hamilton-Edwards, 'The Physical Side of Genealogy', in GM, vol. 10, no. 7 (September 1948) 225-29. The use of spring-back binders instead of index slips was recommended by G. H. Shelswell-White in GM, vol. 10, no. 8 (December 1948) 269.
[1587] GM, vol. 11, no. 7 (September 1952) 251 and 253. Obituary by Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 279; obituary in The Times, 16 August 1972.
[1588] GM, vol. 11, no. 13 (March 1954) 449.
[1589] Secretary (Mrs Blomfield) to P. J. Ryves Harding, 30 May 1947.
[1590] GM, vol. 11, no. 7 (September 1952) 252.
[1591] GM, vol. 10, no. 8 (December 1948) 266; SoG AR 1948, 2.
[1592] GM, vol. 11, no. 14 (June 1954) 485, and no. 15 (September 1954) 510; Bernau, as mentioned, claimed to have done 1721 but may have employed Winstanley.
[1593] James B. Allen, &c., op. cit. (1995) 223.
[1594] James B. Allen, &c., op. cit. (1995) 251.
[1595] James B. Allen, &c., op. cit. (1995) 251.
[1596] Norwich Diocesan Gazette, June 1949.
[1597] Canterbury Diocesan Notes, November 1949.
[1598] 'No one must film church registers' in Evening Standard (London),4 November 1949.
[1599] GM, vol. 10, no. 12 (December 1949) 456.
[1600] SoG AR 1947, 1 and 3.
[1601] SoG AR 1946, 1.
[1602] SoG AR 1948, 2.
[1603] SoG AR 1949, 1.
[1604] GM, vol. 10, no. 15 (September 1950) 576.
[1605] Obituary in GM, vol. 13, no. 11 (September 1961) 356. He was a professional genealogist, specialising in Devon and Cornwall, and latterly a partner in Phillimore & Co Ltd. A member from 1933 he was elected a Fellow in 1952. Much liked by the staff of the Society. A recent widower he committed suicide at his home in Chelsea, 19 April 1961.
[1606] GM, vol. 10, no. 15 (September 1950) 578; obituary by Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 23, no 7 (September 1990) 265; she had died on 1 November 1989, aged 95.
[1607] GM, vol. 11, no. 1 (March 1951) 21.
[1608 GM, vol. 10, no. 15 (September 1950) 578.
[1609] SoG AR 1950, 1.
[1610] GM, vol. 11, no. 2 (June 1951) 66.
[1611] Obituaries in GM, vol. 13, no. 1 (March 1959) 16-17, and The Times, 15 December 1958. He had joined the Society in 1937, was on the Executive Committee from 1946 until his death, and elected a Fellow in 1948. He bequeathed the Society £25.
[1612] GM, vol. 11, no. 3 (September 1951) 106.
[1613] Obituary by Cregoe Nicholson in GM, vol. 14, no. 4 (December 1962) 4-5.
[1614] GM, vol. 11, no. 4 (December 1951) 146-47.
[1615] The Times, 31 March 1952, 2e.
[1616] Report of the Fact-Finding Sub-Committee set up 11 February 1953.
[1617] Kendall Percy-Smith to Anthony Camp, 31 January 1975.
[1618] His will dated 20 April 1965 proved at Winchester, 7 August 1975.
[1619] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 4,
[1620] GM, vol. 10, no. 14 (June 1950) 539.
[1621] Obituary by Cecil Humphery-Smith in GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1963) 155-56. Gale had originally joined the Society in 1924 but resigned in 1927, re-joining in 1933. He was elected a Fellow in 1955.
[1622] SoG AR 1959, 2.
[1623] SoG AR 1962, 2.
[1624] GM, vol. 10, no. 16 (December 1950) 605.
[1625] GM, vol. 11, no. 13 (March 1954) ii.
[1626] She was elected a Fellow in 1969, but resigned her membership in 1975, taking the surname Pridal the following year; she married at Worthing in 1985 and (as Mrs Please) died there in 1996.
[1627] SoG AR 1950, 2.
[1628] H. K. Percy-Smith to V. W. B. Church, 15 February 1954.
[1629] H. K. Percy-Smith, ‘The headquarters of genealogy in Britain’, in The Amateur Historian, Dec.-Jan. 1953
[1630] SoG AR 1950, 1.
[1631] GM, vol. 11, no. 1 (March 1951) 21.
[1632] GM, vol. 11, no. 3 (September 1951) 104.
[1633] Munford (1976) 273-4.
[1634] The Times, 15 June 1951.
[1635] GM, vol. 11, no. 3 (September 1951) 103-4.
[1636] GM, vol. 11, no. 7 (September 1952) 253; The Times, 9 May 1952.
[1637] GM, vol. 11, no. 11 (September 1953) 386.
[1638] GM, vol. 11, no. 14 (June 1954) 482.
[1639] Obituary by Anthony Wagner in GM, vol. 13, no. 7 (September 1960) 217-18.
[1640] GM, vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 513-14.
[1641] SoG AR 1953, 2.
[1642] Obituaries in GM, vol. 13, no. 1 (March 1959) 17, and The Times, 21 January 1959.
[1643] GM, vol. 11, no. 11 (September 1953) 386.
[1644] GM, vol. 11, no. 13 (March 1954) 450.
[1645] SoG AR 1954, 2.
[1646] SoG AR 1956, 2.
[1647] SoG AR 1957, 2.
[1648] SoG AR 1958, 2; GM, vol. 12, no. 13 (March 1958) 448.
[1649] SoG AR 1959, 2.
[1650] SoG AR 1960, 2.
[1651] SoG AR 1963, 2.
[1652] Insert in June 1965 Magazine.
[1653] SoG AR 1967, 2.
[1654] SoG AR 1968, 2.
[1655] SoG AR 1969, 3.
[1656] SoG AR 1970, 2.
[1657] SoG AR 1971, 3.
[1658] SoG AR 1950, 2.
[1659] The Society of Genealogists: Searches for Members in the Society's Library (1951).
[1660] Ann Temple's Column, 'Family Trees', in Daily Mail, 14 August 1952.
[1661] SoG AR 1951, 1.
[1662] GM, vol. 11, no. 7 (September 1952) 250; SoG AR 1951, 1.
[1663] James Leasor, ‘Name Your Past’, in Daily Express, 17 October 1952.
[1664] SoG AR 1953, 1.
[1665] Gerald Hamilton-Edwards, 'Civil and Parish Registration in Scotland', in GM, vol. 11, no. 1 (March 1951) 1-11.
[1666] GM, vol. 11, no. 4 (December 1951) 146.
[1667] SoG AR 1960, 2.
[1668] GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) 265.
[1669] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 355; GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 125; GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 350.
[1670] SoG AR 1974, 1; GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 32.
[1671] M. F. Lloyd Prichard, 'The Genealogy of the Poor', in GM, vol. 11, no. 3 (September 1951) 97-101. She was born in 1905. She wrote An economic history of New Zealand in 1939 and edited the works of Edward Gibbon Wakefield in 1968; she was a Labour candidate at the Cambridge City Elections in 1956 and for Newcastle upon Tyne in 1958; see ‘News in Brief; Prospective Candidate’ in The Times, 1 February 1958, page 3.
[1672] Obituary in GM, vol. 12, no. 5 (March 1956) 168.
[1673] Partridge’s article, ‘Suffolk’s “Stone Parish Registers”’ had appeared in GM, vol. 5, no. 12 (December 1931) 409-10.
[1674] GM, vol. 11, no. 3 (September 1951) 108-9.
[1675] SoG AR 1951, 1.
[1676] GM, vol. 11, no. 7 (September 1952) 251.
[1677] GM, vol. 11, no 7 (September 1952) 254. He described progress in GM, vol. 12, no. 13 (March 1958) 443-46.
[1678] H. J. W. Stone, 'A comprehensive plan for copying churchyard inscriptions', in GM, vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1955) 54-55.
[1679] T. V. H. FitzHugh, How to write a family history (1988),7-9; see also Alan Crosby in The Local Historian, vol. 42, no. 3 (August 2012) 178-9.
[1680] SoG AR 1952, 2; SoG AR 1953, 2.
[1681] GM, vol. 11, no. 8 (December 1952) 283.
[1682] SoG AR 1953, 2.
[1683] GM, vol. 11, no. 9 (March 1953) 325-26.
[1684] ‘Searching registers’, in Church Times, 24 September 1954, 720.
[1685] C. Harold Ridge, 'Scientific Genealogy', in GM, vol. 11, no. 4 (December 1951) 137-40.
[1686] H. L. White, 'More Scientific Genealogy', in GM, vol. 11, no. 5 (March 1952) 173-76.
[1687] GM, vol. 15, no. 13 (March 1968) 517.
[1688] GM, vol. 15, no. 14 (June 1968) 600-1, and vol. 16, no. 1 (March 1969) 8-10.
[1689] Cregoe D. P. Nicholson to J. B. Whitmore, 9 December 1949.
[1690] George Sherwood to J. B. Whitmore, 1950.
[1691] H. Guy Harrison to J. B. Whitmore, 1 June 1949.
[1692] GM, vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1955) 67-68.
[1693] GM, vol. 11, no. 4 (December 1951) 146.
[1694] GM, vol. 11, no. 3 (September 1951) 118-9.
[1695] P. A. M. Taylor, 'Passenger Lists as an Historical Source', in GM, vol. 12, no. 6 (June 1956) 197-200.
[1696] GM, vol. 11, no. 4 (December 1951) 147, no. 7 (September 1952) 251, and no. 8 (December 1952) 281.
[1697] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 6 (June 1963),Official Section, 4.
[1698] Donovan Dawe, 'London Business House Histories', in GM, vol. 11, no. 6 (June 1952) 201-7, and no. 7 (September 1952) 235-41.
[1699] Edgar R. Samuel, 'Jewish Ancestors and Where to Find Them', in GM, vol. 11, no. 12 (December 1953) 412-14,
[1700] GM, vol. 12, no. 5 (March 1956) 149-54, and no. 6 (June 1956) 185-88.
[1701] GM, vol. 12, no. 4 (December 1955) 128.
[1702] Michael Newmarch, ‘Pedigrees Curtailed', in The Sun (Baltimore),7 December 1952.
[1703] Obituary in Daily Telegraph, 20 May 1987; see also his son Richard Pine's letter, 'An unfair obituary', in Daily Telegraph, 4 June 1987. As Editor of Burke, 1946-60, L. G. Pine was responsible for four editions of the Peerage (1949, 1953, 1956 and 1959),the important 17th edition of the Landed Gentry (1952) and for the 4th edition of the Landed Gentry of Ireland (1958).
[1704] ‘Law of Succession to the Crown’, in The Times, 27 May 1953, page 8.
[1705] GM, vol. 11, no. 5 (March 1952) 183; 'Decline of the Landed Gentry: an editor's regrets', in The Times, 10 April 1952.
[1706] Obituary by Cregoe Nicholson in GM, vol. 14, no. 3 (September 1962),Official Section, 7-8.
[1707] GM, vol. 11, no. 10 (June 1953) 354.
[1708] GM, vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 521.
[1709] ‘Of Norman descent’, in The Times Literary Supplement, 2 July 1954.
[1710] James Leasor, 'The blue-bloods lose the Battle of Hastings, 1954: that Norman ancestor is mainly a myth', in Express, 14 February 1954.
[1711] Anthony Wagner, 'de Merck and de Marris', in GM, vol. 11, no. 14 (June 1954) 467-69; also Brigadier B. C. Trappes-Lomax, 'De Merk and De Marris', in GM, vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 544-46; L. G. Pine's reply is in the latter Magazine 548-49, and a further note in vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1955) 67.
[1712] GM, vol. 12, no. 1 (March 1955) 26.
[1713] GM, vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1955) 64-65.
[1714] Anthony Wagner's review in GM, vol. 12, no. 6 (June 1956) 206-7, answered by L. G. Pine in vol. 12, no. 7 (September 1956) 237.
[1715] GM, vol. 12, no. 12 (December 1957) 421. Peter Spufford subsequently reviewed the 4th edition slightly more kindly but as 'still weak on how to find things out' in vol. 18, no. 14 (December 1975) 205-6.
[1716] Chelmsford Chronicle, 19 July 1889, page 5 ; Essex Standard, 20 July 1889, page 5.
[1717] The Essex Chronicle, 8 June 1928, page 5.
[1718] The Times, ‘Manorial Lordships for sale’, 14 September 1954, page 4, and ‘The Honour of Beaumont’, page 9.
[1719] The Times, ‘History under the hammer’, 4 November 1954, page 2
[1720] The Times, 28 October 1955, page 5.
[1721] The Times, 27 July 1966, page 1.
[1722] The Times, 30 September 1964, page 12.
[1723] The Times, ‘Regulating the sale of lordships’, 10 May 1977, page 9, and 21 June 1977, page 4.
[1724] Munford, op. cit. (1976) 287.
[1725] SoG AR 1948, 4.
[1726] GM, vol. 10, no. 8 (December 1948) 266.
[1727] GM, vol. 10, no. 11 (September 1949) 410.
[1728] GM, vol. 10, no. 11 (September 1949) 419.
[1729] SoG AR 1948, 2.
[1730] SoG AR 1947, 2.
[1731] GM, vol. 10, no. 7 (September 1948) 230.
[1732] GM, vol. 10, no. 11 (September 1949) 419.
[1733] GM, vol. 10, no. 12 (December 1949) 454.
[1734] SoG AR 1949, 1.
[1735] Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert, eds, The London Encyclopaedia (1992) 123.
[1736] GM, vol. 10, no. 13 (March 1950) 494.
[1737] SoG AR 1949, 1.
[1738] George Sherwood to John Beach Whitmore, 8 December 1949.
[1739] Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert, eds, The London Encyclopaedia (1992) 123.
[1740] SoG AR 1950, 2.
[1741] GM, vol. 10, no. 15 (September 1950) 577.
[1742] GM, vol. 11, no. 1 (March 1951) 20-21.
[1743] SoG Balance Sheet, 31 December 1951.
[1744] GM, vol. 11, no. 3 (September 1951) 105.
[1745] SoG AR 1951, 2.
[1746] Obituary in GM, vol. 13, no. 5 (March 1960) 155-56. Descended from the family of Robert Catesby, the Guy Fawkes conspirator, he was elected a Fellow in 1955 and died 10 March 1960.
[1747] GM, vol. 11, no. 7 (September 1952) 250-51.
[1748] SoG AR 1952, 1.
[1749] SoG, Balance Sheet, 31 December 1952.
[1750] Messrs. Knight, Frank & Rutley had conducted a sale of the contents for Mrs Vaughan Morgan on the premises on 1 July 1952 [The Times, 17 June 1952, 12f].
[1751] GM, vol. 13, no. 11 (September 1961) 356.
[1752] George Sherwood to John Beach Whitmore, 21 May 1953.
[1753] GM, vol. 11, no 11 (September 1953) 383-85.
[1754] SoG AR 1953, 1.
[1755] GM, vol. 11, no. 13 (March 1954) 451.
[1756] GM, vol. 11, no. 16 (December 1954) 547. Sir William Palin Elderton (1877-1962) had joined the Society in 1939, was elected to the Executive Committee in 1949, and was Honorary Treasurer from 1951. He was married to Enid the sister of Miss Freda Podmore, a Research Assistant at the Society from 1938 to 1950 (she died in 1982). See his obituaries in The Times, 7 April 1962, and in GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962),Official Section, 6.
[1757] Cregoe Nicholson to Anthony Camp, 8 April 1962.
[1758] Society of Genealogists: Change of Address.
[1759] ‘New home for genealogists: removal to South Kensington’, in The Times, 28 June 1954, 5.
[1760] SoG AR 1954, 1-2; SoG, Income and Expenditure Account, 31 December 1954.
[1761] GM, vol. 11, no. 14 (June 1954) 482, and vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 510-11.
[1762] GM, vol. 10, no. 7 (September 1948) 231.
[1763] Obituary by Gerald Hamilton-Edwards and Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 28. He had joined the Society in 1933, was elected to the Executive Committee in 1954, and was particularly active on the Finance Committee 1954-67, as Treasurer in 1960-61 launching the Golden Jubilee Appeal Fund. He was elected a Fellow in 1955 and a Vice-President in 1964. The fine upholstered committee chairs that he presented in 1977 and which were re-covered by Peter Dudgeon in February 1980 were sold by Michael McEvoy when Finance Officer.
[1764] Advertisements in GM, June 1934 to March 1935.
[1765] Horace Joseph William Stone, known as 'John', a keen archaeologist and particular friend of Nicholson's, had joined the Society in 1937, was a member of the Executive Committee from 1947, and elected a Fellow in 1948. He lectured with Beach Whitmore on ‘The making of a school register’ in 1949. He died suddenly on 11 November 1956, aged 48, leaving a widow and two children; obituary in GM, vol. 12, no. 9 (March 1957) 312; also Essex Chronicle, 23 November 1956.
[1766] Society of Genealogists: Chairman’s Appeal, February 1954.
[1767] GM, vol. 11, no. 14 (June 1954) 469; The Times, 28 June 1954, 5. The fund had reached £770 in September 1954; vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 514. By the end of the year it was £793; SoG AR 1954, 1.
[1768] GM, vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 511.
[1769] GM, vol. 11, no. 11 (September 1953) 384.
[1770] GM, vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 512.
[1771] 'The work of Ernest George and Peto in Harrington and Collingham Gardens', in Survey of London, Volume XLII, Southern Kensington: Kensington Square to Earl's Court (Greater London Council, 1986),184-95.
[1772] Obituary by Cregoe Nicholson in GM, vol. 13, no. 11 (September 1961) 357.
[1773] GM, vol. 12, no. 1 (March 1955) 19.
[1774] GM, vol. 11, no 16 (December 1954) 547.
[1775] GM, vol. 12, no. 1 (March 1955) 10; the AR, 2, says that he assisted to the end of March.
[1776] SoG AR 1955, 2.
[1777] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 28.
[1778] SoG AR 1955, 1, and AR 1956, 1.
[1779] SoG AR 1956, 1.
[1780] SoG AR 1957, 1.
[1781] SoG AR 1958, 2.
[1782] SoG AR 1959, 1.
[1783] GM, vol. 12, no. 3 (September 1955) iv and 96.
[1784] Obituary in Daily Telegraph, 12 May 1987.
[1785] GM, vol. 12, no. 1 (March 1955) 10.
[1786] GM, vol. 10, no. 5 (March 1948) 141.
[1787] SoG AR 1954, 2.
[1788] Obituary in GM, vol. 15, no. 2 (June 1965) 85-86. She had joined the Society in 1925 and was elected a Fellow in 1955. She was a founder member of the Society of Scribes and Illuminators. She wrote the W. V. S. Roll of Honour in Westminster Abbey.
[1789] GM, vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1955) 59.
[1790] GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) iii. Later he advertised 'Ancestry traced - Informative, educative, sincere' [GM, vol. 11, no. 9 (March 1953) iii].
[1791] GM, vol. 10, no. 3 (September 1947) 73-74.
[1792] GM, vol. 11, no. 3 (September 1951) 105.
[1793] George Sherwood, This is Genealogy (Brockley, September 1949).
[1794] GM, vol. 5, no. 12 (December 1931) 398-400.
[1795] TPR, vol. 3, no. 34 (September 1915) 315 and 317.
[1796] SoG AR 1952, 2.
[1797] GM, vol. 11, no. 13 (March 1954) iii.
[1798] SoG AR 1956, 2.
[1799] GM, vol. 12, no. 11 (September 1957) 365.
[1800] GM, vol. 12, no. 13 (March 1958) 446.
[1801] Obituary by Cregoe Nicholson in GM, vol. 12, no. 14 (June 1958) 465; SoG AR 1958, 1.
[1802] Obituary by Jack Bird in GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 670-72.
[1803] Advertisements in GM, March 1934 to March 1942 when he vacated his office and his chambers at 30 Holborn owing to the War and moved to 51 Jersey Road, Hounslow.
[1804] K.S. Painter, 'The Lullingstone wall-plaster: an aspect of Christianity in Roman Britain' in The British Museum Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 3/4 (Spring 1969) 131-50. The plaster had been given to the British Museum in 1967.
[1805] Viscount Mersey, President, speaking at the AGM 1955, GM, vol. 12, no. 3 (September 1955) 94.
[1806] GM, vol. 11, no. 14 (June 1954) 481.
[1807] SoG AR 1955, 2.
[1808] SoG AR 1956, 2.
[1809] V. W. B. Church to R. G. Swann, 23 September 1954.
[1810] SoG AR 1955, 1.
[1811] R. G. Swann to C. D. P. Nicholson, 14 June 1955.
[1812] R. G. Swann to C. D. P. Nicholson, 27 July 1955 and 10 September 1955.
[1813] GM, vol. 12, no. 8 (December 1956) 265.
[1814] SoG AR 1955, 1.
[1815] Minutes of Executive Committee, July 1955.
[1816] Minutes of Executive Committee, October 1955.
[1817] GM, vol. 12, no. 4 (December 1955) 128.
[1818] C. D. P. Nicholson to R. G. Swann, 22 September 1955.
[1819] SoG, 55th AR, 1955, 2.
[1820] GM, vol. 12, no. 8 (December 1956) 265.
[1821] GM, vol. 12, no. 5 (March 1956) 166, and vol. 12, no. 8 (December 1956) 265-66.
[1822] SoG AR 1956, 2.
[1823] SoG AR 1955, 1.
[1824] GM, vol. 12, no. 8 (December 1956) 266.
[1825] GM, vol. 12, no. 8 (December 1956) 267-68.
[1826] Minutes of Executive Committee, October 1956.
[1827] GM, vol. 12, no. 8 (December 1956) 278; SoG AR 1956, 1.
[1828] SoG AR 1956, 1.
[1829] GM, vol. 11, no. 16 (December 1954) 556.
[1830] Executive Committee Minutes, May 1959.
[1831] Obituary in GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 500-1. He had joined in 1954.
[1832] GM, vol. 10, no. 8 (December 1948) 270.
[1833] GM, vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 514; volume 12, no. 1 (March 1955) 19, and no. 3 (September 1955) 88 and 94; SoG AR 1954, 2.
[1834] GM, vol. 12, no. 5 (March 1956) 166; it had been approved 15 November 1955 and was noted in the AR, 2.
[1835] For an account of his family research see ‘How I did it, or four centuries of Spuffords’, The Amateur Historian, vol. 5, no. 6 (Winter 1963) 173-6, 182. He died 18 November 2017; obituary in GM, vol. 32, no. 9 (March 2918) 378.
[1836] GM, vol. 12, no. 5 (March 1956) 163-65 and 170.
[1837] GM, vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1955) 59-60.
[1838] Kathleen Blomfield to J. B. Whitmore, 14 July 1948.
[1839] Lawrence Tanner's autobiography Recollections of a Westminster antiquary (1969) does not mention the Society. His wife's nephew, Nicholas MacMichael (1933-1985),a brilliant medieval genealogist, was his Deputy as Keeper of the Muniments and an active member of the Society, joining in 1957 and being elected a Fellow in 1969.
[1840] GM, advertisements, September 1952. In October 1967 he lectured at the Society on ‘An adventure into genealogy’, breaking off now and then and playing on his violin accompanied by Harold East on the piano, an extraordinary performance to which hardly anyone came. Obituary by Donald Whyte, GM, vol. 25, no. 6 (June 1996) 235. He had been elected a Fellow in 1973.
[1841] GM, vol. 12, no. 6 (June 1956) 203.
[1842] Minutes of Executive Committee, December 1956.
[1843] Minutes of Executive Committee, January 1957; GM, vol. 12, no. 9 (March 1957) 310.
[1844] GM, vol. 12, no. 10 (June 1957) 347.
[1845] GM, vol. 13, no. 6 (June 1960) 170-72.
[1846] GM, vol. 12, no. 7 (September 1956) 242-43. I reviewed the second volume (1959) in GM, vol. 13, no. 11 (September 1961) 345.
[1847] Brian Lawson, ‘Which 1851 Census’, in Journal of Isle of Man Family History Society, May 1997, 48-49.
[1848] W. D. S. Caird, Principal Probate Registry, to P. H. Blake, Society of Genealogists, 27 November 1961.
[1849] By the Hon. Guy Strutt.
[1850] Ida Darlington, ed., London Consistory Court Wills 1492-1547 (1967) ix-xxii.
[1851] GM, vol. 11, no. 10 (June 1953) 337-38.
[1852] Obituary in The Times, 21 November 1956; appreciation by Sir Harry Luke, The Times, 20 December 1956.
[1853] Anthony Wagner, A herald's world (London, 1988) 163.
[1854] Minutes of Executive Committee, December 1956.
[1855] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 397-98.
[1856] Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten; the official biography (1985) 365.
[1857] GM, vol. 12, no. 11 (September 1957) 365-71.
[1858] ‘The earl talks of Gusty, Rico and Missy’, in Sunday Express, 26 May 1957.
[1859] C. D. P. Nicholson to H. K. Percy-Smith, 8 May 1957, and reply 15 May 1957; GM, vol. 18, no. 5 (March 1976) 259.
[1860] ‘The earl and his family secrets’, in The Sunday Express, 9 March 1958.
[1861] GM, vol. 13, no. 3 (September 1959) 3.
[1862] Anthony J. Camp, 'The Matrilineal Descent of Queen Victoria', in GM, vol. 13, no. 8 (December 1960) 241-44. That article was further amended by Charles F. H. Evans in GM, vol. 14, no. 9 (March 1964) 273-77, it now being agreed that after 31 generations in the female line Lord Mountbatten's descent ended with Erembourg, wife of Gervase de Chateau-du-Loire, in the eleventh century.
[1863] GM, vol. 15, no. 9 (March 1967) 344. She had joined the Society in 1933.
[1864] ‘New hope for a princess in claim to fortune’, in Evening News, 1 August 1960.
[1865] According to Simon Konarski, Armorial de la noblesse Polonaise titree (Paris, 1958) 174, Jean Nepomucene Dembinski had been created a Count of Galicia by Emperor Joseph II in 1784 but the title became extinct in 1924. There are many untitled families of the surname. The assumption of the titles of Prince and Count Dembinski in London in 1958-66 is noted in Szymon Konarski, O heraldyce i "heraldycsnym" snobismie (Paris, 1967) 38, 41.
[1866] SoG AR 1957, 1.
[1867] SoG AR 1958, 1.
[1868] GM, vol. 13, no. 7 (September 1960) 193-96.
[1869] GM, vol. 12, no. 15 (September 1958) 501-7.
[1870] GM, vol. 11, no. 4 (December 1951) 146.
[1871] SoG AR 1957, 2.
[1872] Florence Moss to Anthony Camp, 3 October 1965.
[1873] SoG AR 1957, 2.
[1874] SoG AR 1957, 2.
[1875] SoG AR 1959, 2.
[1876] 25 September 1957.
[1877] 17 February 1958.
[1878] GM, vol. 15, no. 3 (September 1965) 116; obituary in GM, vol. 15, no. 6 (June 1966) 233-34. She joined the Society in 1959 and continued to work as a genealogist and record searcher until her death; she was the Acting Secretary of the Empire Day Movement.
[1879] GM, vol. 12, no. 15 (September 1958) 502.
[1880] SoG AR 1992, 10.
[1881] Harold Darton, ‘How to climb your family tree’, in Everybody’s, 1 February 1958.
[1882] ‘Want a Coat of Arms? Trace Your Family Tree? See … Vivian Ottley-Ward-Jackson’, in Life (c.1967-8). In the article L. G. Pine is quoted as saying ‘one of six family trees he traces springs from an illegitimate root’.
[1883] ‘Genealogist as Mr X: man accused of threat’, in The Times, 5 September 1956; ‘Mr ‘A’ gives evidence in threat charge’, in Kensington News, 27 July 1956, 1 and 7. Many years later he told me that in the 1920s he had family ‘expectations’ which had not materialised and that he had lived well beyond his means.
[1884] The Lady, 3 December 1959 and 1 January 1960.
[1885] ‘Tree-Climbing’, in Sunday Observer, 25 December 1960.
[1886] GM, vol. 12, no. 11 (September 1957) iv and 383. It was unavailable for years and then Messrs G. F. Rapkin produced a new edition in 1971; GM, vol. 16, no. 10 (June 1971) vii; SoG AR 1971, 2.
[1887] J. S. Gordon Clark, Sketch pedigree in tabular form of twelve generations of the descendants of John Pepys and Margaret Knight parents of Samuel Pepys the diarist (1964); GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 391.
[1888] GM, vol. 12, no. 11 (September 1957) 383.
[1889] GM, vol. 13, no. 1 (March 1959) 21-22.
[1890] ‘Home News: “Deliberate Deception” of Artificial Insemination’, in The Times, 15 January 1958, page 4.
[1891] ‘Baptism entries of adopted persons’, in The Times, 15 January 1958, page 4.
[1892] ‘Records of Adoption; what the parish registers hide’, in The Times, 25 November 1957, page 9.
[1893] Elizabeth Hirst, ‘Basic Principles of Adoption’, in The Times, 27 November 1957, page 11.
[1894] E. A. F. Fenwick, ‘Records of Adoption’, in The Times, 3 December 1957, page 11,
[1895] Lawrence E. Tanner, ‘Records of Adoption’, in The Times, 4 February 1958, page 9.
[1896] GM, vol. 12, no. 12 (December 1957) 432; Minutes of Executive Committee, October 1957.
[1897] F. W. Bennett to Members, 19 February 1958; John Phillips to Members, 24 February 1960.
[1898] Cregoe D. P. Nicholson to Magazine and Library Subscribers, November 1957.
[1899] C. D. P. Nicholson, 'Some Early Emigrants to America', in GM, vol. 12, nos. 1-16 (1955-58) and vol. 13, nos. 1-8 (1959-60). They were reprinted separately by the Society in 1965.
[1900] John Wareing, 'Some Early Emigrants to America, 1683-4: a supplementary list', in GM, vol. 18, no. 5 (March 1976) 239-46. Fourteen additional names appeared in his article 'The emigration of indentured servants from London, 1683-86', in GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 199-202.
[1901] GM, vol. 13, no. 2 (June 1959) 33.
[1902] GM, vol. 13, no. 4 (December 1959) 120.
[1903] John Phillips to Members, 24 February 1960.
[1904] Minutes of Executive Committee, April and May 1959; the total extent of the defalcations ‘by a former employee of the Society’ is given in the AR for 1958, 1, as £461-3-7.
[1905] SoG AR 1957, 2.
[1906] Anthony Camp to Lawrence E. Tanner, 18 October 1959.
[1907] Lawrence E. Tanner to Anthony Camp, 16 October 1959 (sic).
[1908] SoG AR 1959, 2.
[1909] SoG AR 1960, 1.
[1910] They appear in the lists of accessions in GM, vol. 13, no. 4 (December 1959) 125.
[1911] SoG AR 1960, 2.
[1912] SoG AR 1963, 1.
[1913] SoG AR 1960, 2.
[1914] SoG AR 1959, 1.
[1915] It first appears in the Balance Sheet as £85 on 31 December 1959.
[1916] SoG AR 1960, 2; SoG AR 1962, 2; SoG AR 1963, 1; SoG AR 1964, 1; SoG AR 1965, 2; SoG AR 1966, 1; SoG AR 1967, 2.
[1917] SoG AR 1959, 2.
[1918] Local History Magazine, no. 6 (November-December 1997) 14-15.
[1919] C. Harold Ridge to J. B. Whitmore, 21 May 1953.
[1920] Society of Genealogists: a century of family history (2011) 47.
[1921] GM, vol. 13, no. 9 (March 1961) i.
[1922] GM, vol. 14, no. 1 (March 1962) v.
[1923] GM, vol. 10, no. 12 (December 1949) 457.
[1924] GM, vol. 13, no. 8 (December 1960) 250-51.
[1925] GM, vol. 12, no. 15 (September 1958) 504.
[1926] G. D. Squibb, 'Visitation Pedigrees and the Genealogist', in GM, vol. 13, no. 8 (December 1960) 225-36, and no. 9 (March 1961) 266-74. Reprinted with some additions in a separate work of the same name (Phillimore, 1965).
[1927] GM, vol. 13, no. 9 (March 1961) 288.
[1928] GM, vol. 9, no. 10 (March 1944) 396.
[1929] GM, vol. 12, no. 6 (June 1956) 200-1.
[1930] GM, vol. 12, no. 15 (September 1958) 526.
[1931] GM, vol. 12, no. 15 (September 1958) 521.
[1932] SoG AR 1958, 2.
[1933] ‘Britain’s parish history: vast tasks involved’, in Daily Telegraph, 14 March 1959.
[1934] GM, vol. 13, no. 3 (September 1959) 68-69 and 84.
[1935] NIPR, vol. 5 (1966) vii.
[1936] ‘Bishop bans the Mormon films’, in Sunday Express, 25 October 1959.
[1937] ‘American missionaries with cameras are touring the parishes of Britain: Churches warned: Mormons are filming the names of dead’, in The Sunday Express, 18 December 1960.
[1938] ‘Vicars are told: make Mormon searchers pay’, in Daily Express, 19 December 1960.
[1939] ‘Baptism after death: Mormons tracing ancestors’, in The Times, 20 December 1960.
[1940] ‘The Mormons: I protest against this niggling intolerance’, in Daily Express, 22 December 1960.
[1941] GM, vol. 13, no. 9 (March 1961) 289; the questionnaire was dated November 1960.
[1942] GM, vol. 14, no. 1 (March 1962),Official Section, 1.
[1943] 'Work in Progress 1961', in GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 317.
[1944] GM, vol. 14, no. 1 (March 1962),Official Section, 1.
[1945] SoG AR 1962, 2.
[1946] Circular letter from D. J. Steel, 1 September 1963.
[1947] Obituary in GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 278. He had also transcribed several registers and was elected a Fellow in 1970.
[1948] GM, vol. 13, no. 12 (December 1961) 397.
[1949] GM, vol. 13, no. 7 (September 1960) 197.
[1950] GM, vol. 13, no. 7 (September 1960) 203-5.
[1951] R. S. Kirk, 'A Genealogical Tour of America', in GM, vol. 13, no. 7 (September 1960) 198-99.
[1952] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 325, and no. 11 (September 1961) 353.
[1953] SoG AR 1960, 2.
[1954] Business Archives: Quarterly Bulletin of the Business Archives Council, No. 20, September 1964, 12; his autobiography, Paymaster's Voyages, appeared in 1971 and was revised in 1981.
[1955] Joint Committee of the British Records Association and Business Archives Council: Report on Education and Training in the Care and Conservation of Business Archives, Duplicated Typescript, 1960.
[1956] SoG AR 1960, 2.
[1957] SoG: Annual General Meeting: 17th May, 1961.
[1958] GM, vol. 12, no. 13 (March 1958) 447; his wife Alexandra was a daughter of Andrew (Weir),First Lord Inverforth.
[1959] SoG AR 1960, 1.
[1960] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 324-25.
[1961] SoG AR 1960, 1.
[1962] GM, vol. 13, no. 11 (September 1961) 355-56, and no. 12 (December 1961) 398-99.
[1963] GM, vol. 14, no. 3 (September 1962),Official Section, 2.
[1964] GM, vol. 14, no. 1 (September 1963),Official Section, 3.
[1965] The members of the Sub-Committees in 1961-62 are listed in the Register of Members (1961) 5.
[1966] GM, vol. 13, no. 9 (March 1961) 257-58.
[1967] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 326, and no. 11 (September 1961) 354. Steel claimed that it had been 'rather hurriedly prepared' in time for the Exhibition; GM, vol. 14, no. 1 (March 1962),Official Section, 1.
[1968] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961).
[1969] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 297.
[1970] GM, vol. 13, no. 11 (September 1961) 329.
[1971] GM, vol. 14, no. 1 (March 1962) 1.
[1972] Anthony Camp to Peter Spufford, 1 March 1963.
[1973] Cecil R. Humphery-Smith, review of James Harrison Daniels, The Daniels-Daniells Family 1630-1957 (1959),in GM, vol. 13, no. 12 (December 1961) 392-93.
[1974] GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962) 59-60.
[1975] ‘Transportation from Hertfordshire, England to America, 1646-1775’ in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, cxv (1961) 55-57; GM, vol. 14, no. 4 (December 1962) 119-20.
[1976] GM, vol. 14, no. 3 (September 1962) 92-93.
[1977] GM, vol. 14, no. 3 (September 1962) 65.
[1978] GM, vol. 14, no. 4 (December 1962) 97.
[1979] from June 1962; Minutes of Publications Sub-Committee, 29 June 1962.
[1980] GM, vol. 14, no. 7 (September 1963) 193.
[1981] The statements on pages 4-5 of GM: subject index to volumes 1-26 1925-2000 are not correct.
[1982] SoG AR 1939, 1.
[1983] Minutes of Publications Sub-Committee, 29 June 1962.
[1984] GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 394.
[1985] GM, vol. 15, no. 4 (December 1965) 151.
[1986] GM, vol. 15, no. 16 (December 1968) 708.
[1987] SoG AR 1968, 2.
[1988] SoG AR 1971, 2.
[1989] The Times, 9 May 1961; GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 324, and no. 11 (September 1961) 353.
[1990] Obituary in Telegraph, 18 July 2001.
[1991] ‘Genealogist traces his own descent’, in Bristol Evening Post, 28 August 1959; ‘Impersonal’, in Daily Mail, September 1960.
[1992] GM, vol. 13, no. 6 (June 1960) 181-84. Twelve years later, when the 2nd edition appeared, I made slight amends by saying that the book 'had achieved so much, in so brilliant, concise and clear a manner, to show that genealogy is truly the 'handmaid of history''; vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 150.
[1993] Reviews, ‘Pedigree – Key to History’ by Anthony Powell, in Daily Telegraph, 4 March 1960, and ‘The tangled threads of genealogy’, by Cyril Connolly, in The Sunday Times.
[1994] Obituary by John Harvey in GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 198; see also Who Was Who. He had joined the Society in 1943.
[1995] Hartley Thwaite, 'Simple Annals', in GM, vol. 14, no. 6 (June 1963) 182-87.
[1996] N&Q, New Series, vol. 8, no. 2 (February 1961) 42.
[1997] Anthony Richard Wagner, English Genealogy (1960) 370-371; also 3rd ed. (1983) 420.
[1998] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 324.
[1999] Society of Genealogists: Annual General Meeting: 17th May, 1961.
[2000] What’s on in London, 14 July 1961, 6.
[2001] Henry Fielding, 'A family tree for a tenner: are you descended from a king .. or a villain?' in Daily Herald, 19 July 1961.
[2002] The Star, 24 July 1961.
[2003] E. S. Turner, 'A convict for every man' in Punch, 9 August 1961, 201-3.
[2004] Donald Gomery, 'The art of looking back' in Daily Express, 18 July 1961.
[2005] 'The common touch in genealogy' in The Times, 18 July 1961; A.J. Forrest, 'Family fun in genealogy', in The Birmingham Post, 11 November 1961.
[2006] Paul Tanfield, 'So they've proved Tony is royal after all' in Daily Mail, 6 June 1961; A. R. Wagner, 'The ancestry of Mr Anthony Armstrong-Jones' in GM, vol. 13, no, 4 (December 159) 97-103; no. 5 (March 1960) 129-33; and no. 9 (March 1961) 280-81.
[2007] Court Circular, 7 July 1961, The Times, 8 July 1961, 19.
[2008] Sir Anthony Wagner, Society of Genealogists: Jubilee Lecture: Genealogy and the Common Man (1961). The text of the Lecture was also printed in Anthony Wagner, Pedigree and progress: essays in the genealogical interpretation of history (1975) 144-53 with a Postscript, 154-55.
[2009] Sir Anthony Wagner, 'To each his family tree', in Sunday Times, 17 December 1961.
[2010] 'London Letter' in the Guardian, 16 December 1961.
[2011] Oswald Greenwaye Knapp, 'Homes of Family Names', in GM, vol. 5, no. 7 (September 1930) 211-12; he had concluded that 'modern Directories are not safe guides to the locating of surnames six or seven centuries ago'. For Knapp's obituary by Kathleen Blomfield, see vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1947) 15.
[2012] 'Our family trees' (Letter),in Sunday Times, 14 January 1962.
[2013] GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962) 63.
[2014] Classified Advertisement in The Times, 25 January 1963.
[2015] The research for which was discussed by R. A. McKinley in 'Research into Lancashire Surnames', in GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 393-95.
[2016] The first two volumes were reviewed in GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 141-42.
[2017] GM, vol. 14, no. 6 (June 1963) 191.
[2018] GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 394.
[2019] GM, vol. 15, no. 10 (June 1967) 371.
[2020] Anthony Camp, 'Poll Books', in GM, vol. 13, no. 11 (September 1961) 330-32.
[2021] Minutes of Executive Committee, February 1956.
[2022] SoG AR 1961; the Balance Sheet, shows the Collection as an asset, at cost, £100.
[2023] Agreement dated 14 November 1961 between the Society of Genealogists and James Robert Cunningham, Supervisor of the British Mission Genealogical Department.
[2024] Pinhorns’ Post, No 1 (Spring 1984) 2.
[2025] SoG AR 1961, 2.
[2026] GM, vol. 15, no. 5 (March 1966) 186.
[2027] Mark H. Hughes, 'Notes on some finding aids to Chancery Proceedings in the Library of the Society of Genealogists' in GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 129-31.
[2028] Hilary Sharp, How to use the Bernau Index (1996) 15.
[2029] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 299.
[2030] SoG AR 1959, 1.
[2031] SoG AR 1961, 1.
[2032] SoG AR 1960, 1; GM, vol. 11, no. 11 (September 1961) 353. Douglas Gabriel took a close interest in the Society for some years; I described him as 'a really nice man' at his death in Cornwall in 1988 ['Diary' in Family Tree Magazine, 16 September 1988].
[2033] Society of Genealogists: Annual General Meeting: 17th May, 1961.
[2034] SoG AR 1961, 1.
[2035] Survey of London, vol. XLII (1986) 182, quoting The Times, 23 May 1963, 9, recounting the auction of 43 properties in 17 lots for £369,500 the previous day.
[2036] GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 394.
[2037] GM, vol. 15, no. 4 (December 1965) 152.
[2038] Malcolm Pinhorn to Anthony Camp, 28 January 1962.
[2039] GM, vol. 13, no. 11 (September 1961) v.
[2040] GM, vol. 14, no. 7 (September 1963) 227.
[2041] Archives, vol. 6, 246.
[2042] Gerald Hamilton Edwards, In search of ancestry (1966) 60.
[2043] Family History, volume 1, 186.
[2044] The Virginia Magazine.
[2045] P. William Filby, American & British Genealogy and Heraldry (1970) 98.
[2046] Anthony Camp to Ian Macfarlane for Phillimore & Co Ltd, 18 October 1968.
[2047] GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962) 63-64, and no. 3 (September 1962) 95.
[2048] GM, vol. 14, no. 3 (September 1963),Official Section, 3.
[2049] e.g. Cecil Humphery-Smith in Family History, vol. 20, no. 168 (July 2001) 293, saying 'The BVRI work was subsequently take up into the Computer File Index and transmogrified into the International Genealogical Index'.
[2050] GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) ii.
[2051] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 230.
[2052] Review by Francis Leeson, GM, vol. 21, no. 7 (September 1984) 510.
[2053] GM, vol. 14, no. 4 (December 1962) 122-27.
[2054] GM, vol. 14, no. 6 (June 1963) 191.
[2055] Malcolm Pinhorn to Anthony Camp, 31 October 1962.
[2056] Archibald Colliard to Anthony Camp, 22 October 1962.
[2057] Robert Garrett to Archibald Colliard, 23 November 1962.
[2058] Archibald Colliard to Anthony Camp, 29 January 1963.
[2059] Archibald Colliard to Anthony Camp, 29 April 1963; GM, vol. 14, no. 7 (September 1963) 227.
[2060] He had joined the Society in 1951, was elected a Fellow in 1955, and resigned in 1968.
[2061] GM, vol. 14, no. 6 (June 1963),Official Section, 1.
[2062] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 6 (June 1963),Official Section, 3-4.
[2063] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 8 (December 1963),Official Section, 3-4.
[2064] GM, vol. 14, no. 10 (June 1964) 357-58.
[2065] SoG AR 1962, 2.
[2066] SoG AR 1966, 2.
[2067] Obituary in GM, vol. 17, no. 2 (June 1972) 107.
[2068] SoG AR 1961, 2.
[2069] SoG AR 1972, 2.
[2070] Obituary by Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 313. He joined the Society in 1954, was a member of the Executive Committee 1955-62 and 1963-67, and was elected a Fellow, 1969.
[2071] He had gone to New York as a ‘music conductor’ on the Queen Mary in 1937.
[2072] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 325.
[2073] Burke's Landed Gentry, 18th Edition, vol. 3 (1972) sub Blake of Barham Court.
[2074] John Betjeman to the Secretary, 10 October 1961.
[2075] Alex Shoumatoff, The mountain of names (1985) 216-217, and his Russian blood: a family chronicle (1982).
[2076] Messrs. Briant & Chambers, 157 Kennington Lane, London S.E.11, to P. H. Blake, 3 January 1962.
[2077] Peter Spufford to Philip H. Blake, 7 March 1962.
[2078] ‘Duties of the Director of Research and the Society’s Secretary’, undated TS.
[2079] C. D. P. Nicholson to Anthony Camp, 23 April 1962.
[2080] GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962) 62-63.
[2081] W. D. S. Caird, Principal Probate Registry, to P. H. Blake, Society of Genealogists, 14 May 1962.
[2082] Report of Committee on Non-Parochial Registers to Council of British Records Association, Duplicated Typescript, 19 May 1960.
[2083] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 325.
[2084] GM, vol. 14, no. 8 (December 1963) 267-68.
[2085] GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962),Official Section, 1.
[2086] GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962),Official Section, 1.
[2087] Burke's Landed Gentry (1898) sub Bere of Morebath and Timewell, Devon; GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 284.
[2088] A. R. Wagner to A. J. Camp, 20 April 1960.
[2089] A. J. Camp to A. R. Wagner, 17 June 1960.
[2090] See Who Was Who 1971-1980.
[2091] Malcolm Pinhorn to Anthony Camp, 28 August 1962.
[2092] His executors were his sister Dorothy Caroline Whitmore, Lawrence Tanner and Cregoe Nicholson, but the sister died in 1962 and the grant of probate (£16,021) was revoked, a new grant (£100,014) being made to the other two in May 1963. He had bequeathed a considerable fortune to Westminster School. He had married in 1929 but I was told that they were divorced not long before his death.
[2093] GM, vol. 14, no. 4 (December 1962),Official Section, 1.
[2094] GM, vol. 14, no. 7 (September 1963),Official Section, 2.
[2095] ‘Joys of collecting one’s ancestors: even the sheep stealers’, in The Guardian, 17 October 1962, 21.
[2096] Stanley Charles Wyatt had joined the Society in 1946 and resigned in 1968. He was appointed British Member of the Ottoman Public Debt Council in 1928 and knighted in 1939. He wrote Cheyneys and Wyatts: a brief history (1960).
[2097] ‘Recruiting at 90’ in Evening Standard, 24 April 1967.
[2098] GM, vol. 14, no. 4 (December 1962),Official Section, 1.
[2099] A. H. Noble (Honorary Treasurer) to Anthony Camp, 23 September 1962.
[2100] Anthony Camp to Douglas B. G. Gabriel, 29 October 1962.
[2101] SoG AR 1962, 2.
[2102] SoG AR 1962, 2.
[2103] A. R. Wagner to A. J. Camp, 19 April 1963; reply 22 April 1963.
[2104] A. J. Camp to A. R. Wagner, 6 November 1963.
[2105] A. R. Wagner to A. J. Camp, 13 November 1963.
[2106] A. R. Wagner to A. J. Camp, 1 June 1967.
[2107] Obituary in The Daily Telegraph, 20 October 2004.
[2108] Robert Garrett to Anthony Camp, 18 April 1963.
[2109] Obituary in The Daily Telegraph, 31 December 1982; for his ancestry see Burke's Landed Gentry, ii (1969) sub Garrett formerly of Cromac House.
[2110] Anthony Camp to Robert Garrett, 22 April 1963.
[2111] Anthony Camp to Robert Garrett, 22 April 1963
[2112] SoG AR 1963, 1.
[2113] As Gerald Hamilton-Edwards knew when, to Jack Bird's annoyance, he brought it up with Mountbatten in the Chair at the AGM in August 1959; GM, vol. 13, no. 3 (September 1959) 67.
[2114] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 560.
[2115] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 621.
[2116] Cecil Mackay to Robert Garrett, 19 June 1974.
[2117] Report of the Executive Committee, Society of Genealogists, 21 May 1963.
[2118] Anthony Powell to Peter Reid, 26 March 1963. The letter was offered for sale by Richard Ford on UKBookWorld.com in May 2012.
[2119] GM, vol. 14, no. 7 (September 1963) Official Section, 1-2.
[2120] Obituary by Cecil Mackay in GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 500. See Who Was Who. He had joined the Society in 1932.
[2121] GM, vol. 14, no. 7 (September 1963) Official Section, 2-4.
[2122] Obituary in GM, vol. 15, no. 14 (June 1968) 615. She joined the Society in 1947, typed inter alia the Coachmakers' Company Apprentices, and was a professional genealogist. She died 23 November 1967 having bequeathed £100 to the Society.
[2123] GM, vol. 15, no. 1 (March 1965) 34-37.
[2124] GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) 265.
[2125] GM, vol. 15, no. 4 (December 1965) 153-4.
[2126] GM, vol. 15, no. 4 (December 1965) 151-2.
[2127] R.E.F. Garrett to Sir Anthony Wagner, 21 November 1963.
[2128] R.E.F. Garrett to Sir Anthony Wagner, 27 November 1963.
[2129] Anthony Camp to R.E.F. Garrett, 20 November 1963.
[2130] Anthony Camp to R.E.F. Garrett, 11 December 1963.
[2131] Cecil Mackay to Anthony Camp, 27 June 1963.
[2132] Anthony Camp form letter, 9 August 1963.
[2133] GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 394.
[2134] SoG AR 1969, 2.
[2135] Obituary by Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 28, no. 9 (March 2006) 423.
[2136] Peter Spufford to Anthony Camp, 10 June 1971.
[2137] SoG AR 1965, 1.
[2138] SoG AR 1966, 1.
[2139] SoG AR 1967, 1.
[2140] SoG AR 1970, 1.
[2141] GM, vol. 17, no. 2 (June 1972) 97.
[2142] SoG AR 1971, 1.
[2143] Philip Blake to Kenneth Elphinstone, 27 February 1962.
[2144] SoG AR 1965, 1.
[2145] The places are listed in Lydia Collins & Mabel Morton, Monumental Inscriptions in the library of the Society of Genealogists: Part Two: Northern England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and Overseas (1987) 39.
[2146] SoG AR 1982, 5.
[2147] SoG AR 1965, 1.
[2148] SoG AR 1974, 1.
[2149] SoG AR 1972, 1.
[2150] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 605.
[2151] An advertisement for volume 1 in GM, vol. 15, no. 1 (March 1965) iv, says that new entrants formed a sixth of the 600 families included.
[2152] ‘Editorial Preface’, Burke’s Landed Gentry, vol. 3 (June 1972) ix.
[2153] Obituaries in The Daily Telegraph, 24 April 2003, and The Independent, 8 May 2003.
[2154] ‘New editor, 26, for ‘Burke’s Peerage’’, in Daily Telegraph, 7 July 1972; ‘New editor of Burke’s says it is raw history’, in The Times, 7 July 1972; obituary in The Times, 28 December 2007; the ‘teeth-gritting ordeals’of working with Townend (named in the book as ‘Simon Burton’) are recounted in Massingberd’s autobiography Daydream believer: confessions of a hero-worshipper (2001) chapter 7.
[2155] Hugh Massingberd, Daydream believer: confessions of a hero-worshipper (2001) 131.
[2156] Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, ‘Burke’s New Genealogical Series’, in GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 133-4.
[2157] Philip Howard, ‘A new tome to keep tabs on old peerages’, in The Times, 4 December 1972.
[2158] Philip Howard, ‘New editor of Burke’s says it is raw history’, in The Times, 7 July 1972.
[2159] Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, ‘Coats of arms and all that’, in Daily Telegraph, (? date but prior to 19 July 1977).
[2160] Hugo Vickers, in obituary of David Williamson, The Independent, 8 May 2003.
[2161] GM, vol. 20, no. 5 (March 1981) x.
[2162] ‘The big sting in Burke’s Peerage’, The Sunday Times, 6 July 1980, 13 July 1980 and 28 September 1980.
[2163] ‘Burke’s Peerage: 3 on fraud charges’, The Sunday Times, 28 September 1980; ‘Burke’s Peerage’ plot case’, The Times, 2 March 1982, page 23 (corrected 5 March 1982, page 2) and ‘Two cleared of Burke’s conspiracy’, 18 March 1982, page 4.
[2164] He died 25 December 2007, aged 60; obituary in The Daily Telegraph, 27 December 2007.
[2165] Court Circular, The Times, 14 December 1976, page 17.
[2166] Ralph S. Atherton, 'Beyond the Workhouse: an Edwardian mystery', in GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 261-65.
[2167] Ralph S. Atherton, 'Beyond the Workhouse - 2: an Edwardian mystery solved', in GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 604-10.
[2168] Margaret Dorothy Haynes (1899-1991) formerly Fellingham nee Butler to Anthony Camp, 22 December 1969.
[2169] Della Denman, ‘Americans keep busy hunting down British twigs on their family trees’, in New York Times, 10 January 1974, 43.
[2170] Travel Magazine, April 1969, page 82.
[2171] Anthony Camp to C. D. P. Nicholson, 27 March 1963.
[2172] GM, vol. 14, no. 6 (June 1963),Official Section, 1.
[2173] SoG AR 1968, 1; GM, vol. 16, no. 1 (March 1969) 20-22; Minutes of the Meeting of the Fellows, 8 January 1969.
[2174] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 108; SoG AR, 1.
[2175] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 359.
[2176] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 608.
[2177] GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 238.
[2178] 27 June 1973; GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 352.
[2179] Minutes of the Meeting of the Fellows of the SoG, 6 November 1973.
[2180] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 594.
[2181] GM, vol. 18, no. 5 (March 1976) 232, and no. 6 (June 1976) 275.
[2182] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 164.
[2183] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 194.
[2184] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 265 and 266.
[2185] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 267.
[2186] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 337.
[2187] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 375.
[2188] Society of Genealogists: Memorandum and Articles of Association: Revised 1979, 7; ‘How the Society’s constitution affects Members’, GM, vol. 20, no. 1 (March 1980) 2-3.
[2189] GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 388-89.
[2190] Family History, vol. 2, no. 11, 149.
[2191] Peter Spufford to Anthony Camp, 19 May 1965.
[2192] Joseph Jacquart, 'Un 'handbook' anglais de genealogie' in Le Phare Dimanche, 31 January 1965, 17; see Marcel Berge, 'Hommage a Joseph Jacquart', in L'Intermediaire des Genealogistes, no. 143 (September 1969) 321-31. He had drawn the attention of UK readers to three articles about the development of genealogical studies in Belgium since 1945 (in La Libre Belgique, 6, 24 and 25 August 1951) in GM, vol. 11, no. 6 (June 1952) 215.
[2193] His project on the distribution of Belgian surnames is described in GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 392.
[2194] GM, vol. 17, no. 9 (March 1974) x, and no. 10 (June 1974) 522.
[2195] GM, vol. 14, no. 7 (September 1963) i.
[2196] J. M. Sims, A catalogue of parish register copies in the possession of the Society of Genealogists (Revised Enlarged Edition, 1963) Introduction.
[2197] SoG AR 1968, 2.
[2198] GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 395.
[2199] SoG AR 1964, 11.
[2200] SoG AR 1965, 2.
[2201] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 522.
[2202] SoG AR 1979, 3.
[2203] SoG AR 1963, 2.
[2204] Obituary in GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) 271.
[2205] SoG AR 1963, 1.
[2206] GM, vol. 15, no. 3 (September 1965) 128.
[2207] GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) iv.
[2208] As Examples of Handwriting 1550-1650; e.g. GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 294 and viii,
[2209] SoG AR 1964, 2; GM, vol. 15, no. 4 (December 1965) 152.
[2210] James R. Cunningham, 'The genealogical work of the Latter-Day Saints', in GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 369-73.
[2211] James B. Allen, &c., op. cit. (1995) 251.
[2212] C. K. Adams, Chairman of the Executive Committee, to members, 23 November 1964.
[2213] GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 395.
[2214] C. K. Adams, Chairman, to members of the Society, 23 November 1964.
[2215] 'Society split on Mormon request', The Times, 2 December 1964.
[2216] GM, vol. 15, no. 4 (December 1965) 152.
[2217] SoG AR 1964, 1.
[2218] Society of Genealogists: Forthcoming Microfilm Acquisitions, June 1974.
[2219] SoG AR 1964, 1.
[2220] GM, vol. 15, no. 3 (September 1965) 132-34.
[2221] GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 686.
[2222] GM, vol. 16, no. 8 (December 1970) 430 and 454.
[2223] GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 474.
[2224] GM, vol. 17, no. 2 (June 1972) 92.
[2225] GM, vol. 17, no. 4 (December 1972) 191.
[2226] Obituary by Jeremy Gibson in GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 44. He had joined the Society in 1948 and was elected a Fellow in 1969.
[2227] GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 250.
[2228] SoG AR 1963, 1.
[2229] SoG AR 1964, 1.
[2230] D. J. Steel to all Roman Catholic parishes listed in the Catholic Directory, April 1965.
[2231] D. J. Steel to Anthony Camp, 7 March 1966, and reply, 1 April 1966.
[2232] D. J. Steel, assisted by Mrs A. E. F. Steel and C. W. Field, NIPR: a guide to Anglican, Roman Catholic and Nonconformist Registers before 1837, together with information on Marriage Licences, Bishop's Transcripts and Modern Copies: volume V: South Midlands and Welsh Border comprising the Counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire (SoG, 1966).
[2233] SoG AR 1965, 2.
[2234] Anthony Camp, 'The NIPR', in GM, vol. 15, no. 9 (March 1967) 331-32.
[2235] GM, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1969) viii.
[2236] Local History Magazine, no. 64 (November-December 1997) 16.
[2237] GM, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1969) 164.
[2238] SoG: Publications Committee: 14 October 1977.
[2239] SoG AR, 1983, 4.
[2240] NIPR: other publications, A5 sheet, late 1966
[2241] Minutes of Magazine & Publications Sub-Committee, 2 October 1967.
[2242] D. J. Steel, assisted by Mrs A. E. F. Steel, NIPR: volume I: sources of births, marriages and deaths before 1837 (I), (SoG, 1968),price £2-12-6.
[2243] Peter Spufford in GM, vol. 16, no. 2 (June 1969) 56.
[2244] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 110-11.
[2245] D. J. Steel, assisted by the late Mrs A. E. F. Steel, NIPR: volume XII: sources for Scottish genealogy and family history (Phillimore & Co. Ltd., 1970),price £4. Reviewed by David Cargill in GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 485-87.
[2246] GM, vol. 16, no. 5 (March 1970) 203-11.
[2247] D. J. Steel and L. Taylor, 'Family History in the Classroom', in GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 329-33.
[2248] GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 297. Family History in Schools by D. J. Steel and Lawrence Taylor followed in 1973.
[2249] 'Conference Report: Family History in Schools', in GM, vol. 16, no. 8 (December 1970) 426.
[2250] It was much revised in 1982 by which time it had a rival in ‘The Elephant Game’ produced by the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies at Canterbury.
[2251] GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 475.
[2252] GM, vol. 17, no. 1 (March 1972) 16-20.
[2253] GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 240.
[2254] GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) iv.
[2255] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 440-41.
[2256] D. J. Steel, NIPR Volume 2: sources for nonconformist genealogy and family history (Phillimore & Co. Ltd., 1973).
[2257] D. J. Steel and Edgar R. Samuel, NIPR Volume 3: sources for Roman Catholic and Jewish genealogy and family history (Phillimore & Co. Ltd., 1974); advertisement in GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) vi.
[2258] GM, vol. 15, no. 9 (March 1967) 342.
[2259] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 588.
[2260] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 588.
[2261] Obituary by R. E. Vine in GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 373. He had been elected a Fellow in 1970.
[2262] GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 179.
[2263] Patrick T. R. Palgrave-Moore, NIPR: volume IV: South East England: Kent, Surrey and Sussex (SoG, 1980) v.
[2264] Charles P. Neat to Anthony Camp, 3 September 1974.
[2265] SoG AR 1976, 5.
[2266] GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 286.
[2267] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 343, and no. 8 (December 1970) vi.
[2268] GM, vol. 17, no. 4 (December 1972) 178.
[2269] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) vii.
[2270] Mildred Surry to C. A. Shire for The Pitman Press, 30 November 1978.
[2271] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 295.
[2272] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 362-63.
[2273] My diary entry for 20 July 1987 in Family Tree Magazine, November 1987.
[2274] GM, vol. 15, no. 6 (June 1966) 224-25.
[2275] James B. Allen, Jessie L. Embry and Kahlile B. Mehr, Hearts turned to the fathers: a history of the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1894-1994 (Provo, 1995) 201-2; GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 296.
[2276] Minutes of Publications Sub-Committee, 29 June 1962.
[2277] D. J. Steel to members of the Society, 20 July 1965, sent with June 1965 Magazine.
[2278] GM, vol. 15, no. 6 (June 1966) iv; SoG AR 1966, 2.
[2279] GM, vol. 15, no. 10 (June 1967) v, and no. 11 (September 1967) 401.
[2280] GM, vol. 15, no. 13 (March 1968) 512.
[2281] GM, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1969) 168.
[2282] GM, vol. 15, no. 14 (June 1968) 601-2.
[2283] GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 680-83.
[2284] GM, vol. 15, no. 1 (March 1969) 24-25.
[2285] GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 680-83.
[2286] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 117.
[2287] GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 324.
[2288] SoG AR 1974, 2.
[2289] GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 289.
[2290] GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 290.
[2291] GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 291.
[2292] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 360-61.
[2293] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 345.
[2294] GM, vol. 16, no. 8 (December 1970) 403.
[2295] GM, vol. 16, no. 8 (December 1970) 429-30.
[2296] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 613, and vol. 17, no. 1 (March 1972) 26-27.
[2297] ‘The Northern Group of the Society of Genealogists’, list of members and interests, 1 May 1975.
[2298] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 612.
[2299] GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 681-82.
[2300] GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 686.
[2301] ‘The King in the Jones family tree’ and ‘The Princess and Mister Jones are twelfth cousins (twice removed)’, in Daily Mail, 16 March 1960.
[2302] ‘English ancestors of Mr Armstrong-Jones’, in Daily Telegraph, 7 April 1960.
[2303] GM, vol. 15, no. 3 (September 1965) 122.
[2304] 'Birstall Records', in GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 39.
[2305] GM, vol. 15, no. 9 (March 1967) 334-35.
[2306] Colin Bell, ‘New life for those rude forefathers’, in The Sunday Times, 18 February 1968.
[2307] GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) 266.
[2308] W. E. Tate, The Parish Chest (3rd ed. 1967) Preface.
[2309] R. E. Vine, 'Printing and Indexing Parish Registers by Computer', in GM, vol. 15, no. 12 (December 1967) 461-8.
[2310] GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971)479-82. In Family History in Schools (1973) Steel wrote that because children write slowly they could dictate the entries into a tape-recorder (on page 141 he shows a primary school child doing that) and make a written copy later.
[2311] GM, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1969) 170-71.
[2312] R. F. Hunnissett, Indexing for Editors (British Records Association, 1972) 8.
[2313] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 98.
[2314] Norah K. M. Gurney to Mrs C. M. Mackay and Anthony Camp, 13 December 1972.
[2315] SoG AR 1969, 2; D. J. Steel to Anthony Camp, 29 October 1969.
[2316] F. G. Emmison, letter in The Times, 7 January 1968.
[2317] GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 283.
[2318] GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 237-38.
[2319] GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 294.
[2320] Gerald Hamilton-Edwards, 'Genealogy and Biography', in GM, vol. 15, no. 2 (June 1965) 68-73.
[2321] GM, vol. 15, no. 9 (March 1967) 335-38.
[2322] Hon Mrs Michael Joseph to Anthony Camp, 25 March 1968.
[2323] Tracing your British ancestors (1967); review by Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 655.
[2324] GM, vol. 15, no. 16 (December 1968) 717.
[2325] GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 245-46.
[2326] GM, vol. 15, no. 3 (September 1965) 97-103, and no. 4 (December 1965) 139-44.
[2327] R. E. F. Garrett, Chancery and other Legal Proceedings (Pinhorns, 1968); review in GM, vol. 16, no. 1 (March 1969) 17. Garrett continued to take considerable trouble to discover the exact coverage of some sections of the Bernau Index, but with little success; Robert Garrett to Anthony Camp, 23 June 1980.
[2328] Lieut. Commander M. Godfrey, R.N. (Retd),'British Military Records as Sources of Biography and Genealogy', in GM, vol. 16, no. 1 (March 1969) 1-5.
[2329] R. F. Monger, 'Emigrants in Public Records', in GM, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1969) 135-43, and 'Immigrants in the Public Records', vol. 16, no. 5 (March 1970) 197-201.
[2330] GM, vol. 15, no. 1 (March 1965) 44-50, and no. 3 (September 1965) 130-1.
[2331] Obituary in GM, vol. 15, no. 8 (December 1966) 307-8; SoG AR 1966, 1. He became a Life Member in 1919 and was elected a Fellow in 1955.
[2332] An index to the pedigrees was published in GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 661-69.
[2333] GM, vol. 15, no. 9 (March 1967) 343. Further details were given in vol. 15, no. 13 (March 1968) 518-19.
[2334] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 114-15.
[2335] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 115-16.
[2336] John Sims subsequently worked at the Institute of Historical Research, moved to the India Office Library and Records (where he was in charge of official publications) in 1975, and then to the National Sound Archive as Assistant Director in 1985 [British Library News, no. 106 (April 1985) 1]. He edited inter alia the important A Handlist of British Parliamentary poll books (University of Leicester History Department, 1984).
[2337] SoG AR 1965, 2.
[2338] SoG AR 1965, 2.
[2339] GM, vol. 15, no. 3 (September 1975) 136.
[2340 GM, vol. 15, no. 4 (December 1975) 162.
[2341] GM, vol. 15, no. 8 (December 1966) 307.
[2342] Obituary by Cecil Mackay in GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 216.
[2343] Finding Aids to the Microfilmed Manuscript Collection of the Genealogical Society of Utah: Number 3: Arlene H. Eakle, Arvilla Outsen & Richard S. Tompson, Descriptive Inventory of the English Collection (Salt Lake City, 1979) 88-90.
[2344] Sandra M. Hewlett, The Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, to Anthony Camp, 2 December 1997.
[2345] Notice of his death in GM, vol. 15, no 14 (June 1968) 614-15, and his obituary by Jack Bird in the same, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 670-72.
[2346] 'The Arms of Hesse and Thuringia', in GM, vol. 15, no. 8 (December 1966) 279-84.
[2347] Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten: the official biography (1985) 670.
[2348] GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) iv and 307. Geoffrey Yates joined the Society in 1966, was a member of the Executive Committee 1968-75 and of the Library Committee 1971-78. He resigned his membership in 1989.
[2349] GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) 239-50.
[2350] Reviewed in GM, vol. 15, no. 11 (September 1967) 410-11.
[2351] SoG AR 1982, 5.
[2352] SoG AR 1967, 2.
[2353] GM, vol. 15, no. 8 (December 1966) 307.
[2354] SoG AR 1966, 2.
[2355] GM, vol. 15, no. 11 (September 1967) 401.
[2356] SoG AR 1967, 1.
[2357] SoG AR 1968, 2; GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 678.
[2358] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 355.
[2359] GM, vol. 15, no. 11 (September 1967) 415.
[2360] SoG AR 1968, 2.
[2361] SoG AR 1967, 2; GM, vol. 15, no. 11 (September 1967) 415.
[2362] SoG AR 1966, 1.
[2363] GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) 266-67.
[2364] Anthony Wagner, English Genealogy (1960) 371.
[2365] Anthony J. Camp, ‘Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths', in GM, vol. 15, no. 11 (September 1967) 397-400.
[2366] GM, vol. 15, no. 12 (December 1967) 448.
[2367] SoG AR 1967, 1.
[2368] SoG AR 1968, 2.
[2369] ‘Limitation on research’, in The Times, 2 January 1968.
[2370] The letters are quoted in Donald Steel’s memorandum, ‘Records of Births, Marriages & Deaths’, 29 October 1969.
[2371] Announced in The Times, Tuesday, 13 July 1971, 4.
[2372] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 613.
[2373] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 122.
[2374] GM, vol. 17, no. 1 (March 1972) 42.
[2375] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 156.
[2376] Donald Wright, ed., Some copy census returns held by West Midland public libraries (1973) reviewed in GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 443.
[2377] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 122.
[2378] GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 349.
[2379] SoG AR 1972, 1.
[2380] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 406
[2381] Simon Jenkins, ‘Give us back Somerset House’, Evening Standard, 2 November 1971, 13.
[2382] Penny Hunter Symon, ‘Somerset House grandeur is all outside’, The Times, 27 September 1971.
[2383] ‘Somerset House to be reborn as arts centre’, The Daily Telegraph, 15 March 1997, 11; ‘Queen Mother turns house into home for the arts’, in Daily Telegraph, 26 May 2000, 5.
[2384] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 405.
[2385] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 623-24.
[2386] My letter of 25 October 1974 is quoted in GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 68.
[2387] Hansard, vol. 354, cols.1492-3.
[2388] Hansard, vol. 355, cols.1010-31.
[2389] GM, vol. 17, no. 12 (December 1974) 646.
[2390] The wording is given in GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 69-70.
[2391] They are listed in GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 70.
[2392] ‘Salvation Army fights “birth records” move’, in Daily Telegraph, 3 February 1975, 2d-e.
[2393] Hansard, vol. 357, col. 167; reports in The Times, The Guardian and the Daily Telegraph, 19 February.
[2394] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 3.
[2395] Anthony J. Camp, ‘”Somerset House” does not go to Southport’, in GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 67-75.
[2396] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 125.
[2397] Colin D. Rogers, The family tree detective (Manchester University Press, 1983) 15.
[2398] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 149-50.
[2399] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 117.
[2400] GM, vol. 18, no. 5 (March 1976) 253-54.
[2401] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 158.
[2402] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 367.
[2403] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 327-28.
[2404] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 2, and no. 3 (September 1977) 80.
[2405] SoG AR 1977, 3.
[2406] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 255-56.
[2407] Charles L. Beddington, ‘Divorce Certificates’, in The Times, 21 April 1938.
[2408] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 266-67,
[2409] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 235.
[2410] SoG AR 1978, 4.
[2411] GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 304-6.
[2412] ‘‘Family Tree’ Bill may face the axe’, in Daily Telegraph, 24 November 1978.
[2413] SoG AR 1978, 3-4.
[2414] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 378.
[2415] SoG AR, 1979, 5.
[2416] Anthony J. Camp, 'Estate Duty Office Wills', in GM, vol. 15, no. 11 (September 1967) 393-97.
[2417] Guide to the contents of the Public Record Office: Volume III: documents transferred 1960-1966 (HMSO, 1968) 91.
[2418] David T. Hawkins, 'Estate Duty Wills and Administrations (1796-1857)', in GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 269-73,
[2419] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 38.
[2420] Obituary in the Swindon Advertiser, 24 January 2008.
[2421] SoG AR 1967, 2; GM, vol. 15, no. 11 (September 1967) 415 and 430.
[2422] Peter Spufford, 'Genealogy and the Historian', in GM, vol. 15, no. 12 (December 1967) 431-47.
[2423] Francis L. Leeson, 'The study of single surnames and their distribution', in GM, vol. 14, no. 12 (December 1964),405-12.
[2424] For example in GM, vol. 15, no. 2 (June 1965) 78-80.
[2425] GM, vol. 15, no. 6 (June 1966) 223. That value was further explored in W. A. Cummins, 'Telephone Directories and Surnames' in GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 266-69.
[2426] GM, vol. 15, no. 14 (June 1968) 594-99.
[2427] GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 493.
[2428] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 622-23.
[2429] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 452. There was an immediate argument about the size of the slips, Francis Tyack saying that they should be the metric size A7 [vol. 17, no. 9 (March 1974) 486-88] whilst others, like David Palgrave, preferred a 6 X 4 inch punch card system [vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 451-52].
[2430] GM, vol. 17, no. 2 (June 1972) 100.
[2431] GM, vol. 17, no. 4 (December 1972) vii.
[2432] GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 270-71.
[2433] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 453-54.
[2434] GM, vol. 17, no. 9 (March 1974) 506.
[2435] Insert in December 1972 Magazine.
[2436] e.g. John Rayment in GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 308.
[2437] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 522.
[2438] GM, vol. 19, no. 4 (December 1977) 117.
[2439] SoG AR 1967, 2.
[2440] SoG AR 1968, 2; GM, vol. 15, no. 16 (December 1968) 707.
[2441] GM, vol. 17, no. 4 (December 1972) 191.
[2442] L. W. L. Edwards, Index to Cornish Nonconformist Registers deposited at the Public Record Office (London, 1976); advertisement in GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) ix.
[2443] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 552.
[2444] SoG AR 1968, 2; Andrea Waters returned to marry Timothy Tindal-Robertson in May 1971.
[2445] SoG AR 1968, 2.
[2446] SoG AR 1969, 2.
[2447] ‘Reminders’ circulated with March 1969 Magazine.
[2448] Anthony Camp to J. Denis Burton, 25 October 1969.
[2449] SoG AR 1969, 3.
[2450] ‘Revised classification scheme for use in the Library of the Society of Genealogists, September, 1970’.
[2451] SoG AR 1970, 2.
[2452] SoG AR 1970, 3.
[2453] SoG AR 1971, 3.
[2454] SoG AR 1971, 2.
[2455] SoG AR 1972, 2.
[2456] C. K. Adams to all SoG members, 31 July 1967.
[2457] SoG AR 1968, 1. The Minutes of the AGM held on 2 July 1969 say that the completion date was 31 March 1968; GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 109.
[2458] He personally signed almost every letter sent out in his name; GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 500.
[2459] GM, vol. 15, no. 14 (June 1968) 606.
[2460] Anthony Camp to Arthur Noble, 26 April 1968.
[2461] SoG AR 1971, 1.
[2462] ‘Notice to quit lifted for 88 in bedsitters’, in The Guardian, 12 January 1971.
[2463] GM, vol. 15, no. 14 (June 1968) vi, and no. 15 (September 1968) iv.
[2464] SoG AR 1968, 1; GM, vol. 16, no. 1 (March 1969) iv.
[2465] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 110.
[2466] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 292.
[2467] GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 678; SoG AR 1967, 1.
[2468] SoG AR 1967, 2.
[2469] Society of Genealogists: Executive Committee: Report (28.11.68) by the House Sub-Committee.
[2470] Estimate from Flatfurn Ltd, 3 October 1968; Anthony Camp to Hon Guy Strutt, 29 November 1968 and 1 January 1969; Hon. Guy Strutt to Anthony Camp, 16 December 1968 and 12 January 1969.
[2471] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 111.
[2472] SoG AR 1970, 1.
[2473] SoG AR 1974, 2; GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 552.
[2474] SoG AR 1969, 1.
[2475] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 82.
[2476] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 405.
[2477] SoG AR 1974, 1.
[2478] SoG AR 1974, 1.
[2479] SoG AR 1975, 1.
[2480] Cecil Mackay to Robert Garrett, 19 June 1974.
[2481] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 607.
[2482] SoG AR 1971, 3; SoG AR 1972, 2.
[2483] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 588.
[2484] SoG AR 1982, 6.
[2485] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 354 and 357-58.
[2486] SoG AR 1970, 1.
[2487] GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 483-84.
[2488] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 128-30.
[2489] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 125.
[2490] Cecil Mackay to Anthony Camp, 11 October 1972.
[2491] GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 354.
[2492] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 112.
[2493] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) viii.
[2394] SoG AR 1969, 2.
[2495] SoG AR 1970, 2.
[2496] GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 305.
[2497] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 523.
[2498] Alice Stanley to Anthony Camp, 20 November 1984.
[2499] 'P.C.C. records at the Principal Probate Registry', in Archives (October 1969) 100-1.
[2500] The Times Literary Supplement, Thursday, 18 July 1968.
[2501] Supplement to London Gazette, 11 June 1966, 6548 (no citation).
[2502] Anthony J. Camp, Wills and their whereabouts (4th edition, 1974) xxxii-xxxvi.
[2503] GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 298. The PCC wills became available again at the PRO in Chancery Lane, 8 June 1970.
[2504] Jane Cox, Hatred pursued beyond the grave: tales of our ancestors from the London church courts (1993) ix. See also her Wills, inventories and death duties: the records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and the Estate Duty Office: a provisional guide (PRO, 1988).
[2505] GM, vol. 15, no. 14 (June 1968) 588.
[2506] GM, vol. 16, no. 1 (March 1969) 23.
[2507] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 116-17.
[2508] GM, vol. 16, no. 5 (March 1970) 236.
[2509] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 363.
[2510] GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 469.
[2511] SoG AR 1972, 1.
[2512] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 138.
[2513] GM, vol. 18, no. 5 (March 1976) 226.
[2514] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 358.
[2515] GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 298.
[2516] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 336-37.
[2517] Anthony J. Camp, ‘The perils of prervation’ , in GM, vol. 21, no. 8 (December 1984) 265-75.
[2518] Malcolm Pinhorn to P. H. Blake, 5 April 1962.
[2519] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 116.
[2520] Philip Blake to Anthony Camp, 3 March 1969.
[2521] SoG AR 1969, 2.
[2522] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 326.
[2523] GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 351.
[2524] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 586.
[2525] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 230.
[2526] GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1978) 301.
[2527] D. J. Steel, 'World Conference on Records', in GM, vol. 16, no. 5 (March 1970) 233-36.
[2528] Anthony Camp’s aide memoire for Mrs Mackay, January 1969.
[2529] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 101-2.
[2530] GM, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1969) 166.
[2531] GM, vol. 16, no. 5 (March 1970) 224.
[2532] Philip Harris, Report to Board on meeting with Anthony J. Camp, 10 December 1968 (Affidavit PH1, June 1974).
[2533] C. M. Mackay, Secretary, to Phillimore & Co Ltd, 30 October 1969, to Philip Harris, Managing Director, 3 November 1969, and 26 November 1969; Philip Harris to C. M. Mackay, 6 November 1969.
[2534] SoG AR 1969, 2.
[2535] Francis Leeson, 14 October 1975, quoted in report to Publications Committee, 14 October 1977.
[2536] Philip Harris to Mildred Surry, 8 February 1977.
[2537] Donald Steel, 29 August 1977, quoted in report to Publications Committee, 14 October 1977.
[2538] Jeremy Gibson, 26 September 1977, quoted in report to Publications Committee, 14 October 1977.
[2539] Philip Harris to Brian Brooks, 12 September 1977.
[2540] Society of Genealogists: Publications Committee: 14 October 1977.
[2541] Society of Genealogists: Publications Committee: 14 October 1977.
[2542] Committee on Departmental Records Report, HMSO 1954, Cmd 9163.
[2543] Gerald Hamilton-Edward to Anthony Camp, 4 March 1967.
[2544] SoG AR 1965, 1.
[2545] Philip H. Blake to Lord Denning, 24 February 1967.
[2546] SoG AR 1966, 1.
[2547] The British Records Association: thirty-fifth report of council … for the year 1966-1967 (1967) 8.
[2548] Philip H. Blake to the Master of the Rolls, 24 February 1967.
[2549] Peter Spufford (for British Record Society) to Sir George Coldstream (Lord Chancellor’s Permanent Secretary),1 November 1966.
[2550] G. K. S. Hamilton-Edwards to Lord Chancellor, 28 February 1967.
[2551] H. Leslie White to Editor of GM, 17 December 1966.
[2552] ‘Lord Denning wants 6 miles of wills cleared’, Daily Telegraph, 26 August 1966; ‘Cutting Law Records; aim to keep only the useful’, The Times, 26 August 1966.
[2553] C. K. Adams, Chairman, SoG, to the Lord Chancellor, 11 October 1966.
[2554] R. Thesiger for Lord Chancellor to C. K. Adams for SoG, 20 October 1966.
[2555] M. Roper for Advisory Council to Chairman, SoG, 8 November 1966.
[2556] Conference on Legal Records: observations on the Report of the Committee on Legal Records (Institute of Historical Research, duplicated TS, February 1967).
[2557] M. Roper for Advisory Council to Chairman, SoG, 12 December 1966; Anthony Camp to M. Roper, 2 March 1967.
[2558] M. Roper to Anthony Camp, 17 November 1967; Hansard, House of Lords, 14 November 1967, cols. 585-586.
[2559] The British Records Association: thirty-sixth report of council … for the year 1967-1968 (1968) 9.
[2560] Both quotations appear in John Cantwell, ‘The Public Record Office: Friend of Foe?’, in Contemporary Record, vol. 9, No. 2 (Autumn 1995) 368.
[2561] Anthony Camp to Lord Chancellor, 6 November 1968; SoG AR 1968, 1.
[2562] Sir Anthony Wagner to Lord Chancellor, 12 November 1968.
[2563] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 111.
[2566] ‘Seven miles of wills to be moved’, Daily Telegraph, 9 June 1969.
[2565] R. Thesiger for Lord Chancellor to Anthony Camp, 24 March 1971.
[2566] John Ringrose to Anthony Camp, 2 September 1980 and 29 April 1992.
[2567] Jane Cox, ed., The Nation’s Memory (HMSO, 1988) 10.
[2568] ‘Threat to West Country records’, in The Times, 31 May 1966; Dr W. A. L. Seaman’s letter, ‘Records in danger’, in The Times, 7(?) June 1966.
[2569] Full details are given in C. T. and M. J. Watts, My ancestor was a merchant seaman (1986 etc.); see also Magna (April 2013) 46-28, and (May 2015) 46.
[2570] ‘1937 adds to Record Office jam; Cabinet papers for public’, in Daily Telegraph, 2 January 1968.
[2571] Stella Colwell, ‘A genealogist’s view of the Public Records’, in The Records of the Nation (1990),151-2.
[2572] ‘Queues for Records’, in The Times, 22 February 1968, 11.
[2573] ‘Queues for Records’, in The Times, 1 March 1968, 9, a letter signed by Elton, David Thomson & Dorothy Whitelock.
[2574] GM, vol. 16, no. 10 (June 1971) 546-48.
[2575] SoG AR 1971, 2.
[2576] ‘Future of Public Record Office’, The Times, 21 March 1972, page 15.
[2577] ‘Public Record Office’, The Times, 22 March 1972, page 17.
[2578] ‘Public Record Office’. The Times, 25 March 1972, page 17.
[2579] Briton C. Busch, of New York, The Times, 3 April 1972, page 7; Professor P. J. Korshin, of Pennsylvania, The Times, 4 April 1972, page 13.
[2580] P. William Filby, ‘Bletchley Park and Berkeley Street’, in Intelligence and National Security, vol. 3, no. 2 (April 1988) 272-84.
[2581] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 349.
[2582] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 19.
[2583] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 358.
[2584] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 606.
[2585] SoG AR 1972, 3.
[2586] Anthony Camp to Simon Pointer, Oxford Heraldry Society, 7 January 1972.
[2587] SoG AR 1979, 4.
[2588] They are listed in GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 639-41.
[2589] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 617.
[2590] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 606-7.
[2591] GM, vol. 17, no. 9 (March 1974) 474.
[2592] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 589.
[2593] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 88-89; repeated no. 7 (September 1976) viii and vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) viii and no. 6 (June 1978) xii.
[2594] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 333.
[2595] SoG AR 1978, 6.
[2596] GM, vol. 17, no. 1 (March 1972) 27.
[2597] SoG AR 1972, 2.
[2598] GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 299; a second edition appeared in 1978, see review in GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 289-90.
[2599] GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 239.
[2600] GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 350, and no. 8 (December 1973) 440.
[2601] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 582.
[2602] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 2-3; SoG AR 1975, 4, gives the number as 66.
[2603] Patricia M. Riach, 'Parish Register Transcriptions Missing from the Society's Collections', in GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 132-33.
[2604] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 351-52; SoG AR 1975, 4, mentioning that only six had then been recovered.
[2605] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 326.
[2606] SoG AR 1975, 4.
[2607] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 351.
[2608] SoG AR 1976, 4.
[2609] SoG AR 1976, 4.
[2610] SoG AR 1974, 2.
[2611] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 140.
[2612] Obituary by Kathleen Blomfield in GM, vol. 10, no. 2 (June 1947) 52.
[2613] G. H. Holley in Miscellany of Norfolk Record Society, vol. 27 (1956).
[2614] SoG AR 1974, 2.
[2615] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 140.
[2616] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 84-85.
[2617] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 140.
[2618] L. W. Lawson Edwards, 'Sun Fire Insurance Office Claims 1770-1788, in GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 192-201.
[2619] Roland Gwyn to L. W. Lawson Edwards, 6 July 1987. He died at Boynton Beach, Florida, on 13 August 1987.
[2620] A transcript of the debate, taken from Hansard, is given in GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 589-603.
[2621] Obituary by Monnica Stephens in GM, vol. 28, no. 3 (September 2004) 115.
[2622] GM, vol. 17, no. 1 (March 1972) 38-39 and 42.
[2623] GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 351.
[2624] GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 239.
[2625] Anthony Camp to Isobel Mordy, 11 May 1974.
[2626] SoG AR 1979, 3.
[2627] SoG AR 1972, 2.
[2628] SoG AR 1973, 2.
[2629] Reviewed by Donald Steel in GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 89-90.
[2630] SoG AR 1974, 1; SoG AR 1974, 1.
[2631] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 61-62.
[2632] Brendan Mulholland, ‘Vicar put parish records on rubbish dump’, in The Sunday Express, 27 April 1975.
[2633] SoG AR 1975, 3.
[2634] An edited version of the discussion in the House of Lords, taken from Hansard, vol. 368, no. 35, for Thursday, 19 February 1976, was printed in GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 278-87.
[2635] SoG AR 1976, 3.
[2636] Letter, ‘Charges for using Parish Registers’, in The Times, 7 October 1976, signed by representatives of the Cambridge Group, Federation of Family History Societies, Friends Historical Society, Historical Association, Huguenot Society, Local History Tutors’ Conference, Local Population Studies, Social History Society, Society of Genealogists, Standing Conference for Local History, and Universities’ Council for Adult Education.
[2637] SoG AR 1976, 3.
[2638] SoG AR 1977, 3.
[2639] SoG AR 1977, 2-3.
[2640] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 83.
[2641] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 234.
[2642] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 196-98, quoting Hansard for 9 January 1978, cols. 1395-1400.
[2643] SoG AR 1978, 4.
[2644] SoG AR 1979, 6.
[2645] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 235.
[2646] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 338.
[2647] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 379.
[2648] Duncan Harrington, ‘Ensuring the future of parish records’, in The Times, 7 May 1983.
[2649] Catalogue of Deighton, Bell & Co, 13 Trinity Street, Cambridge, received 6 December 1979.
[2650] GM, vol. 17, no. 1 (March 1971) i.
[2651] GM, vol. 17, no. 1 (March 1972) 26.
[2652] Obituary in Swindon Advertiser, 24 January 2008.
[2653] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 612.
[2654] SoG AR 1972, 2.
[2655] GM, vol. 17, no. 2 (June 1972) 65.
[2656] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 121-22,
[2657] GM, vol. 17, no. 4 (December 1972) 192.
[2658] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 407-18.
[2659] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 420-29, and no. 9 (March 1974) 475-81.
[2660] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 430-38.
[2661] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 543.
[2662] GM, vol. 17, no. 9 (March 1974) 473-74.
[2663] D. G. Mason to the Joint Editors, 12 May 1974; his letter was read to the Publications Sub-Committee, 11 June.
[2664] A. R. Wagner, English Genealogy (1983) 134.
[2665] ‘The Arms Game’, in Heraldry Gazette: the official organ of the Heraldry Society, vol. 2, Nos. 47 & 48 (July & October 1968) 1.
[2666] ‘Heraldic arms draw dollars’, in The Times, 13 January 1969.
[2667] ‘Arms’ in ‘Ego’ in Sunday Observer, 5 January 1969.
[2668] Anthony Wagner, ‘Heraldic Arms Sale’, in The Times, 16 January 1969.
[2669] GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 324.
[2670] Parliamentary Debates (Hansard): House of Lords, vol. 342, no. 79 (10 May 1973) columns 514-90; ‘Peers want College of arms left alone’, in The Times, 13 May 1973, 14; abbreviated report of Debate in GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 355-64; Denis Herbstein, ‘Fares please, heralds told’, in The Sunday Times, 13 May 1973.
[2671] Parliamentary Debates (Hansard): House of Lords, vol. 344, no. 108 (4 July 1973) columns 237-41.
[2672] Formed in 1975 and dissolved in 1982.
[2673] ‘Heralds meet their Waterloo’, in GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 18.
[2674] Anthony Camp to Jeremy Gibson for Phillimore & Co Ltd, 24 March 1971.
[2675] Anthony Camp to Philip Harris for Phillimore & Co. Ltd., 28 April 1971.
[2676] Lovegrove & Durant to Anthony Camp, 27 May 1971.
[2677] Anthony Camp to Philip Harris for Phillimore & Co. Ltd., 1 December 1971.
[2678] Lovegrove & Durant to J. Denis Burton for Society of Genealogists, 6 January 1972.
[2679] Cecil Mackay for Society of Genealogists to Lovegrove & Durant, 19 January 1972.
[2680] Jeremy Gibson to J. Denis Burton for Society of Genealogists, 16 February 1972.
[2681] J. Denis Burton to Jeremy Gibson, 19 February 1972.
[2682] Helen G. Thacker to Anthony Camp, 5 April 1972.
[2683] C. Clutton, Esq., & Others to Anthony Camp, Esq., Assignment of Copyright in the First and Second Editions of a book entitled "Wills and their whereabouts" originally compiled and published by the late Mr. Bouwens, 27 September 1972.
[2684] Jeremy Gibson to Anthony Camp, 8 March 1974.
[2685] Jeremy Gibson to Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, 6 March 1974.
[2686] Arnold Hawker to Jeremy Gibson, 7 March 1974.
[2687] Anthony Camp to Lawson Edwards, 22 March 1974.
[2688] Anthony Camp to Jeremy Gibson, 14 March 1974.
[2689] GM, vol. 17, no. 9 (March 1974) vi.
[2690] GM, vol. 17, no. 9 (March 1974) 474.
[2691] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) vi.
[2692] Vera Gibbons, Book Shop, Phillimore & Co Ltd, 28 March 1974.
[2693] The Bookseller, 6 April 1974, 1893.
[2694] The Bookseller, 6 April 1974, 1888.
[2695] Brian Fitzgerald-Moore to The Editor, The Bookseller, 11 June 1974.
[2696] The Bookseller, 20 April 1974, 2030.
[2697] Anthony Camp to Anders Larsen, 12 August 1974.
[2698] Robert Massey to Anthony Camp, 11 April 1974.
[2699] Jeremy Gibson to Robert Massey, 6 September 1974.
[2700] e.g. writing that it would give him 'great pleasure' to acknowledge any assistance that I might care to give with his book Probate Jurisdictions, 27 September 1981; I did not reply.
[2701] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) viii.
[2702] Anthony Camp to Alexander Sandison, 17 March 1975.
[2703] Alexander Sandison, to Anthony Camp, 12 May 1975.
[2704] D. B. G. Gabriel, of Lawrence, Graham & Co, to Mrs C. M. Mackay, 24 May 1974.
[2705] Journal of Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry, no. 35 (November 1974) 18-20.
[2706] Lord Mountbatten to Anthony Camp, 9 and 11 July 1968.
[2707] Anthony Camp to Lord Mountbatten, 16 July 1968.
[2708] Lord Mountbatten to Anthony Camp, 8 August 1968.
[2709] GM, vol. 17, no. 4 (December 1972) 179-82.
[2710] Hugo Vickers, Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece (London, 2000) 369.
[2711] Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten: the official biography (London, 1985) 682.
[2712] David Williamson, Brewer's British Royalty (London, 1996) 347.
[2713] The meddlesome solicitor Edward Frank Iwi (1904-1966),described as a ‘lawyer and genealogist’ by Ziegler, seems to have been best known for his tongue in cheek letters to the press on hypothetical questions and his Laws and flaws: lapses of the legislators (Odhams Press, 1956); see his obituary in The Times, 7 June 1966, page 12. In September 1959 he had written to the Prime Minister saying that the use of the surname Windsor alone on the birth certificate of Prince Andrew would be a ‘Badge of Bastardy’. His article 'The heir-apparent' appeared in Debrett's Peerage (1965) 19-20.
[2714] Patrick Montague-Smith to Mrs C. M. Mackay, 27 June 1972. Obituary in The Times, 7 June 1966, page 12.
[2715] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 123-24.
[2716] Hugo Vickers, Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece (London, 2000) 369.
[2717] John W. Barratt to Jeremy Gibson, 22 November 1973.
[2718] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 417.
[2719] Lord Mountbatten to Jeremy Gibson, 18 June 1974.
[2720] SoG AR 1972, 1.
[2721] Review by Jeffrey Finestone in GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 597-98; Charles ‘Arnold’ McNaughton relied greatly on Mountbatten’s encouragement and sponsorship and shortly after the latter’s murder on 27 August 1979, he jumped to his death off a local high bridge, 14 October 1979.
[2722] Obituary in GM, vol. 17, no. 4 (December 1972) 222.
[2723] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 615-16.
[2724] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 130-31,
[2725] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 127.
[2726] ‘Congress of Genealogy and Heraldry’, in Daily Telegraph, 11 September 1962; ‘£2,000 grant that failed’, Daily Telegraph, 5 December 1962.
[2727] Vincent Mulchrone, ‘Fine goings on … among the nobility yesterday’, in Daily Mail, 15 September 1962.
[2728] GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 350.
[2729] Minutes of XIII International Congress meeting held at IHGS, Canterbury, 22 September 1973, 1.
[2730] Minutes of English Genealogical Congress committee meeting, 15 November 1973, 2.
[2731] Journal of the Bristol & Avon Family History Society (December 1990) 24.
[2732] GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 294.
[2733] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 523.
[2734] GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) x.
[2735] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 448-49.
[2736] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 523.
[2737] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 522.
[2738] Journal of the Bristol & Avon Family History Society (December 1990) 24-27.
[2739] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 524-25.
[2740] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 524.
[2741] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 559-60.
[2742] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 622.
[2743] Journal of the Bristol & Avon Family History Society (December 1990) 24-27.
[2744] Journal of the Bristol & Avon Family History Society (December 1990) 25.
[2745] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 581 and 621-22.
[2746] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 621-22.
[2747] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 618-20.
[2748] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 617.
[2749] Anthony Wagner, A Herald's World (London, 1988) 163.
[2750] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 590-93.
[2751] Cecil Mackay to Robert Garrett, 19 June 1974.
[2752] GM, vol. 17, no. 9 (March 1974) 474.
[2753] Brenda Leech, for Exhibition & Trade Fairs International Ltd., to Anthony Camp, 12 August 1974.
[2754] Journal of Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry, No. 35 (November 1974) 1.
[2755] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) facing 612.
[2756] Diary, 24 June 1975.
[2757] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 525.
[2758] GM, vol. 17, no. 12 (December 1974) 645.
[2759] Minutes of XIII International Congress meeting held at IHGS, Canterbury, 22 September 1973, 2.
[2760] Journal of the Bristol & Avon Family History Society (December 1990) 27.
[2761] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 33.
[2762] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 34.
[2763] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 34-35.
[2764] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 35-36.
[2765] Eva Beech, 'A genealogy class in North Staffordshire', in GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 202-4.
[2766] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 37.
[2767] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 37-38.
[2768] GM, vol. 17, no. 12 (December 1974) 645-46.
[2769] Obituary by Dr W. E. Church and Cecil Humphery-Smith in GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 149.
[2770] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 127.
[2771 Minutes of AGM, 21 September 1975, printed in Federation of Family History Societies 21st Anniversary (1995) 11-16.
[2772] GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 178; SoG AR 1975, 1.
[2773] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 332.
[2774] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 64.
[2775] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 121.
[2776] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 275-76.
[2777] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 120 and 122.
[2778] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 122; obituary by Cecil Humphery-Smith in Family History, vol. 12, nos. 91/92 (August 1982) 201-2.
[2779] D. A. Palgrave, 'One-Name Societies', in GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 296-98.
[2780] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 79.
[2781] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 160.
[2782] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 306-7.
[2783] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 59.
[3784] The Midland Ancestor, vol. 4, no. 1 (1975).
[2785] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 406.
[2786] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 5-6.
[2787] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 118.
[2788] SoG AR 1975, 5.
[2789] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 66.
[2790] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 63.
[2791] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 326.
[2792] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 327.
[2793] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 38-39.
[2794] GM, vol. 19, no. 4 (December 1977) 118.
[2795] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 229.
[2796] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 64 and 66.
[2797] GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 181.
[2798] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 332.
[2799] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 3.
[2800] SoG AR 1975, 4-5.
[2801] GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 182-86.
[2802] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 299-300.
[2803] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 95.
[2804] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 99-100.
[2805] GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 210.
[2806] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 291.
[2807] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 119.
[2808] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 229.
[2809 Printed as ‘Belgie en Engeland een twee Richtingen Verkeer’, in Vlaamse Stam (1972) 31-44.
[2810] Emilia Adamczykova to Anthony Camp, 10 November 1973.
[2811] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) x-xi.
[2812] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 276.
[2813] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 305-6.
[2814] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 304-5.
[2815] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 365.
[2816] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 365-67.
[2817] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 332.
[2818] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 83.
[2819] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 195.
[2820] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 329.
[2821] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 1 and 3; it was re-founded as South Wales Family History Society in 1977, GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 80.
[2822] Reviewed in GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 91, and no. 4 (December 1977) 119.
[2823] SoG AR 1984, 6.
[2824] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 118-19.
[2825] GM, vol. 18, no. 5 (March 1976) 228-31.
[2826] Circular dated 3 June 1976 from Elizabeth Simpson, Secretary, Federation of Family History Societies.
[2827] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 14-16. The surname of Alan Reid is there incorrectly given as Read.
[2828] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 20.
[2829] See review by Morris Bierbrier in GM, vol. 18, no. 5 (March 1976) 247-48.
[2830] XII International Congress: 1976: Proceedings, 69-70.
[2831] Printed in full in XII International Congress: 1976: Proceedings, 27-33.
[2832] SoG AR 1976, 5.
[2833] XII International Congress: 1976: Proceedings, 34.
[2834] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 349.
[2835] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 194.
[2836] Obituaries in The Times, 11 February 1992, and Daily Telegraph, 11 February 1992.
[2837] Alex Haley, 'Search for an Ancestor', in New Community, vol. 3 (Autumn 1974) 321-6.
[2838] GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 179.
[2839] The impact of Roots in the USA was described by Mark Ottaway, 'Tangled Roots', in The Sunday Times, 10 April 1977.
[2840] James B. Allen, &c., op. cit. (1995) 291.
[2841] James Rose and Alice Eichholz, Black Genesis (Detroit, 1978).
[2842] Mark Ottaway, ‘Tangled Roots’, in The Sunday Times, 10 April 1977, 17.
[2843] Allegations that some 81 passages in the book had been taken from a novel, The African by Harold Courlander (1967) were the subject of an out-of-court settlement in December 1978, as noted in GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 302.
[2844] Charles Laurence, ‘1,000 find pride in their slave roots’, in Daily Telegraph, 1 September 1986, 1.
[2845] John Harlow, ‘American TV boycotts expose of Haley’s Roots’, in Sunday Times, 7 September 1997.
[2846] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 63.
[2847] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 2-3.
[2848] GM, vol. 10, no. 9 (March 1949) 310-14; see also his letter vol. 13, no. 12 (December 1961) 395-6.
[2849] Reviewed by John Harvey in GM, vol. 15, no. 1 (March 1963) 32.
[2850] GM, vol. 14, no. 8 (December 1963),Official Section, 1.
[2851] SoG AR 1963, 1.
[2852] GM, vol. 14, no. 9 (March 1964) 300-1.
[2853] Obituary in GM, vol. 15, no. 8 (December 1966) 307. He had joined the Society in 1957; was a professional searcher in the West Country; borrowed many original registers for transcription; and died 5 May 1966.
[2854] GM, vol. 14, no. 10 (June 1964) 356-57.
[2855] GM, vol. 15, no. 9 (March 1967) 342.
[2856] GM, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1969) 171-72.
[2857] SoG AR 1969, 2.
[2858] SoG AR 1970, 2.
[2859] GM, vol. 16, no. 10 (June 1971) 565.
[2860] Christopher T. and Michael J. Watts, 'M. I.s from Cleared Burial Grounds', in GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 241-44. A few more were added in 1979; GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 353.
[2861] GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 470-74.
[2862] Martin C. Brimble, 'Monumental Inscriptions', in GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 609-12.
[2863] The Times, 3 and 5 January 1973; GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 255-56.
[2864] TSGL: Seventh QR, March 1913, 2.
[2865] GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 308.
[2866] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 564.
[2867] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 522.
[2868] H. Leslie White, 'Proposed Revision of the Pastoral Measure, 1968', in GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 251-54.
[2869] SoG AR 1972, 2.
[2870] SoG AR 1976, 4.
[2871] SoG AR 1974, 2.
[2872] SoG AR 1977, 3.
[2873] Dr H. Leslie White, 'Monumental Inscriptions: a progress report', in GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 19-21.
[2874] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 154; she had joined the Society in 1962.
[2875] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 88. The Leicestershire parishes covered by Mrs Moll are listed on page 111.
[2876] SoG AR 1976, 4.
[2877] Kendall Percy-Smith to Anthony Camp, 31 January 1975.
[2878] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 329; reviewed by Dr White in GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 53.
[2879] GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 324.
[2880] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 51-52.
[2881] SoG AR 1976, 3-4.
[2882] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 159.
[2883] Review by Leslie White in GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 324-25.
[2884] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 229.
[2885] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 375.
[2886] SoG AR 1979, 3.
[2887] SoG AR 1980, 4.
[2888] GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 685.
[2889] Anthony Camp to Arnold Hawker and Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, 11 March 1975.
[2890] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 127.
[2891] Cecil Mackay to Robert Garrett, 19 June 1974.
[2892] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 117.
[2893] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 334.
[2894] L. W. Lawson Edwards to Staff Committee, 2 July 1975.
[2895] Cecil Mackay to J. Denis Burton, 13 October 1975.
[2896] Anthony Camp to Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, 13 December 1975.
[2897] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) vi.
[2898] GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 178.
[2899] The City of London Polytechnic became the London Guildhall University in 1993 and the Fawcett Library was renamed The Women's Library in 2000, moving into new purpose-built premises at Calcutta House, Old Castle Street, London E1, in 2001.
[2900] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 337.
[2901] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 274.
[2902] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 333.
[2903] Anthony J. Camp, ‘Research’ (TS, June, 1976).
[2904] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 587.
[2905] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 1-2.
[2906] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 123-25.
[2907] GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 181.
[2908] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 333-34.
[2909] SoG News Letter sent to members, 17 November 1976; GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 2.
[2910] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 81.
[2911] Memorandum and Articles of Association of TSGL (1911) Article 26; also Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Society of Genealogists (1965) Article 18.
[2912] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 334.
[2913] e.g. GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 326.
[2914] Mildred Surry, Secretary, to defaulting members, 19 August 1976.
[2915] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 37-38.
[2916] SoG AR 1976, 2.
[2917] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 82.
[2918] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 233.
[2919] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 235; SoG AR 1978, 5.
[2920] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 334.
[2921] Anthony Camp to Peter Spufford, 1 March 1963, when I had suggested that the Disney pedigree (proposed for the Magazine cover) might be used.
[2922] The original stencil cost 15s; Anthony Camp to Peter Spufford, 1 May 1963 and 7 August 1963.
[2923] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 78.
[2924] Anthony Camp to Lucy Mary Kellogg, 31 June 1972.
[2925] Alan Hamilton, ‘President’s son finds his roots in Dorset’, The Times, 10 June 1977.
[2926] Mary Ellen Synon, ‘King’s Langley wins fame as Carter ‘home’’, in Daily Telegraph, 12 August 1977, 15.
[2927] ‘The Carter family lived next door’, The Times, 11 October 1977.
[2928] Which was similar to the article 'Careers in heraldry and genealogy' published in GM, vol. 18, no. 8 (December 1970) 400-03.
[2929] Anthony Camp to Alexander Sandison, 17 November 1977.
[2930] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) x-xi.
[2931] Alexander Sandison, 'The Work of the Publications Committee' in GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1979) 160-62.
[2932] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 267.
[2933] SoG AR 1976, 6.
[2934] SoG AR 1976, 6.
[2935] GM, vol. 19, no. 4 (December 1978) 117.
[2936] Gerald Hamilton-Edwards to Miss Surry, 13 June and 10 July 1977.
[2937] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 333.
[2938] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 1; SoG AR 1976, 5.
[2939] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 193; SoG AR 1978, 3.
[2940] GM, vo. 20, no. 1 (March 1980) 2.
[2941] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 50.
[2942] Mervyn T. Medlycott, 'The City of London Freedom Registers', in GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 45-47; Godfrey Thompson, Librarian of the City of London, added to this in vol. 19, no. 4 (December 1977) 141-42.
[2943] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 95-97.
[2944] GM, vol. 19, no. 4 (December 1977) 125-28.
[2945] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 169-73.
[2946] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 203-4.
[2947] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 245-49.
[2948] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 274-76.
[2949] GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 313-21.
[2950] GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 306-11.
[2951] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 345-47.
[2952] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 347-49.
[2953] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 339-45.
[2954] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 374.
[2955] Obituary of ‘Petros I Palaeologus’, in Daily Telegraph, 8 January 1988.
[2956] Anthony Camp to Prince Petros Palaeologus, 13 November 1969.
[2957] ‘Dynastic denial’, in Daily Telegraph, 16 January 1988.
[2958] The Times, 14 February 1989. He had joined the Society when 15 and was a member 1946-49; a birth-brief showing an outline of his true ancestry appeared in GM, vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1947) 37; he re-joined in 1956.
[2959] Adrienne Corri, The search for Gainsborough (1984) 58. I am indebted to Dr J. B. L. Matthews for re-bringing this book to my attention.
[2960] Adrienne Corri, op. cit., 131.
[2961] Adrienne Corri, op. cit., 155.
[2962] Adrienne Corri, op. cit., 154.
[2963] Adrienne Corri, op. cit., 134.
[2964] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 274.
[2965] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) iv.
[2966] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 194.
[2967] SoG AR 1981, 5.
[2968] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 331.
[2969] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 296.
[2970] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 160.
[2971] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 349.
[2972] Anthony J. Camp, ‘British Pedigrees and Interests’, in K. A. Johnson and M. R. Sainty, Genealogical Research Directory: National & International (2000) 17-25.
[2973] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) xii.
[2974] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 97-98.
[2975] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 267.
[2976] GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 301, and no. 10 (June 1979) 337.
[2977] SoG AR 1979, 4.
[2978] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 157-58.
[2979] V. Ben Bloxham, James R. Moss and Larry C. Porter, Truth will prevail: the rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the British Isles 1837-1987 (1987) 432-33.
[2980] James B. Allen, &c., op. cit. (1995) 251-52.
[2981] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 82.
[2982] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 90.
[2983] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 151-52.
[2984] A. J. Camp and L. W. L. Edwards, 'The Computer File Index', in GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 162-63.
[2985] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 256-57.
[2986] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 290-91.
[2987] Mildred Surry to Frederick Filby, 11 January 1979.
[2988] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 409.
[2989] GM, vol. 20, no. 5 (March 1981) 146.
[2990] SoG AR 1979, 2.
[2991] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 194.
[2992] Michael Walcot, 'English Marriage Indexes', in GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 204-8; see also no. 7 (September 1978) 244; no. 8 (December 1978) 292; and no. 9 (March 1979) 311-12 with its important comments about the sources for Pallot's Marriage Index.
[2993] SoG AR 1979, 4-5; GM, vol. 20, no. 2 (June 1980) 37; Rosetta Brading typed its 50,000 cards containing all the marriages prior to 1837 and the baptisms and burials to 1858.
[2994] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 230-31.
[2995] Mildred Surry, 'Notice to newly elected members of the Society', and GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 82.
[2996] SoG AR 1977, 5.
[2997] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 233.
[2998] New Series, vols. xvi-xx; fourteen boxes of his correspondence and articles form a special collection at the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.
[2999] Review by Morris Bierbrier in GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 176-77.
[3000] Review by Morris Bierbrier in GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 288.
[3001] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 53-54.
[3002] Heraldique et Genealogie, vol. 5, no 1 (January-February 1973) 3-9.
[3003] Jacques Dupont & Jacques Saillot, Cahiers de Saint Louis, 3e trimestre, no. 11 (Nantes, 1978). Part 1 was reviewed in GM, vol. 19, no. 4 (December 1977) 140-41.
[3004] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 409.
[3005] Reviewed in Times Literary Supplement, 23 December 1977.
[3006] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 252.
[3007] SoG AR 1978, 5.
[3008] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 265.
[3009] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 231-32.
[3010] GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 303.
[3011] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 338 and no. 11 (September 1979) 373.
[3012] SoG AR 1978, 5.
[3013] GM, vol. 19, no. 4 (December 1977) 117; SoG AR 1978, 5.
[3014] ‘The Landbeach family reconstitution project’, GM, vol. 20, no. 2 (June 1980) 41-44.
[3015] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 279-80.
[3016] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 375-76.
[3017] SoG AR 1979, 5.
[3018] SoG AR 1976, 3.
[3019] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 38, and no. 3 (September 1977) 79-80.
[3020] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 83.
[3021] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 158.
[3022] J. S. W. Gibson, Census Returns 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871 on microfilm: a directory to local holdings (Gulliver Press and Federation of Family History Societies, 1979).
[3023] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 373.
[3024] GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 302.
[3025] Francis Leeson, 'A visit to Kew', in GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 172-73, and 'How to order by computer at the P. R. O., Kew', in the same, no. 7 (September 1978) 249-51.
[3026] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 194.
[3027] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 338.
[3028] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 214.
[3029] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 193.
[3030] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 374.
[3031] SoG AR 1979, 6.
[3032] ‘More Moves to Kew’, GM, vol.20 , no. 1 (March 1980) 1-2.
[3033] Eunice Wilson, ‘Follow the PRO to Kew’, GM, vol. 20, no. 3 (September 1980) 100.
[3034] SoG AR 1980, 7-8.
[3035] SoG AR 1981, 7-8.
[3036] SoG AR 1982, 9.
[3037] ‘Access to official records’, in The Times, 30 April 1982; ‘Threat to reading room lifted’, in Daily Telegraph, 1 May 1982; SoG AR 1982, 9.
[3038] GM, vol. 20, no. 4 (December 1980) 234.
[3039] GM, vol. 20, no. 2 (June 1980) 39.
[3040] SoG AR 1982, 9.
[3041] SoG AR 1983, 9.
[3042] British Association for Local History, Report of the Council for the period 1st May 1983 to 29th February 1984, 1.
[3043] Margaret E. Robinson, BALH Administrator/Secretary, for Christopher Charlton, to RUG Representatives, 27 March 1985.
[3044] SoG AR 1984, 10.
[3045] SoG AR 1985, 9.
[3046] SoG AR 1985, 9.
[3047] SoG AR 1986, 10-11; SoG AR 1987, 10.
[3048] SoG AR 1987, 10.
[3049] SoG AR 1988, 9.
[3050] SoG AR 1989, 10.
[3051] SoG AR 1990, 9.
[3052] SoG AR 1990, 10.
[3053] SoG AR 1991, 10.
[3054] SoG AR 1991, 10.
[3055] SoG AR 1992, 10.
[3056] SoG AR 1993, 8.
[3057] SoG AR 1994, 7.
[3058] SoG AR 1995, 10.
[3059] SoG AR 1995, 10.
[3060] SoG AR 1997, 10.
[3061] SoG AR 1996, 9.
[3062] SoG AR 1997, 10.
[3063] http://one-place-studies.org. David Hawgood published a first attempt at such a register in 2001.
[3064] SoG AR 1978, 4.
[3065] SoG AR 1979, 5-6.
[3066] SoG AR 1977, 3.
[3067] SoG AR 1978, 4-5.
[3068] SoG AR 1979, 6; C. T. Watts, ‘Solicitors’ records and the family historian’, GM, vol. 20, no. 5 (March 1981) 168-69.
[3069] SoG AR 1980, 8.
[3070] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 82.
[3071] See advertisement of services in GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) vii
[3072] Obituary by Anthony Camp (from which my adverse comments were removed!) in Family Tree Magazine, vol. 24, no. 9 (Summer 2008) 65.
[3073] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 234.
[3074] GM, vol. 19, no. 12 (December 1979) 418.
[3075] Prince Michael of Kent to Stella Colwell, 4 September 1979, a letter printed in GM, vol. 19, no. 12 (December 1979) 417-18.
[3076] Anthony Camp, 'The Royal Family Historian', in GM, vol. 19, no. 12 (December 1979) 419-21.
[3077] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 265.
[3078] GM, vol. 19, no. 12 (December 1979) 422.
[3079] SoG AR 1980, 1.
[3080] SoG AR 1982, 2.
[3081] P. W. Montague-Smith and M. L. Bierbrier, 'The Ancestry of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent', in GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 269-73.
[3082] SoG AR 1978, 3.
[3083] SoG AR 1978, 1-3.
[3084] SoG AR 1978, 6.
[3085] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 337.
[3086] Memorandum from Mildred Surry, 31 August 1978.
[3087] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 382-93.
[3088] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 400-2.
[3089] GM, vol. 19, no. 12 (December 1979) 422.
[3090] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 373.
[3091] The lecture was printed in GM, vol. 20, no. 1 (March 1980) 5-10.
[3092] SoG AR 1979, 2-3.
[3093] SoG AR 1980, 4.
[3094] SoG AR 1979, 7.
[3095] SoG AR 1978, 6.
[3096] SoG AR 1979, 6.
[3097] SoG AR 1980, 7.
[3098] SoG AR 1982, 10.
[3099] SoG AR 1980, 8.
[3100] ‘The life of your Director’, 11 January 1980.
[3101] Gary Boyd Roberts, ‘A professional code for genealogical libraries and librarians’, in NGS Quarterly, March 1979, 11-13.
[3102] SoG AR 1978, 6.
[3103] SoG AR 1980, 8.
[3104] Anthony Camp to Morris Bierbrier (Chairman, Library Committee),4 July 1980.
[3105] SoG AR 1981, 8.
[3106] SoG AR 1981, 3.
[3107] SoG AR 1981, 8.
[3108] SoG AR 1982, 10.
[3109] SoG AR 1983, 10.
[3110] SoG AR 1982, 10.
[3111] SoG AR 1981, 8.
[3112] SoG AR 1979, 3-5.
[3113] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 254-55.
[3114] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 235.
[3115] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 379-81.
[3116] SoG AR 1979, 4.
[3117] GM, vol. 19, no. 12 (December 1979) 426.
[3118] SoG AR 1980, 5.
[3119] GM, vol. 19, no. 12 (December 1979) xii; SoG AR 1979, 4; also GM, vol. 20, no. 1 (March 1980) vii..
[3120] Jean-Claude Peissel for Phaidon Press to Anthony Camp, 19 March 1979.
[3121] SoG AR 1980, 1-3.
[3122] GM, Vol. 20, no. 5 (March 1981) 145-46.
[3123] SoG AR 1980, 5-7.
[3124] SoG AR 1980, 5.
[3125] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 266.
[3126] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 3.
[3127] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 79 and 81-82. Brian Brooks resigned the Chairmanship 'through ill health' and Brian Fitzgerald-Moore stepped into the breach in response to a cable sent to Hong Kong [GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 234].
[3128] Jonathan Sale, ‘Ancestor worship’, in Punch, Issue 6368, 18 November 1981, page 894.
[3129] SoG AR 1982, 5.
[3130] Court Circular, in The Times, 17 July 1981, page 16.
[3131] SoG AR 1981, 8.
[3132] SoG AR 1981, 8.
[3133] SoG AR 1982, 10.
[3134] SoG AR 1982, 10.
[3135] SoG AR 1983, 9.
[3136] SoG AR 1983, 10.
[3137] SoG AR 1984, 10.
[3138] Department of the Environment, Press Notice, ‘City of London to take over Greater London Record Office’, 27 February 1985.
[3139] Obituary in Washington Post, 15 June 2000.
[3140] He, who had planned and conducted many genealogical tours in England, was tragically killed crossing a street in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1997, aged 66.
[3141] SoG AR 1981, 6.
[3142] SoG AR 1982, 7.
[3143] SoG AR 1983, 7.
[3244] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 82-83.
[3145] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 379.
[3146] GM, vol. 19, no. 12 (December 1979) xii.
[3147] SoG AR 1980, 4.
[3148] SoG AR 1981, 4.
[3149] SoG AR 1982, 5.
[3150] SoG AR 1985, 6.
[3151] NIPR, vol. 4, part 1, Surrey (1990).
[3152] A second edition, with the same editors, was published in 2000.
[3153] SoG AR 1986, 7-8.
[3154] SoG AR 1982, 5.
[3155] SoG AR 1982, 4.
[3156] ‘Bookish thieves’, in Kensington & Chelsea Times, 13 April 1984, 1.
[3157] SoG AR 1982, 2-4.
[3158] SoG AR 1982, 6.
[3159] SoG AR 1984, 7.
[3160] SoG AR 1982, 5.
[3161] SoG AR 1979, 4.
[3162] SoG AR 1980, 8.
[3163] SoG AR 1978, 3.
[3164] Michael Synge, ‘Improving the Society’s income’, GM, vol. 20, no 1 (March 1980) 11.
[3165] Geoffrey L. Fairs, ‘Preparation is the keynote’, GM, vol. 20, no. 2 (June 1980) 59-60.
[3166] Stella Colwell, ‘Improving the Society’, GM, vol. 20, no. 2 (June 1980) 59.
[3167] Alexander Sandison, ‘The Society and computers’, GM, vol. 20, no. 2 (June 1980) 37-39.
[3168] I. R. Harrison, ‘Just a decade – or a new era’, GM, vol. 20, no. 1 (March 1980) 12.
[3169] ‘The Library Committee’, GM, vol. 20, no. 3 (September 1980) 78.
[3170] I. R. Harrison, ‘An eye to the future: uses of the computer in genealogy’, GM, vol. 20, no. 3 (September 1980) 81-84.
[3171] GM, vol. 20, no. 4 (December 1980) 139.
[3172] GM, vol. 20, no. 5 (March 1981) 146.
[3173] ‘Computers in Genealogy: A symposium – 2’, GM, vol. 20, no. 5 (March 1981),160-61
[3174] Dennis K. Powell, ‘Computer based population records’, GM, vol. 20, no. 5 (March 1981) 161-67.
[3175] Genealogical Research Directory Mid 1984 (Sydney, 1984) unpaginated advertisement.
[3176] SoG AR 1982, 7-8.
[3177] Anthony Camp, Society of Genealogists: Computers (May 1983).
[3178] Computers in Genealogy, vol. 1, no. 5 (September 1983) 105.
[3179] A. Sandison, ‘All in the family: coding family relationships’, Personal Computer World, 6 (April 1983) 180, 183.
[3180] SoG AR 1983, 8.
[3181] SoG AR 1983, 9-10.
[3182] SoG AR 1983, 4.
[3183] SoG AR 1983, 3-6.
[3184] SoG AR 1983, 6-7.
[3185] SoG AR 1983, 5 and 10.
[3186] SoG AR 1984, 6.
[3187] SoG AR 1984, 9.
[3188] Anthony Camp to SoG members in North America, 24 April 1984.
[3189] SoG AR 1986, 7.
[3190] Census Indexes in the Library of the Society of Genealogists (SoG, 1987).
[3191] GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 354.
[3192] The vast power station built in the 1930s, which at its peak had powered over one fifth of London, closed in 1983; the site covered 38 acres!
[3193] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 157; SoG AR 1978, 6.
[3194] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 233.
[3195] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 378.
[3196] SoG AR 1979, 6.
[3197] SoG AR 1980, 7.
[3198] SoG AR 1981, 3.
[3199] SoG AR 1981, 7.
[3200] SoG AR 1982, 8.
[3201] SoG AR 1983, 8.
[3202] SoG AR 1981, 7.
[3203] Arnold Hawker, ‘The search for new premises’, in GM, vol. 20, no. 10 (June 1982) 345-46.
[3204] Obituary in Yorkshire Post, 28 January 2011.
[3205] Barbara Whitehead to General Purposes Committee, 9 March 1982.
[3206] SoG AR 1982, 8-9.
[3207] London Borough of Islington, TP/71723/03.1/DJH, 22 July 1983.
[3208] London Borough of Islington, TP/71723/03.1/RPM, 22 November 1983.
[3209] SoG AR 1983, 8-9.
[3210] SoG AR 1985, 8.
[3211] Stones Porter & Co to SoG, 7 February 1984.
[3212] HM Land Registry, Title Number LN 145466 (registered 25 January 1957).
[3213] Francis L. Leeson, ‘14 Charterhouse Buildings’, in GM, vol. 21, no. 8 (December 1984) 284-6.
[3214] John Carey, ‘Light from the shade of a family tree’, in The Times, Saturday, 24-30 March 1984, 11.
[3215] Reviewed in Punch, 16 May 1984, issue 6495, page 75.
[3216] SoG AR 1986, 11.
[3217] SoG AR 1984, 10.
[3218] ‘Insurance History Forum 1984’, in GM, vol. 21, no. 7 (September 1984) 235-8.
[3219] John Merritt, ‘Family tree racket is uncovered’, in The Observer, 13 November 1988.
[3220] ‘Barking up the wrong tree?’, in Which?, April 1989.
[3221] Tony Hetherington, ‘Making a killing in the surname game’, in The Times, 13 May 1989; Victoria Macdonald, ‘Family trees branch out’, in Guardian, 15 August 1989, is less critical.
[3222] Richard Eastman, ‘My least favourite Genealogy Web Site’, on http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2004/08/my_least_favori.html, accessed 2013; Dick Halsey, ‘Halbert’s Still Going Strong’, in Hear Ye Hear Ye (Rochester Genealogical Society),vol. 19, no. 1 (Winter 1998) 5-6; ‘Halbert’s Under Cease and Desist Order’, in NGS Newsletter, March/April 1996.
[3223] ‘Burke’s Peerage wound up’, in Daily Telegraph, 18 February 1987; London Gazette, Issue 50858, 12 March 1987, page 3363.
[3224] The Times, 8 March 2005.
[3225] Lynn Barber, ‘Mr Rent-a-Royal-Quote’, in Sunday Express Magazine, 9 August 1987.
[3226] ‘Her Majesty is an Arab!’ in The Sun, 10 October 1986, 13; Times of India, 28 October 1986, 23; Everyone Has Roots (1978) 98, 183.
[3227] The Advertising Standards Authority Limited to Society of Genealogists, 30 December 1994.
[3228] The Advertising Standards Authority Limited to Society of Genealogists, 14 February 1995.
[3229] Quoted in Hampshire Family Historian (February 1995) 245.
[3230] Jill Parkin, ‘By ‘eck … I’ve got my very own coat of arms’, in Weekend Telegraph, 13 January 1996, 11.
[3231] Emma Cook, ‘A peerage for berks?’, Independent, 17 October 1995.
[3232] Paula Balik, ‘Putting on heirs’, in Express-News, San Antonio, Texas, 8 December 1987, 15-A.
[3233] Maudie S. Walling, History of the Walling Family, 1623-1945 (Dallas, Texas, 1945).
[3234] H. B. Brooks-Baker to members of the Walling Association, 10 February 1988.
[3235] ‘Wallings to gather to discuss oil fortune’, in The Houston Post, Sunday, 8 November 1987, 13A; Judy Kuhlman, ‘Lure of Money, Oil, Land, Brings Texan’s Heirs to City’, in unidentified Oklahoma City newspaper, week of 8 November 1987.
[3236] H. B. Brooks-Baker to Mrs Beatrice Thedford, xxiii ii mcmlxxxviii (23 February 1988).
[3237] Edna Walling Neuhauser (Mrs G. F.) to Anthony Camp, 20 March 1988.
[3238] The case is summarised in ‘Bea Thedford, et al., Appellants, v. Union Oil Company of California, et al, Appellees. No 05-96-0865-CV. 9 August 9 1999’; http://caselaw.findlaw.com/tx-court-of-appeals/1079589.html accessed 2013.
[3239] Anthony Hilton, ‘Burke’s bible peering at a quote’, in London Standard, 28 November 1986.
[3240] Lois Rogers, ‘Blood feud over who knows who’s an oil heir’, in London Standard, 26 October 1987.
[3241] Martin Ivens, ‘Hunt is on for the oil-rich hillbillies’, in Daily Telegraph, 22 October 1986.
[3242] Associated Press articles in The National Enquirer and Wall Street Journal, 8 October 1987.
[3243] The case is summarised in ‘B. L. Peregoy et al, v. Amoco Production Co, et al. Civ. A. No. B-89-00423-CA. 18 June 1990; http://www.leagle.com accessed 2013; see also ‘Judge Rejects Heirs’ Claims to an Oil Fortune’, in The New York Times, 21 June 1990.
[3244] The case was summarised in ‘Roy Feathers, as Administrator of the Estate of Pelham Humphries, Deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Chevron U.S.A., Inc., et al, Defendants-Appellees. 141 F.3d 264 (6th Cit.1998)’; http://federal-circuits.vlex.com/vid/feathers-pelham-humphries-chevron-amoco-36142... Accessed 2013.
[3234] ‘FBI News: End of the Burke’s Peerage show?’ in Private Eye, October 1991, 29; reprinted in International Genealogy Consumer Report, vol. 9, no. 1 (January-June 1992) 2.
[3246] ‘£500,000 : the price of joining the aristocracy’, in The Sunday Times, 4 September 1994, page 5.
[3247] ‘Barony of Ruchlaw’, in The Herald, 21 February 1990.
[3248] ‘The Barony of Alford’, in The Times, 16 December 1989, page 13c.
[3249] ‘Title check’, in Evening Standard, 19 December 1989.
[3250] ‘Royal barony hangs in the balance’, in The Sunday Telegraph, 18 February 1990.
[3251] The phrase was used by Hugh Peskett in Family Tree Magazine, vol. 20, no. 9 (July 2004) page 61.
[3252] He had previously worked for Debrett’s Peerage and in 1982 had edited Debrett’s Handbook, a replacement for the recently defunct Kelly’s Handbook of the Titled, Landed and Official Classes and a rival to Who’s Who, claiming that it contained biographies (as its blurb says) of ‘precisely those with the most spending power in the UK’.
[3253] Anthony Camp, ‘Peers, pedigrees and pastures new: ups and downs at Burke’s Peerage’, in Family Tree Magazine (October 2002) pages 5-6.
[3254] Edinburgh Gazette, Issue 24861, 15 August 2000, pages 1733-34.
[3255] ‘The convention of the baronage of Scotland’, in Burke’s Landed Gentry of Great Britain: The Kingdom in Scotland (2001) page vi.
[3256] Anthony Camp, ‘Titles and entitlement’, in Family Tree Magazine, vol. 20, no 6 (April 2004) pages 23-25.
[3257] Charles Mosley, ‘Virtuous and well deserving?’, in Family Tree Magazine, vol. 20, no.. 9 (July 2004) pages 60-61.
[3258] Vernon Rolls, ‘Good luck to Burke’s, in Family Tree Magazine, vol. 20, no 11 (September 2004),page 26.
[3259] Sebastian Hamilton, ‘Heraldry chief quits after row over title’, in The Sunday Times, 14 May 1995.
[3260] Sean Murphy, ‘Irish Historical Mysteries : The MacCarthy Mor Hoax’, at http://homepage.eircom.net/~seanjmurphy/ithismys/maccarthy.htm (accessed December 2016) and Peter Berresford Ellis, Erin’s Blood Royal: the gaelic noble dynasties of Ireland (London, 1999) Note on page vi and Chapter 6.
[3261] London Gazette, 15 June 2013, Supplement 60534, page 22.
[3262] ‘For sale barony with a commanding view’, in The Daily Telegraph, 22 June 1990, page 5.
[3263] Joseph John Morrow, Lord Lyon, ‘Note issued with Warrant for Letters Patent from Lord Lyon King of Arms in the application of George David Menking of date 21 August 2014’, 30 April 2015.
[3264] ‘Wannabe barons’, in The Telegraph, 28 December 2002.
[3265] Daily Telegraph, 8 March 2005.
[3266] Sarah Duguid, ‘Why the Queen hated the Nabob of Snob’, in The Mail on Sunday, 13 March 2005, 42-43.
[3267] Obituary by Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 28, no 7 (September 2005) 323.
[3268] She died at Burnside, Adelaide, South Australia, 30 July 2005 [death notice in The Daily Telegraph, 15 August 2005].
[3269] Angus McGill, ‘Anyone for a lordship?’, in Evening Standard, 27 Februry 1985.
[3270] Robert Smith, Manorial Society of Great Britain, Annual Review 1987, pages 1-2.
[3271] ‘Acquiring better manors’, in Daily Telegraph, 28 March 1988.
[3272] ‘Be the lord of the manor of Brighton’, in Evening Standard, 10 October 1988.
[3273] Stephen Pile, ‘Manors Maketh Money’, in Telegraph Magazine, 23 November 1996, page 43.
[3274] Stephen Pile, ‘Manors Maketh Money’, in Telegraph Magazine, 23 November 1996, page 43.
[3275] ‘Lord from Lone Star State is here to hold court’, in Daily Telegraph, 16 November 1990.
[3276] ‘Lording it over de Montfort manor’, in Daily Telegraph, 29 July 1990; ‘Tycoon is to the manor bought’, in Daily Mail, 27 July 1990.
[3277] ‘Droit de seigneur’, in Evening Standard, 6 December 1990.
[3278] ‘Search for lord of manor with £250,000’, in The Times, 7 June 1990, page 3.
[3279] Daily Telegraph, 20 July 1990, page 19.
[3280] Peterborough, ‘All that glisters is not old’, in Daily Telegraph, 4 July 1990.
[3281] Peterborough, ‘ASA rejects manor of speaking’, in Daily Telegraph, 13 June 1990, page 19.
[3282] ‘The Heralds are up in arms over titles at a price’, in Sunday Telegraph, 17 June 1990, page 3.
[3283] Hubert Chesshyre, Clarenceux King of Arms, Heralds of Today (2001) pages 4-5.
[3284] Peterborough, ‘Title sales set Lords-a-leaping’, Daily Telegraph, 23 February 1990.
[3285] ‘The new Lord of Balneath’, in The Sunday Telegraph, 10 March 1996, page 17, and ‘Property’
[3286] Stephen Pile, ‘Manors Maketh Money’, in Telegraph Magazine, 23 November 1996, pages 40-45.
[3287] ‘To the manor bought’, in The Sunday Telegraph, 23 August 1998, page 27.
[3288] ‘Lordships for sale?’, in The Sunday Telegraph, 2 May 1999, page 3.
[3289] J. P. Brooke-Little, ‘Editorial’, in The Coat of Arms, N. S. Vol. XII, Spring 1997.
[3290] SoG AR 1986, 6.
[3291] ‘Irreplaceable church records stolen’, The Times, 31 August 1985, page 8.
[3292] SoG AR 1986, 3.
[3293] SoG AR 1986, 3.
[3294] SoG AR 1986, 11.
[3295] SoG AR 1985, 8-9.
[3296] SoG AR 1986, 10.
[3297] SoG AR 1988, 9.
[3298] SoG AR 1986, 10-11.
[3299] SoG AR 1986, 11.
[3300] SoG AR 1986, 6.
[3301] SoG AR 1984, 8.
[3302] SoG AR 1986, 4.
[3303] SoG AR 1986, 4.
[3304] SoG AR 1986, 8.
[3305] SoG AR 1987, 7.
[3306] SoG AR 1986, 4 and 11.
[3307] SoG AR 1986, 7.
[3308] SoG AR 1985, 4-5.
[3309] SoG AR 1986, 3.
[3310] London Borough of Islington, TP/71723.03.1/DJH, 17 November 1986.
[3311] John L. Rayment, 8 February 1987.
[3312] C. T. Watts, 16 February 1987.
[3313] Baker & Associates to Sir Wilfred Robinson, 13 March 1987.
[3314] Paper circulated 14 March 1987.
[3315] SoG AR 1986, 9.
[3316] SoG AR 1986, 4-5.
[3317] SoG AR 1983, 7.
[3318] GM, vol.22, no. 2 (June 1986) 41.
[3319] Anthony Wagner, A Herald’s World (1988) 123.
[3320] GM, vol. 20, no. 1 (March 1980) 15-16.
[3321] SoG AR 1986, 7-8.
[3322] SoG AR 1976, 4.
[3323] SoG AR 1989, 4.
[3324] First available on a blue background in June 1980 (at £4) and then on both blue and maroon backgrounds (a £4.50) in March 1981.
[3325] SoG AR 1987, 5.
[3326] SoG AR 1988, 5.
[3327] Jim Sheppard, ‘Getting to the root of your family tree’, Edmonton Journal, 22 October 1988.
[3328] SoG AR 1987, 11.
[3329] SoG AR 1986, 10-11.
[3330] SoG AR 1987, 10.
[3331] SoG AR 1989, 3
[3332] D. J. Francis to Anthony Camp, 26 January 1986.
[3333] Subsequently with the National Archives in Washington.
[3334] Stephen Young and Susan Lumas, ‘The British 1881 Census Project’ in Federation of Family History Societies 21st Anniversary (1995) 18-29; James B. Allen & others, Hearts Turned to the Fathers: a history of the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1894-1994 (1995) 266-7, 314-7, 319-20.
[3335] SoG AR 1995, 10.
[3336] SoG AR 1996, 9.
[3337] SoG AR 1984, 10-11.
[3338] Human Fertilisation and Embryology: a framework for legislation (Cm 259).
[3339] SoG AR 1987, 11.
[3340] SoG AR 1989, 10.
[3341] Anthony Camp [misprinted as Crump], ‘Is this the Government’s blueprint for family life’, in Daily Telegraph, 25 June 1990, 14.
[3342] SoG AR 1990, 10.
[3343] SoG AR 1992, 10.
[3344] Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (Disclosure of Donor Information) Regulations 2004/1511.
[3345] ‘Changes to access arrangements for adoptees in Enland’, in Descent: the Journal of the Society of Australian Genealogists, vol. 44, part 4 (December 2014) 223.
[3346] Society of Genealogists' News (December 2010) 1.
[3347] Anthony J. Camp, 'The Family History Fair', in Family History News and Digest, vol. 9, no. 2 (September 1993) 42-43.
[3348] SoG AR 1993, 10.
[3349] SoG AR 1994, 10.
[3350] SoG AR 1994, 9.
[3351] GM, vol. 24, no. 11 (September 1994) 514.
[3352] SoG AR 1994, 9.
[3353] SoG AR 1995, 12.
[3354] SoG AR 1996, 12.
[3355] SoG AR 1997, 13.
[3356] SoG AR 1994, 8.
[3357] SoG AR 1997, 13.
[3358] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 169.
[3359] Probate Department Manager's Circular: the Non-Contentious Probate Fees Order 1999, 30 March 1999.
[3360] Anthony Camp to John Briden, HM Courts Service, 27 March 2009.
[3361] Review of the 30 Year Rule (TSO, January 2009)
446 pages, 295 X 210 mm (A4),paperback. ISBN 978-0-9503308-2-2.
Published by the author, 2007.
The book went out of print in October 2013, but copies may be seen in various places including the following (fees may sometimes apply):
United Kingdom: Bexley Library, Cambridge University Library, Cambridgeshire Libraries, Essex Libraries, Kent Libraries & Archives, Middlesbrough Libraries, Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames Libraries, London Library (Biographical Collections),Oxford University Library, Yorkshire Archaeological Society (Leeds),The British Library (St Pancras),The British Library (British National Bibliography),The National Archives (Kew),London Family History Centre (Kew),Society of Genealogists (London),College of Arms Library, Royal Archives (Windsor) and Royal Library (Windsor),Institute of Historical Research (London University).
Ireland: Trinity College Dublin.
USA: Family History Library (Salt Lake City),Allen County Library (Fort Wayne, Indiana),Saint Louis County Library (Missouri).
Canada: Toronto Public Library, Vancouver Public Library.
Australia: Society of Australian Genealogists (Sydney),Yarra Plenty Regional Library Service (Melbourne).
New Zealand: National Library of New Zealand.
******* *******
This major reference work takes some twenty-nine members of the Royal Family, both male and female, from George I to Edward VIII and deals critically and in great detail with their alleged affairs and offspring. Over four hundred relationships are considered (and listed on this website).
It investigates all the claims that have come to the author's attention in over fifty years of research, backed up with very wide reading in biographies, memoirs, newspapers, satirical prints, diaries, probate records and a vast range of other contemporary records in the British Isles and overseas. The research has also taken advantage of the many computerised indexes to records that have become available in recent years but have been little used by other biographers. The resulting work adds very considerably to the existing knowledge of a great number of people on the fringes of history, corrects many accounts and provides, for the first time, a firm source-based reference work by an authority in the genealogical field against which future claims may be considered. The 29 members of the Royal Family considered are:
A feature of the book is that all the references to sources are embedded in the text, but there is an extensive bibliography and list of abbreviations, and an index of about 2,500 surnames. Additions and corrections are welcome and will be noted (and due acknowledgement given where appropriate) in the Additions page of this website.
PROLOGUE
The founder of modern critical genealogy, Horace Round (1854-1928), wrote that, 'Love of genealogical study is an inborn quality. Many who style themselves genealogists are absolutely indifferent to any genealogical evidence that does not bear upon their own pedigrees; but there will always be some, like my own teacher, that eminent historian Stubbs, who have possessed that rare quality, a love of genealogy for its own sake' [1]. I had no inspirational teacher like Stubbs and yet I have never known a time when I was not interested in the subject.
I was not yet seven when Georgiena Cotton Browne, our local landowner, died at Walkern Hall leaving her estate and personal property to a young cousin whose parents organised an auction sale of many of her effects. My mother, who occasionally worked at the Hall, brought home a few unwanted books including A school history of England; with a copious chronology, tables of contemporary sovereigns, and questions for examination (1841). The tables of contemporary sovereigns at the head of each chapter fascinated me. They were for Great Britain, France, Austria, Russia, Prussia, Spain and the Papal States, and ended, of course, with the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. They cried out to be brought up to date. I think that that is where it all began.
My father, an agricultural carpenter and builder well known to Hertfordshire farmers for his construction of corn-drying silos, was the son of the estate carpenter at Walkern Hall who had married the daughter of a bailiff on one of the estate's farms. My mother, who knew almost nothing about her father who had died when she was two years old, had first come from London to work at the Hall in 1914 and we lived in a Lodge situated on a private road crossing part of the wooded estate with fine views of the surrounding countryside and of the village of Walkern down in the Beane valley. My father had been given the use of the Lodge and 'some responsibility for the integrity of this end of the estate'. [2]. The death of 'Miss C. B.' whose family had been at the Hall since 1827, and the many changes that followed, not to mention the not so distant echoes of the War which was ending, caused much anxiety for the future. A few years later the growing New Town of Stevenage, the box-like houses of which were beginning to appear on the distant horizon, threatened to destroy the peace and tranquillity of the valley and magnified our fears.
These feelings of insecurity undoubtedly had a lasting effect and when, after my mother's death in 1973, I gave up the Lodge and moved to London, I frequently had nightmares, imagining houses built on the surrounding fields and frantically recalling the Lodge’s rooms, going from one to another and positioning every piece of furniture, picture, ornament and book, in attempts to recreate the past and not let any part of it slip from my memory. By recording something of it I thought that I might begin to do just that. Like many others and in the same way, after leaving his Russian homeland in 1930, the dancer Igor Schwezoff described in graphic detail his former life there and his need to write things down and the 'overwhelming desire to be able to snatch back a little of the past and to undo something that could never be undone - or could it, perhaps?’ [3].
After I went to the Grammar School at Stevenage in 1949, I developed these interests and thoughts in earnest. There was a little covered alleyway down the side of Jeffries' antiques shop in the High Street where cheaper furniture was displayed. A table there with second-hand books was one of my regular haunts after school and whenever I visited the town on Saturdays. There in 1953 I bought a book about the history of Russia which had a lasting effect on my interests, though they never developed in quite the way that I hoped at that time.
Nearby was a branch of Burgess Booksellers and Stationers and upstairs new books were occasionally bought and school prizes chosen. There not long before my father died, he bought for me Chambers's Biographical Dictionary (1950) for twenty-five shillings, a book that I cherished greatly, superior to its more recent editions. I remember him exclaiming in surprise, 'It's all about people!' and my not knowing what to say. Not long afterwards on a bus trip to London my mother bought for me in Charing Cross Road the two volumes of Mark Noble's History of the Protectoral House of Cromwell (1788) for the large sum of two pounds. It kept me busy for many happy hours, compiling vast pedigrees across the floor. My eldest brother had been an agent for National Savings but the large posters that he was asked to display were useless, our house being a mile or more from the village, and so their backs came in very handy for pedigree work and indeed for covering books!
Cheap second-hand biographies could be found in Stevenage's only other bookshop, The Book Nook, further down the High Street and run by Mrs Warren, where at a shilling or so a time, my collection grew. From them and from the biographies borrowed from the public library in Orchard Road I constructed pedigrees of all manner of people. Delving into autobiographies I began to write to the authors of those that took my fancy, asking them to confirm and/or expand the pedigrees that I had compiled. The Russian ones fascinated me and an early correspondent was Baroness Agnes de Stoeckle who had been at the Russian Court before the Revolution and had met Rasputin. Count Constantine Benckendorff, the son of the last Imperial ambassador in London, took an interest in my tables, loaned me a collection of pedigrees of his relatives and provided me with my first copy of the Almanach de Gotha which he had used as a door-stop.
Another place that my kind of books could be found was upstairs at the Book House in Hitchin's Market Square where Eric Moore would sometimes buy from me books that I and my mother had bought across the road at auction sales at the Corn Exchange. Its monthly furniture sales usually included one or two lots of books and my mother would call in after her ordinary shopping and bid a few shillings, bringing home in her bag those that she thought of greatest interest, old maps, engravings and county directories. One day she brought home the fourteen volumes of the leather bound Historians' History of the World, but sadly was obliged to leave the indexes behind! The rarer books that were of little interest, including a nicely bound Breeches Bible of 1560 and a large collection of 19th century engraved bill heads, I traded in at the Book House, buying other books with the proceeds.
Whilst at the Grammar School at Stevenage in the mid-1950s I was encouraged by the history master Charles Jones (1908-1986) to start a project on the history of the town and I borrowed from Miss Grosvenor the notes on its history by the late Edward Vincent Methold (1846-1926) and then explored the many cupboards of documents in the tower at St Nicholas’s church, transcribing large parts of the parish registers, copying many churchyard inscriptions and rubbing the brasses. At the same time I developed an interest in my own family by pestering the local clergy for access to their registers at Walkern, Cottered, Ardley and Shephall, again copying inscriptions and rubbing brasses in these and other local churches. I saw then the unsatisfactory conditions in which the records were often kept, though those at Stevenage had benefited from careful cataloguing in the 1930s. I could take the bus to Hertford and the county record office and there learned about bishops transcripts, wills and other local sources but my early pedigrees were not very satisfactory, the purchase of costly birth, marriage and death certificates from the General Register Office in London being quite out of the question. At Stevenage Museum, however, I was fortunate to get to know Dr John Morris (1913-1977),the brilliant historian and archaeologist who later wrote The age of Arthur (1973),who took me digging at Watton-at-Stone and St Albans, and later facilitated my entrance into University College London to take a degree in Ancient and Medieval History.
It was as a result of reading biographies and writing to people who might add to the pedigrees extracted from them that in 1954 I had first contacted Sir Anthony Wagner (1908-1995),then Richmond Herald at the College of Arms, about a pedigree of Adolf Hitler and an unlikely relationship to Queen Victoria that I fancied I had found. It was Wagner who encouraged the idea of my working either for him or at the Society of Genealogists and I first wrote to the Society, then in a fine old house in South Kensington, on 23 August 1957, wondering if there were any opportunities there before going to university the following year. I suppose the fact that I had already done genealogical work locally in Hertfordshire, including the transcription of some parish registers, as well as projects in archaeology and local history, and been school librarian for three years, all spoke in my favour. As recounted below, and with Wagner's endorsement, I was offered temporary employment and commenced work as a research assistant at the Society a month later.
It is not my intention to write a detailed account of the origins of the study of genealogy in England but I hope to sketch out the developments in the nineteenth century that led to the foundation of the Society of Genealogists in 1911 and then to give some account of the people who, for good or ill, were involved in its organisation and with the subject over the next hundred years.
When in 1911 the founders of the Society looked back over the previous century they saw the beginnings of a remarkable change in attitudes to genealogy but they were all too clearly aware that there was still much room for improvement in the work carried out. George Sherwood, in whose office the Society first took shape, called the division 'old and new' genealogy and in the 'old' world there were several things of which he strongly disapproved.
When discussing the possible formation of a society, Sherwood had written, 'Someday perhaps someone will arise with the gift of creating the proper atmosphere. At present we think the study suffers from its association in the public mind with, for example, the heraldic stationery trade, the trade in spurious antiques, manufactured ancestors, and the business of the shady character who ekes out a precarious existence on the reluctant half-crowns of deluded seekers after phantom fortunes' [4]. The following year he wrote that 'Old Genealogy became a byeword for no other reason than that it was neither Literature nor Science' [5].
The first textbook on genealogical research had been published in England in 1828 and the author, the peerage lawyer Stacey Grimaldi, of whom more will be said later, reckoned that the first printed book to contain a genealogy (in England that is) had come out in 1547. Compiled by a versifier Arthur Kelton and entitled A chronycle, with a genealogie declarying that the Britons and Welshemen are lineallye dyscended from Brute, newly and very wittely compiled in Meter, it showed the descent of the new boy-king Edward the Sixth from one Brutus, supposedly a grandson of the legendary Trojan hero Aeneas (son of Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite) who had fled from the destruction of Troy and the arms of Dido, Queen of Carthage, to found Rome in Italy in 753 B.C. [6] and who married there Lavinia the daughter of the local king, Latinus. [7] This Brutus, it was said, had come to England via Spain and had given Britain its name.
This fable was already circulating in Wales about 769 A.D. when the Historia Britonum associated with the name of Nennius was put together [8] and it was much elaborated about 1135 by Geoffrey of Monmouth for his fictional but influential and widely read Historia Regum Britanniae which was first printed in 1508 [9]. The Historia Britonum, not content with a merely classical origin for the royal family, had given Brutus a descent through the Kings of Troy to Jupiter and Saturn, and then to Javan, mentioned in the Bible as a son of Japhet the son of Noah [10].
Early in the Anglo-Saxon period a king’s genealogy had been regarded as one of his most important possessions [11]. Copies were widespread and the ancestries of the various Anglo Saxon dynasties were traced back to the gods, seven to the storm-spirit Woden and one (that of the kings of Essex) to the god-spirit Saxnot. The welding of these traditional British genealogies of pagan origin to people in classical antiquity or named in the Bible followed the arrival of Christianity, time and the ingenuity of later antiquarians carrying the pedigrees back through Noah to Adam. These later accretions may be easily identified but it is much more difficult to tell how far the original Germanic elements are historical and when the ancestry becomes fictitious. The three or four generations provided by Bede for most monarchs named in his Ecclesiastical History (finished in 731) may be taken as authentic, but the further nine generations to Woden given for Cerdic (died 534),the first King of the West Saxons, and Woden’s fifteen further generations to Sceaf (who was later said to have been born in the Ark) are to be regarded as ‘either fiction or error’. That, at least, was the conviction of the late Kenneth Sisam (1887-1971) who had made a minute study and comparison of the pedigrees [12].
Apart from the pedigrees of their ruling families the Saxons seem to have had little interest in genealogy but after the Norman Conquest lengthy statements in the courts regarding claims to inherited rights and property became frequent. This legal aspect in which pedigrees were referenced on particular points became of increasing importance and dominated the subject for many centuries. Such statements of descent and relationship, of which there are many from the early thirteenth century on the plea rolls (the records of pleas heard before judges) of the courts of Curia Regis, Coram Rege and de Banco, [13] seem largely to have been based on orally transmitted information, though some of the longer genealogies may have been compiled from written sources, as in the Scrope versus Grosvenor case of 1378 when charters were produced in evidence. All were naturally subject to bias and error.
It was not until the fifteenth century with the development of other antiquarian and topographical studies that collections of pedigrees began to be made, the oldest books dating from about 1480. The involvement of the heralds in genealogy also began in the mid-fifteenth century but became of paramount importance with the Visitations which they made following a Royal Commission in 1530, they touring the country and recording short pedigrees based on family information of those who claimed a right to arms. The heralds were not then normally chosen for their skill in genealogy and some had little critical ability. This coupled with the rise in the sixteenth century of many new families to prominence in a society where the prestige of old blood was great, resulted, as it did in the nineteenth century, in some genuine research but also in much concoction.
As a consequence the heralds’ visitations of the 1560s recorded many lengthy but doubtful pedigrees as well as some fabrications and Horace Round frequently warned against their use as evidence of events beyond the personal knowledge of the informants [14]. It was not until the visitations made in the northern counties in the 1580s that Robert Glover (died 1588),Somerset Herald, began to illustrate the principle that pedigrees should, if possible, be founded on record evidence. Glover made his entries in the form of drop-line, tabular or rectilinear pedigrees, as used by Sir Thomas Wriothesley (died 1534),Garter King of Arms, earlier in the century. By 1618 such drop-line pedigrees had completely superseded the old narrative and crane’s foot forms, the latter with its radiating lines reminiscent of a crane’s foot (or pied de gru) from which the word ‘pedigree’ derived.
A working knowledge of the public records was first brought to genealogical research in the College of Arms by the industrious Augustine Vincent (died 1626),a former clerk at the Tower Record Office and a pupil of the great antiquary William Camden (1551-1623), who was made a Pursuivant Extraordinary in 1616. An apprenticeship system was, into my day, considered important in the practices of professional genealogists who thus had many advantages over the amateur working alone.
One of the first family histories to be compiled seems to have been that of the Berkeley family in Gloucestershire by their steward, John Smyth of Nibley (died 1640) using both public records and the family’s papers and charters in Berkeley Castle [15]. The first to be published, unless we count the fine work of the herald Francis Sandford (1630-1694), A genealogical history of the Kings of England (1677; enlarged by Samuel Stebbing in 1707), was Henry Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough’s Succinct genealogies of the noble and ancient houses of Alno, or de Alneto, Broc of Shephale … and Mordaunt of Turvey (1685), written under the name ‘Robert Halstead’ but unfortunately containing forged charters and fictitious pedigrees.
Sir William Dugdale (1605-1686), Garter King of Arms, showed his superiority in the field in the skill with which he marshalled his various evidences for the descents of manors in his Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656) and for the descents of baronies and peerage dignities in his Baronage of England (1675-6), he citing contemporary record evidence for every statement made. When he was occasionally deceived by spurious documents, as with those on which rested the claim of the Feildings, Earls of Denbigh, to descend from a thirteenth century Hapsburg, one knows exactly what these were [16].
The pedigrees of knights compiled by the herald Peter le Neve (1661-1729) when Rouge Croix, show that by the end of the seventeenth century the pedigrees of newcomers to this class needed something more than knowledge of land tenure and he began to use the evidence of parish registers. In 1699 Sir Comport Fitch, whose father had been a carpenter, registered a pedigree at the College of Arms which had apparently been worked out for him by a herald Samuel Stebbing (died 1719). Stebbing had set about it by copying wills, making extracts from parish registers, noting monumental inscriptions, interviewing members of the family, and fitting all this evidence together as best he could. It is an early and elementary instance, as Sir Anthony Wagner says, of what has since become ‘a commonplace of genealogical method’ [17]. Church monuments had long been used but half a century later the importance of those in the churchyard for humbler families came also to be recognised.
In this brief overview of the subject prior to 1828 I have drawn on Wagner’s essay ‘The study and literature of genealogy’ in his English Genealogy (1960),which was based on thirty years’ experience in the records and collections created by earlier heralds at the College of Arms. Outside the College there was by the early 1600’s a network of antiquaries spread across the country with, in Wagner’s words, ‘a scholarly approach to documents, helped by legal training and an ardour for genealogies in relation at once to local history, family history and the safeguarding of rights of property’ [18].
The discontinuance of heraldic visitations after 1686 coupled with the rapid decline in the fashion for heraldic display at funerals about 1690 was followed by a breakdown in heraldic authority which lasted until the third quarter of the eighteenth century. This low ebb in the heralds’ activities did not revive until George III’s reign produced men of the calibre of Stephen Martin Leake (1702-1773), Garter, and his successors Ralph Bigland (1711-1784) and Sir Isaac Heard (1730-1822). It was the view of Sir William Blackstone, writing in his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-9), that ‘The failure of inquisitions post mortem by the abolition of military tenures, combined with the neglect of the heralds omitting their usual progresses, has rendered the proof of a modern descent for the recovery of an estate, or succession to a title of honour, more difficult than that of an ancient’, and Lord Chief Justice Mansfield wrote that ‘The proof of pedigrees has become so much more difficult since inquisitiones post mortem have been disused, that it is easier to establish one for 500 years before the time of Charles II than for 100 years since his reign’ [19].
Meanwhile, outside the College, an industrious Fleet Street bookseller Arthur Collins (1682-1760), the son of a gentleman-usher to Queen Catherine of Braganza, and a partner of Abel Roper, one of the publishers of Dugdale’s Baronage in 1675-6, produced in 1709 the first edition of a Peerage of England which brought Dugdale up to date and gave the pedigrees of newly created peers. It was an extraordinary success and new editions, regularly expanded, appeared in 1710, 1714 and 1717. Having acquired Dugdale’s manuscript revisions for his Baronage, Collins compiled a much fuller Peerage in three volumes in 1735, followed by further editions in 1741 and 1756, this last in six volumes, assisted by a pension from George II. After his death, further editions appeared in 1763, in 1779 and finally, edited by Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges (1762-1837) and with a useful index of stray names, in 1812. Collins’s Peerage dominated the eighteenth century and was hugely important as the basis for the pedigrees subsequently adopted by Burke’s Peerage, but, although valuable for the period after Dugdale, its various editions contained much highly inaccurate and mythical early material taken from the old heraldic pedigrees possessed by the various families which, for the favour of a subscription, they insisted should be included. Consequently, of the 294 peers listed by Brydges, thirty-five laid claim to ancestries dating to before the Norman Conquest [20].
The same was often true of the work of the local and county historians, mostly country parson antiquaries, who followed in Dugdale’s footsteps in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The industry of those who completed whole counties was quite remarkable but many embody fabulous material, their compilers not only being insufficiently critical but also coming under great financial pressure from the subscribers and patrons where their genealogies were concerned. As with the peerage families and the published Peerages, the gentry endeavoured to see their pedigrees published in these county histories and similarly these pedigrees found their way, fables, faults and all, into the coming editions of Burke’s Landed Gentry.
The traditional interests of these county historians were the established church and its buildings and the pedigrees and houses of the gentry and the descent of their lands. Their sources were chiefly, apart from family muniments and pedigrees, the basic parish registers, monumental inscriptions, wills and inquisitions, with only occasional forays into other public records. It is not difficult to understand why.
The first order that registers of baptisms, marriages and burials be kept in the parish churches throughout England and Wales had been made in 1538, but as every genealogist knows that does not mean that they necessarily survive from that date or have been regularly and carefully maintained. Their value as a source of information for relationships in those families that did not own land had been realized by the end of the seventeenth century and in the eighteenth century concerns for their proper keeping and preservation were already being expressed. Ralph Bigland (1711-1784), then Somerset Herald, an active and competent professional genealogist perhaps better known for his interest in tombstone inscriptions, in 1764 put out for five shillings a 96-page work, Observations on Marriages, Baptisms and Burials as Preserved in Parochial Registers [21], stressing the need for the registers to be accurately kept 'for the benefit of society'. His plea for fuller entries, a national marriage register, and for each parish to keep a record of its tombstone inscriptions, fell on deaf ears but would, it has been suggested, have made him the 'patron saint of modern genealogists' [22]. Bigland had, in early life, been a cheesemonger and his interest in genealogy was roused, it is said, by his family's successful claim to an inheritance. Although Bigland's proposed entry forms were not widely adopted his book was a major influence on the antiquary Revd. William Dade (died 1790) who introduced even more detailed forms for the recording of baptisms and burials in two York parishes in 1770 and was instrumental in obtaining their wider introduction in the dioceses of York and Chester. Later in the century similar forms were introduced in the dioceses of Carlisle, Norwich, St Asaph and Durham but not formally enforced; none affected the standard recording of marriages as required by the Marriage Act of 1754.
At the end of the eighteenth century a very few copies of registers were then made by local antiquaries. The Society of Genealogists has a neat transcript of the Ixworth, Suffolk, registers, made by Simon Boldero, who apparently commenced work in May 1675 [23], and a copy of some part of the early Leeds, Yorkshire registers from 1572 onwards, was held by a local surgeon, James Lucas, in 1791 [24]. However, the historian of parish registers, Edmond Waters, believed that in general, 'the negligence of the eighteenth century was more destructive than the civil wars of the seventeenth' [25] and it has been rightly said that registers posed and, of course, still pose serious problems for the unwary researcher, for 'They tantalized by being at once sufficiently complete and seemingly comprehensive to encourage the belief that a full genealogy could be constructed, yet they had too many gaps and omissions for it to be done' [26].
Rose's Act of 1812 required that the registers be kept in iron safes in the parish church but said nothing about a fee to be paid for searches in them; indeed it was generally assumed that the public had no right of access except by favour of the clergyman and churchwardens. Indeed the Chief Justice, Lord Tenterden (1762-1832), had declared that he knew of no rule of law that required the parish officers to show the books 'in order to gratify the curiosity of a private individual' [27]. The Civil Registration Act of 1836, however, which brought in the centralised civil registration of births, marriages and deaths in 1837, ordered that those having in their keeping 'any register book of births, deaths, or marriages, shall at all reasonable times allow searches to be made ... on payment of one shilling for a search of one year, and of sixpence for every additional year', and 2s 6d for every certified copy. No provision was made for the extraction or listing of uncertified information.
Some clergy were quick to point out that register books of births and deaths did not include register books of baptisms and burials and that all extracted entries should be treated as certified copies but as a result of a test case in the Court of Exchequer in May 1853 it was ruled that registers of baptisms and burials were covered by the 1836 Act and that anyone who paid the search fees was entitled to make such extracts as he or she chose [28]. The Court’s important ruling, little publicised and frequently overlooked, resulted from a case brought by an attorney whose clerk had been charged the extortionate fee of £4 7s 6d for twenty-five baptismal entries in the surname Taylor which he had seen and noted in four years, 1827-30, at St Mary Newington, the parish clerk working on the basis that each entry should be charged at 3s 6d [29].
Anyone needing to search the registers of several parishes might consult the annual transcripts of the registers which the clergy were supposed to send to their bishops, if he (or she, though women were practically non-existent in this field at the time) was aware of their existence, the transcripts survived and access to them could be obtained on payment of heavy unregulated fees at the diocesan registry, but otherwise separate visits to the various churches would need to be arranged with attendant delay and expense, coupled with the unknown obstacles and fees which might need to be faced at each church. The fees were widely regarded as the perquisites of the clergy and as there was no clear guidance as to how they should be calculated, unscrupulous clergy resorted to various subterfuges to inflate them, particularly when applications for searches were made by post (the fees being for personal inspection of the registers by the enquirer). Many clergy, although not willing to admit it, did not have the skill to read the early registers in their care and blamed their inability to read the writing on the 'bad writing' of the originals.
For the next 130 years genealogists and local historians, increasingly horrified at the dreadful conditions in which many parish registers were kept, their steady deterioration, the ease with which they might be falsified, and the annual disappearance of some through fire or theft, saw centralised deposit and the removal of the registers from the hands of the clergy as the only possible answer to the years of neglect that they had suffered, though with the passage of time, deposit in the Public Record Office rather than in the British Museum was more frequently urged, there being no viable local alternatives. The importance of the registers to the legal fraternity in London in their inheritance and peerage cases is amply demonstrated by their involvement throughout the century in moves to secure their future safety.
In the 1820s the great antiquary and bibliophile Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872) advocated that all the registers prior to 1700 should be deposited in the British Museum and that modern copies should be made at the expense of the parishes concerned [30]. He had personally witnessed the destruction of parchment by the many gold-beaters, glue-makers and tailors active in his time. A census of the surviving registers in England and Wales had been intended by Rose's Act in 1812 but was not carried out. However, the statistician John Rickman (1771-1840), Clerk of the House of Commons, after consultation with the solicitor John Southerden Burn (1798-1870), author of a recent work on parish registers, Registrum Ecclesiae Parochialis (1829), persuaded the authorities that a survey be undertaken as part of the 1831 census [31]. It revealed, when compared with a few earlier county surveys, enormous recent losses, though some registers previously thought to have been lost had since been found. Burn was then employed by the Government in the preparation of the Civil Registration Bill of 1837 and as secretary to the two Royal Commissions on non-parochial registers.
A case in 1844 which involved parish registers and attracted widespread publicity seems typical of much that was happening in the first half of the nineteenth century. A notorious adventurer from Cardigan, John Bowen, who dabbled in local records and genealogy, had for some time been obtaining money from poor local people by pretending that they had claims to the Whaddon Hall Estate in Buckinghamshire long occupied by the Selby Lowndes family [32]. Following the death of the celebrated miserly banker James Wood (1756-1836) of Gloucester (his face well-known from caricatures and toby jugs), Bowen took an interest in Wood’s disputed will and worked on behalf of John Wood of Brierley Hill who claimed, without a shadow of real evidence, to be one of his heirs at law. In July 1843 Bowen went to Pirton in Worcestershire and was caught in the act of tearing a page from the marriage register of Croome d’Abitot in order to remove evidence of a marriage in 1741, a false alternative entry for which he had already managed to insert in the bishops transcripts of Croome at the diocesan registry [33].
At his trial at Gloucester Assizes in 1844 Bowen was described in the calendar as a labourer but ‘had the appearance of a man of 50 years of age occupying a respectable station in society’. Newspapers of the day said that he was sometimes called ‘Captain Bowen’ and had been in the Merchant Service but at the time of the 1841 census he gave his occupation as ‘Army’ [34]. He was sentenced to be transported for seven years, but at the end of his trial William Selby Lowndes (1807-1886),a Magistrate and Deputy Lieutenant for Buckinghamshire, applied to see the papers found on Bowen at his arrest and it was widely reported that the two had some secret financial arrangement. In any event following Selby Lowndes’s intervention John Bowen was ‘on account of ill health’ not transported. Well publicised claims to both the Wood and Selby estates continued until late in the century [35]. William Selby Lowndes had a major interest in other antiquarian matters and was a claimant to the ancient Baronies of Monthermer, Montacute and Grandison.
Between 1841 and 1847 John Southerden Burn had been in partnership at 1 Copthal Court, Throgmorton Street, with the prominent peerage lawyer Stacey Grimaldi (1790-1863), himself well known as the author of our first genealogical textbook Origines Genealogicae: or the sources whence English genealogies may be traced (1828). Both would have been distressed at the stories of further loss and neglect of registers that continually appeared in the periodical Notes and Queries which had commenced publication in 1849. A second edition of Burn's book, entitled History of Parish Registers, appeared in 1862.
In 1863 the Government brought in a Bill to extend civil registration in Ireland which would have excluded Catholic marriages from its provisions and this exclusion was attacked by the barrister Robert 'Edmond' (Chester) Waters (1828-1898) in an article, hurriedly written in February 1863, for The Home and Foreign Review [36]. Waters (who had adopted the surname Chester Waters) believed that a complete system of registration without regard to religious belief was absolutely necessary and to him the omission of Catholic marriages was a 'grievous error'. He pointed out that following the introduction of the centralised registration of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales in 1837, two Royal Commissions in 1838 and 1857 had resulted in the authentication and centralisation of over 3,000 non-parochial registers. The Scottish Act of 1854 had not only introduced a centralised registration of events in Scotland but had made provision for the preservation and centralised custody of the existing registers. Chester Water was not alone in condemning the deficiencies of the Irish Bill and before the end of the Parliamentary Session a further Bill was introduced to cover Catholic marriages, both coming into force on 1 January 1864, but unlike in Scotland no provision was made for the preservation and custody of the earlier registers.
Chester Waters' article was revised and enlarged into a 47-page booklet, Parish Registers, in 1870. In it he described Burns' book as 'a pleasant and intelligent guide' but after Burns' death in June that year, he made it clear that although he acknowledged Burns' pioneering work, he had not been impressed by Burns' 'frequent inaccuracy of quotation' and 'want of power to grasp his subject' and he, although a bedridden invalid, consequently further revised and extended his own booklet as Parish Registers in England: their history and contents: with suggestions for securing their better custody and preservation (1883).
The impetus for this latter work, compiled in such painful circumstances, had been another case involving parish registers in which this time the clergy were also involved and which consequently gained additional publicity. Early in 1881 a former naval officer, the Revd William Henry Edward Ricketts Jervis (1843-1914), then living at Lexden in Essex, announced that he was claiming the title and estate of Viscount St Vincent. He was the grandson of Captain William Henry Ricketts Jervis, RN (1764-1805), the eldest nephew and heir of the first Viscount, but he was not able to prove that the Captain had married his grandmother Cecilia Jane Vinet. In 1880 he therefore advertised for evidence of the marriage, offering a reward of £500. A former naval seaman originally from Ireland, the Revd Patrick Morrison Flinn (c.1844-1928), Rector of Holy Trinity, Shaftesbury, produced an entry which he said he had found in his register for 1802 and claimed the reward. However, the bishops’ transcripts proved conclusively that the entry had been substituted for the real marriage of a couple named John Peacock and Ruth Day. By very curious coincidence the peerage claimant had earlier been a curate in that same Shaftesbury parish with, of course, access to the registers. The Bishop of Salisbury had the matter investigated but it was said that there was not sufficient evidence against either man to ensure a conviction and the inquiry was dropped. By then the page of the register which had been tampered with had been torn out and had disappeared [37]. The case again illustrated the great importance of the duplicate bishops’ transcripts and was used to lobby for their universal deposit with the Registrar General. Searches revealed that Miss Vinet had subsequently shown that she was not married to Captain Jervis by later marrying as a spinster at Kensington in 1807 and Mr Flinn, who for a while was later Rector of Mawgan in Cornwall, got into financial difficulties, went bankrupt in 1891 (when he showed himself a wholly unreliable witness)[38], and migrated to Australia where he died at Mosman in 1928.
Meanwhile Chester Waters’s revision of his book had also been spurred on by the introduction into the House of Commons on 19 April 1882 by William Copeland Borlase (1848-1899), Liberal M.P. for East Cornwall, of a Parochial Registers Preservation Bill 'to make provision for the better preservation of the ancient Parochial Registers of England and Wales'. Borlase, a wealthy antiquary and archaeologist, had been much influenced by the constitutional lawyer Thomas Pitt Taswell-Langmead (1840-1882) who had, when only eighteen, written to Notes and Queries urging the centralised deposit of all original registers, [39] and who subsequently published a pamphlet, The Preservation of Parish Registers (1882). Taswell-Langmead in fact drafted the Bill and Borlase wrote a preface to the pamphlet.
However, there was considerable opposition from other antiquaries to the Bill’s centralising provisions. It would have placed all registers and bishops transcripts (the copies which the clergy were supposed to send annually to their bishops) prior to 1837 under the Master of the Rolls for eventual removal to the Public Record Office, though the registers from 1813 onwards would remain in the parishes for twenty years from the passing of the Act before being centralised. Indexes were to be made and searches allowed at a rate of 20s for a general search, 1s for a particular search and 2s 6d for a certificate [40]. The archdeacons and rural deans of Lincoln sent out circulars to their clergy with a view to opposing the Bill but the solicitor-antiquary Walter Rye (1844-1929) wrote later that 'no sane man' accustomed to searching registers before 1754 could doubt that the proper place for them should either be the Public Record Office or a diocesan fire-proof registry as Burn had suggested [41].
Borlase's Bill never went to a Second Reading and was withdrawn on 5 July 1882 [42]. Chester Waters, who had meanwhile published a much respected history of his family [43], wrote that 'the exigencies of public business prevented the subject being discussed during the late session' but that 'there is little doubt that a similar Bill with some modifications will sooner or later receive the sanction of Parliament' [44]. He was overly optimistic. Apart from the opposition of the clergy, many believed that the removal of the registers to distant London would be a great discouragement to local research, arguing that many county histories could never have been written if the registers had not been available for local consultation. It was a view taken by Sir John Maclean, the author of The Parochial and Family History of the Deanery of Trigg Minor (3 vols. 1872-9). Chester Waters, in his Parish Registers in England (1883), argued forcefully that transcription of the registers, with a second copy deposited locally, was the only answer. He wrote that those parishes that wished to retain a copy should pay for it from the local rates and he quite wrongly believed that, 'the growing taste for antiquarian studies and an increased sense of responsibility amongst the clergy has arrested the course of destruction' [45]. However, he now had a major disagreement with Horace Round who thought him a poor medieval scholar and a plagiarist and henceforth, as Raymond Powell says, ‘assailed him mercilessly’, not least it seems because as a result of his work he had received a pension on the Civil List [46].
The vulnerability of the registers was graphically shown in a trial at Liverpool in May 1886 when it was found that following the death of Richard Harrison at Warrington in 1863, his relatives had fought over his property and that two claimants (deceased by 1886) had inserted more than fifty fictitious entries in the parish registers in at least four churches (Preston, Kirkham, Poulton and Lytham),altering and erasing others, and similarly, in the diocesan registry, altering or ruthlessly destroying the bishop's transcripts as well as forging marriage licence bonds. The Cheshire antiquary John Parsons Earwaker (1847-1895) wrote a detailed account of the trial and although he lived in distant Abergele in North Wales he strongly supported Borlase’s Bill and concluded that ‘the sooner Mr Borlase’s Bill for the removal of all the Parish Registers to Somerset House becomes law the better’ [47].
However, the involvement of William Borlase with the abortive 1882 Bill proved unfortunate for a few months after Earwaker’s warm endorsement Borlase was ruined by bankruptcy and a well-publicised scandal in which his Portuguese mistress played a large part [48]. Ostracised by his family, he went to Ireland for a time and died in 1899. Taswell-Langmead, who had just been appointed Professor of Constitutional Law at University College, died at Hove in December 1882, aged 42.
Taswell-Langmead's wording of the 1882 Bill was criticised by Arthur John Jewers (1848-1921), a practising surgeon dentist in Plymouth who was also an antiquary and had himself transcribed and printed the registers of St Columb Major in Cornwall [49]. Ironically, when congratulating Jewers on his publication, Borlase had written, 'In it some Borlases do not appear to advantage. I hope they were of another family' [50]. Jewers had written to Borlase about his Bill in 1882 but in 1884 he published a pamphlet, Parish Registers and their preservation, in which he said that the Bill showed 'considerable ignorance of the actual necessities of the case'. He then set out a formidable and most expensive scheme by which the Civil Service Commission would appoint a 'Parish Register Preservation Department' consisting of an inspector-general, four inspectors, twelve clerks or writers, a secretary, an accountant and keeper of books and records, and an index compiler, all of whom were to be experienced palaeographers. These persons were to transcribe the nation's registers and bishops' transcripts, initially prior to 1799, and, being provided with the services of one or more printing presses, were to print fifty copies of each register, thirty copies being strongly bound in leather and certified. The original registers and one copy would remain in each church, the bishops' transcripts being sent to the Public Record Office and the other copies distributed to various libraries and repositories or sold. The total costs of the department, Jewers estimated, would be £15,000 a year.
It appears that Jewers caught, at this time, something from William Borlase, for he now left his wife and children at Plymouth and, describing himself as a bachelor, married (without the convenience of a previous divorce) a much younger woman, Gertrude Shilton, in Islington in 1887 [51]. He worked as a dentist at Wells for a while [52] and then moved to London, his abandoned wife running a lodging house in Plymouth [53]. Arthur Jewers's new young sister-in-law, Dorothy Shilton (1884-1962), lived with the couple [54] and was infected by his enthusiasms, she becoming a well-known record agent and very much later, marrying in 1934 her partner the archivist Richard Holworthy, an active early member of the Society of Genealogists whose first wife had died in 1933.
Jewers's approaches to various Members of Parliament soon revealed their doubts as to the funding of the project that he had outlined. The writer Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) wrote immediately and realistically about the Bill, 'I fear it will be difficult to get it passed' and said, 'In the meantime could not a society do something of the sort, with such registers as the clergy will consent to have printed' [55]. Lord Salisbury wrote that he had 'no influence whatever with the Treasury, with whom such a decision would lie' [56]. The genealogist George W. Marshall wrote that he was in favour of the removal of the registers to London but that, 'What is most wanted is a Royal Commission to enquire into their present condition ... not more than one parish register in ten is safe from destruction now ... The idea of getting registers transcribed and printed is good, but impossible to put into practice' [57]. Jewers thus turned his attention to the possibility of a Royal Commission and concluded, along with the active Sir John Lubbock (1834-1913),then M.P. for London University, and William Borlase himself, that a Royal Commission might indeed be the answer [58].
To achieve this he conceived the idea of presenting a memorial or Petition to the Queen, signed by the Archbishops and Bishops of the Kingdom, that a Royal Commission be appointed which would name up to six commissioners to inspect and report on the extent and condition of the registers in their districts, and print fifty copies or 'a complete abstract' of any register found to be in decay. In 1891 Jewers, who was also a fine heraldic artist and was working on a complete record of the monuments and inscriptions in Wells Cathedral [59], persuaded the Bishops of Bath and Wells and of Ely to take the initiative and write to the others [60]. The Bishop of London wrote that although willing to sign, 'it cannot be acted upon without Parliament', but Jewers continued to collect signatures from various individuals and societies into 1892 when, at the suggestion of the Archbishop of Canterbury (Edward White Benson), the idea was abandoned [61]. The Archbishop had apparently given the impression that he would personally put the plan to the Privy Council but in July 1894 wrote to say that he could not recall agreeing to make any such proposition [62]. The archbishop died suddenly in October 1896 but Jewers persevered and immediately renewed his assault on the new archbishop, whom the Bishop of Ely saw about the scheme in February 1897, but with little headway, the Bishop of Ely writing realistically, 'I think there may be a great difficulty in getting the Chancellor of the Exchequer to agree to start this new office & staff' [63].
Meanwhile the passing of the Local Government Act in 1894, with its enabling powers to create local record offices, had given some hope of reform and during its passage the barrister John Cumming Macdona (1836-1907), M.P. for Rotherhithe and formerly Rector of Cheadle, who was very aware of the conditions in which many registers were kept, expressed the opinion that all the records in parish churches should be removed [64]. Registers were, however, specifically excluded from this Act’s provisions.
Early in 1897 Jewers heard that Macdona intended to introduce a Bill that would apparently place the registers in the diocesan registries in each cathedral city. Although advised by the antiquary Sir Henry Howorth (1842-1923) who was M.P. for Salford (and latterly a Vice-President of the Society of Genealogists), Macdona seems to have had little idea of what his Bill would mean in reality [65], but it was first read on 26 January 1897 and had its second reading on 17 March 1897 [66]. It then sank without trace.
Two days after the first reading the genealogist Edward Alexander Fry, of Birmingham, Secretary of the newly formed Parish Register Society and an active member and secretary of the British Record Society, had written very firmly to Jewers about Macdona's Bill saying that he was 'entirely against the removal of either Parish Registers or Records of any class to central depots either in London or elsewhere' and that 'Mr Macdona would do well to bear in mind that the Registrar General prohibits the searching of such Registers as are now collected at Somerset House under the 1837 Act & if that is done now the same could undoubtedly occur again to any fresh additions ... He certainly will have the most strenuous opposition from the clergy themselves or the bulk of them. The yearly Diocesan Conference would warmly take the matter up, I feel sure adversely to his opinions' [67]. Seemingly in no way discouraged Jewers continued until at least 1904 to promote his scheme for a Royal Commission, writing letters and interviewing bishops and archbishops, but all without effect.
The problems continued to be discussed in the pages of Notes and Queries and to be raised at the Congress of Archaeological Societies which published two Reports on the Transcription and Publication of Parish Registers in 1892 and 1896. Its important resolutions in 1900 following the revelations of the Shipway forgeries case are discussed below. In his book on the case William Phillimore, like Fry, had expressed himself strongly opposed to any idea of centralised deposit.
The situation continued to be argued at length by Joint Committees of Convocation which produced four reports on The collection and custody of local ecclesiastical records between 1905 and 1916. But it was only after the creation of the network of county record offices in the second half of the twentieth century that suitable places for deposit became available locally in each county and, after the legislation in 1978 described below, that the majority of the older registers were deposited and removed from the uneven care of the clergy.
By the turn of the century there was no shortage of books and pamphlets on the subject, they including Edward J. Boyce's History of Parochial Registers (1895), the Revd Nigel W. Gresley's pamphlet The history and custody of parish registers (1889) and, as we shall see, William Bradbrook's The Parish Register (1910) for Bernau's Pocket Library and J. Charles Cox, The parish registers of England (1910) for the series of Antiquary's Books.
Arthur Jewers left a more lasting monument in the work that he did for the City of London’s Library Committee between 1910 and 1919 when he and his second ‘wife’ copied the surviving inscriptions and arms in the whole of the churches in the City, in five beautifully indexed volumes [68]. Probably in recognition of this work he was granted a pension from the Civil List in 1918 [69]. He died at Hampstead in 1921, aged 73. Twenty years earlier Jewers had given a short account of his family to Fox-Davies's Armorial Families in which he omitted to mention his second wife but claimed that a male-line ancestor had changed his name from Eure to Ewers in the seventeenth century and that he was rightfully 'fourteenth Lord Eure, Baron of Wilton' [70], a claim not elsewhere recognised.
Sir Thomas Phillips had printed parts of a few early registers, the first apparently being Durnford, Wiltshire (1574-1650 only), in 1823. Various people unrealistically suggested that all the surviving registers should be transcribed and printed but, in view of the magnitude of the task, J. S. Burn urged in 1856 that only those before 1700 be tackled and later in 1868, when F. Fitz Henry proposed through the pages of Notes and Queries the formation of a Society to print registers, Burn quickly wrote that the ‘printing of a vast number of uninteresting registers … would be an enormous expense without a corresponding benefit to the public’ [71].
However, later in the nineteenth century some genealogists began to transcribe and publish registers in a systematic way. The Harleian Society, which had been founded in 1869 to print 'the Heraldic Visitations of Counties and any manuscripts relating to genealogy, family history and heraldry', subscribers paying one guinea a year, in 1876 published the whole of the registers of Westminster Abbey from their commencement in 1607 to 1875 in a remarkably detailed edition by Colonel J. L. Chester [72] (of whom more will be said later) and the following year that Society established a Register Section with the intention of printing as many of the more important parish registers as the members' subscriptions would allow, in the event mainly limiting its work to the London area, but including the registers of Canterbury Cathedral edited by Robert Hovenden [73], St Paul's Cathedral edited by John W. Clay [74], and Bath Abbey edited by Arthur Jewers [75].
Granville W. G. Leveson Gower (1838-1895), of Titsey Place, Surrey, who edited the first register for the Harleian Society, that of St Peter Cornhill in two volumes in 1877-9, had considerable doubts about the value of printing these registers in full and was concerned at the cost involved. He wrote that it would 'encumber' the volumes 'with a large mass of useless and uninteresting matter' and he argued that the society's business was 'only with the record of those who at the time the entry was made were persons of recognised social position'. It was a view shared by Chester Waters who wrote 'to print the whole mass [of registers] in extenso, is practically out of the question on the ground of expense' and 'it must be acknowledged that a very small proportion of the whole number of registers has any interest whatever for the general public' [76]. Leveson Gower copied no further registers for the Harleian Society, but his whole family were interested in genealogy. His grandson Richard Leveson Gower (1894-1982), a regular supporter of the Society of Genealogists, whom I knew well, was for a time a professional genealogist with the well-known firm of Hardy and Page, and Granville's brother Arthur (1851-1922), who was in the diplomatic service, copied and published vast numbers of tombstone inscriptions on his missions abroad. I also knew Arthur's daughter Victoria (1887-1977), a god daughter of the Empress Frederick, and helped her to identify some of those named in the diaries of her brother William, a clerk in the House of Lords but killed in action in 1918. I remember one day her pouring out on my desk from her knapsack for identification a pile of the most beautiful Victorian seals which had belonged to her grandmother Viscountess Milton.
In 1889 the Congress of Archaeological Societies and the Society of Antiquaries appointed a joint-committee to consider the best means of assisting transcription and publication, but unfortunately although many registers were subsequently copied, the committee’s recommendations, published in 1892, were that the registers be copied to the year 1812 only. A vigorous correspondence in Notes and Queries followed and in 1895 Edward Alexander Fry revived the idea of a general ‘Parish Register Society’ as Sabine Baring Gould had suggested in 1884. This time, largely through the efforts of George William Marshall, a society was formed in 1896 and continued to print complete registers until 1935. Local societies for the publication of registers were similarly established in several counties, including Shropshire in 1897, Lancashire in 1898, Yorkshire in 1899, Staffordshire in 1901 and Surrey in 1903. The Huguenot Society of London had begun to publish the Huguenot registers in 1887 and similarly the Catholic Record Society, founded in 1904, began printing the surviving Catholic registers the following year.
Following the above-mentioned recommendations, most printed transcripts covered the registers from their commencements up to the introduction of the 'printed form' registers for baptisms and burials in 1813, but some were taken to 1 July 1837 when the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths commenced at the General Register Office. Despite the initial optimism of the Parish Register Society, it was a slow and haphazard progress, much depending on the work of interested local historians and clergy.
The solicitor-genealogist William Phillimore Watts Phillimore (1853-1913) had argued in Notes and Queries that only the marriage registers should be copied (as they formed one thirteenth or fourteenth of the average register) and these only to 1812, and he did not think that indexing was urgent [77]. Believing also that 'one of the chief obstacles to the completion of a pedigree is the difficulty of obtaining the names of the wives', he therefore began to produce through his firm Phillimore & Co Ltd, founded in 1897, the first of a very long series of volumes containing transcripts of marriage registers only, mostly from the smaller parishes, and by the Second World War had covered about 1,650 parishes in 238 volumes [78]. The first volumes owed much to the work of the Revd James Harvey Bloom (1860-1943) and Arthur Scott Gatty (1847-1918) then York Herald (subsequently Garter), a skilled genealogist and formerly a secretary to Stephen Tucker, Rouge Croix.
As early as 1885 George William Marshall had compiled a list of those registers that had been printed, including in this the manuscript copies that were freely available in public libraries. This was printed in The Genealogist [79] and he later made a similar list for the Parish Register Society, Parish Registers: a list of those printed, or of which MS copies exist in public collections (1900) to which that Society added appendices in 1904 and 1908. In 1908 again G. F. Matthews put together his Contemporary index to printed parish (and non-parochial) registers, showing where copies may be found in some public libraries of London, Leeds, and Manchester and that same year Arthur Meredyth Burke produced his useful Key to the ancient parish registers of England and Wales, listing the dates at which the registers in each parish commenced and noting those that had been printed.
The value and utility of some form of central index to the entries in the available copies of marriage and baptismal registers was, it seems, first recognised by the record agents Ethel Stokes and her friend Mary Louise Cox who in about 1898 set to work to form 'a general index' to 'Parish Registers before 1837' in order, as they later announced, 'to overcome the difficulty of finding records of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, unknown'. Their intention was to compile indexes that might be consulted on similar lines to the centralised indexes of births, marriages and deaths which, from July 1837, were being compiled quarterly to cover all England and Wales at the General Register Office.
Mary Louise Cox (1873-1936) was the daughter of a prosperous law-stationer in Chancery Lane and would have been familiar with the Public Record Office from an early age. In 1901, when 27, she described herself as 'ancient records searcher' working on her own account. Ethel Stokes (1869-1944), born in St Pancras to another prosperous family that afterwards lived in Maida Vale, had similarly been a searcher at the Record Office from the age of eighteen. About 1898 the two friends formed a 'Record Office Agency' and in 1904 as 'Stokes & Cox' took an office at 75 Chancery Lane [80], though they lived with Ethel's aunts in Castellain Road. In 1911 they jointly described their occupation as 'Hunting up genealogies & other historic records in British Museum & other places' [81]. They retained their office until 1939 when Ethel Stokes gave up her record agency work, her friend Mary Cox, who then lived at Highgate, having died in June 1936.
The couple believed that the period just prior to the introduction of civil registration in 1837 was the most difficult genealogically and they initially concentrated on the London parish registers, attempting to index on slips the years 1790 to 1812 or to 1837 if the registers were easily available. Entries from the surviving Bishops Transcripts of the Diocese of London from 1800 to 1837 seem to have formed the basis of the index, and the years missing from the Transcripts, which only commence in 1800, are also generally missing from their Index. These London Transcripts had previously been little used and were widely thought, as Stacey Grimaldi wrote in 1828 and William Phillimore repeated in 1888, not to have commenced until 1813 [82]. Richard Sims wrote in 1861 that it had ‘never been the custom for the Clergy in this Diocese to transmit duplicates’ [83].
By 1907 the Index contained three million entries [84] and was being further expanded by the regular addition of marriages from the county volumes of the Phillimore marriage series as they were printed and from other available transcripts and publications. These included entries from the many typescripts of London registers and bishops transcripts that, from about 1929 onwards, were being made by William Harold Challen (1888-1964), of Carshalton, which he gave to the Guildhall Library and partially to the Society of Genealogists (which he had joined in 1920). Ethel Stokes who herself joined the Society in 1928 and was elected a Fellow the following year, spent many hours on the work, generally extending the index back to 1780 where possible, as is clear from a typescript list of the parishes included that was made after her death.
In the 1930s when Percival Boyd began to produce the typed sections of his marriage index, the Stokes & Cox index contained material that was not 'in Boyd', particularly for London and Middlesex which was one of the first sections that Boyd typed, but following the typing of his Second Miscellaneous Series in the late 1950s it seems likely that the majority of these additional parishes (many from the Phillimore series) had also been slipped by Boyd. Only the material from the London Bishops Transcripts then remained unique to the Stokes & Cox index [85].
Following her partnership with Mary Cox, Ethel Stokes had seen a rapid increase in work and she acquired a remarkable knowledge of early sources and, as a tribute in The Times said [86], a fine scholarship and a technical methodology of the highest order, she being engaged over a long period in peerage claims and in the composition of detailed articles on medieval baronies for The Complete Peerage. In 1912 she had edited an index to the PCC Wills 1605-19 for the British Record Society and followed that with volumes of transcripts of the Liber Ecclesiae Wigorniensis, of inquisitions post mortem for Gloucestershire and Wiltshire and of feet of fines for Warwickshire.
In the late 1920s, Ethel Stokes together with Miss Joan Wake (1884-1974) from Northampton was instrumental in expanding the work of the British Record Society into records preservation generally [87] and when the British Records Association was founded in 1932 she was successively its chairman and honorary secretary. On the outbreak of War in September 1939 she gave up much of her record agency work and threw herself into records preservation, setting up an office at the Public Record Office (where she also ran a canteen and would sleep in an improvised air-raid shelter under the Library table [88]) to review material sent for salvage, and remaining extremely active in that field until her tragic death in 1944, she being struck by a taxi in Great Russell Street when leaving the British Library. Harvey Bloom, the expert on medieval deeds, also spent his final years during the War worrying about records sent for salvage. The dreadful 'paper pulping', as his daughter Ursula wrote, became 'the nightmare of his old age, the ever-abiding ghost that walked with him'. Bombed out from his flat in Balham he moved to Stratford-upon-Avon and continued his work calendaring the charters in the Birthplace Library there [89].
Ethel Stokes had maintained her office in Chancery Lane until 1939 and the exact whereabouts of the great index that she had been instrumental in compiling is not known. It may have been in store somewhere but as a result of enemy action the greater part of the baptismal index was destroyed. Very fortunately the marriage index survived and at some stage it seems to have been acquired by Henry William Sayers (1876-1962), of Thames Ditton, who, as described below, had taken over the extensive next-of-kin business of the De Bernardy Brothers, initially at 25 Bedford Row and then, from at least 1924, at 59-60 Chancery Lane. At the latter address he and his wife Annie Lydia worked with John Herbert Pallot as genealogists and record agents, specialising in Chancery work and intestacy or next-of-kin cases, their telegraphic address being 'Sayersanco'.
John Herbert Pallot, who had been born in Jersey in 1904 and whose wife Elsye was a qualified accountant, lived at 2 Lawn Road, Hampstead [90] but also had an office at 59-60 Chancery Lane, at least from 1933 until the War. His firm Pallot & Co was at 2 New Court, Carey Street, from 1946 until 1960 (he living at Harrow in 1951-55), and Henry and Annie Sayers continued to work with him. Both died in 1962, John Herbert Pallot being their executor [91]. Meanwhile in 1961, Pallot & Co had been succeeded at 2 New Court by another firm of genealogists, Andrew & Co. The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies acquired the index, by then known as the Pallot Index, from John Andrew in 1972, the Institute adding slips for marriages in some further London parishes [92].
Although mentioned in Bernau's International Genealogical Directory in 1907-9, this extremely useful tool had remained almost unknown to working genealogists until this time. It was then said to contain 'several million marriages' in the London area between 1780 and 1837 [93]. The index became better known in 1978 following somewhat extravagant claims made for it in a full-page advertisement in The Genealogists’ Magazine [94], though many professionals considered the minimum search fee of £4 then charged by the Institute too high [95]. Later, when the 'Pallot Index' was published on CD-ROM by Ancestry.com in 2001, it was found to contain 1,695,352 records from 2,600 parishes [96].
The genealogical value of monumental inscriptions has been recognised for centuries [97]. The first book collecting them was probably the inaccurate Ancient Funerall Monuments (1631) by John Weever (1576-1632). In 1700 the Hertfordshire historian Sir Henry Chauncy, quoting Sir Edward Coke, wrote that inscriptions served four uses or ends but chiefly, ‘They are Evidences to prove Descents and Pedigrees’ [98]. In the eighteenth century Ralph Bigland, already mentioned as the author of the first book on parish registers [99], seems to have been the first to recognize the importance of tombstones as a source for those below the status of gentry and to copy them systematically. He collected local inscriptions in the 1740s whilst selling cheese to the armies in the Low Countries during the War of the Austrian Succession, long before he entered the College of Arms in 1757. In Gloucestershire he noted great numbers of inscriptions in churches and churchyards, many since lost, for his Historical, monumental, and genealogical collections relative to the County of Gloucester (posthumously published in 1791-92) [100].
Bigland was followed in this work by numerous 19th-century antiquaries and local historians, though most copied only a selection of the inscriptions that they found and even these were mainly those inside the churches. The destruction of many church monuments during the nineteenth century ‘restorations’ was a source of great disquiet to some of them and drew an unusual and heartfelt cry from the young antiquary Edward Peacock (1831-1915), of Bottesford Manor, Brigg, about their value for the ancestry of the ‘common people’ which appeared in the Stamford Mercury in 1861. He wrote with passion and foresight that ‘the desire to possess knowledge concerning our ancestors arises from no vulgar pride of ancestry, but from a natural instinct to connect ourselves with the far-off past. This instinct is felt as much by the poor as by the rich; it displays itself as strongly in the yeoman and the peasant as it does in the nobleman. … We most of us … are sprung in many lines from the common people; there are not many, we will hope, who are ashamed of this, or would wish to blot it from their own or other people’s memory. Is it not then a grievous thing that, by the meddling of churchwardens and others, we should be deprived of that which we now value highly, and which future ages will reprobate us for having permitted ignorant people to destroy? Genealogical investigations have always presented great attractions to a free people; as our race becomes more educated it is probable that the pleasure taken in the study of family history will be much more general than it is now. Already, America and Australia look to us to furnish them with materials of their forefathers’ [101]. The damage that had been done in Peacock’s county can be seen from the number of monuments noted between 1828 and 1840 by William John Monson (later 6th Lord Monson of Burton) which had disappeared or been destroyed by the time those notes were published in 1936. In the little church of Tallington, for instance, ten of the eleven monuments and a hatchment had gone [102].
It is thought that a Durham journalist and antiquary, Cuthbert Mills Carlton (1832-1892), was the first to make a complete copy of all the inscriptions in a particular place for his valuable The monumental inscriptions of the cathedral, parish churches and cemeteries of the City of Durham (1880), something that he himself considered important and of which he was proud [103]. In the churches and churchyards of London and Middlesex the work of Frederick Teague Cansick (1855-1918), both printed [104] and manuscript was noteworthy but far from complete. By the turn of the century several genealogists were copying all the stones in their areas, the work of William Gerish in Hertfordshire, mentioned later, being a notable example. On 8 September 1900 the active Revd James Harvey Bloom, Rector of Whitchurch, wrote to The Times regretting the widespread destruction of memorials and urging their transcription, as the earlier ones gave ‘information of relationships, offices held, places of residence and details of age which can be obtained nowhere else’ [105].
In the year that the Society of Genealogists was founded (1911), a few subscribers formed the English Monumental Inscriptions Society, its leading light being the Revd Thomas William Oswald-Hicks (died 1939, aged 77), Honorary Secretary and Editor of the Register of English Monumental Inscriptions, of which two volumes, mostly relating to Suffolk, were published for 1911/12 and 1913/14. He was probably thinking of the long established Association for the Preservation of the Memorials of the Dead in Ireland, founded in 1888, that did so much valuable work there and continued to publish its Journal until 1937. His society was however a casualty of the First World War.
Because proof of pedigree in relation to estates and titles was such an important element in the work of early genealogists the value of the probate records maintained by the church courts throughout the country, was also early recognised. In the seventeenth century Sir William Dugdale had made use of the wills proved in the senior court, the Prerogative Court of the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his Baronage of England (1675-6). In the next century the use of wills by historians became frequent and in 1780 the antiquary John Nichols (1745-1826) published all the surviving royal wills prior to 1508 in a volume, the first of its kind, Collection of all the wills now known to be extant of the Kings and Queens of England and every branch of the royal blood. The earliest index or calendar of wills compiled for publication seems to have been that made for Nichols about 1779 by his fellow antiquary Andrew Coltee Ducarel (1713-1785) who indexed the wills at Lambeth Palace, but the scheme to publish it did not materialise as the fees charged for the consultation of the Lambeth index would have been lost to the Palace dignitaries. In 1826 the peerage lawyer Stacey Grimaldi was asked 10s 6d for consulting it [106].
Most of the wills that had been proved in the bishops' consistory and archdeaconry courts were at this time deposited in the diocesan registries around the country. However, there were in addition a large number of small 'peculiar' courts that claimed the right to prove wills, the records of which were frequently held in private hands and not easily accessible, so that, as Stacey Grimaldi wrote in 1828, the persons whose wills were proved in them were often presumed to have died intestate [107]. Altogether there were in England and Wales at this time about 370 courts that had the right to prove wills and grant administrations.
In 1822 the young and aggressively practical antiquary-genealogist and former naval lieutenant Nicholas 'Harris' Nicolas (1799-1848), shocked not only by the number and variety of the courts but by the conditions in which many of their records were allowed to exist, had written to the Archbishop of Canterbury suggesting that a centralised 'General Registry of Indexes' to wills proved and administrations granted be set up in London. He had mentioned that no list of the courts in the various dioceses then existed, there was no guide to their jurisdictions and much less any guide to their records, so that after a fruitless search in the main court, the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, any enquiry for a particular will could be a lengthy process. The Archbishop did not reply.
As a consequence Harris Nicolas had himself compiled such a guide, Notitia historica: containing tables, calendars and miscellaneous information for the use of historians, antiquaries and the legal profession (1824), which, as he later wrote, proved useful 'in exciting attention to the manifest inconveniences which so many courts created'. He reverted to the subject in the preface to his Testamenta vetusta: or abstracts of wills of the royal family, nobility and gentry, from the reign of Henry the Second to the accession of Queen Elizabeth, illustrative of the manners, dresses, household furniture and customs of that period; and of the descents and landed possessions of many distinguished families: with biographical notes (2 vols. 1826), making some characteristically strong comments on the regulations of the Archbishop's Prerogative Court at Doctors' Commons. The publication of further similar collections of wills was urged by Joseph Hunter (1783-1861) in his History of the Deanery of Doncaster (1831) and the oldest local record society, the Surtees Society, produced the first of many such volumes in 1835 [108].
Meanwhile the attention of Edward Protheroe (later Davis-Protheroe; 1798-1852), M.P. for Evesham, having been drawn to the lack of information on the courts and their records, he promoted several parliamentary enquiries that sought to clarify the complicated situation, calling in 1828-32 for details of the probate jurisdictions claimed by the various courts then active, their fees, records, safety and frequency of use. Following the publication of the important Returns respecting the jurisdiction, records, emoluments and fees of ecclesiastical courts (Command Paper 205, 1830), Harris Nicolas poured scorn on the confusion revealed in the registries, their ridiculous number (there were 28 in the Diocese of Bath and Wells and 38 in that of Lichfield alone), the exorbitant fees and the vested rights of the officials, in his Observations on the state of historical literature and on the Society of Antiquaries ... with remarks on record offices, and on the proceedings of the Record Commission (1830). The later Reports ... into the practice and jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts in England and Wales (Command Paper 199, 1832) largely agreed with the points made by Harris Nicolas and, as he wrote, 'showed the existence of serious evils in glaring colours'. They recommended that the peculiar courts be abolished and that one centralised registry be formed [109].
However, the numerous officials of the courts for twenty-five years resisted any reform with, as Harris Nicolas said, 'feverish tenacity' and he sadly did not live to see the outcome, but the whole paraphernalia of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in matters testamentary together with the powers of the small temporal courts that claimed the right of probate was eventually abolished by the Court of Probate Act 1857, which created, as from 12 January 1858, the Principal Probate Registry in London and forty District Registries throughout England and Wales (with others in Ireland) which were given specific geographical areas of jurisdiction. In 1875 the Court of Probate was incorporated into the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court (now the Family Division).
The geographical areas of jurisdiction given to the District Registries bore little if any relation to the former boundaries of jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts. Some Registries were situated in county towns and served whole counties, but in Lancashire, for instance, there were registries at Manchester and Liverpool serving those towns and another at Lancaster for the rest of the county. However, the pre-1858 probate records of the ecclesiastical courts were hurriedly split off from their other records and moved from their ancient homes in the cathedrals and diocesan registries to the nearest available probate registries. Some of these diocesan registries had long traditions of careful records’ preservation but in others, particularly those of the smaller jurisdictions, the records had often been stored in the most appalling conditions. Some had suffered frequent moves and consequent losses. Now their records were to be divided and those relating to probate sent to the probate registries. In the diocese of London, for instance, many records were stored at St Paul's Cathedral in muniment rooms, 'in a turret on the north side of the Cathedral above the Lord Mayor's Vestry'. Officers from the newly created Probate Registry visited the Cathedral in 1861-3 to 'roughly arrange' the records before taking them away, finding it impossible to do more 'in a place so dark and dirty'. All the records of a purely ecclesiastical nature were left upon the shelves but anything of a mixed character was brought away, including some books that contained no probate material at all and which consequently became quite inaccessible to the historian [110].
The records remained at the various probate registries for almost a hundred years, sometimes in conditions that were far from ideal and they were the subject of frequent complaint by genealogists and other historians. There was often 'neither accommodation for searchers nor any inducement to officials to give facilities for search', access only being allowed if it was no 'impediment to the business of the registry'.
In London the Principal Probate Registry was initially located at Doctors' Commons 'one of the queerest old rookeries in London' [111] to the south of St Paul's Cathedral and at the corner of Bennet's Hill and Great Knightrider Street, which, apart from a short period after the Great Fire, had been the home of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury since 1572 [112]. Following the 1857 Act it received also the records of many of the courts relating to the Home Counties as well as those of the dioceses of Sarum (in Wiltshire and Berkshire) and Oxford and of the Archdeaconry of Richmond in Lancashire and Yorkshire.
The search room at Doctors' Commons was open every day, February to September, 9 am - 4 pm, and October to January, 9 am to 3 pm [113], but the conditions both as regards the storage of the documents and the facilities for their inspection were, throughout the nineteenth century, cause for complaint. In 1826 Harris Nicolas complained bitterly of the obstruction and rudeness of the officials [114] and in April 1848 Lord Braybrooke, President of the Camden Society and fifteen members of its Council sent a strong memorial to the Archbishop of Canterbury about the monstrous office fees levied for the consultation and copying of wills, no information being available except in the form of office copies and all copies from 1383 to the present day being charged at the same rate. His office was, they wrote, ‘probably the only public office in the kingdom which is shut against literary enquirers’ [115]. The Archbishop (John Bird Sumner) evasively replied that he ‘had no control whatever over the fees taken in that department’ and the Camden Society in January 1853 wrote fiercely to the Commission on ecclesiastical courts saying that the authorities in the Prerogative Office with its ‘offensively enforced’ rules, stood alone as the only depository of historical documents in which there was not only no feeling whatever in favour of literature and historical enquiry but also 'an anxiety to retain extravagant fees' [116].
However, following the abolition of the ecclesiastical courts in 1858, further representations by the Camden Society and the Society of Antiquaries to the newly appointed Judge, Sir Cresswell Cresswell (1794-1863) of the Principal Probate Registry, were rewarded when he agreed to 'literary' searchers (i.e. those not working for lawyers) with suitable references being allowed free access to records prior to 1700. The Camden Society marked this 'era in our literary history' by publishing in 1863 a volume of wills, edited by John Gough Nichols and another industrious antiquary, John Bruce (1802-1869),which had been made without payment of office fees [117].
Daniel Kirwan, writing just three years before the abolition of Doctors' Commons, said that, 'The lawyers who practice here are all well to do, snug, aristocratic old fellows, and enjoy good living and nothing to do as no other disciples of the legal profession can' [118], but a chronic shortage of space there had already been relieved by taking some of the records to Somerset House and in the late autumn of 1874 the whole of the remainder was taken in waggon loads down Ludgate Hill, up Fleet Street and along the Strand to rooms on the south side of that building which had been vacated by the Admiralty on its move to Whitehall [119]. The Principal Probate Registry was formally opened here on 23 October 1874 and this was its home until 1998. The wills were stored in a long gallery under the terrace overlooking the Embankment and produced to the public in a ‘large and handsome apartment’, Room 32, immediately above and on the ground floor. Here the calendars of wills in the various courts were made available. There were three clerks who did indexing and attended to the public and there was one seat for those who had obtained permission to see filed wills and calendars without charge.
In 1862 another room, Room 9, with six tables and chairs had been provided for literary searchers and named the Department for Literary Inquiry. However, this was in the basement facing the quadrangle and although it was a high room and had a wide area outside its windows, it had no artificial lighting and consequently the opening hours were restricted from 11 am to 2.30 pm in the winter and from 10 am to 3.30 pm in the summer. In the summer, to add insult to injury, this cold, dark and unpleasant room, later likened to a 'cellar' by Ethel Stokes, was closed altogether for six weeks. No searcher was admitted on more than two days a week even if he or she had made an appointment in advance. The 'privilege' of working here was frequently hammered home and anyone who complained was threatened with the room's closure or the withdrawal of their literary permit. Following protests and a petition by scholars in 1884, however, a second room was thrown into this room and a total of twelve or fourteen seats provided. That only three had been allowed for in the original regulations was still being argued in 1913.
Room 9 held duplicates of the calendars upstairs where they existed, but this was not usually until after 1660, and the others had to be requisitioned and brought down. As at Doctors' Commons the literary non-legal searchers who had obtained permits from the President of the Probate Division were here allowed to see registered copy wills prior to 1699 without charge [120]. Within three years of moving to Somerset House that date had been moved on to 1760 and in 1884 it was further extended to one hundred years from the year of search. In theory, if the required will had not been registered, searchers were supposed to be able to see the original will on payment of a shilling but that became more and more difficult and latterly access to the originals was almost entirely prohibited. No copying by the readers was permitted, all copies being made, sometimes quite incompetently, by the staff and for fees. Two staff alternated in the management of the room and there were two messengers who fetched the heavy books of registered wills and the smaller act books, though only eight books could be seen on any one day.
In 1872 the able scholar John 'Challenor' Covington Smith (1845-1928),whose father had also been in the Civil Service, was appointed Superintendent of 'the Literary', as Room 9 was often called, and from then until 1892 he played an active part in the work and development of his small section. In 1882 he had greatly assisted the philologist Frederick James Furnivall (1825-1910) with his Fifty earliest English wills in the Court of Probate, London for the Early English Text Society and Walter Rye says that 'he was ever ready to offer valuable suggestions and assistance to all who are earnest students and not mere triflers' but that he was removed to another department 'apparently to prevent the Search-room from becoming too popular' [121]. Earlier Rye had said that without Challenor Smith 'matters would indeed go badly with any enquirer' and that his 'special knowledge of his subject and unfailing courtesy especially fitted him for the place' but that he had 'for some inscrutable reason been removed from it' [122]. Immediately on leaving 'the Literary', and the two events are probably not unconnected, Challenor Smith compiled for the British Record Society in 1893-5 two volumes of an index to the earliest wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury 1383-1558, 'the finest privately compiled calendar ever printed' [123]. Challenor Smith had lived for some years at Richmond in Surrey and in 1903-5 the local Parish Register Society published two volumes of his transcripts of the Richmond parish registers. In 1919 he compiled an index to the wills recorded in the archbishops' registers at Lambeth Palace and he produced a number of articles for genealogical periodicals.
When the records were first transferred to Somerset House there were plans to print calendars of them, but a pilot scheme to index those of the Court of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster proved too laborious and that volume alone was printed in 1864 (but not distributed) [124]. The two Record Keepers involved in its compilation, John Smith and Joseph Frederick Coleman [125], had found, as they wrote in the introduction, that every piece of paper had to be examined and properly arranged first of all and that where, as in London, different courts used a common registry, the records had often been 'mixed or misfiled'.
However, in January 1882 George Hook Rodman (1836-1910), the son of a bottle merchant in Chelsea, was appointed Assistant to the Record Keeper. He had worked in the Probate Registry from an early age and had been responsible for collecting the London records from St Paul's Cathedral in 1861-3 [126]. He was now given the task of superintending the indexing and arranging of the ancient records at Somerset House which at this time held the records of some 76 courts, plus another 27 from the diocese of Salisbury [127]. For more than twenty years he laboured at their repairing, sorting and calendaring. Under his direction a small group prepared many of the parchment manuscript indexes or calendars in fine Victorian handwriting which are still in use today as the standard means of reference to the records of the courts in the London area, though some have been superseded by modern printed indexes prepared by private record societies. When reviewing his work in the 1960s the archivist Ida Darlington wrote that he had 'a fund of industry and patience', taking 'particular pains to note down everything he did either in investigating the provenance of the wills or in repairs or other alteration to their format' [128]. Walter Rye speaks of Rodman as 'a gentleman of long experience ... ably assisted by Messrs Cheyne and Rouse' [129].
The first of these assistants, Ernest Cheyne (1853-1903), was the son of a surgeon in Marylebone. He came to the Probate Registry with a university degree in the late 1870s to work with Rodman and is also remembered for his work on the indexes. He died in harness in 1903. In those years Dr Samuel Anderson Smith (died 1915) had written 14,000 index slips to the wills proved in the Prerogative Court, 1558-83, and these Cheyne checked against the Act Books whilst Challenor Smith prepared an index to the places, the whole being edited by Leland L. Duncan for publication by the Index Library in 1898. Ernest Cheyne spent most of his working life in the Registry and his two beautifully written indexes to the Oxfordshire wills 1516-1732, completed in 1902, which form the basis of the British Record Society volumes published in 1981, have been described as 'exceptionally accurate' [130]. It was perhaps significant that Challenor Smith had retired before his index was published and Ethel Stokes later told the story of the registrar at Nottingham who had, in his sparer moments, made a calendar of the wills there with the idea that it should be printed, but the authorities at Somerset House had refused him leave to do so, saying that it was the property of the office [131].
Apart from the official returns made in 1828-32, the various courts and their records still lacked any form of basic manual but in 1895 the barrister George William Marshall, then Rouge Croix Pursuivant of Arms, compiled A handbook to the ancient courts of probate and depositories of wills. I have the copy that George Sherwood bought for 6s 8d and began to annotate and index by county in 1898. It remained the standard reference work until Bethell Bouwens produced his Wills and their whereabouts in 1939.
One might think that in spite of its underground location and restricted hours that all was well in the Literary Department but that was far from the case, many of the later clerks there being quite unsuited to the work. Differing interpretations of the rules found William Henry Benbow Bird (1857-1934), the editor of the Close Rolls, being turned away when Room 9 was half empty because, he was told, the messengers could not be expected to work after 12 a.m. if prior to that time they had done 'all that was required of them' [132]. Herbert Chitty (1863-1949), the Bursar of Winchester College, not having a literary ticket, had been refused a chair to sit on although many were available and he was obliged to stand in a dark corner away from the window, as he said, 'like a naughty boy' [133], though following a petition in 1900 reflectors were installed to improve the light [134]. Herbert Chitty was particularly disgusted at the prohibition on note taking and the need to memorize facts from the wills and then to go outside to write them down [135]. It is said that the antiquary Lord Monson (1796-1862) was fortunately blessed with a peculiarly retentive memory and after reading a will a few times could commit its substance to writing, for the slightest attempt to take notes of its contents would at once have been stopped by the vigilant officials [136].
These petty restrictions on note taking (still technically in force into the 1960s) and the seating problems annoyed a growing number of people. Prominent amongst them was a genealogist, Gerald Fothergill (1870-1926) [137], who later played an important role in the early years of the Society of Genealogists. He lived at Wandsworth and had become a record agent when a teenager at Willesden in 1887 [138]. The son of a prosperous railway signal engineer, Fothergill was a friend of the librarian Henry Robert Plomer (1857-1928) who also lived at Willesden and was well known for his books and articles on the biographies of booksellers and printers, the research on which had taken him regularly to the Literary Department.
As a record agent Fothergill specialised in the English origins of migrants to America, charging $125 for a month's work [139]. Interested in 'Hidden Relationships' he too made regular visits to 'The Literary', where he made indexes to the stray names mentioned in the wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in the years 1660, 1700 and 1770 [140]. Already in the 1890s he was in correspondence with his local Member of Parliament about access to records generally and for thirty years he waged a long war with various authorities about freedom of access.
Gerald Fothergill was particularly active in 1903. In March that year he and Henry Plomer sent out a circular calling a meeting at 30 Little Russell Street to discuss the possible formation of a 'British Records Preservation Society' with the stated aim of abolishing restrictions and fees for the inspection and copying of records and compelling custodians to observe their legal obligations [141]. That proposed society, however, did not get off the ground. Henry Plomer, who had agreed to be the Secretary, withdrew in May because of the very small response that they had received and because his main aim was to reform the Literary Search Department [142].
However, on 30 May 1903 the periodical The Athenaeum published a strongly worded article, 'Somerset House and its management', signed 'Archivist' but written by Henry Plomer, drawing attention to the many grievances of the regular searchers, and in June, Vicary Gibbs (1853-1932), M.P. for St Albans and later editor of The Complete Peerage, followed this up by asking the Secretary to the Treasury, Arthur Elliot (1846-1923), ‘in view of the lack of facilities offered for research in their present situation’ to consider the transfer of the ‘ancient wills which possess only a literary interest’ to the Public Record Office. Gibbs was firmly told that under Section 66 of the Probate Act 1857 legislation would be necessary and that the President of the Probate Division 'does not think that any serious inconvenience is caused to literary searchers by the present arrangements' [143].
The article in The Athenaeum had, however, caused something of a stir, Plomer writing to Fothergill, 'The fat is in the fire at Somerset House with a vengeance'. Everyone suspected Fothergill of having written the article and George Rodman, the superintendent of the room, was particularly indignant at the article's comment that 'one of the two attendants should have been placed on the retired list long ago' and was going about saying that several noted Americans had made presents to him for his attention to them! [144]. The giving of gratuities was another matter of concern that continued throughout the Department's history; at the British Museum, as the Royal Commission reminded a witness, attendants who took gratuities were dismissed [145]. However, mainly as a result of this rumpus, the 'elderly attendant' was retired, the hours were very slightly extended, the seats were allocated more fairly, and the fourteenth seat, about which there had been unseemly squabbles until the President, Sir Francis Jeune, personally intervened, was made permanently available [146].
On 22 April 1905 The Athenaeum published a further letter complaining about the illegible state of many of the probate calendars, which meant that the attendants had to bring down the duplicate volumes from Room 32. There was still no electric light in Room 9 which was lit only from the area, although lighting had been installed in Room 32 which overlooked the Embankment and had good natural lighting. The number of will volumes that might be produced to any searcher on one day was still limited to eight. In 1910 Fothergill organised a petition, worded along the lines of the article, to the President of the Probate Court and although signed by many readers, its only result was to end the annual closure of the room in the summer, though even that took another year to implement. In 1912 the newly formed Society of Genealogists announced that the President of the Probate Division (Sir Samuel Evans) in compliance with the petition had ordered the Literary Research Department to remain open during the Long Vacation (except for ten days for cleaning), from 11 am to 3 pm and from 10 am to 1 pm on Saturdays, and that an attempt would be made to obtain for public use there copies of any printed calendars and lists taken from its records [147].
In 1807 a Record Commission had reported that the condition of the country’s national records in their various repositories was a growing scandal, ‘unarranged, undescribed and unascertained … exposed to erasure, alienation and embezzlement … lodged in buildings uncommodious and insecure’, and in 1836 a Select Committee of the House of Commons had proposed that they all be brought together in one repository and in the care of one man. Consequently, in 1838 an Act of Parliament had placed the ‘custody, charge and superintendence’ of the records in the hands of the Master of the Rolls (then Lord Langdale) who was to be assisted by a Deputy Keeper of the Records with a staff of Assistant Record Keepers and other workmen. Until the records could be centralised the various offices were to continue to operate as branches and the Act required the Treasury to fill all the posts in the new office from staff already employed in the branches who might otherwise be entitled to compensation.
The majority of the older ‘public’ records which were derived from the courts of law, the departments of state and the other agencies of central government, were described by Stacey Grimaldi in 1828 and were then either in the Chapter House at Westminster Abbey or in the Tower of London. It was to the keepers of these two repositories that he gave particular acknowledgment in his Preface.
At Westminster Abbey the fine thirteenth-century polygonal Chapter House had in medieval times been the meeting place of the House of Commons but in 1547 the Commons moved to the Chapel of St Stephen in the Palace of Westminster and the Chapter House, its tall windows blocked and with galleries and an upper storey replacing the original vaulting (taken down as ruinous in 1740),was converted into a government record office, mainly for the Exchequer records which included Domesday Book, the medieval tiling being covered with a wooden floor.
In Grimaldi’s time the Keeper there was the antiquary John Caley (died 1834, aged 71). Although Caley drew two salaries as Keeper of the records, he was also secretary to the Record Commission, 1801-31, and responsible for many of the financial and administrative scandals with which it was surrounded. He afterwards received an additional £500 a year to superintend the arranging, repairing and binding of the records, something which, in the words of the Dictionary of National Biography, he did ‘in a most disgraceful manner, the lettering and dates being inaccurate in almost every instance’. His office was ‘dirty and dark’ and as its contents were in the utmost disorder the public were rigidly excluded and he kept the few lists and keys to the records at his house in Exmouth Street, Spa Fields. Applicants for documents had firstly to apply there and the records were then brought up in bags from Westminster by his footman. As the wrong documents were frequently brought, it was said that a search which at the end of the century might take two days without charge, could be prolonged through two weeks, the fees involved depending entirely on Caley’s pleasure [148].
Caley died in April 1834 and the story is told that a few months later, on 16 October 1834, when the Houses of Parliament were destroyed by fire, the wind began to drive the flames towards Westminster Hall and the Chapter House, just across the road. Thousands watching that night saw two figures on the Chapter House roof, surveying the scene: Francis Palgrave (1788-1861) the Keeper of Records and John Ireland (died 1842), the conservative Dean. Before the wind changed, Palgrave suggested that they go down and carry the most valued treasures into the Abbey for safety. Dean Ireland ‘with the caution belonging at once to his office and his character’, as Dean Stanley wrote later, replied that he could not think of doing so without applying to Lord Melbourne, the First Lord of the Treasury, for the Chapter House was Government property! [149]. However, only a few years later the new Public Record Office in Chancery Lane began to receive the Chapter House’s contents. Only then, in 1865, was the building restored to its former glory [150].
The Tower of London had been the main repository for Chancery records throughout the Middle Ages and in the time of Charles II a Record Office was formed from the Chapel of St John the Evangelist and a large neighbouring room under the roof of the White Tower. However, it suffered a long decline and transfers of records were ‘limited and spasmodic’ [151]. The antiquary Samuel Lysons (1763-1819) was appointed Keeper there in 1803 and increased the staff from one to six. Amongst the newcomers were two young nephews of his brother Daniel Lyson’s first wife, Sarah Hardy (died 1808). They were the sons of Major Thomas B. P. Hardy, R.A., who had died in the West Indies in 1814. The eldest, Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy (1804-1878), who commenced work as a junior clerk at the Tower in 1819 and rose to be Deputy Keeper at the new Record Office in succession to Sir Francis Palgrave in 1861, is considered the father of the Historical Manuscripts Commission . His younger brother, Sir William Hardy (1807-1887), came to the Tower in 1823 and also rose to be Deputy Keeper, specialising in peerage claims.
These two boys were trained by Lysons’s successor, another antiquary Henry Petrie (1768-1842), who had a reputation for remitting fees for literary searches [152]. However, in 1828 Grimaldi expressed his best thanks for assistance to John Bayley (died 1869), who had worked there from an early age but, like Caley, was notorious for his exorbitant charges. He was a better scholar than Caley, as evidenced by his History and antiquities of the Tower of London (2 parts, 1821-5), but owing to his long absence from business his office at the Tower was declared vacant in 1834 and he moved to Cheltenham. However, irregular deposits of records continued to be made here until 1842 and for some decades had overflowed into much of the Wakefield Tower, but in 1857 everything was removed to Chancery Lane.
As well as these two major record repositories there were also fifty or so smaller repositories dotted about London. On the Rolls Estate in Chancery Lane, the Rolls Office and its Chapel, which had effectively been occupied by the Master of the Rolls and his predecessors since the thirteenth century, had received from the Tudor period many rolls and records of Chancery and other official records. Other records, removed in 1830 from sheds at the end of Westminster Hall, were sent to the Royal Mews at Charing Cross (demolished to make room for the National Gallery in 1835) and ended up in a large repository in Waterloo Place adapted from the former stables of Carlton House and called ‘Carlton Ride’. Here the testy antiquary and historian Joseph Hunter, formerly a Presbyterian minister and mentioned above for his interest in probate records, was nominally in charge. Yet another large repository, housing the records of the former Secretaries of State from the seventeenth century, was the State Paper Office in Duke Street, Westminster, near St James’s Park, but these papers were placed under the Master of the Rolls in 1855 and the building pulled down in 1862.
Prior to the 1860s, access to the records in these many repositories, as Jane Cox wrote, ‘was restricted in a rather haphazard way; there were as many record keepers as there were repositories, and each guarded his charges jealously. Only the tenacious and the relentlessly inquisitive could get to see them and use them for historical or legal purposes’ [153]. However, following the 1838 Act it was agreed in 1840 that the various offices would be open from ten until four except on Sundays. Searchers were to write their particulars in a day book and were allowed to make pencil extracts or copies from the records. A fee of a shilling was payable for a general search in all the available calendars or indexes and another shilling was charged for each inspection. The fees could be commuted at five shillings a week, provided the search was limited to one family or place, or to a single object of inquiry, but the £1,100 taken in 1842 in fact came mainly from charges for 1,250 office copies. The officers themselves could no longer take fees or gratuities from the searchers or act as record agents other than in discharge of their official duties. It is thought that in 1842 the total number of searchers could not have exceeded twenty a day, the Chancery records at the Rolls Chapel being the most frequently consulted. Lack of adequate indexes resulted in many unnecessary productions. Someone like the industrious and highly critical Nicholas Harris Nicolas, working on his life of Chaucer, might ask for 20 to 50 documents a day [154].
Palgrave had hoped to remit fees to all historical searchers and wrote in 1843 that they came ‘from all professions and various conditions’, not only lawyers but others ‘searching for information for historical purposes, for evidence of title, or for matters connected with arts and manufactures’. Many of the latter were ‘common workmen’ whose searches were prosecuted ‘with great patience, intelligence, and perseverance’. It was perhaps fortunate that there were not more of them for the search room at Carlton Ride was only eleven feet by twelve and had to accommodate two clerks as well as up to five or six searchers at any one time.
At the end of 1843 the various repositories had a total of seventy-eight staff of whom forty-eight were workmen, thirty-six of the latter being at Carlton Ride which had a total of forty-seven staff. There were nine staff at the Rolls Chapel and seven at Rolls House, eleven at the Tower and four at the Chapter House. Entry to the record service, where family relationships (as with the Watsons and Bradleys) were frequent, had long been dependent on patronage and influence but personal jealousies and animosities were rife and continued to be so until the end of the second half of the century in spite of the slow introduction of the new Civil Service examinations and internal requirements which laid stress on a knowledge of French and Latin as well as of palaeography. In addition to their salaries many officers derived considerable incomes from editorial and record agency work. For some years the two Hardy brothers supplemented their income by making transcripts for the historian Francis Palgrave and there was a long-running dispute about their rates of pay. In one altercation in 1832 the excitable and impulsive Thomas Hardy had knocked Palgrave down [155]. When the latter, a strict disciplinarian, was appointed the first Deputy Keeper in 1838 he continued to meet considerable animosity from the staff and other officers and his relationship with the ever-attentive Lord Langdale was sometimes extremely poor. Langdale had wisely concluded that ‘men admirable for antiquarian learning if they have not early learnt to be men of business cannot (at a certain time of life) become such & no business or Office can prosper under their guidance’ [156]. If the Assistant Keepers took time to be equally attentive to the public their output in editorial work (and their income) was naturally decreased. Some of those who acted as record agents then sought to safeguard their income by discrediting the validity of the office copies.
The question of fees for historical research was further argued in 1851 when Palgrave said that the fees charged to lawyers were moderate and equitable but he considered it ‘almost an act of charity to discourage misguided persons, generally in humble circumstances, from pursuing imaginary claims to property or titles because such endeavours frequently led to insanity or beggary’ [157]. However, as the result of a campaign and petition organised by the Camden Society which gained the support of Sir John Romilly, the new Master of the Rolls, it was agreed that year that no fees should be payable by those engaged in making searches prior to 1760 for ‘strictly literary purposes’. Some twelve thousand documents were produced for public inspection in 1861 and the yearly total rose steadily to 52,000 at the end of the century, but then quickly to 95,000 in 1908 when the 1760 limit was moved on to 1800.
The 1838 Act had initially been interpreted to refer only to the records of the administrative, financial and judicial functions of the old Curia Regis or King’s Court - the Chancery, the Exchequer and the courts of common law and equity, together with those of Palatinate and other special jurisdictions - but in 1852 an Order in Council extended its scope to include the records in government departments, some of which at their own discretion were already depositing non-current administrative records. Francis Sheppard Thomas’s pioneering Handbook to the public records, though later described by Walford Selby as ‘heavy as suet pudding, and just as indigestible’, was published in 1853 [158], and followed in 1856 by the more user-friendly general book by Richard Sims mentioned below. It should perhaps be noted that also in 1851 the Registrar General inquired about the need to keep the records of the 1841 and 1851 Census Returns and was told by Palgrave that they were ‘of great national importance and fit to be preserved’ and ‘will hereafter be invaluable for Historical and Legal purposes’. The Registrar General’s main concern at the time was to find the space, not only for the Census but also to store his birth, marriage and death registers, and he hoped that space for them might be found in the proposed new Records repository [159]. Thomas Hardy, who had succeeded Palgrave as Deputy Keeper in 1861, would have taken in assize records and bishops’ transcripts of parish registers, though neither were mentioned in the 1838 Act. That did not stop the Duchy of Lancaster records from being presented by the Queen and acknowledged as a ‘gracious and priceless gift’ [160].
Meanwhile there had been much argument as to the funding and possible location of the proposed new repository which was to provide safe and fireproof custody for an enormous and ever-growing array of material. The House of Commons had agreed back in 1846 that a new office should be built without delay. Some argued that it should be in Westminster, where the records would be more likely to stimulate public interest, but proposals to use the Victoria Tower or the roof space in the new Houses of Parliament, or that Westminster Prison be adapted and extended, found little favour other than with the Treasury, and the Treasury eventually agreed to expenditure on a new building to be sited on the Rolls Estate between Chancery Lane and Fetter Lane.
Work began there in November 1850 and the first, eastern, section of a massive mock-Tudor ‘Public Record Office’, designed by James Pennethorne in iron and stone with slate shelving, was completed in 1858 and became fully operational in 1860, having received its first deposits from the Chapter House, Carlton Ride and the Tower. As precautions against the possibility of fire the building was divided into a large number of separate rooms without central heating. There was no heating either in the old houses requisitioned in Chancery Lane and strengthened to take the records of the Admiralty and War Office.
Following the union of the State Paper Office and Public Record Office, Palgrave argued strongly for the resumption of publication by the PRO, believing that ‘a quiet hour spent by a student at his own desk was worth a day in any public library’, and in 1855 Mrs Mary Anne Everett Green (1818-1895), with the permission of her husband, was appointed the first external editor for work on the domestic state papers, she being paid ten or later eight guineas for each sheet of sixteen pages passed to the printer. From 1873 she was paid £200 a year plus £5 5s per printed sheet and she lived to complete some 41 volumes. Others appointed to do similar work but at different rates included Revd John Sherren Brewer (1810-1879) who was asked in 1856 to prepare a calendar of the vast series of Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII and spent the remainder of his life on the project. Brewer was also involved in the important Rolls Series of ‘Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages’ which had been launched by Sir John Romilly in 1858 [161]. The Series firmly established an academic tradition within the PRO but it should be noted that £3,000 was allowed annually for the small number of its part-time editors and a further £1,500 for those calendaring the State Papers, whereas a sum of £3,500 was expected to cover the annual wages of the service’s 55 workmen and seven charwomen [162].
Meanwhile all was far from honey and light for the readers. The original plan had envisaged thirty seats for them but it is doubtful that that number was ever reached, at least in the 1850s, in the separate rooms for literary and legal searchers. They were brought together into one room in 1858 and by 1860 the number of literary searchers was about 150 a year, each making about 15 visits [163]. Walter Rye made his first dispiriting visit to the new Record Office in July 1864 (having been turned away from the British Museum by a change of rule because he was under twenty-one) and in May 1865 found that he was twice unable to get a seat after lunch, because only nine were now provided [164]. A few of the older staff ‘who had been drafted in with the records, formed rather an eccentric group, some of them affecting the dress of an earlier generation’ and Rye remembered ‘a long unpleasant room, with low tables and high backless forms, which cramped the searcher’s legs if he were anything above a dwarf in stature’ [165]. Some of the assistant keepers, notably Joseph Hunter and Henry James Sharpe, undoubtedly saw themselves as a select band of qualified professionals and had little patience with readers such as those working on their pedigrees whom they regarded as mere amateurs, the literary use of the records being in their view entirely subordinate to the legal, but others, who had themselves been record agents possessed a general knowledge of the records which later keepers found hard to acquire [166]. Hunter himself wrote to Palgrave in 1853 about Americans ‘entertaining it is well known extravagant notions of obstructed rights to property and even hereditary honours in England’ and he had a very low opinion of the agents, like the unstable William Henry Hart and the American Horatio Gates Somerby (both mentioned below), who acted for them and might masquerade as literary searchers in order to avoid fees [167]. However, that local and family history, biography and genealogy formed an important part of the work of the literary searchers was revealed in Hardy’s second Report as Deputy Keeper in 1862 with its summary of work undertaken since fees were lifted in 1852 [168]. In those years a total of 1,081 literary searchers had made 13,123 searches and consulted 104,746 documents.
Domesday Book had remained at the Chapter House until brought over to the new repository in July 1859. Shortly afterwards the book’s section on Cornwall was reproduced by the Ordnance Survey at Southampton by Sir Henry James’s new photozincographic process, the copying of the whole book being completed in 1864 when a series of Facsimiles of National Manuscripts was commenced at the suggestion of Prime Minister Gladstone and continued until 1885.
Restrictions on funding meant that the two main public search rooms planned for the eastern end of the building by Pennethorne in the 1850s were not completed until 1869. These rooms remained familiar to searchers for a century: the impressive ‘Round room’ (or Literary Search Room) which rose through the height of the building and was top-lit by a glass roof, and the ‘Long Room’ (or Legal Search Room) facing Fetter Lane. Rye was not the only one to find the Round Room ‘a veritable rheumatism trap in winter’ but search fees, as long desired by Thomas Hardy and John Brewer, were now abolished and a lady recruited to superintend the ladies’ cloakroom. These improvement owed much to Lord Romilly, who had been raised to the peerage in 1865, but accommodation for the records remained critical and in 1877 the large first-floor copying room above the Long Room was converted to receive the rolls of Chancery, it retaining its new name of ‘Rolls Room’ when again converted into another room for searchers in 1961 [169]. A small refreshment room for the staff was opened in the basement in 1867 [170].
Fourteen workmen were on duty to bring documents to the searchers from the 103 record rooms. The latter were fifteen feet high and divided by galleries reached by iron staircases. Each room had two high windows designed to throw light into both divisions and twenty-five feet down the passages between the records. However, by the early afternoon on cloudy or foggy days the work of production, even when aided with lanterns was often extremely difficult if not impossible. There was gas lighting at intervals in the corridors (sufficient, it was said, to play cards by) but none in the small slip-rooms on each floor in which the men were based, numbering, flattening, stamping and packing documents for use. Consequently work in the dark and chilly repository was far from popular. There was, of course, no lighting in the search rooms but the keepers and clerks used oil lamps in the winter as well as candles, though the latter were forbidden in 1876 [171]. The installation of electricity in 1889 was, as Rye said, a vast improvement [172].
The Historical Mauscripts Commission was established in 1869, owing much to the work of Hardy (who was knighted that year) and Romilly, and was given space in Rolls House, its inspectors being paid two guineas a day plus travelling expenses. One of the latter was Alfred Horwood (1821-1881), Hardy’s son-in-law, who was also an active editor. In 1870 the Earl Cawdor placed in the Commission’s care the four volumes of the early eighteenth century Golden Grove Book of (Welsh) Pedigrees and this was passed to the Record Office [173].
In one quarter in 1874 a troublesome individual applied to see 46,360 Treasury papers. There were always critics and one, the combative and litigious John Pym Yeatman (1830-1910), a disappointed barrister, proved particularly unpleasant. Both in his Introduction to the study of early English history (1874) and in a pamphlet An exposure of the mismanagement of the Public Record Office (1875) he criticised the editorial system by which public money was distributed ‘amongst a party of clergymen and ladies who amuse themselves at the Record Office’ and referred to the Oxford school of historians (the followers of Freeman and Stubbs, later despised by Horace Round) as fastening ‘on to the sugar cask of the Record Office like wasps and flies’, deploring the enormous disparity between the small salaries of the workmen and the payments and ‘hereditary corruption’ of the editors, comparing Thomas Hardy in particular to the covetous John Caley and complaining about the general inadequacy of the calendars, the delays in document production and the poor facilities for searchers. In all of which there were, of course, quite large elements of truth. Yeatman’s unpleasant tirade was completely ignored but he then took a request for access to land tax material as far as the Court of Appeal and was firmly told that nobody had a general right of access to records in the PRO, all searches being subject to such rules as the Master of the Rolls might impose [174]. In contrast he had found remarkable ease of access to many records in New York [175]. Yeatman was later a critic of the Victoria County History and although twice declared bankrupt he found time and money to compile a vast Feudal history of the county of Derby (10 vols. 1886-1912) [176].
Another issue which had become increasingly contentious was that of the disposal of documents considered valueless, some already in the PRO but others being passed to it in growing numbers by government departments as if the PRO were an extension of the departments themselves. By an Act of Parliament in 1877 the Master of the Rolls was given new powers to dispose of any such material created after 1715 (a date moved back to 1660 in 1898), but the departments had to make sure that their schedules of papers to be destroyed did not include anything ‘of legal, historical, genealogical or antiquarian use or interest, or which give any important information not to be obtained elsewhere’. Disposal meant destruction unless the Master of the Rolls decided that the documents should be handed to a library. There was little opposition in Parliament but the chapter of the College of Arms had passed a resolution of protest against the Bill’s proposed new powers. The resulting system whereby destruction schedules were first compiled by the departments, examined by a Committee of Inspecting Officers, laid before Parliament, and then put into action by the departments, continued until 1958 when it was considered hopelessly inadequate, the application of the important historical criteria having been left to persons appointed in the departments themselves [177].
Apart from the 1877 Act little of moment had occurred during the last ten years and when Sir Thomas Hardy died in June 1878, his brother William Hardy, though already aged seventy-one, was appointed Deputy Keeper in his place. The latter, ‘a man of lesser energy and talent’ [178], had carried on a lucrative practice as a record agent whilst keeper of the duchy of Lancaster records but had done no work of note there. Yeatman would not have been pleased when Hardy’s young son, William John Hardy (died 1919), already undertaking private work, was found a place at the Record Office in 1879, but he fortunately resigned in 1885 after the Treasury had become concerned. The Master of the Rolls moved from the Rolls House to the new Law Courts in the Strand in 1882 and from that date his authority as head of the PRO began to decline [179].
An officer who had entered the service in 1867 and made a mark assisting the public in the Literary Room was formally recognised as its superintendent in 1882. This was the popular and much respected Walford Daking Selby (1845-1889), a friend of Walter Rye and Horace Round, who with James Greenstreet founded the Pipe Roll Society in 1883 and was editor of The Genealogist from 1884 to 1889. However, Selby shot himself in a bout of depression after being seriously ill with typhoid fever brought on, Edward Walford said, by the insanitary conditions in his room off the Round Room [180]. Many complained of the unlit and draughty search rooms, there was an unpleasant down draught from the dome of the Round Room through which rain occasionally came, and noise from the heavy traffic and black smoke from the printers’ chimneys in Fetter Lane was a growing problem, as indeed was the smell of manure and the yelling of boys from the neighbouring London Parcels Delivery Company on the Office’s north side [181]. Two other assistant keepers who came into prominence at this time were Hubert Hall (1857-1944), of whom below, and Charles Trice Martin (1841-1914) the compiler of the indispensable Record Interpreter (1898, 1910).
The showing of Domesday Book to a party of fourteen girls from a Board School in 1882 did not find favour with William Hardy and some must have wondered why he was knighted in 1883, for his reports (as the Royal Commission in 1912 noted) were ‘meagre and uninteresting’. He resigned in 1886 [182] and one of those who had earlier complained about the conditions in the search rooms, Henry Maxwell Lyte (1848-1940), was appointed to succeed him. Lyte had no previous experience in the administration of the Office. He was thirty-seven (all the assistant keepers had been in office since before he was born) and the first graduate to enter the PRO’s service, having recently been an inspector for the Historical Manuscripts Commission and written histories of Eton College and of pre-1530 Oxford University. However, he quickly showed considerable administrative ability and, after William Hardy’s laxness, was an autocrat where staff discipline was concerned. His interests included genealogy and his appointment marked a clear watershed in the Office’s development. As Geoffrey Martin said in 1988 he gave it, ‘a character and sense of purpose that lasted into our own time, and is by no means yet a spent force’ [183]. A practical man who wanted to promote the scholarly use of the records Lyte drove forward the work of their classification and arrangement. He had electric lighting installed in the three search rooms in 1889 and later the Office’s first lift next to the Round Room, but his prohibition of the use of ink (in which he was supported by the College of Arms) caused much protest. Amongst the many complainants was a regular visitor, the genealogist and author Theophilus Charles Noble (1840-1890) who in 1886 had published the list of subscribers towards the defence of the country at the time of the Spanish Armada [184]. The Long Room had in 1885-86 become quite crowded with solicitors and those seeking unclaimed money in Chancery and as a result fees for searches in legal documents after 1760 were re-introduced (1s for a legal document and 2s 6d for a search for a particular suit).
A group from the Library Association was welcomed in 1886 and Lyte was amongst those who organised the celebrations for the Domesday anniversary that year when some 300 visitors came to hear Hubert Hall speak about Domesday Book from the gallery of the Round Room. In 1887 the Office put on an Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition. The old and indigestible PRO Handbook (1853) by Thomas was replaced with a new Guide (3 editions, 1891-1908) by Samuel Robert Scargill-Bird (1847-1923) which remained the standard work until the more user-friendly two volume Guide (1923-24) by Montague Giuseppi who was in charge of the Search Department. By 1892 some forty to fifty people were using the search rooms daily and the number of documents produed had increased to 42,000 annually. However, although the 1888 Local Government Act had created the possibility of a co-ordinated approach to local records, Lyte and the Master of the Rolls, Lord Esher, were strongly opposed to the idea, having enough to deal with in terms of the growing deposit of departmental records and the official searches which had to be made therein.
In 1891 the inspecting officers intervened to save the muster rolls and crew lists of merchant seamen which might otherwise have been destroyed and they joined with the Registrar General in opposing the destruction of the 1851 and 1861 census returns which were then in the Clock Tower of the Houses of Parliament, but lack of space was partly responsible for the destruction in 1897 of the marked-up electoral poll books, 1843-70, in the Lord Chancellor’s Office. The port books for London, 1696-1795, important for economic historians, were also destroyed as a result of the schedules agreed in 1896 and 1899 [185]. However, it was the Board of Trade in 1900 which irregularly ordered the destruction of the outward and many of the inward passenger lists prior to 1890 and was soundly rebuked by the Master of the Rolls in 1917 for doing so [186].
The old Rolls Series was abandoned after the publication of Hubert Hall’s controversial edition of The red book of the Exchequer (3 vols. 1896-97) and the Office’s publishing resources were concentrated on improving the finding aids, commencing in 1891 with calendars of the patent rolls, followed by the close rolls (with an external editor) in 1892, the inquisitions post mortem (edited by a skilled genealogist Anthony St John Story-Maskelyne) in 1898, and other major series. By 1899 some 72 calendars had appeared. To complement these a new series of ‘Lists and Indexes’, designed mainly to assist those in the search rooms, was initiated with an index of ancient petitions in 1892 [187].
The PRO staff remained almost totally a male preserve, the only women being the part-time cleaners and the ladies’ attendant, though the editor Mrs Green had been succeeded by her niece, Mrs Sophia Crawford Lomas (died 1929). By 1900 a typewriter was being used for outgoing correspondence, other typing being sent to the Civil Service Commission. Of the searchers, however, many more (as discussed below) were now women and the US Government Despatch Agency and the Canadian record authorities employed a number of women in London for work on the American Loyalists’ and other papers [188].
Maxwell Lyte’s interest in the PRO’s publications and its staffing was coupled with a desire to increase the office accommodation and preparations went ahead to demolish the twenty rickety eighteenth century houses which surrounded Rolls Yard at the west end of the Rolls Estate and fronted Chancery Lane. They were used for storage and offices but two had resident staff; all were fire risks, access often needing candles or a lamp. After protracted negotiations the houses were demolished in 1891, some 124 van-loads of records being temporarily moved to the late Barge Dock at Somerset House, and the block now facing Chancery Lane with a tower over its gateway was built in 1892-95. The new offices had electric lighting and were a vast improvement and Maxwell Lyte was knighted at the Jubilee in 1897. However, the proposed destruction of the old Rolls Chapel and the Rolls House which now stood between the new block and the original Pennethorne block raised considerable opposition and did not take place until 1899-1900 when the latter block was extended westward and the Rolls Chapel replaced by a museum with a wide variety of records in a permanent display that incorporated the Chapel’s monuments. Twenty-seven large sacks of documents were found above the Chapel’s vaulting [189].
Power to present unwanted or duplicate material to other repositories had been given in the 1877 Act but it was not until 1890 that rules for the administration of the Act were drawn up whereby such material might be presented to libraries in Great Britain or Ireland. By an Order of Council in 1908 certain colonial office documents could also be transferred to those colonial governments interested in their contents. By 1912 only eight such transfers had taken place and the Royal Commission that year thought that much more could have been done ‘with advantage to local students’. However, the PRO’s policy remained largely unchanged until the Act in 1958 [190].
The genealogist George Sherwood, commenting on the Deputy Keeper’s Annual Report in 1909, paid tribute to the courtesy of the staff but worried about these new powers to transmit records to the relevant colonies and the ‘weeding-out’ of unwanted material which he thought should be roughly sorted and dispersed to the free libraries around the country. He believed that all public records over a hundred years old should be transferred to the Office but he noted that the handling of records there was ‘tending to become a less dusty affair altogether [191].
Many State Papers had remained in private hands and in the eighteenth century large collections of these had found their way into the British Museum. Here, as at the Public Record Office, admission was obtained by making written application, ‘stating the name, rank in life, and residence of the applicant’, and the request had to be accompanied by a recommendation from some gentleman ‘whose position in society, reputation, or public appointment, may serve as a guarantee of the respectability of the applicant’. When Richard Sims wrote this in 1856 the wonderful new Reading Room was springing up ‘as if by magic’ in the Museum’s quadrangle and the great Antonio Panizzi (1797-1879), who had designed it to seat 500 readers, was the Principal Librarian. When, in the 1870s, the young Kate Norgate (1853-1935), the daughter of a Norwich bookseller, was inspired by John Richard Green’s Short History of the English People (1874) to try her hand at writing history, her mother is said to have accompanied her to the British Museum to chaperon and sit by her in the Reading Room [192].
In the nineteenth century genealogists came together only through the pages of the many periodicals that flourished and it was through them, Horace Round thought, that John Gough Nichols (1806-1873) first founded the modern critical and historical school of genealogy [193].
John Gough Nichols’s interests and influences stemmed directly from his grandfather John Nichols (1745-1826) the industrious proprietor and editor of the Gentleman’s Magazine and the author or editor of some sixty biographical, literary and historical works, including a noted History and antiquities of the county of Leicester (4 vols. 1795-1815). John Nichols’s son, John Bowyer Nichols (1779-1863), continued his father’s work and published practically all the great county histories of his day including Lipscomb’s Buckinghamshire, Ormerod’s Cheshire, Surtees’ Durham, Raine’s North Durham, Clutterbuck’s Hertfordshire, Baker’s Northamptonshire, Hoare’s Wiltshire, Hunter’s South Yorkshire and Whitaker’s Whalley and Craven.
John Gough Nichols (1806-1873), the son of John Bowyer Nichols, had followed his grandfather as joint editor of the Gentleman’s Magazine and was sole editor 1851-56, contributing as his grandfather had done many papers on genealogical and heraldic topics and adding the detailed obituary notices. George Sherwood later wrote that this and other popular magazines of the period were to be found on the tables of every coffee room and club and that the ‘victualing’ fraternity was strongly represented in their pages [194]. In 1834 J. G. Nichols branched out to edit and publish a separate periodical, at £1 per indexed volume, Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica (8 vols. 1834-43), containing documentary material and some pedigrees. After a short break he continued with a similar The Topographer and Genealogist (3 vols. 1846-58) and then, when the Gentleman’s Magazine stopped publishing antiquarian material, he produced The Herald and Genealogist (8 vols. 1863-74), again on similar lines but containing also book reviews and critical essays. The Hertfordshire historian John Edwin Cussans described the influential Nichols (whose quotation for the printing of his history he had rejected as ‘absurdly extravagant’) ‘as narrow minded as he was strong, and as vindictive as he was bigoted, he was feared by some, hated by others, and respected by none … the very embodiment, the acme, the apotheosis of meanness, in great and little matters alike’ [195].
In 1866, Dr Joseph Jackson Howard (1827-1902), of Mayfield, Blackheath, who had worked in the Postmaster General’s Department and was a pioneer of the Civil Service Co-operative Stores, founding the Civil Service Supply Association, started a quarterly journal, Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, which was very similar in content to John Gough Nichols’s first two periodicals but slightly larger in format, with many nicely printed pedigrees and heraldic engravings, in the quality of which he was particularly interested. It was two shillings and sixpence an issue and so successful that, after the demise of The Herald and Genealogist and adding occasional critical articles and reviews, he produced it for a shilling and then in a New Series for six pence. His journal, affectionately known as ‘Misc Gen’ and edited by him until his death in 1902 [196], reverted to quarterly publication in 1894 and continued until 1938.
Between 1887 and 1895 Joseph Howard had also printed six large and fully annotated pedigrees illustrating the History of Roman Catholic Families in England, but he is perhaps better known for his collaboration with the wealthy genealogical enthusiast Frederick Arthur Crisp (1851-1922) and the latter’s private printing press, the Grove Park Press, in a beautifully produced series of twenty-one volumes of tabular pedigrees, A Visitation of England and Wales (1893-1921) with fourteen additional volumes of Notes, and A Visitation of Ireland in six further volumes (1897-1918).
Also following the demise of The Herald and Genealogist in 1874, George William Marshal started in 1877 another very similar periodical, The Genealogist, which also survived the First World War and continued production until 1922, receiving important critical contributions from Horace Round and the best genealogists of the time. These periodicals together set high standards in the pedigrees published which, largely because of economic reasons, have not been seen again in English genealogical periodicals though the tradition continues in the United States of America.
Yet another periodical, Collectanea Genealogica et Heraldica, was started in 1881 by the hard-working genealogist and transcriber Joseph Foster (1844-1905), the son of a woollen draper at Bishop Wearmouth and the grandson of the founder of a large London bottling firm, M. B. Foster & Sons, who was also interested in genealogy. His periodical (128 pages monthly for three guineas a year) was intended to provide ‘handy working indices for the genealogist’ and he began to print annotated instalments of indexes to the marriages in the Gentleman’s Magazine, to Musgrave’s Obituary and to other works, as well as providing with the help of Horace Round, as the Dictionary of National Biography says, ‘much trenchant criticism and exposure of current genealogical myths’. Unfortunately, although enthusiastically reviewed his work received little public support and with the labour involved in this and his other projects the periodical became irregular and ceased publication in 1888, many of the projected indexes sadly not being completed.
Joseph Foster, in collaboration with Edward Bellasis (1852-1922), Bluemantle and then Lancaster Herald, had in 1879 produced a remarkable Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, aiming at a greater level of accuracy than achieved by Burke, and they completed four extremely fine editions to 1883, the work being subsequently amalgamated with Lodge’s Peerage which George Burnett had considered ‘the best and most trustworthy’ of the older peerages [197]. Foster’s Peerage, which the Morning Post described as ‘a virtual impeachment of other authorities’, was noteworthy for its stringent attitude to those who had assumed baronetcies (who were mercilessly relegated to a section boldly called ‘Chaos’) and for its lively heraldic designs by John Forbes Nixon and Dom Anselm Baker of Mount Saint Bernard Abbey. Anthony Wagner thought that Foster ‘deserved more credit than he has had for his industry and his concern to get at the truth’ [198]. He had projected a series of Pedigrees of the County Families of England but only saw those for Lancashire (1873) and Yorkshire (3 vols. 1874) in print. He had transcribed with ‘heroic labour’, as the Dictionary of National Biography says, the registers of admissions to the various Inns of Court and the Clergy Institution Books 1556-1838, and he had edited for publication Joseph Chester’s copy of the matriculation registers of Oxford University 1500-1886 and the latter’s extensive extracts of London marriage licences 1521-1869.
In April 1897 the Morning Post announced the forthcoming appearance in May of a monthly journal priced at a shilling and edited by the controversial Arthur Fox-Davies (mentioned below) for the publisher Elliot Stock: The Genealogical Magazine: a journal of family history, heraldry and pedigrees [199]. The Derby Mercury said that it attempted, ‘to combine interesting family histories with the accurate and detailed evidences which are the real value of genealogical writers’ [200], having lengthy contemporary extracts from the London Gazette. The first issue even contained one article by Fox-Davies’ later adversary Horace Round. It completed eight volumes, but closed in 1904 after a series of controversial articles on corporate heraldry that moved Round to fierce ridicule [201].
The short-lived quarterly The Ancestor, published in twelve lordly volumes 1902-5, had the sub-title A quarterly review of county and family history, heraldry and antiquities and for a while it eclipsed all the others in production, illustration and content, each issue having 300 pages and being cloth-bound for five shillings. It had the wealthy genealogist Herbert ‘Arthur’ Doubleday (1867-1941) as its printer and Arthur ‘Oswald’ Barron (1868-1939), the Evening News journalist and medieval scholar, as its editor, but was discontinued in 1905 when Doubleday left the printing firm, Archibald Constable & Co, which he had helped to create. Doubleday was then enlisted by G. L. (later Sir Laurence) Gomme, clerk to the London County Council, who had conceived as a memorial to Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee the idea of the Victoria History of the Counties of England, and was its chief editor for the first ten volumes, 1901-3, when he was succeeded by his joint-editor, William Page (died 1934), who carried it forward in the face of great difficulties for the next thirty years. Doubleday, having founded the St Catherine Press in 1908, then played a major role in the fund-raising and production of the new edition of The Complete Peerage initially edited by Vicary Gibbs (1853-1932) and printed and published by the Press, Doubleday becoming its assistant editor in 1916 and editor from 1920 until his death in 1941.
Whilst paying tribute to the editors of the various periodicals in the development of critical genealogy, Round had drawn particular attention to the Shropshire antiquary Robert William Eyton (1815-1881) and to the retired Major-General the Hon. George Wrottesley (1827-1909) for their contributions to the field. Eyton’s work for his Antiquities of Shropshire (1853-61) had a particular appeal to Round ‘in its single-minded concentration – in a style some found repulsively dry – on the genealogies, properties, and public lives of the feudal landowners’ between 1066 and 1327. Sir William Hardy, Deputy Keeper, thought his work placed Eyton far ahead of ‘all our County Historians ancient or modern’ and the Dictionary of National Biography says that ‘his memoirs of the families of Le Strange, Mortimer, and De Lacy, in which nothing is admitted without strict proof, placed him at the head of contemporary genealogists’. His other works, partly in conjunction with Wrottesley, all related to the same early period [202]. The pair founded the William Salt Society in 1879 and Wrottesley as Secretary of that Society contributed vastly to its thirty-four volumes of Staffordshire Collections. Round thought Wrottesley’s critical sense more developed than that of Eyton in that he placed truth foremost and the Dictionary of National Biography says of his four published family histories (Giffard, Wrottesley, Okeover and Bagot) that they ‘had, too, that other virtue of the new school, the power of tacking on public history to private events in such a way as to give to the narration its reality and significance’. His invaluable abstracts of Pedigrees from the Plea Rolls, 1200-1500 (1906) were laboriously extracted at the Record Office between 1880 and 1904 [203]. Round called Major-General Wrottesley the ‘Nestor of genealogists’, presumably meaning, as the Oxford Classical Dictionary says of Nestor in the Iliad, that he was ‘fond of long narratives of his early successes in war’ but perhaps also ‘full of advice generally either platitudinous or unsuccessful’!
When William Page wrote in 1930 of Horace Round’s contributions to the new critical school of genealogy, he recalled the situation in the late 1870s and 1880s when Round first began to use the Public Record Office regularly [204]. Page said that in the 1880s the searchers in the Literary Search or Round Room at the Public Record Office were mainly genealogists, the regular visitors including George Wrottesley, James Greenstreet and John Vincent. Those historians with wider interest made only occasional visits.
James Harris Greenstreet (1846-1891) was born in Brixton the son of a traveller in the wine trade and started life as a clerk in an insurance office but by 1881 when living at Camberwell was describing himself as a record agent. In 1883 he helped Walford Selby to form the Pipe Roll Society. In 1888 at Catford he was recommended by Walter Rye and by 1891 when at Lewisham was a literary agent. He wrote a number of articles for Archaeologia Cantiana, was editor of the The Lincolnshire Survey (1884) and author of Memorials of the ancient Kent family of Greenstreet (1891). He did not marry until 1887 and had no children. At his early death in 1891 he left only £290.
John Amyatt Chaundy Vincent (1826-1905) was born at Barrackpore in Bengal, the son of a Lieutenant-Colonel in the East India Company Service who died at Bath in 1865 with an estate ‘Under £200’. Lodging with working families in Bloomsbury, John Vincent published Notes on the Elton Family in 1861 but was described as an architect and fundholder in the 1861 census, an annuitant in 1871, an antiquary in 1881, an historical antiquary in 1891, and a record searcher on his own account in 1901. With an office at 61 Lincoln’s Inn Fields he was listed as one of the best-known record agents by Walter Rye in 1897. At his death in 1905 his effects were valued at £366-10-5. His diaries from 1861 to 1871 are in Wigan Archives and show a later focus on genealogy and from 1873 he was transcribing deeds at the Public Record Office.
The record agents who had taken over the work of officials who in earlier times had prepared the evidence for legal cases, were found next door in the Legal Search or Long Room. Amongst this group William Page mentions Stuart Archibald Moore (1842-1907), formerly the secretary to Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy, who acted as a record agent. He was also a proficient yachtsman and rather late in life was called to the bar and gained distinction as an authority on the law relating to fisheries and the foreshore. He was highly successful in promoting claims against the crown by the lords of those manors bounded by the sea, writing the standard History of the Foreshore (1888).
Moore’s partner, Richard Edward Gent Kirk (1844-1908), had earlier been an assistant to Revd John Sherren Brewer in his work on the letters and papers of Henry VIII. Richard Kirk had been born in the Tower of London where his father, also called Richard Kirk (died 1866), had been a messenger in the Record Office at least since his marriage in 1842. Richard Kirk and his wife Sarah (nee Gent) were given the place and house of caretaker at the Office in March 1843 but four years later ‘Mrs Kirk was discovered using Lucifer matches to light the office fires in contravention of strict orders’. She resigned in order to avoid dismissal but he continued as a Messenger, living in Islington. Their son Richard E. G. Kirk was also a Messenger in the Record Office, aged 17 in 1861, but later worked as a record agent on his own account with an office at 27 Chancery Lane, being recommended by Walter Rye in 1888 and 1897. He and his son, Ernest Frederick Kirk (c.1880-1956), also a record agent, edited the four volumes of Returns of Aliens in … London, 1523-1625 (1900-8) for the Huguenot Society. He was an early member of the Society of Genealogists and as an agent was still supporting his disgraced grandmother, aged 90, at Upper Tooting in 1911, but he had resigned his membership of the Society by 1919.
Two other record agents mentioned by Page and recommended by Walter Rye were the solicitors Henry Gay Hewlett (1832-1897), keeper of the Land Revenue Records, who undertook searches for the Crown, and his son Maurice Henry Hewlett (1861-1923) who practised at 2 Raymond Buildings in partnership with his cousin, William Oxenham Hewlett (1845-1912), the author of a work on Scottish peerage law and an editor for the Historical Manuscripts Commission who also transcribed the early parish registers of Harrow, and was later a master in chancery. Maurice Henry Hewlett succeeded his father as Keeper of Land Revenue Records but quickly abandoned record searching to become a poet and essayist, best known perhaps for his The Song of the Plow. His resignation in 1901 was followed by the absorbtion of his Land Revenue work and its records into the Public Record Office [205].
William Page (1861-1934) was himself the son of a merchant and had been articled to a civil engineer before taking up a post in Australia, but he returned to England in 1884 to find that his eldest sister Margaret was ‘going with’ the above-named record agent and antiquary William John Hardy after his brief time at the PRO. Page joined him as a record agent and, when Hardy married in 1886 they went into partnership as Hardy & Page with an office in Lincoln’s Inn. Walter Rye thought them (with the Hewletts and William Phillimore) ‘as au fait at fighting a “record” case as getting the material together’ [206]. The range of inquiry received by the partners was almost unlimited, Page developed an expert knowledge of the records and the partners received much commissioned work, including calendaring and editing from the Historical Manuscripts Commission and various record societies. Page was drawn into the work of the Victoria County History by Horace Round and in 1902 was appointed its general editor, withdrawing from the partnership, but Hardy continued as a record agent until his death in 1919. He and his son, Colonel William Le Hardy, appointed in 1946 the first County Archivist for Hertfordshire, dominated research and publishing in the county for many years [207].
Genealogy and the Public Record Office have always attracted a share of eccentrics and the other searchers who favoured the Long Room in the 1880s, according to Page, included ‘two strange Welsh gentlemen who periodically retired to worship on the Welsh mountains and returned in unsavoury sheepskins’ [208]. They may be the ‘unsavoury and unclean persons’ about whom there had been complaints in 1881 when a hall porter was recruited to control admittance to the search rooms [209].
However, the chief of the eccentrics was undoubtedly General Plantagenet Harrison (1817-1890) of the Peruvian Army, ‘a giant, wearing a cowboy hat’. This extraordinary man, who claimed ‘against many impediments’ to be Earl of Lancaster, was called the ‘prince of genealogical cranks’ by Aleyn Lyell Reade (the authority on Samuel Johnson) who had heard all about him from his correspondent William Paley Baildon (1859-1924) in London [210] and he was described by Walter Rye as ‘a pedigree forger of the worst and most unscrupulous type’ [211].
Plantagenet Harrison later often used the name James Phillippe but he was born at Whashton and baptised George Henry Harrison at Kirby Ravensworth in Yorkshire, one of several children of Marley Harrison (died 1822) and Margaret his wife, nee Hutchinson. Harrison had taken an early interest in his ancestry and in November 1843 whilst in the Mexican province of Yucatan as a ‘General officer’, had assumed the names ‘De Strabolgie Neville Plantagenet’ claiming to be the direct representative of those families and descended from Elizabeth the sister of Henry IV. He claimed the descent through Margaret a daughter of Charles (Nevill), 6th Earl of Westmoreland (died 1584), who married Sir Nicholas Pudsey, [212] but George Frederick Beltz in his Memorials of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (1841) had already noted that Margaret and Nicholas did not appear to have had children [213].The descent was considered at some length and rejected by the Marquis de Ruvigny in his Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal (1905-11) [214] and noted by The Complete Peerage (1959) with the same conclusion [215]. Harrison almost certainly had no such descent, but in 1858 he petitioned the House of Lords for a summons to the House of Lords as Duke of Lancaster and published a Petition to the House of Lords touching the Duchy of Lancaster and the Forfeited Estates (1858) which was completely ignored. He told the Court of Bankruptcy that year that he was ‘de jure sovereign of these realms, but the Act of Settlement barred his claim’. The fact that he had an elder brother, Francis Harrison (1811-1894), a solicitor in Gray’s Inn and later at Great Sampford in Essex and Bristol who survived him, he dismissed with a comment to Paley Baildon that ‘he was a damned fool!’ [216]. Sadly his published pedigrees often show as little regard for the facts.
Harrison, who had never been in the British army, travelled extensively in South and North America, sometimes with local military appointments amongst the groups of wild gaucho horsemen, but apparently often relying on gambling, plunder and fraud for his income, taking his chances in the unrest of the times. In that he was assisted by his unusual height, a uniform heavy with gold braid and his display of the adopted Orders of the Garter and of St George. He was by his own highly coloured and exaggerated account with Abd-el-Kader against the French in Algeria and with Emir Becker in Syria before going to Yucatan and fighting against the Mexican Federal Government in 1843 as General of Brigade. In Guatemala in 1844 he fought against the Indians before going to Peru, where in July 1844 he helped to defend Lima. Later that year he was in Uruguay and, entering Corrientes, was in January 1845 made Grand Marshall of the Army of Liberty in the Argentine Republic. As a delegate from Corrientes to Brazil he was expelled and went from there in June 1846 to the Domincan Republic, was again expelled and went to Venezuela, but was again expelled and after trying to persuade Hayti to invade Dominica in November, he returned to England. That, at least, is the outline of an account he gave in his pedigree published about 1848-50 but little of the detail can be taken seriously [217].
In London in July 1847 he carried out a vicious attack on Major Richard Leslie Dundas (a friend of William Downing Bruce the genealogist mentioned below) who brought an action for assault in the Queen’s Bench in February 1848 which resulted in Harrison being sentenced to imprisonment for six months, but he jumped bail and went abroad; he was then ‘stated to hold the rank of Brigadier-General in the Mexican army’ [218]. In February 1849 the Morning Post, describing him as General of Cavalry, said that he had arrived on the French frontier on route for Madrid [219] and in May 1849 the London Daily News recounted his frauds there [220], but later that month published a letter from him at Gibraltar denying the account and saying that he had been in Denmark in July 1848 with the Danish Cavalry. He said then that as Prince of Plantagenet he had a ‘lineage more illustrious than that of any other prince in Christendom’ [221] but he was later obliged to admit that he held no formal commission in the Danish army [222]. According to later accounts he was imprisoned in Gibraltar for ten months for debt [223] and in April 1850 the newspapers were saying that the walls of Gibraltar were covered with placards in which he challenged to fight in single combat three Spanish generals and the English consul at Cadiz, but ‘in such gross and insulting language that we refrain from publishing it’ [224].
Back in London in 1850 he was apparently excluded from the Library at the British Museum by Sir Henry Ellis because he applied as ‘Duke of Lancaster’ [225] but in February 1851 it was reported from Berlin that he had been brought prisoner there for alleged frauds at Stralsund in 1848, having been arrested near Altona [226]. Whatever the truth of this he was certainly arrested in London on 24 December 1851 and returned to the Queen’s Bench Prison to serve his original term, though he immediately unsuccessfully petitioned for discharge [227].
Following his release he was imprisoned as an insolvent debtor, July-September 1852, following a fraud with guns bought in August 1847 and pawned the next day. In court he recounted his early travels in America and Europe but he was now ‘of no employ or occupation’. His only assets were £3,000 said to be owed to him as ambassador to Brazil from the Republic of Corrientes. He claimed to have been appointed a Lieutenant-General in the army of the Germanic Confederation by Archduke John but only ‘in time of war’ and he attributed his present insolvency to the peaceful state of Europe. He had received about £2,000 in military pay in the years 1843-4 and had after 1847 received about £1,200 from friends, winning at play another £1,300. It was ordered that he be discharged after he had been in custody at the suit of any of the creditors for three months, and at the suit of one of them for eight months from the vesting order [228].
In September 1853 it was reported that Harrison was at Constantinople offering his services to the Turks [229] and in May 1854 (just after the Crimean War had broken out) he denied from London any knowledge of conspiracies against Turkey [230]. At Hull in June 1855, having been apprehended on board a steamer at Grimsby about to depart for Hamburg, he was unsuccessfully charged with defrauding three banks. Described as ‘a fashionably-dressed, moustachioed and bearded Englishman’, his luggage and uniform were said to be ‘worth nearly £2,000’ [231]. He told the local newspaper that he was ‘entitled to seven millions of money, left to him, which he will shortly receive’ [232].
In November 1857 he was arrested for debt whilst at Marylebone Police Court on another matter and although surrounded by many people whom he had cheated he, being a crown witness, was discharged [233]. In February 1858 he was charged with assaulting two waiters at the Hotel de Paris, Haymarket, and fined 20s. On this occasion the money was paid [234]. In July 1858, in a case of property fraud, Meek v. Carter, he was described as ‘a mere adventurer’ [235].
In October-December 1858 he was again before the Insolvent Debtors’ Court ‘late a General Officer, now out of employment’, in prison and asking to be discharged. He claimed that his insolvency was due to the British Ambassador at Constantinople and Lord Palmerston on behalf of the Government not allowing him to serve in the Turkish army after his offer of service had been accepted by the Sultan and to his subsequent losses and imprisonment by the Prussian government. He had debts of £8,075 (for furniture, wine, fishing tackle, rent of a house for three servants, etc) of which £3,833 was without consideration. He said that his pay in the South American army had been plunder, his share being £150,000 in cattle, horses, etc. Counsel for the complainants said that after two previous insolvencies and a bankruptcy the incurring of debts without expectation of payment was fraud. The case was adjourned to complete further services upon his creditors. The lengthy notice in the London Gazette said that prior to being at Stralsund he had had offices in the Levant House, London, endeavouring to establish a mercantile and banking house in the name Skioldunger, Harrison & Company. He had later been a genealogist at 14 Clement’s Inn and among the items on his balance sheet was, ‘Received for making out Mr Wright’s pedigree 10 bonds of £1,000 each, the loss by sale of which was £9,750’ [236].
In August and September 1859 he placed a succession of advertisements in the Morning Post for a work The Golden Book of Westminster which he said would be ‘a correct history of the lineage of the various dynasties of the sovereigns of England, Scotland, &c, and of the ancient and modern nobility and gentry, with a description of the personal appearance of the present representative thereof, with his (the General’s) opinion as to the probability of each individual being descended of the blood he professes to represent. Also, a list of all gentlemen of blood entitled to bear coat armour, together with a list of such individuals as profess to be gentlemen, and who bear coat armour without being entitled thereto’, adding ‘Pedigrees compiled and published’ [237]. The book, which seems to have been an exercise in mass blackmail, did not appear.
In 1861 as ‘George Henry Harrison’ he was staying at the Great Western Hotel, Paddington, unmarried, aged 43, ‘gentleman’, but he apparently married shortly thereafter and by a wife Maria had a daughter Blanche Plantagenet Harrison who was born in April 1863 and baptised at St Pancras in July 1864. In April 1862 he had placed an advertisement in the Morning Post saying that he was ‘in want of a friend who will assist him to obtain justice’ [238] and in December that year had placed another advertisement there saying that he wanted someone to lend him £1,000 ‘for a special purpose’ and required ‘the services of two or three young men, of good blood who are ambitious of military glory’ [239]. The date and place of his marriage has not been found [240].
After apparently living for a while in some style in Kensington Gardens Square, Harrison was on 25 October 1861 again in prison for debt and was again adjudged bankrupt (in forma pauperis) when the extravagant style and title of the ‘pauper’ that appeared in the formal description caused some amusement [241]. He made several unsuccessful applications for discharge but seems to have remained in the Queen’s Bench Prison until 1 January 1863 when he benefited from a change in the law and was discharged. He then told the usher that he was a candidate for the throne of Greece! [242] It is not surprising that in February 1863 at a meeting of the Exeter Branch of the Trade Protection Society he was described as ‘one of the most extraordinary cheats London ever produced’ [243].
Harrison became a professional genealogist about 1862-3 and was at Bedford Row from about 1865 his principal business being to trace pedigrees which, as he said, was more profitable than translating records, the pay depending on the difficulty in tracing them [244]. He sometimes used the name ‘James Phillippe’ … ‘my grandmother being the heiress of the Phillippes’. However, in October 1867, trading as a genealogist and herald, he was again bankrupt with debts of £265 [245]. In January 1868 he was said to have assets of £262 10s, being owed that amount by Mr Piggott, of The Green, Richmond, for searching for his pedigree. Having insulted a witness, the discharge was adjourned for two months [246]. In June 1869 he took a successful action for libel against the Cornhill Magazine for a story about his time in Spain in which he was described as a ‘notorious swindler’ [247]. He said then that he had been a genealogist for six or seven years, was a linguist and antiquary, and was in attendance daily at the Record Office. Thomas Duffus Hardy, Deputy Keeper, said that he had known Harrison since 1863 and believed him sincere but eccentric; if Harrison were a swindler he would not be permitted to continue visiting the Office. Although the story seems to have had a factual basis, Harrison was awarded £50 damages and he was accordingly allowed to continue his work at the Record Office [248].
In the 1871 census George Harrison appears at 24 Hunter Street, St Pancras, as George Eley, aged 53, translator of records, born at Gilling, Yorkshire, with his wife Maria, aged 36, and daughter Blanche, aged 7 [249]. Eley or, more frequently Eeley, appears to have been his wife’s maiden name [250]. However, on 9 September 1871, styling himself ‘Mr James Phillippe, of 48, Bedford Row, London’, Harrison placed an advertisement in The Field newspaper which was copied and ridiculed for its self-confidence and effrontery in The Herald and Genealogist under the heading ‘A Radical Reformer in Genealogy’ [251]. Mr Phillippe had satisfied himself, he wrote, ‘that nearly the whole of the pedigrees hitherto pulished are fictitious’. The Visitation pedigrees were all ‘either fictitious inventions or the erroneous result of tradition’. The genealogical manuscripts in the British Museum were ‘simply trash’. Pedigrees could only be compiled from the Common Plea Rolls and having studied them for many years ‘he confidently states that he is the only man who ever lived competent to give a true account of all families of English extraction’. The advertisement concluded, ‘Fictitious pedigrees and family histories examined and reported upon’. An appended note attacked the registering and granting of Arms by the College of Arms saying that it ‘is wonderful that any persons should be such addle-headed donkeys as to entertain any such humbug’. Readers of The Field may not have known what he was talking about but some may have been attracted by his offer of ‘genuine pedigrees, properly vouched, at half the price at which spurious pedigees are obtained elsewhere’. Wrottesley did not start his work on the Plea Rolls until 1880 and had begun by taking only the Staffordshire entries and so there was little or no over-lap.
Harrison had for some years been planning a six-volume history of Yorkshire which was to include everything of value that he could find in his favoured Plea Rolls and in a series of notices in the York Herald early in 1873 in the name James Phillippe, he drew attention to the first volume of his forthcoming History of the North Riding of the County of York [252]. When the first volume actually appeared in 1879 its coverage was limited to the Wapentake of Gilling West near Richmond. Reviewers of the ‘ponderous tome’ were not impressed. It was prefaced with a copy of the portrait taken in Lima in 1844 and an account of his family in the male line from ‘Odin, King of Ascardia about seventy-six years before the birth of Christ’ who was said to be forty-first in descent from Eric, King of the Goths in the time of Abraham’s great-grandfather. The pedigree’s heading boasted, ‘This pedigree represents the concentrated glory of a world’. Aleyn Lyell Reade thought it ‘a supreme example of fantastic genealogy’ [253]. The history, which cost fifteen guineas, is said to have sold less than twenty copies [254] and no further volumes were produced.
Also in 1873, presumably in an attempt to gain publicity for his services, Harrison presented a quite bogus pedigree of George Washington’s family to President Ulysses S. Grant of America. According to Colonel Chester who had long known Harrison in London, the pedigree had been concocted by him as a catchpenny concern for the publisher John Camden Hotten who had died that year. The identity of Washington’s emigrant ancestor was not then known with certainty and Chester had shown the pedigree’s falsity in 1866 but the unpleasant Albert Welles in New York now published it in all its bogus glory, linking the first American president to the god Odin, the founder of Scandinavia, who, of course, was also Harrison’s first claimed ancestor. Chester wrote to a friend, ‘Of course you would not find any proofs of his statements. This distinguished ‘genealogist’ never furnishes any’ [255].
In July 1876 Harrison published a facsimile and translation of the Middlesex section of Domesday book which a review in The Graphic said had been executed ‘with the utmost care’ [256]. However, the following year he encouraged Henry De Burgh-Lawson to assume a baronetcy formerly held in a branch of his family which had been extinct since 1834 and authorised him to publish a letter in which he said that he was ‘answerable for the integrity of your pedigree’ [257]. However, in 1881 Joseph Foster consigned the claim to a section of his Baronetage entitled ‘Chaos’ as having no prima facie evidence and the family was not later entered on the Official Roll. In February 1878 Harrison was successfully sued in the Court of Queen’s Bench for the balance of the cost of a gold watch for which he had paid only £5 of the £75 asked [258].
Although supported by Duffus Hardy at the trial in 1869, Harrison had a difficult relationship with some at the Public Record Office and in 1875 his complaint that Alexander Ewald, the senior clerk, had that year written and published a highly popular two volume Life and times of Prince Charles Stuart, partly in official time, led to Ewald's official censure. The previous year Harrison had also accused a versatile and respected transcriber and superintendent of the workmen, Albert T. Watson, who in 1881 lived in Rolls Yard, of taking documents (a list of emigrants to America) out of the office for indexing, a charge that Watson was able to rebut [259].
In 1881 Harrison, his wife and daughter, were at 93 Highgate Road, St Pancras, he describing himself merely as ‘George Harrison, genealogist’. In 1883-8 he rented a garrett room on the fourth floor at 10 New Court, Lincoln’s Inn [260]. His life had become a record of poverty and disappointment but he may have mellowed somewhat for Paley Baildon remarked on his ‘great fund of anecdote and humour’ [261] and young Corrie Leonard Thompson (1868-1897), who cannot have known him long, said that he ‘bore with him a most kindly manner’ [262]. In his later years ‘the Major’ spent the majority of his time in the Record Office taking notes from the Plea Rolls. His income must have been slight but A. L. Morton noted that one source was research for other people called Harrison, though his extravagant pretensions and arrogant manner antagonised his fellow genealogists, ‘They regarded him as a crazy imposter while he regarded them as ignorant charlatans’. On his death in 1890 Edward Walford recalled that he had sought advertisements in his Antiquarian Magazine as ‘the only living genealogist’ and another writer ridiculed his pretensions and wrote that he ‘could only be regarded as a madman’ [263]. However, the lasting value of his indexing and abstracts was recognised and his daughter was able to sell twelve volumes of extracts from the De Banco and Coram Rege Rolls, written between 1865 and 1888, to the Record Office for £240 [264]. She had asked £600 for his thirty volumes. The remainder came into the possession of the genealogist Arthur Campling (died 1947) and after his death the Office bought a further five volumes, the remainder going to another genealogist Philip Blake (died 1994) and coming to the Office after his death. Harrison’s contemporary Walter Rye thought his advertisement of an index to the De Banco rolls ‘most misleading’, saying ‘he had an index to his notes or extracts only’ and adding ‘all young genealogists should be most careful of believing anything he wrote’ [265]. The references may be valuable but his stated relationships are entirely untrustworthy. Undoubtedly industrious, he lacked all critical sense.
Plantagenet Harrison died in Islington, 18 July 1890, and his widow Maria died in 1922. Their only child Blanche (1863-1934), married in 1892, John Christopher Cain Routh (1856-1939),but had no issue.
The history of genealogy is far from being that of a steady development of the subject, encouraged by dedicated and pleasant people, and amongst the eccentrics there have always been some genealogists who are thoroughly unpleasant and, indeed, quite impossible people. For all that the great medieval scholar John ‘Horace’ Round (1854-1928), a pupil of the Oxford historian William Stubbs (1825-1901),contributed to the subject and despite the sympathetic biographies accorded him by William Page [266], Frank Stenton [267] and Raymond Powell [268], he was one of the least pleasant persons that the subject has produced. Of a nervous and delicate constitution and living almost entirely alone, he suffered debilitating headaches and other ill-health from an early age. However, throughout life he was eager to enter into controversy and he developed a withering contempt for other scholars and anyone with liberal tendencies, displayed in violent and unnecessarily repeated and venomous attacks on those of whom he disapproved or had the temerity to criticise him. An elderly aunt told him about 1896 that ‘a touch of envy and discontent is your besetting sin (from early years) and it takes such possession of your mind that you are almost unaware of it’ [269].
Horace Round came from a gentry family involved in the public life of Essex but he was of modest private means. An involvement in electioneering brought him an appointment as Deputy Lieutenant of the county in 1892 but although use of the fancy uniform gave him pleasure, it was an honorific post without duties and he subsequently had no formal position other than when ‘Honorary Historical Adviser to the Crown in peerage cases’ in 1914-21 [270]. Round thus had time to contribute an extraordinary number of articles, reviews and notes to various journals over a period of twenty-five years. He had developed an interest in genealogy when quite young and had written to Sir Bernard Burke whilst fresh at Balliol College in 1874, apparently with corrections to one of his books, but a subsequent offer of assistance with research at the Bodleian was ignored. In his final year the College Master, Benjamin Jowett, who had heard from Round’s tutor that he was ‘too fond of pedigrees’, told him that he should read Freeman’s fierce article on ‘Pedigrees and Pedigree Makers’ mentioned below [271], but his first publication was a review of the 1879 edition of Burke’s Landed Gentry in the Saturday Review which praised its recent improvements [272]. Between 1881 and 1883 several of his genealogical papers appeared in Notes & Queries [273] and in those years he contributed to and promoted Joseph Foster’s Collectanea Genealogica and the latter's valuable new Peerage after which he eagerly gave support to the wealthy and avuncular George Edward Cokayne (1825-1911), Norroy King of Arms, then embarking on his monumental Complete Peerage (8 vols. 1887-98). They got on well, for although the prim Round ‘loved a lord’ and disapproved of the chronique scandaleuse found in Cokayne’s footnotes, Cokayne refused to be drawn into any quarrels [274].
Working at the Public Record Office, Round became friendly with Walford Selby, the superintendent of the search room, another well-connected Essex man, who had founded the Pipe Roll Society in 1883 and from 1884 was the editor of The Genealogist the mouthpiece of the critical school of genealogy. Selby claimed descent from the Browne family, viscounts Montagu, and at one time (like several others) had preferred a claim to that peerage, dormant or perhaps extinct since 1797. Between 1885 and 1903 Round contributed some 69 articles and notes to his journal, mostly on Anglo-Norman baronial families, though Selby, who died in 1889, was already referring to Round as ‘the official nightmare’! [275]. The prolific Round also contributed over 40 items to Edward Walford’s Antiquary (1880-7) and the Antiquarian Magazine (from 1882). Between 1885 and 1900 he wrote 78 articles for the Dictionary of National Biography, utilising recently published record sources and often, for the first time, demonstrating how genealogy could assist the historian [276].
Freeman’s pamphlet on the Nature and Origin of the House of Lords (1884) annoyed Round intensely and was the beginning of a life-long war on Freeman’s partiality and inaccuracy. Lord Lytton thought Freeman ‘a pretentious fellow and a bad writer’ [277]. Meanwhile, as a result of the three papers which Round gave at the octocentenary celebrations of Domesday Book in 1886 and published in Domesday Studies (1888),he became a recognised authority on Domesday [278]. His biography of Geoffrey de Mandeville (1892) with its use of royal charters, followed by Feudal England (1895) and his Calendar of Documents preserved in France (1899) [279] established him as a leading historian of the Anglo-Norman period [280]. He had excellent French having lived in France when very young. For the Calendar, on which he worked for five years and visited France seven times, he was paid half a guinea a printed page and earned a total of £386 [281].
Also in 1886 Round played a leading part in the foundation of the English Historical Review and until 1923 contributed some 63 items to all but two of its annual volumes [282]. Taking the value of good reviews very seriously, he provided it with over two hundred [283]. However, other historians were becoming increasingly wary of him and his editors needed great patience and firmness. Liberal disciples of Freeman such as Thomas Archer, Kate Norgate, Charles Oman and William Stephens were, after Freeman’s death in 1892, pilloried unmercifully [284], and following the publication of the Red Book of the Exchequer (1896), edited by a former friend Hubert Hall, then Senior Clerk at the PRO and Director of the Royal Historical Society, Round carried out a vicious and sustained attack on him. Hall, who was not a strong medievalist and had, in the legal historian Professor Frederic Maitland’s words, ‘a curious fluffy mind’, was also ‘a right good sort’ but was constrained by his official position and he said with some justification that these attacks were prompted by ‘private malice’. They were probably made worse by his work at the newly founded London School of Economics and his friendship with social reformers such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb [285]. However, Round’s selection of topics for his next work, The Commune of London (1899), seems to have been largely dictated (as was the case with his later books) as vehicles for personal animus and he was now widely disliked and feared [286]. He lost the friendship of Maitland who openly criticised his aggressiveness and bad manners and indeed his failure to sustain a continuous narrative without striking out at someone of whom he disapproved [287].
In 1899, having involved himself in various political and religious controversies, Round, a lonely man needing to be wanted, threw himself into the work of the Victoria County History and became a friend and supporter of its General Editors, Arthur Doubleday and William Page. As the ‘Domesday Editor’ of the series, he promoted it with evangelical fervour and contributed to it almost full-time until 1901 and from 1905 to 1908, though frequently criticising its arid style and lack of adequate maps [288]. The original plan was that each county would have a volume of pedigrees of local families which had held a seat and landed estate in the male line since 1760, but owing to the great expenditure involved those for Northamptonshire (2 vols. 1906) edited by Oswald Barron and for Hertfordshire (1907) edited by Duncan Warrand, were the only ones to appear [289].
In 1902, as noted above, Round and Barron persuaded Doubleday to found the quarterly magazine, The Ancestor, intending that it should set new standards in scholarship. Raymond Powell calls Oswald Barron, the son of a marine engineer from Dagenham, ‘an erratic little man without social graces’, but he got on surprisingly well with Round to whom he was ‘fiercely loyal, and submissive under reproof’. However, Barron, who had been educated at Merchant Taylors’ School and in the 1890s worked as a record searcher in the extensive practice of Henry Farnham Burke at the College of Arms, was unable to restrain Round’s taste for controversy and The Ancestor, as W. H. Benbow Bird told Round in 1903, had become ‘a vehicle for your personal animosities’ and was frightening away potential contributors [290]. Bird, a noted editor of the Close Rolls, had himself contributed the famous article on ‘The Grosvenor Myth’ to the magazine’s first volume but Round, who could not bear any form of criticism, savaged him over the Trafford pedigree in The Ancestor in 1905 and characteristically returned in 1910 to savage him again and at greater length in Peerage and Pedigree [291]. By late 1905 Round was a very sick man [292] and with Arthur Doubleday’s departure from Constables, the journal ceased publication [293]. Barron went on to write popular daily articles as ‘The Londoner’ on general topics for The Evening News, revealing an urbane personality of great charm [294], and he gained great acclaim for his magisterial article on ‘Heraldry’ in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. To that encyclopedia Horace Round contributed some 36 articles, including that on the ‘Battle Abbey Roll’.
Since 1897 Round had also been involved, initially with Joseph Foster who had strong views on the subject, with the rights of Baronets (some fifty of whom had very dubious claims to their titles) [295] and he worked hard on their reform and to give a stricter scrutiny to the descent and assumption of titles. A Departmental Committee on the Baronetage, appointed by the Home Secretary in 1907, was of the opinion that the position held by members of the College of Arms in the examination of such claims did ‘not guarantee the necessary legal training and experience to qualify them for the task’ [296]. After the establishment of the Official Roll of the Baronetage in 1910 Round involved himself in the work of the Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords, being regularly consulted on peerage claims, and apparently hoping that he might himself receive some public recognition as a peer or privy councillor [297].
In 1910 Round published two substantial volumes, Peerage and Pedigree: studies in peerage law and family history (750 copies, 25s.),the first of which was concerned mainly with the descent of dignities and the inconsistent and sometimes conflicting rules that had been applied. He discussed these at length in ‘The Muddle of the Law’ and ‘The House of Lords’. His second volume treated family history, as he wrote ‘in the modern critical spirit and on the same principles as other history’. In ‘Some “Saxon” houses’ he tackled at length the claimed Saxon descents of families found in Burke, following this with ‘The great Carington imposture’, an extended and savage attack on the History and Records of the Smith-Carrington family from the Conquest (1907) by Walter Arthur Copinger (1847-1910), Professor of Law at Victoria University, Manchester, and an expert on conveyancing, the registration of whose pedigree at the College of Arms had caused Round great indignation. Copinger, perhaps fortunately, had died just a month earlier. Round continued with ‘The Geste of John de Courcy’, an attack on Edward Irving Carlyle (1871-1952), the author of the article about de Courcy (amongst dozens of others) in the Dictionary of National Biography of which Carlyle was the Assistant Editor, Round describing him with heavy sarcasm as ‘doubtless a distinguished historian’. His final article was ‘Heraldry and the Gent’ with its attack on A. C. Fox-Davies mentioned below.
The perverse Round did not deign to appear before the Royal Commission on Public Records between 1910 and 1919 and, as John Cantwell says, ‘did not disguise his contempt for it’ [298], but that probably had much to do with the fact that the hated Hubert Hall, a dedicated and tireless advocate for archives, was its Secretary. However, in spite of his health Round took a leading part and gave two lectures at the International Congress of Historical Studies in London in April 1913 [299]. In one talk, entitled ‘Historical Genealogy’, he discussed genealogy as a branch of history, genealogy based on historical research principles, and genealogy’s own development. He thought that genealogy’s services to the general historian ‘can easily be overrated’ though it was essential for an understanding of Domesday Book and the feudal baronage. However, he thought it ‘of supreme value’ for topographical history and for the charting of manorial descents prior to 1485, saying that ‘the topographer should always have a pedigree by his side, and the genealogist a local map’. After 1485 genealogy was ‘unconnected with the tenure of land’ and became a ‘study based on other sources than the records of manorial descent’. It was to many minds ‘a subject of ridicule and of scorn’ and he spoke of the fabulous pedigrees in Burke’s Peerage and Landed Gentry. He could not accept ‘as a true student of genealogy one who cares for nothing but the pedigree of his own family’. The great age of pedigree concoction had been from the middle of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century and he blamed the heralds for the decadence of heraldic art, the commercial granting or arms, the producton of armorial scrolls and for greedily swallowing forged charters and seals, the great Burghley being ‘pedigree-mad’. With infinite labour he had set himself to expose them, ‘nailing them up one by one, as a gamekeeper nails his vermin, and trying to place the critical study of genealogical evidence on a sound and historical basis’. Under Charles II the public records in the Tower of London were, he said, searched with such assiduity that the knowledge of their contents became ‘absolutely astounding’ and the publication of Dugdale’s Baronage of England (1675-6) had been a landmark, standing for honesty and truth. Of the earlier heralds he used only the work of Robert Glover, Somerset Herald. He praised as ‘historical genealogy’ John Smyth’s great work on the Berkeleys, extracted from public records and charters and written on historical principles. Arthur Collins, although industrious and well qualified, lacked independence and his peerage was ‘crammed with ludicrous genealogy’ which was copied into Burke and now moved historians ‘to contempt and scorn’. He said that after 1832 two rival schools of genealogy developed: firstly that of the complaisant heralds and Burke, and secondly the critical and historical school founded by John Gough Nichols through his valuable periodicals and carried on by The Genealogist, ‘in spite of small demand for work of this character’. Joseph Foster’s attempt at a historically truthful Peerage had been ‘remarkably successful’. It was far easier to construct a spurious pedigree than to demolish an imposture, especially if it adduced no evidence. Pedigrees on ‘record’ at the College of Arms would not necessarily meet modern standards of proof. The word ‘tradition’ should excite no reverence. He ended by saying, ‘Show us the evidence – valid evidence, such as historians would accept – and we will gladly admit a pedigree from the Norman Conquest, its splendour increased by the very methods which have enabled us to purge genealogy of its dross and to give you its ore alone’.
In 1914 (by which date his branch of the Round family had been removed from Burke’s Landed Gentry) he was appointed Honorary Historical Adviser to the Crown in peerage cases. His advice was not always taken [300] and he resigned in 1922. In 1905 Round had accepted an honorary LL.D. from Edinburgh University but he perversely declined the Fellowship of the British Academy because Sir Charles Oman was elected at the same time and he declined that of the Society of Antiquaries because there was an entrance fee [301].
Meanhile, his work on the revival of dormant peerages had brought him into conflict with his former friend Arthur Doubleday who fiercely attacked the process in an unnecessarily provocative article in the Complete Peerage in 1916 [302]. Round responded violently in the English Historical Review in 1918 [303] charging Doubleday with inaccuracy and plagiarism. Doubleday together with the editor of the Review and its publisher threatened to sue Round for malicious libel and they were compelled to admit that the charges were ‘not substantiated’ and to publish an apology [304]. Geoffrey Henllan White (1873-1969) [305], a later editor of the Complete Peerage, thought that the charges against Arthur Doubleday were entirely devoid of justification. Until that time Round had assisted with the first four volumes of the revised Complete Peerage and its appendices but after the row with Doubleday in 1916 he took no active part in the preparation of subsequent volumes [306]. After an internal operation in 1915 Round was an invalid [307]. Although he had long been a crony of the industrious Walter Rye (about whom he poked fun as ‘Waltah’ behind his back) they exchanged bitter blows in 1920 when Round published a vicious attack on one of his books in the English Historical Review and an indignant Rye countered with a list of some fifty-seven people that Round had abused in print! [308].
Geoffrey White, writing after Round’s death in 1928, said that he was undoubtedly the greatest master of historical genealogy, equipped with much learning and insight and possessed of a remarkable skill in analysing evidence and detecting the weak points in the fraudulent pedigrees that he exposed, having a whole-hearted contempt for the sham genealogy and dishonest heralds of earlier days [309]. The Revd Henry Denny wrote, 'To him more than any other individual may be given the credit of having raised Genealogy from the realms of 'gorgeous mythology' to the position of an exact and scientific department of History' in which narratives were based solely upon citations to primary sources [310]. A bibliography of Round’s works by Raymond Powell lists some 960 items, 940 of them articles in some 45 periodicals or reference works [311].
Joseph Jackson Howard, George Marshal and, at the end of his life, Oswald Barron all had official appointments at the College of Arms and there was never any suggestion that their periodicals should form the basis of any larger organisation that might create a library or, Heaven forbid, undertake research that would take clients away from the College. In 1867, as described below, John Gough Nichols had himself carried out an attack on 'the tribe of advertising quacks who endeavour to intercept the business which ought to come to the hands of the professional Heralds' [312] and many clearly held that view.
However, although Sir Anthony Wagner wrote that English genealogists are individualists, who show no wish to be organized [313], there were some attempts to found a society of persons interested in genealogy in London in the nineteenth century, though they had no lasting impact and their collections, such as they were, have not survived. As mentioned, the College of Arms and long-standing and extensive professional practices viewed such associations, even into the twentieth century, with suspicion and concern, fearing that they would take paid work away from them.
The New England Historic Genealogical Society had been founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1847 and is now the oldest genealogical society in the world. A year earlier the ‘London Genealogical Society’ had been launched, a notice in the Morning Post for 11 March 1846 proclaiming that, ‘The Council will proceed to the next election of Fellows, Members, &c., on the 18th instant. Candidates are requested to forward their cards without delay. As a list of the corresponding members for each county is nearly complete, gentlemen desirous of being appointed for the county in which they reside, previous to a general visitation, are requested to apply to the Marshal as early as possible. Prospectuses and rules may be had on application – Genealogical Record Office, 32, Cockspur Street, Pall Mall’ [314].
The great wit Douglas Jerrold (1803-1857), writing in Punch in February, had seen the Society’s prospectus and with heravy sarcasm had made fun of ‘the astounding utility of this society’ with its ‘many nascent benefits’ and in particular its proposed visitations of the kingdom at which ‘arms and pedigree’ might be recorded for a guinea and membership obtained for two guineas [315]. The article said that a Genealogical Institution was also to be established and revealed that the ‘Marshal and Principal’ behind this money-raising scheme was calling himself ‘E. Wyrelle M. Weber’. Weber seems to have taken the idea from Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick’s Heraldic Visitations of Wales (1846) to which he had subscribed that year [316]. He certainly deceived the Yorkshire historian and journalist John Walker Ord (1811-1853) who, in an advertisement for his History and Antiquities of Cleveland (1847), proudly styled himself ‘Corresponding Member and Fellow of the London Genealogical Society’ [317].
Weber was a very doubtful character. He had been born at Ellesmere in Shropshire in 1812 as Edward Worall, the son of a ‘deedsman’. When he went bankrupt in 1849 [318] it was stated that before coming to London he had been an ‘author’ at Stratford-upon-Avon and at Wellington in Shropshire. After the promotion of his ‘London Genealogical Society’ he had been Secretary to the National Reform League and a ‘town traveller’, but when in prison as an insolvent debtor in 1856 it was revealed that he had been sued and was commonly known as Edward Wyrall, ‘author and artist’, and had a wife who was a Professor of Music. Indeed, the couple had at least five surviving children. These he deserted in 1869 when he married bigamously in Staffordshire one Eugénie Frédérique Nifenecker, a teacher of French, some thirty years his junior, by whom he had further children. At the time of his death at Hanley in 1873 he was calling himself ‘De Wyrall’ and had been variously described as a teacher, antiquarian and transcriber. It is perhaps not surprising that in April 1852 a correspondent to Notes & Queries calling himself ‘Metaouo’, said that shortly after its foundation he had been appointed corresponding member to the London Genealogical Society, but on going to the rooms one morning he had found that the concern had ‘vanished into thin air’ [319].
The original announcement of the ‘visitation’ from Shrewsbury had produced a perceptive note under the heading ‘The Genealogical Society of London’ in the Spectator which was copied into several other papers, saying ‘The announcement must have fluttered the hearts of the whole squirearchy ‘round the Wrekin’. All who have summered or wintered in ‘country quarters’ know the tendency of genealogies to grow backwards. A wealthy grocer purchases an estate and settles down upon it; his grown-up sons and daughters are civilly received by the surrounding gentry; their children are the equal play-mates of the aristocratic nurseries; in the course of two or at the most three generations, the grocer’s family is incorporated into the body of the county gentry by a silent imperceptible process analogous to the assimilation of food by the human body. Strangers and slight acquaintancies, on the strength of a name, attribute relationships to the new family, which it does not deny and comes at last to believe. Many a respectable family tree grows after this inverted fashion: genealogies are formed as the Chinese have constructed their historical cycles, by calculating backwards. The number of these ex-post-facto genealogies in a ‘shop keeping’ nation is enormous.Their existence if often suspected, but from common politeness rarely if ever spoken about. And this agreeable state of half self-delusion the Genealogical Society of London threatens to terminate by their invasion of the county of Salop!’ [320].
Very shortly afterwards an ‘Heraldic and Genealogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland’ was announced with the object of collecting and publishing documentary evidence. A note in the Chelmsford Chronicle for Friday, 7 May 1847, said that the wealthy Earl of Shrewsbury, a catholic, was its President, with the Marquis of Bute, the Earl of Eglintoun and Sir Thomas Phillipps as vice-presidents. Its council of twelve members included Thomas Stapleton (Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries),Sir Cuthbert Sharp and the young and well-connected William Downing Bruce (1824-1875), F.S.A. The latter, presumably the source of the information, was said to be ‘the author of many works on genealogical subjects, who is now preparing for publication a new edition of Douglas’ Baronage of Scotland, with revisions, corrections, and a continuation’.The society’s council was said to have appointed the Revd Roger Dawson Duffield, of Lamarsh Rectory, to be the corresponding member for Essex [321]. Perhaps John Walker Ord was confused between the two societies.
A correspondent, ‘W.P.A.’, asked about this organisation in Notes & Queries in March 1852 [322] and according to ‘Metaouo’ the following month [323], a prospectus issued ‘a few years ago’ had named its Secretary as William Downing Bruce, then of the United Services Institution, Whitehall. However, the London Gazette had revealed in November 1850 that Downing Bruce was then a law student and in a debtor’s prison! At his examination as a debtor the following month he gave a series of addresses and described himself as of no profession or employ, an author, a director of various railway companies and occasionally dealing in railway shares [324]. The President of the Society, the Earl of Shrewsbury was living abroad and died in November 1852. How far the ‘Heraldic and Genealogical Society’ had actually existed is not clear, but it does not appear again. William Downing Bruce had married at Paris in November 1847 and he and his mother-in-law had some connection with the genealogist and fraudster Plantagenet Harrison. It was Major Dundas’s aspersions on Downing Bruce’s wife that provoked Harrison’s vicious attack on the major mentioned above. Downing Bruce’s debt being less than £20 he was discharged in January 1851 but not before there had been allegations of forgery in which Pantagenet Harrison and his brother Francis Harrison were also involved [325]. Downing Bruce, who published a pamphlet on the ecclesiastical courts in 1854, was afterwards a judge in Jamaica!
However, the Genealogical and Historical Society of Great Britain, founded in 1853-4, 'for the illustration of family history, lineage and biography' and meeting until 1857 at 18 Charles Street, St James’s Square [326], certainly was a membership society and had a slightly longer existence. Correspondents in Notes & Queries later said that the promoters of this organisation had, on 14 May 1854, issued an admirable prospectus that deserved support and that it used as its unregistered arms Azure three scrolls, a crest A hand holding a pen, and supporters Time and Fame each holding a scroll [327]. An early idea to establish a branch in Cheshire and North Wales, though warmly welcomed in the local press [328], seems to have been quickly abandoned even though the Morning Chronicle carried a passionate manifesto of the value of such local societies. It ends, ‘Aid would be given to aid, information to information, correction to correction, illustration to illustration, evidence to evidence, which would prove satisfactory, truthful, and pleasing in the result’ [329].
In July 1855 the new Society advertised its existence in Notes & Queries, saying that it had been founded 'by several Noblemen and Gentlemen interested in Genealogical and Historical research, for the elucidation and compilation of Family History, Lineage, and Biography, and for authenticating and illustrating the same' [330]. The journalist and compiler Edward Walford (1823-1897), then involved in producing the Shilling Peerage, took the chair at the first AGM on 13 November 1855 and said that Lord Strangford (director of the Society of Antiquaries) had agreed to be the President but had died. A journal was to be commenced early the following year and there was an urgent need to establish a library. The chairman optimistically said that ‘he hoped all chances of misunderstanding that might possibly arise with the Herald’s College had been removed by private explanation, and showed that the interests of the two bodies were, in point of fact, identical’ [331]. That would certainly not have satisfied those at the College.
The society's Secretary throughout its existence was Theodore Rycroft Dalby Reeve (1821-1911), known as 'Rycroft Reeve', who lived then in Brompton Crescent, Kensington and variously described himself as a journalist, literary writer, art critic and genealogist [332]. From reports of the early meetings he seems to have been interested in ‘family history prior to the Norman Invasion’. The President, elected in 1856, was George (Egerton), Viscount Brackley, formerly Liberal-Conservative M.P. for North Staffordshire, who succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Ellesmere in 1859 and inherited a large portion of the property of the last Duke of Bridgewater. His father had been a book collector and patron of learned societies who opened the famous picture gallery at Bridgewater House to the public and the son was also a scholarly man, a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Trustee of the British Museum.
At the Annual Meeting on 20 December 1856, Viscount Brackley, then a Vice-President took the chair and said that the membership had increased considerably and that a number of old families had entrusted the Society with their manuscripts [333]. At another meeting in May 1857 it was noted how economically the Society’s proceedings had been conducted and that various books had been donated, some richly emblazoned pedigrees being laid on the table [334]. By then the Society was regularly advertising its existence in the Morning Post.
By the time of the Society’s fifth Annual Meeting on 11 August 1858 it had moved to ‘the Society’s house, 208 Piccadilly’, though it did not appear in the London Directories until 1861. The rooms there were apparently above Francis Pastorelli & Co, wholesale opticians, on the south side of Piccadilly near St James's Church [335].
With Lord Ellesmere as President the Society became more active and between 1858 and 1863 it published Annual Reports and a List of Members [336] but described itself as 'purely a learned' society, meaning that it did not undertake paid research and thus posed no threat to the College of Arms. The 1858 report says that in the absence of Lord Ellesmere, Lord Farnham, a vice-president, took the chair and that there was ‘a very numerous attendance of Fellows, amongst whom were several leading members of the aristocracy and leaders in the literary world’. At the ‘inconveniently crowded’ meeting a young man called Samon Service (died 1865),an insurance agent at Barton upon Irwell and the son of a parish clerk at Bowdon in Cheshire, outlined a scheme to make a summary index of the kingdom’s parish registers prior to 1836 and although the Revd Thomas Hugo (1820-1876), the ultra-High-Church Bewick collector, objected to the idea as against the vested interest of parish clerks and clergymen, the Revd Richard Cox Hales, Rector of Woodmancoat, said that the private interests of a few clergy should be made to yield to the convenience of the public and that compensation might be provided. The family historian Sir Edward Conroy (1809-1869),the spoilt son of Queen Victoria’s hated Sir John Conroy, said that something should be done to make the registers more available; when he was in the Registrar General’s department (he had resigned as Deputy Registrar General in 1842) he had looked at many schemes and he thought the present one worthy of examination by the Society. Several elaborate pedigrees, including one of Lord Farnham prepared by Sir Bernard Burke, were again laid on the table [337].
The Society's Sixth Annual Meeting was held at Lord Ellesmere’s town house, Bridgewater House, near St James's Palace, on Wednesday, 6 July 1859. An original invitation which I have indicates that Fellows were allowed to introduce visitors, carriages being instructed 'to set down in Little St James's Street'. Lord Ellesmere had presided at the council meeting in May and his invitation to Bridgewater House had been noted in the Morning Post [338], so there was a considerable gathering at the meeting when between four and five hundred persons were present. It was then said that the Society had upwards of 200 associates (perhaps mostly honorary), giving assistance freely to each other [339].
In an effort to gain greater publicity for the Society, Lord Ellesmere again opened the magnificent Bridgewater House to its members for a grand reception on 17 July 1860 when refreshments were served throughout the evening to ‘a numerous and brilliant assembly, composed of ladies and gentlemen in about equal proportions’ in rooms adjoining the picture gallery where the Society’s seventh AGM was held. Unfortunately the President was indisposed but Lord Ebury took the chair. He referred to the ‘many persons who are in want of the aid and information which an association of this kind is capable of affording’ and mentioned the many documents which had been ‘copied, registered, compared, and placed in form’, but the Secretary’s report revealed that the arrears of subscriptions totalled £679-7-0 and there was only £12-14-0 in the bank. There were four talks (on the Domesday Survey, the Anglo-Saxon Kings, Chronicles and Heraldry, on the Half-crown, and on Artificial Memory as applied to the Study of History) but thankfully we are assured that, ‘The proceedings terminated at an early hour’ [340].
From its early days the Society had elected Honorary Fellows and the newspapers of the time contain many references to persons who had been so distinguished [341], but that this provided any income for the organisation is unlikely. It cannot have been helped by the publicity given to an action, settled out of Court, which Commander George Baring Browne Collier, R.N. (1816-1890), a grandson of Admiral Sir George Collier, K.T., took against the Society’s secretary Rycroft Reeve for ‘neglecting to do what he undertook’ in August 1863. Collier believed that he was descended from a Baron de la Roche who had been summoned to attend Parliament in 1299-1306 and Reeve had undertaken to furnish the missing link. Collier, believing Reeve to be ‘the secretary of a genealogical society and a person likely to be able to furnish him with the required information’, had paid him £386 but now Reeve ‘had not found the missing link, and refused to give up the papers’. It was said that Reeve ‘had not gone the right way to work as a skilled man should have done’ and instead of ascertaining who the last baron was and whether he had issue, had attempted to trace Collier’s pedigree backwards in all its lines [342]. The ‘Baron’ had been summoned to Parliament by writs directed ‘Thome de la Roche’ whereby, according to modern doctrine, he had become Lord Roche, but none of his descendants were summoned to Parliament and any peerage that may have been created by the writs went into abeyance in 1382 [343].
The unfortunate court case had immediately followed the death in September 1862 of the Society’s invalid President, Lord Ellesmere, aged 39. His uncle wrote of him, 'No man ever bore so wearisome and painful an existence with more exemplary patience and resignation' [344]. His widow survived until 1916 but the Society now quickly went into a steep decline.
The Society’s officers moved its premises across Piccadilly to rooms at No 29 above those of a piano manufacturer and auctioneers and an entry in Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual, perhaps written late in 1864, says that 'Several pedigrees of families have been executed by the Society, which may be inspected at the Society's Rooms' [345]. However, although the organisation continued to appear in the London directories until 1882 and was listed amongst the 'principal societies' in Phillimore's How to write the history of a family in 1888 [346] it had apparently long been moribund. A ‘London Correspondent’, writing in the Lancaster Gazette in 1874, said that he was constantly being asked by friends in the country if he could tell them anything about the Society and he had been at some pains to make enquiries about it but without success. It held no meetings, published no transactions and did not name its ruling body and ‘must really be a very strange sort of association’ [347]. In response to an enquiry from ‘Y.S.M.’ in Notes & Queries for 23 July 1887, its former chairman Edward Walford wrote to say that it had done very little work after the first year or two and he did not know if it still existed. Its place was, he thought, fairly well supplied by the Royal Historical Society [348].
The writers in Notes & Queries in 1887 knew nothing about the organisation's papers or about all those pedigrees which had been laid on the table and about which Rycroft Reeve kept strangely quiet. He did not join the discussion, although named and his address at 25 Oakley Street, Chelsea, given. George Sherwood asked yet again through Notes &Queries about the society’s papers in 1905 [349] but received no answer. It was not until after Reeve’s death intestate at Wandsworth, aged 91, early in 1911 [350] that Richard John Fynmore (1839-1920), of Sandgate, a banker who had followed his activities in 1858-60, replied, but Reeve’s death was not mentioned [351]. The Editor may have known more about Reeve’s circumstances than he was willing publicly to say.
In the very early days of the Society its Manager, Henry Harvey of 14 Regent Square, Gray's Inn Road, who had later worked for various assurance companies, had gone bankrupt in August 1855 [352]. It is probably not a coincidence that someone of this name was much later a clerk to George Thomas Condy, a solicitor who was also involved in several London assurance companies but who also had gone bankrupt in February 1854 [353]. Rycroft Reeve was appointed the latter’s assignee in May 1854 [354]. In October 1872, Condy, aged 47, of Battersea, and Harvey, aged 53, of Pimlico, accountant, were sentenced at the Central Criminal Court to twelve months hard labour for conspiring together to defraud the creditors of one Abraham Fox, a bankrupt, by placing false claims on his file at the Bankruptcy Court [355].
Meanwhile in 1867 the periodical The Herald and Genealogist had noted the current popularity of heraldry and genealogy as witnessed by the number of publications on those subjects and by the great use that was being made of the genealogical manuscripts at the British Museum. It was at this time that its editor, John Gough Nichols, referred to 'the tribe of advertising quacks’, having received two circulars from one Henry Delaine calling himself the Secretary of the Fraternity of Genealogists at 51 King Street, Regent Street [356]. Delaine claimed that 'A Society of Practical Genealogists (resident in all the principal towns of England, Scotland, and Wales) has been formed for the purpose of properly and correctly tracing the pedigrees of families of ancient date. By this union access is acquired to every Public Library in Great Britain, and also to most of the celebrated Private Libraries. By the latter, very many perfect and valuable pedigrees and other MSS have been discovered, the existence of which was previously unknown, and by this, the pedigrees of very many families of note have been traced by Genealogists and others in the olden time can be laid before them'. He went on to say that several thousand pedigrees had been culled mostly from private libraries and that the pedigrees in the College of Arms 'are but copies of the most perfect in the Harleian Library, to examine and have copies of which, large sums are demanded'. The fee for an 'ancient pedigree' was two guineas pre-paid.
The editor of Punch, Shirley Brooks (1816-1874), rightly doubted Delaine’s statement that ‘most people can trace back to the 17th century and so join the modern and ancient pedigree’ and said of this ‘fraternal offer’ that he could make a pedigree for himself [357] but several of the circulars survive and a few families are known to have parted with their guineas and received pedigrees. However, later in 1867 [358] the credibility of Henry Delaine's work was doubted by the Sussex antiquary Mark Antony Lower (1813-1876) [359] and Delaine disappeared. That there had been any actual union of genealogists is unlikely as an appeal for information about the Fraternity in Notes & Queries in 1897 produced only a reference to Rycroft Reeve's former society [360].
When George Sherwood wrote in 1909 of 'manufactured ancestors' and of a study that was 'neither literature nor science' he was referring to the published work of Sir Bernard Burke on the peerage and landed gentry. More than forty years later, Brigadier Basil Charles Trappes-Lomax wrote that there are two roads that the genealogist may travel. The first is straight and has signposts with but one word on them 'Truth'. The other road, he wrote, is the one made primrose by the fictions enshrined in print by the brothers Burke [361].
The malign shadow cast by the Irish herald and genealogist, John 'Bernard' Burke (1814-1892), fell across the first half of the twentieth century and even today has not been fully blown away, for the fictions that he propagated in his many works and which were given a spurious authority by his knighthood and his badge of office as Ulster King of Arms (stamped lavishly on everything he did), still rear their ugly heads and are to be found in many computer databases worldwide.
Bernard Burke was the son of John Burke (1787-1848) of Gower Street, London, a catholic Irish printer who in 1826 had the bright idea of publishing a one-volume peerage in which all the entries would be in alphabetical order and which would show the ancestry of the first peer. It was intended to rival several other peerages appearing at that time, in which, like the established two- or three-volume Peerage of John Debrett (1753-1822), the entries were arranged by rank with the dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts and barons of the United Kingdom in separate groups, followed by those for Scotland and Ireland similarly arranged, but with consolidated indexes of surnames and titles. Burke's single volume was thus much easier to consult and it had an immediate success.
Like other peerage writers of the period John Burke used the indented narrative form long prevalent in Europe but he had a serious rival in a peerage produced in the name of the herald Edmund Lodge (1756-1839), Norroy King of Arms, descibed by Anthony Wagner as a ‘pioneer of social and biographical history and the study of historical portraiture’ and known for his annotated Illustrations of British History, Biography and Manners (3 vols. 1791) and similar works [362]. Lodge’s Peerage of the British Empire as now Existing (annual from 1832) was more accurate and more nicely produced than Burke’s but its pedigrees did not extend beyond the first peer. Quite separate concentrated accounts of their ancestries were provided in another volume called The genealogy of the existing British Peerage (also from 1832). The benevolent Edmund Lodge had in 1832 allowed his name to be used by three sisters, Anne (1790-1856), Eliza (1793-1861) and Maria Catherine (1796-1880), the daughters of Charles Innes (1763-1824), a linen draper and haberdasher at the corner of Chancery Lane and Fleet Street, but a son of the Rector of Devizes and a cadet of the family of Innes of Coxton [363]. The girls were fond of heraldry and genealogy and had previously published Sams’s Annual Peerage and Baronetage (4 vols. 1827-9) but now with the patronage of the Duchess of Kent and of Queen Victoria they continued to edit Lodge’s Peerage until about 1865 when Maria had problems with her sight, their highly esteemed Peerage continuing publication until 1932 [364].
As mentioned above John Burke's pedigrees were based largely on those to be found in the 1812 edition of Collins's Peerage and on the many other peerages that had appeared since Dugdale's Baronage but, unlike the best of them he rarely provided any indication of his sources for specific statements or ancestries. However, sensing the commercial possibilities and in a deplorable period rich in genealogical fable [365]. Burke then produced in rapid succession an Extinct and Dormant Peerage (1831; 3rd edn 1846), the Genealogical and heraldic history of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland (4 vols. 1833-7), A genealogical and heraldic history of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland (3 vols. 1843-9; 2nd edn 1850-3, and many subsequent editions), Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England, Ireland, and Scotland (1838, 1841, 1844), a General Armory of England, Scotland and Ireland (1842), The Royal Families of England, Scotland and Wales (1847-51), a Roll of Battle Abbey (1848) and other works.
From 1840 onwards John Burke was much assisted by his son Bernard, who had been admitted to the Middle Temple in 1835 and was called to the bar at the end of 1839, and Bernard's name appears on the title pages of the Peerage in 1840 and of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies in 1841. At the bar he made good money from peerage and genealogical cases and he continued his father's business after the latter's death in 1848. Bernard’s elder brother Peter Burke (1811-1881), barrister and serjeant-at-law, was also involved in peerage cases. Bernard Burke, although a 'concealed Catholic' and educated in France (about which he kept very quiet), was appointed Ulster King of Arms in Ireland in December 1853 and knighted by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at Dublin Castle in February 1854. He served as ‘Ulster’ until his death in 1892, being from 1855 also Keeper of the State Papers of Ireland.
For the next twenty years in Ireland, Bernard Burke devoted himself to the re-ordering and classification of the Irish records, securing the financial position of his office and introducing administrative reforms, a paragon of efficiency and attention to detail, but from the mid-1870s he busied himself with ceremonial duties. As early as 1872 he had written that his hand was 'so cupped' with rheumatism that he could 'scarcely hold a pen' and his last few years were plagued with ill-health [366]. Apart from the revisions of his father's reference works (discussed below), Bernard Burke oversaw the editing of annual Peerages from 1847 until his death and of the Landed Gentry from the third edition in 1843-9 to the seventh in 1886, as well as putting out a stream of popular multi-volume works with such titles as The romance of the aristocracy, The rise of great families and Vicissitudes of families, and The book of precedence (1881) on which he was an acknowledged expert. From the point of view of the Office of Arms in Dublin he and his predecessor as Ulster King of Arms, William Betham, were 'the right people in the right place at the right time' [367] for he made 'a significant contribution to the administration of the Office of Arms' [368] and his work on the Irish national records led to the passing of the Record Act in 1866 and the creation of the Irish Public Record Office in the Four Courts the following year.
One of those who knew Burke at Dublin Castle in those years wrote, 'How familiar was his little chirruping, cock-sparrow figure, his bright, round face, and with what reverence used he to call out the sacred words, "Their Excellencies"! I believe he looked upon the Lords Lieutenant as something supernatural. A good natured soul, always ready with some little service, capable of grand display - fluttering in his tabard or the blue mantle of St Patrick' [369]. The awe and deference with which Burke regarded 'grand' people is clear from everything he wrote and, in the style of the old peerage writers, he flattered them at every turn. It was the golden age of pedigree making and Burke, for all his abilities as an administrator, was 'no scholar, lacking both knowledge as a medievalist and a critical mind' [370]. Absurd ancestries were accepted and published and unpleasing facts carefully excised and omitted. Many of his pedigrees, both printed and manuscript, as Mary-Jane French wrote, 'contain specious and spurious accounts of early generations of prominent families', solely, it would seem, as a vehicle for flattery. What had been a necessary adjunct to obtaining a subscription to a work became an unnecessary habit. During a debate in the House of Commons in 1886, when there was a move to abolish his office, Matthew Kenny, M.P. for Mid-Tyrone, said that 'for a fee' Burke would provide anyone, if they were distinguished enough, with a pedigree back to the Norman Conquest [371]. A later editor of his Peerage, Charles Mosley, has called him ‘a charlatan, a pompous old fool’ [372]. He received a salary of £750 and another of £500 as Keeper of State Papers, but he made no fortune and his will was proved at £2,599-11-11.
Where the peerage was concerned Burke drew heavily on previously published works and he later accepted without question anything that he was told by the families concerned. This was in spite of his frequent claim, as in the Prefatory Notice to the first one-volume edition of the Landed Gentry (1858), that he had spared 'neither toil, nor devotion; every page has been re-written, every memoir carefully revised, and every pedigree minutely examined', followed by the usual flattery of his subjects who 'though undistinguished by hereditary titles, possess an undeniable right, from antiquity of race, extent of property, and brilliancy of achievement, to take foremost rank among the lesser nobility of Europe'. In 1882 he wrote that, 'no pains had been spared in the preparation of this edition of the Landed Gentry. Every available source of information has been exhausted, each memoir has been carefully revised, and in almost every instance the head of each family and many of the collaterals have been consulted. The correspondence thus carried on has brought thousands of communications from those most competent to improve the work', which had been 'the favourite occupation of a lifetime' [373]. Experience had not begun to teach him, as it did Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, not to 'believe for one moment, any man's account of his own family, or take his word concerning them. No matter how truthful a man may be’, Fox-Davies wrote, ‘his probity never seems to have stability on that one point' [374]. No wonder that Fox-Davies was so widely hated and Burke so widely loved!
Sir Bernard Burke wrote in 1883 that he had received 'thousands and thousands of communications' in the furtherance of his work and that 'The gentlemen of England did for The History of the Landed Gentry in the 19th century what their ancestors did for the Heralds Visitations of the 16th and 17th; they submitted freely and courteously their pedigrees and family documents, thus enabling me to produce a work which has, for a long series of years, been most favourably received' [375]. In 1891 he produced a two-volume Genealogical and heraldic history of the Colonial Gentry which contains many of the weaknesses of its British counterpart.
The qualification for inclusion in the early editions of Burke's Landed Gentry was, with good reason, not spelled out precisely. The title page of the first edition said that they were families 'enjoying territorial possessions or high official rank'. Philip Blake, writing in 1978 and usually well informed in these matters, understood that the qualification 'was not less than 1,500 acres until relatively modern times', but gives an example of a family in the 1876 edition with 700 acres [376]. Mark Bence-Jones says that the typical landed gentleman had something between a thousand and five thousand acres [377] but Peter Merton Reid wrote in 1969 that the qualification 'used to be ownership of five hundred acres and a coat-of-arms for at least three generations' [378], correcting this later, though without stated authority, to '300 acres of agricultural land' [379]. The editor L. G. Pine said in connection with the 1952 edition that fifty years ago the minimum land requirement had been 2,000 acres but that it was now 300 though any family might appear if it had rendered public service [380]. Michael Sayer says that the 1914 edition was the first to list families that had lost their land [381] and in the twentieth century the qualification for entry became little more than descent from an 'old' family or one that had formerly owned land, or, indeed, beginning with the 1965-72 edition, the acceptance by the editor of a pedigree submitted by any interested person. For Ireland, Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd wrote in 1976 that at the turn of the century the criterion had been about 1,000 acres, but after the Wyndham Land Purchase Act in 1903 that average was reduced to about 200 acres, though no family was disqualified from the 1904 and 1912 editions of Burke’s Landed Gentry of Ireland as a result [382].
Apart from his claim to extensive correspondence (which has not survived), little is known about Burke's method of work, but the final products rarely show evidence of the sources consulted and his claim to original research in general seems baseless [383]. The compilation of the revised General Armory (1878, 1883) and of the Extinct and Dormant Peerage (1866, 1883) and the updating of his father's other works presumably entailed the employment of someone other than his publisher in London but Burke himself lived permanently in Ireland at Tullamaine Villa, Upper Leeson Street, Dublin and he had no base in England. When he was thinking of publishing a revised General Armory in 1875, his calls to be informed of 'Blazons of Coats of Arms omitted in the original work' requested that they be sent to his publisher in London [384] and when his brother Peter Burke, another barrister, died in London in 1881, Bernard stayed at the Grosvenor Hotel in Buckingham Palace Road. For the 1878 revision he is known to have had the assistance of the commercially minded Stephen Isaacson Tucker (1835-1887), Rouge Croix at the College of Arms and the son of a discount broker, who made and quickly spent a fortune at that time [385].
Sir Bernard Burke had, even during his lifetime, some extremely fierce critics. As early as 1865 an anonymous writer, almost certainly George Burnett (1822-1890), LL.D., Advocate, who was appointed Lyon King of Arms in Scotland the following year, in a scathing booklet, Popular genealogists or the art of pedigree-making (Edinburgh, 1865) poured scorn on many of Burke’s works. In the first place Burke had, he said, a positive mania for introducing throughout his books and on the most frivolous grounds the statement that so-and-so ‘is entitled to quarter the royal arms’, something that would never be recognised by the English or Scottish heralds. He showed that the pedigree of the royal family in the Peerage indiscriminately omitted or ignored some of its immediate members. Burnett thought that in a few instances the lineages of peers were tolerably correct but these few were the exception, for ‘confusion and blundering’ were the more general rule in both the Peerage and Baronetage. For the Scottish peers the drawings of arms frequently differed from their heraldic descriptions. The Landed Gentry reflected no credit on its compiler for unlike the Peerage, which might to a slight extent be improving year by year, the Landed Gentry was deteriorating. Indeed the 'immense majority’ of its pedigrees were ‘utterly worthless ... Families of notoriously obscure origin have their veins filled with the blood of generations of royal personages of the ancient and mythical world' [386]. Fables were everywhere, ‘the small germs of truth being eked out with a mass of fiction’ and with a reckless disregard for dates and historical possibilities. As examples he disected the absurd pedigree and bogus seals submitted to the 1849 edition by John Ross Coulthart, a banker in Ashton-under-Lyne, tearing Coulthart’s account to shreds, and similarly ridiculing the many errors and inventions in the pedigree of Bonar where three generations of Presbyterian ministers had been transformed into Jacobite soldiers. Of Burke’s other works, Burnett said that they were full of the ‘same looseness’ and ‘easy credulity’ in everything that related to pedigree.
Ten years later Edward Augustus Freeman (1823-1892), the author of the magisterial History of the Norman Conquest (1867-76), questioned Sir Bernard's state of mind, asking in an article entitled ‘Pedigrees and Pedigree Makers’, 'Does he know, or does he not know, the manifest falsehood of the tales which he reprints year after year?' Did he think that the responsibility for their truth or falsehood rested with their contributors when, as editor, it was his duty to examine and verify them? Year after year he put forth these 'monstrous fictions, without contradiction, commonly without qualification or hesitation of any kind'. The covers of the Peerage were stamped with the royal arms and edited by a man from whom 'we have a right to expect historical criticism, and we do not get it' [387]. Instead, as Freeman says, 'such is the abiding life of the fables that they live through all [Burke's pretended] revision and amendment' and Freeman provides instances of the 'pedigree maker's power of invention', ridiculing Burke's 'gorgeous repertory of genealogical myths' in the accounts of the early Stourton, FitzWilliam, Wake, Ashburnham, Berkeley and D'Oyly families, and insisting that anyone who puts forward a pedigree, old or new, is subject to a 'burden of proof' and is duty bound to establish its authenticity by proving its every stated fact.
It was sadly unfortunate that Freeman, sometimes inaccurate in his own details and the proponent of the Oxford ‘liberal’ school of history, was himself to be mercilessly attacked on both scores by the ‘fierce, almost fanatical’ conservative, Horace Round [388]. Freeman and his followers represented King Harold as ‘the free choice of a free people’, but that idea and his account of the Battle of Hastings were ridiculed by Round, who held the Anglo-Norman baronage in high veneration, being himself the senior representative of the Malets of Enmore [389].
The year after Sir Bernard Burke's death, Horace Round took up this theme and wrote an article on 'The Peerage', i.e. Burke's Peerage, for the Quarterly Review, drawing attention to its 'errors, mis-statements and absurdities', and subsequently in his Studies in peerage and family history (1901), Peerage and pedigree: studies in peerage law and family history (2 vols. 1910) and in hundreds of reviews and articles, with 'cruel skill', as Sir Anthony Wagner later wrote, dissected and destroyed many of its pedigrees [390].
Bernard Burke had married in 1856 and had one daughter and seven sons [391]. His eldest son, Sir Henry Farnham Burke (1859-1930), was an absentee Deputy ‘Ulster’ to his father 1889-93, but had entered the College of Arms in London in 1880, rising to become Garter King of Arms in 1918. Like his father he was a highly competent man of business, but unlike his father he also had the reputation of being an able genealogist and master of the science and art of heraldry [392]. Both Oswald Barron and A. T. Butler had when young worked in his office.
However, another son, the less competent Ashworth Peter Burke (1864-1919), continued to edit the Landed Gentry from 1894 to 1906 and the Peerage until 1919. The many genealogists who had hoped to see an improvement in the articles in the Landed Gentry were quickly disappointed when the young Ernest Axon (1868-1947), a librarian at Manchester Public Library, wrote to Notes & Queries in 1894 saying that the first edition published since Sir Bernard’s death would ‘blast their hopes’. He wrote that ‘in numberless cases descents are implied that will not bear a moment’s examination’ and listed some thirty-nine examples of gross errors and absurd statements [393]. Ashworth Burke believed that, 'The nobility and gentry of the three Kingdoms are however by no means confined to these classes [the peerage and landed gentry], but include many other families of equal position, descent and alliance, for a gentleman derives his nobility from his ancestors and not from the mere possession of lands and titles' [394], and he published another group of pedigrees as Family Records (1897). The youngest son, Arthur Meredyth Burke (1872-1920), already mentioned, compiled the Key to the ancient parish registers of England and Wales (1908).
It was undoubtedly the fear of giving offence to influential people that fuelled the reluctance of subsequent editors of Burke's volumes, some of them very able genealogists, to remove from later editions all the false descents that so disfigured its pages. Alfred Trego Butler (1880-1946), Windsor Herald, who had worked with Henry Farnham Burke since the age of seventeen, edited the Peerage in the 1920s, and Arthur Charles Fox-Davies (1871-1928) and Harry Pirie-Gordon (1883-1969) edited the 1914 and 1937 editions of the Landed Gentry respectively. In his 1914 Preface, Fox-Davies says that the responsibility for the accuracy of the pedigrees had shifted from the families concerned and 'gradually fastened upon the Editor'. He noted that his excisions had often met with disfavour but 'the desire to believe has led to the belief in some most unconscionable rubbish'.
In spite of the slow improvement, every time a new edition of the Peerage or Landed Gentry appeared, genealogists came forward to criticise some of the pedigrees. In 1940 Brigadier B. C. Trappes-Lomax made an onslaught on the 'Moonshine from Burke' that had appeared in the 1938 Peerage, cataloguing the absurdities that still remained in many entries [395]. Even after the Second World War, when all Burke's office files and working papers were destroyed and the whole of the 1949 edition of the Peerage had to be newly set in type, the editor L. G. Pine, who claimed to have revised every genealogy in the light of modern criticism and had indeed vastly improved the text, did not seize the opportunity to remove all the remaining fictions, some of which had been exposed by Round more than half a century earlier [396].
The first of Sherwood's strictures about 'old genealogy' had concerned the heraldic stationery trade. A right to arms in England had been, at least since the sixteenth century, decisive outward evidence of gentility, regulated through the Court of Chivalry and the Heralds Visitations. But despite the Court and the Visitations many unlicensed herald painters invaded the heralds' territory to give out false arms and pedigrees. William Dawkyns, for example, a 'dealer in arms and maker of false pedigrees', was tried in 1597 for providing spurious pedigrees to nearly a hundred families, mainly in Essex, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire, and was put in the pillory and had his ears cut off [397]. The Visitations ceased with the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and the Court of Chivalry hardly functioned in the eighteenth century and so between 1670 and 1770 there was, in the words of Anthony Wagner, 'a breakdown in heraldic authority' when the great Whig lords had little or no interest in regulating the bearing of arms. In those years arms were widely assumed, mostly without ancestral right or new grant, by the new urban leisured classes and tradesmen who 'thought that their position required armorial pretension'. At Ipswich in 1727 an Irish dancing-master, Robert Harman, assumed the title and functions of a king of arms, and took large fees in so doing [398]. Into the nineteenth century ideas of heraldic authority had little political backing and there was a widespread assumption of arms from the 50,000 listed by name in A complete body of heraldry (2 vols. 1780) compiled by the coach painter and herald Joseph Edmondson (died 1786) and then from its successor volumes: William Berry's Encyclopaedia heraldica; or complete dictionary of heraldry (4 vols. 1828),Thomas Robson's The British herald, or cabinet of armorial bearings of the nobility and gentry of Great Britain and Ireland (3 vols. 1830) and the Burke productions, The general armory (1842, 1844, 1847, 1878, 1884), each copying and expanding on the last until the 1884 edition contained about 100,000 references to arms by surname. True and false were inextricably mixed and all lacked references to sources.
Pirate 'Heraldic Offices' or heraldic stationers sprang up like wildfire, providing arms from these volumes to any interested person. The successors to William Dawkyns and Robert Harman were everywhere. Walter Rye wrote that they were to be avoided 'like poison' [399]. One of them Thomas Culleton (died 1887, aged 63), a copper plate engraver and printer from Wexford, Ireland, called himself the Genealogist at the Royal Heraldic Office, 25 Cranbourn Street, and 21 Great Newport Street, London, W. C., and advertised in the first edition of Edward Walford's County Families (1860), 'Send Name and County, and in Three Days you will receive a Correct Copy of your ARMORIAL BEARINGS, Plain Sketch, 3s.; in Heraldic Colours, 6s. ... AN INDEX kept, containing the Names of all Persons who are entitled to use Arms, as copied from the College of Arms, British Museum, and other places of authority'. The sad truth, of course, is that not one in a thousand of the people who received these 'correct copies' would have had any right to use the arms provided. The brief outlines of family history which appeared in the early editions of Walford’s County Families were, as George Burnett wrote in 1865, ‘filled with matter so extraordinary that it is difficult to conceive from what source the writer could have collected it’ [400].
Thomas Culleton claimed that his Heraldic Office had been founded in 1840 and his shop in Cranbourn Street certainly built up a considerable working library on every aspect of European genealogy and heraldry, with staff going out daily to work at the British Museum and Record Office and heraldic artists painting hatchments and coach panels [401]. A very large collection of 'Research Notes on English Families' together with an index 'to certain selected groups of genealogical manuscripts in the British Museum', compiled by the firm, was microfilmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah in 1959 [402]. Thomas's son Leo Culleton (1859-1922) was also an heraldic artist and a genealogist active across Europe. The firm flourished in King Street, St James, until 1935 when it was taken over by another old firm of heraldic stationers, Longman & Strongi'th'arm Ltd, which continued at 13 Dover Street, Piccadilly, until 1969.
Today the selling of 'arms of the name' is so widespread that it is almost pointless to rail against it, but a hundred years ago there were many like George Sherwood who thought the use of bogus arms on signet rings and writing paper and the stationers who provided them, a public disgrace. The problem was that genealogists could not agree amongst themselves, some saying that arms were ensigns of nobility, granted on ennoblement, which could not be adopted at will, whilst others argued that any man might adopt arms (without the intervention of the College of Arms) provided that they were not already in use by some other person. Bernard Burke's advertisement in the 1870s which asked for people to send in arms for his General Armory had not asked that any authority for the use of the arms or the date of their registration be quoted and Ashworth P. Burke's Family Records (1897) claimed that all the Arms shown were based on 'official authority' but in no case named the authority, it probably being thought that there would be a reluctance on the part of the families themselves, to say when their arms were first granted, if indeed that date were readily known [403].
The young lawyer Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, a grandson of John Fox, of Coalbrookdale [404], believed that in England arms should only be used by recipients of grants of arms from the College of Arms or by those whose ancestral right to arms had been recognised by the College. When twenty-two in 1893 he put out a prospectus for a book which was to publish ‘genuine and absolutely reliable information’ as to coats of arms ‘legitimately in use’ (and not, as he wrote in a further prospectus in 1894, the ‘bogus and maliciously corrupt insignia so often displayed’) and in 1895 he published the first of seven editions of Armorial Families in which the entries of those who could not provide evidence of their right to arms were printed in italics. These doubtful entries were removed from the 5th (1905) and subsequent editions, so that by his final 7th edition (2 vols. 1929-30), he could, with some truth, call it 'approximately complete' and say that 'there are few families [other than those of peers and baronets] entitled to arms, whose right has been proved in sufficiently modern times to place it beyond reasonable doubt, that are now omitted'. It was an approach which tended to give equal status to both old and new arms and on that and other accounts, in particular the weaknesses of Fox-Davies’s Complete Guide to Heraldry (1909), he was viciously ridiculed by Horace Round who thought all modern heraldry an absurd anomaly and who with Oswald Barron poured scorn on Fox-Davies’s and William Phillimore’s contention that heraldry was ’a living science’ [405]. Round went so far as to say that ‘a grant of arms is of no account because nobody values what ‘anyone’ can obtain’ [406], quoting with approval a remark of A. S. Ellis that ‘Tudor Heraldry is mostly rubbish and Modern Heraldry beneath contempt’ [407].
Fox-Davies’ death at the age of 57 in 1928 unfortunately brought an end to a very fine series of books and no further editions were produced. An obituary in The Times said that, 'It was for him not merely a labour of love, but an exciting form of sport, to hunt down and kill some picturesque dragon of genealogical imposture, to overthrow some cherished idol of family pride based on nothing more substantial than the vain imaginings of a recent ancestor or the artful tale of some flatterer possessed of a smattering of heraldry ... it was he who took the campaign against armorial pretence out of the austere pages of learned publications and brought it to the notice of the public at large' [408]. He had, however, annoyed a great number of people. Later that year an anonymous writer in The Genealogists Magazine who had perhaps displayed such an 'armorial pretence' referred to 'the pretentious ignorance' displayed in Fox-Davies's books [409]. The fierce arguments on the subject, at their height in 1900-4, have not altogether subsided in heraldic circles though Fox-Davies and William Phillimore have probably won the day.
The last of Sherwood's strictures about 'old genealogy' had been 'the business of the shady character who ekes out a precarious existence on the reluctant half-crowns of deluded seekers after phantom fortunes'. Today 'next-of-kin' searching has become big business but in 1897 Walter Rye warned his readers against advertisements by which 'rogues try to rob poor people with specious tales of unclaimed stock', saying that, 'most of the statements they contain are absolute lies'. In his and his father's experiences, stretching back some sixty years, in which they had investigated many claims, not a single case had occurred from which anyone had in the least benefited. He gave an example of ‘the simple faith of a claimant’ in one Arthur Marsh, of Southampton, who had advertised for the address of the solicitor who held the property (now ‘in Chancery’) in Manchester and other places of one John Marsh, who had died about a hundred years previously, of which the Marsh family of Purbeck were believed to be the heirs. These types of claim had been questioned in the House of Commons in November 1888, when William Jackson, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, had said that the advertising agencies 'were simply misleading the public for the purpose of making profit for themselves and extracting money out of the pockets of poor persons' [410].
It has been suggested that following the end of the State lottery in 1825 and before the arrival of football pools, the most likely path to sudden riches about which ordinary people might dream was inheritance from an unknown relative [411]. English men (and widows and spinsters) have always had an unusual freedom in the disposal of their property by will and the nineteenth century novel regularly used unlikely inheritance or the sudden loss of 'expectations' as a theme. Samuel Warren in Ten thousand a year (1841), Charles Dickens in Bleak House (1852-3) and Little Dorrit (1855-7) and, later in the century, Wilkie Collins in a series of 'sensation' novels, are just a few of many examples. Claims to dormant peerages had been frequent in the 1830s, providing much work for the legal genealogists, and real life disputes about inheritance and estates were a commonplace, widely reported in the newspapers, the claims of Arthur Orton to be Roger Tichborne [412] and of Annie Druce to be the Duchess of Portland [413], attracting worldwide attention. Both may, as has been said, have been 'striking proof of the unfathomable depths of human credulity' but other stories about destroyed or forged entries in parish registers as with the Richard Harrison case in 1886 already described, or bogus tombstones as with the Tracy peerage claim in 1847, together with some interminable legal cases as, for example, those amongst the heirs of William Jermy of Bayfield in Norfolk (died 1751) and of William Jennens (died 1798),continually raised speculation and false hopes.
The Bank of England had published lists of unclaimed dividends for many years before similar lists of money in Chancery were first published in 1855 and then advertised in the London Gazette, but from the late 1830s onwards a growing number of commercial 'next-of-kin agents' began publishing lists of names taken from the little known official publications and from advertisements in newspapers. An Irishman, Frederick Henry Dougal (died 1904, aged 54), of Merton Road, Wandsworth, took over such a firm that had been established in 1844, and became particularly well known for several editions of Dougal's Index Register of Next of Kin, Heirs at Law, and cases of Unclaimed Money Advertisements, the last appearing in 1910. A case at the Old Bailey in January 1887 showed that from his office in the Strand he asked 1s 6d for the book and then £1 for a full copy of the advertisement mentioned. It seems likely that Edmund Robertson had Dougal’s agency in mind when he questioned William Jackson in the House of Commons in 1888. Dougal's 'next-of-kin' activities would have been known to George Sherwood with his office also in the Strand, but he may be better known today for his speculative purchase at auction of Aperfield Manor on part of Biggin Hill in Kent, and for the confusion that he later caused when he sold off the land in disorganised small plots in July 1895. Dougal was far from alone in the field. Robert Chambers and Edward Preston also produced lists over a long period and there were many others. The newspaper News of the World published a 214-page Missing Heirs and Next-of-Kin in 1911.
The extent to which some genealogists hyped up and orchestrated stories of unclaimed funds in order to extract money from prospective claimants, particularly those overseas, is uncertain, but these ‘shady characters’, as Sherwood called them, were not in short supply. The well-known James Coleman (died 1906, aged 88),for many years a dealer in documents, certainly did everything possible to publicise the so-called Jennens fortune for his own commercial advantage. Coleman, from Gloucestershire, was the son of a smith and had been a toolmaker in London since at least his first marriage in 1841 (when his wife was unable to sign her name). In 1851 he employed two young men in that trade but by 1861 he had set himself up as a genealogist and bookseller at 22 High Street, St Giles in the Fields, near the British Museum, starting an extensive trade in documents of every description which continued until his death in 1906, though he had moved out to 9 Tottenham Terrace, White Hart Lane, in the late 1870s. He was particularly well known for the pioneering and regular catalogue which he and his immediate successors published and George Sherwood later recalled the delight with which each issue was received, ‘notwithstanding the extraordinary blunders and misprints which often marred them’ [414]. The Society of Genealogists has a long, but not entirely complete, run bound in nine volumes, 1859-1911.
Coleman must have seen that another aspiring genealogist, Charles Bridger (1824-1879), of Witley in Surrey (the son of a draper formerly in Godalming High Street), had in the autumn of 1863 announced his intention to publish a bibliography of heraldry and genealogy and that he had, the following spring, also promised in Notes & Queries and in the Herald and Genealogist, to add to the bibliography an index to the pedigrees in county histories and other topographical works. Coleman realised how such a list could be exploited commercially and, not waiting for Bridger, rushed out Coleman's general index to printed pedigrees which are to be found in all the principal county and local histories & in many privately printed genealogies (1866), advertising in the book that he could provide copies of any pedigree listed, up to six generations, for five shillings plus six pence for each additional generation. The thwarted Charles Bridger then produced his An index to printed pedigrees contained in county and local histories, the heralds' visitations, and in the more important genealogical collections (1867; 10s 6d) containing 16,000 references and complaining in his Preface about the 'hastily prepared compilation of a similar nature' which had meanwhile appeared [415]. Bridger's projected bibliography, however, never saw publication. About this time he worked with a bank employee, Stephen Tucker (1835-1887), for Arthur Orton the ‘Tichborne Claimant’ whose case collapsed in 1872 and who was committed for perjury in 1874. When Tucker was appointed Rouge Croix at the College of Arms in 1872 he employed Bridger as a research assistant in his growing genealogical practice [416]. The 1871 Census shows him at a St Pancras lodging house, 'Geologist' (sic) [417]. Nine volumes of wills that Bridger had abstracted were purchased by the College of Arms in 1887 [418].
Bridger may have been put off publication of his projected works in 1863 by the publication that year by the industrious but extremely unpleasant John Camden Hotten (1832-1873) of A hand-book to the topography and family history of England and Wales: being a descriptive account of twenty thousand most curious and rare books (1863) which the Dictionary of National Biography calls his 'most laborious and least-known compilation'. It was in fact a misleading title for a 368-page catalogue of 7,659 items which were for sale in Hotten’s shop in Piccadilly. Hotten, the son of a carpenter and undertaker in Clerkenwell, had been apprenticed to an antiquarian bookseller in Chancery Lane but left for a spell as a journalist in America. Returning about 1853 and starting a bookselling and publishing business he acquired a fortune and an extremely unpleasant reputation as a purveyor of pornography (publishing books on phallic worship, aphrodisiacs, flagellation, etc.) as well as for his dubious deals and violent arguments, though his name is best known to genealogists as the compiler of the first list of emigrants to America which was published after his death (mentioned below). With his interest in illustrated books, historical facsimiles and popular antiquarian history, Hotten was well aware of the growing interest in genealogy and heraldry on both sides of the Atlantic and developed some skill in the use of material at the Public Record Office, undertaking genealogical research there as well as sometimes seeking out original documents for purchase which might be of interest to his clients or offering to obtain for them Grants of Arms from the College of Arms on a ten per cent commission basis. As Professor Simon Eliot says, Hotten not only provided comforting pedigrees for the socially uncertain or the defensively snobbish but he went on to serve snobbery and historical curiosity by offering ‘one comprehensive service, from the armorial cradle, as it were, to the gilded grave’ [419].
Hotten’s genealogical service began to form a significant part of his business and shortly after his death in 1873 his former chief clerk, Andrew Chatto, who had purchased the firm, in conjunction with a New York publisher, James W. Bouton, put out a prospectus for the ‘St James Heraldic Office’ under the management of the young Edward Albert Harrison (1843-1891) who had formerly managed Hotten’s Heraldic Department [420]. Harrison was basically an heraldic artist, but he was also the son of Arthur Prichard Harrison (died 1861) another heraldic artist who from 1830 onwards had published facsimiles of documents such as Magna Carta and the Rolls of Battle Abbey and Caerlaverock illustrated with arms. In 1852 Harrison senior had notably assisted the well-known dramatist and antiquary James Robinson Planché (1796-1880) with the numerous illustrations in his The Pursuivant of Arms: or Heraldry founded upon Facts.
James Coleman did not have all the market in old documents and a rival whose catalogues also contained short summaries of the material for sale, was Henry Gray (1850-1925). He was born at Rawtenstall in Lancashire and in 1881 was at 10 Maple Street, Cheetham, describing himself as an antiquarian bookseller [421], but by 1891 he had moved south to 39 Craven Park, Harlesden [422], and had a shop in Leicester Square [423]. By 1901, with the assistance of his two daughters, he was running a 'Genealogical Record Office' at Goldsmiths' Estate, East Acton [424]. He produced book bulletins yearly from at least 1899 to 1903 containing genealogy, topographical views, portraits and manuscripts, and at least one was later indexed into the Great Card Index of the Society of Genealogists.
Bridger and Coleman were not the only ones to see the value of the lists they compiled and the young barrister George William Marshall (1839-1905), the son of a banker with private means, had also meanwhile produced an 163-page Index to the pedigrees contained in the printed heralds' visitations (1866) which he saw as a companion volume to Sims's index to the manuscript ones published in 1849. His sales must have been affected by Bridger's book and the following year James Coleman, Bridger's rival, published a 70-page Catalogue of pedigrees hitherto unindexed (1867; 3s 6d) that Marshall seems to have compiled, though it does not bear his name [425].
James Coleman, who undertook general genealogical research as well as publishing and dealing in manuscripts, also had an eye to the American market and printed a Pedigree of William Penn (1871) as well as the registers of the chapel in Somerset House (1862) and part of the marriage registers of Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire (1880). Patrick Polden singles him out for criticism for his ruthless promotion of the Jennens claims which he must have known had no validity [426].
Another noteworthy firm of next-of-kin agents was founded by a Londoner, Constantine William De Bernardy (died 1886, aged 74), who in 1858 had published a 414-page De Bernardy's Index Register, for Next of Kin, Heirs at Law, Legatees, and of Unclaimed Property, in Great Britain, the Colonies, and on the Continent, from 1754 to 1856. He had a chequered career. When bankrupt in 1849 he was described as 'formerly of 46 Leicester Square, Middlesex, and of Putney, Surrey, and afterwards of Paris, France, but now of Rider's Hotel, Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, London, bill broker, money scrivener, commission agent, dealer and chapman' [427]. In 1873 he published at Philadelphia, The American's Hand-Book to Vienna and the Exhibition.
Going beyond the mere publishing of lists and the provision of advertisements, C. W. De Bernardy and his sons, who continued the business, began themselves to search for the heirs to the larger properties and to attempt to come to some financial arrangement with them. They produced an 83-page De Bernardy's Unclaimed Money Register (1883), for which they charged a shilling, but warned off the smaller fortune hunters by saying, 'They are nearly always poor or ignorant people, who are dazzled by the prospect of becoming suddenly rich, and are lured on until the exhaustion of their means puts an end to the investigation. But the dream remains as vivid as ever'. Two of these sons, Alfred De Bernardy (died 1922) and Augustus Kemeys De Bernardy (died 1931), continued the business at 28 John Street and 25 Bedford Row, as the 'De Bernardy Brothers, Legal Genealogists and Agents', until 1900, but another son, Lucien De Bernardy (died 1946),had withdrawn from the firm in 1884 [428]. George Sherwood certainly knew Alfred De Bernardy as he contributed to the first issue of Sherwood's The Pedigree Register in June 1907. Sometime after 1900 De Bernardy had gone into partnership with the young Henry William Sayers (1876-1962) and the latter, who had married Annie Lydia Checcucci (1877-1962) in 1907, took over the firm completely in 1909 [429]. Henry and Annie Sayers continued as 'legal genealogists' for many years and are mentioned below for their connection with Pallot & Co.
The activities of genealogists who acted as unclaimed money agents and probate searchers, some of whom were quite unscrupulous, gave rise to much criticism and for a very long time almost every aspect of the business was considered highly disreputable, as George Sherwood believed. These 'heir locators', working secretly at great speed and speculatively behind the scenes, claimed to provide a public service by bringing possible claims to the attention of persons who would not otherwise know about them, but they provided an absolute minimum of information about a claim (for fear that the claimant would circumvent them by going directly to the source of the funds) and would only do so on the strict understanding that one entered into an agreement to pay the locator a percentage of the fund. In the 1950's we called such heir locators 'ten per centers' but even then the charge was more often thirty and is now often forty per cent plus costs plus VAT. Such 'contingency fee agreements' are frequently criticised and may be judged illegal (as champerty) [430] if the locator agrees to finance a claimant's lawsuit in exchange for a portion of the amount involved.
In 1896 the De Bernardy Brothers came to an agreement with two beneficiaries of an estate about which they had obtained knowledge by which the two would pay the Brothers thirty per cent of anything recovered, but the De Bernardy Brothers had unwisely also agreed that they would take necessary steps to establish the claim, and the agreement was thus held to be void because it 'savoured of champerty' [431]. The Brothers avoided this problem in future by agreeing only to furnish details in return for a share in the property and the court upheld such an agreement in 1908 [432]. The 1896 ruling was held to be still good law by the Irish Supreme Court in 2003 [433].
The legal situation about ‘Unclaimed Monies’ was usefully set out by Malcolm Pinhorn in The Genealogist’s Magazine in 1959 [434] and the activities of the various firms involved, whom some considered ‘not true genealogists’, were a constant source of enquiry at the Society of Genealogists. A report in the Daily Mail in 1971 said that most of the firms admitted to anything up to a fifty per cent failure rate in the location of heirs and it cited one case in which the balance of an estate of £6,000 had to be divided between eighty heirs after the cost of 180 certificates and sixty interviews, as well as the firm’s thirty per cent, had been deducted [435].
However, the growing number of intestacy cases worldwide since the Second World War has given work to many genealogists, some still working on a percentage basis, though today it is argued that personal representatives such as solicitors acting as executors and trustee departments should not use those who will only work on commission as they may be breaching their duty to the other beneficiaries [436]. There are many genealogists who will gladly work on an hourly basis as I did when employed in such cases in the Research Department at the Society of Genealogists for many years and the firm Title Research (a firm which in 1994 had itself received unpleasant publicity when asking for 10% of a £3m estate [437]) has recently launched a campaign against the preposterous fees charged by those working on commission. This campaign has received a good deal of support from solicitors and deserves more [438].
The early books on surnames were concerned almost exclusively with their meanings and thus although of interest to genealogists and often quoted were not in themselves of practical value in tracing the histories of the families mentioned. The derivations which they provided were often deeply suspect and occasionally little more than guesswork. There were many others, but into this category fall English surnames and their place in the Teutonic family (London and Carlisle, 1858) by Robert Ferguson, presumably by the man of that name who had written The Northmen in Cumberland and Westmorland (1856) and who wrote The Teutonic name-system applied to the family names of France, England and Germany (London and Carlisle, 1864) and Surnames as a science (1883; 1884); Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom (1860) and English Surnames: an essay on family nomenclature, historical, etymological and humorous (4th ed. 2 vols. 1875) by Mark Antony Lower (1813-1876), a Sussex schoolmaster, also known for his Worthies of Sussex (1865) and Compendious History of Sussex (1870); English Surnames: their sources and significations (1873) by Revd Charles Wareing Endell Bardsley (1844-1898),Vicar of Ulverston, which went through several editions until 1906, and his A dictionary of English and Welsh surnames, with special American instances (1901); British family names: their origins and meaning (2nd ed. 1903) by Henry Barber; Surnames of the United Kingdom (2 vols. 1912-18) by Henry Harrison; and A history of surnames of the British Isles (1931; additions, 1946) by Cecil Henry L’Estrange Ewen (1877-1949).
All these works concentrated on the meanings of the surnames but much genealogical work in the second half of the nineteenth century was centred on finding their distribution until Henry Brougham Guppy (1854-1926), a naval surgeon and botanist from Devon, compiled Homes of family names in Great Britain (1890), based on the listings of farmers in Kelly's county directories, farmers being 'the most stay-at-home class of the country' [439]. Although the book's value was dismissed by Oswald Knapp in 1930, the editors of the Oxford Names Companion have recently concluded that 'over half the surnames in Britain still have a statistically significant association with a particular locality, despite all the scattering of population that has taken place since the Industrial Revolution began two hundred years ago' [440].
The appearance of George Marshall's early composite indexes to printed pedigrees which became so important as basic bibliographies of work that had already been carried out and had been published somewhere or other, has been mentioned, he commencing in 1866 with an index to the pedigrees in the printed heraldic visitations and in 1867 with a short additional catalogue, printed by Coleman. The first edition of his The genealogist's guide to printed pedigrees: being a general search through genealogical, topographical, and biographical works relating to the United Kingdom was published in 1879. It was revised in 1885 when the range of works indicated by the subtitle was extended to include family histories, peerage claims, etc., and again in 1893. A final edition, intended for Christmas 1902 was a little delayed and was eventually available for a guinea from the Piccadilly bookseller, Bernard Quaritch, in 1903. The book was, as Quaritch himself rightly said in a flyer, 'absolutely indispensable to every genealogist'. Marshall's searches were remarkably comprehensive, though, as he unkindly remarked in his Preface, unlike George Gatfield's Guide to printed books, they did not take such a low range as to include Frederic T. Hall's The pedigree of the devil (1883)!
The surname Hall would have been very familiar to George Marshall as he had married in 1867, Alice Ruth, the younger daughter of the Revd Ambrose William Hall and when she died in 1870 he married (illegally, of course) her elder sister Caroline Emily (died 1891). Marshall was the author of Notes on the surname of Hall (Exeter, 1887). The family would have been appalled when during the unrest in 1931 their nephew Anthony William Hall claimed the Crown and told rallies that he was 'one of the British people's natural leaders' being a direct descendant of Henry VIII; he hoped to be the first policeman to cut off the King's head! He was arrested for quarrelsome and scandalous language, fined, and not heard from again.
George William Marshall died in September 1905 and it seems that his fellow herald, Eric Geijer at the College of Arms, was intent on continuing his bibliographical work. In earlier years when George Sherwood had listed recently printed pedigrees in his Genealogical Queries and Memoranda there had been no objection to his doing so, but when in May 1907 Gerald Fothergill announced in Notes & Queries that he was preparing a supplement to Marshall's Guide, objections about the copyright were immediately raised by Marshall's second son Isaac (1870-1916), a barrister. Marshall wrote that the book ‘was in the process of being kept up to date’ with a view to a new edition, but Fothergill was not put off and replied that he was merely collecting omissions from and additions to the published work [441].
All this did not deter the new Society of Genealogists in 1911 from setting up, and Gerald Fothergill from joining, a 'Committee on Cataloguing Pedigrees' which for a few years only collected references to supplement Marshall, its secretary being a Founder and Fellow, Campbell M. E. Wynne (died 1940). These brief references to the whereabouts of printed pedigrees sometimes proving unsatisfactory, in July 1912 his committee approved and printed a standard ‘Pedigree Analysis Form’ on which to summarise any available printed pedigree, sending sample copies to every member with the intention that the completed forms be filed in the Document Collection and indexed in the Consolidated Index [442]. It was noted in December that the appeal had had ‘a gratifying response’ [443] but in the year 1913 only eight books were completed though this was considered ‘good progress’ [444]. Geijer eventually handed his index references to John Beach Whitmore who, of course, had access to the Society’s collections, but as described below his supplement did not appear until half a century later.
It is interesting that Nichols should have thought it right that all genealogical business, 'ought to come to the hands of the professional Heralds'. He had no particular axe to grind on that score and was not himself a member of the College of Arms. One wonders how many others thought in those terms.
Towards the end of the century Walter Rye provided a list of a dozen or so record agents and document transcribers then working at the Public Record Office of whom three or four were solicitors who would gather material for a 'record' case, and four or five were women [445]. He noted that their charges varied greatly and warned that the younger men who worked at a lower rate would take longer in their searches because they lacked the experience that would enable them to go straight to the records required. An indexer charged 7s 6d and upwards for a thousand references. Plain copies of documents, when the client supplied the references, were charged at 6d per folio of seventy-two words before 1600, and 4d per folio after that date.
To the names of those mentioned elsewhere, Rye added in 1888 and in 1897 those of A. F. Heintz and W. Boyd and, in 1881 only, W. H. Hart of Hammersmith. Arthur Frederick Heintz (1854-1932) was the son of an average adjustor in Hampstead. He was a clerk in Ealing in 1881, a record agent in Paddington in 1891, a record agent and translator of ancient records at Reigate, Surrey in 1901 and a translator of ancient records at Sidcup, Kent in 1911. He died at Sydenham in 1932 leaving £160-9-11.
William Boyd was more frequently known as William Keown-Boyd and was the third son of a former M. P. for Downpatrick in Ireland. He acted as a record agent in Chelsea in 1891 and was at Archway Road, Highgate in 1911, working at the Record Office. At his death, aged 85, at Upholland Vicarage in 1938 he was described as a well-known historian [446]. He had edited the diary of Mr Justice Rokeby in 1887 and helped with the volumes of the Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland. There are nine files of his notes at the National Archives. It may be noted that the majority of the private work and correspondence of similar agents has not survived, some record agents like Helen Thacker sending their original notes to their clients ‘to save errors in transcription’ as she would say.
William Henry Hart (1828-1888) was the son of a prosperous gunpowder maker at Deptford and trained as a solicitor but in 1852 he was one of the first searchers to be granted free access to do local research at the Public Record Office. He then became a record agent but in 1855 joined the Office as a clerk. In 1857 he was involved in an elaborate jape at a fellow clerk which was much disapproved of and in 1862 he requested leave to take a degree but was refused and given the task of editing the cartulary of St Peter, Gloucester for the Rolls Series. He resigned in 1869 and acted as a record agent in Kensington, but then over-actively canvassed for re-employment until reluctantly re-engaged on the cartulary of Romsey Abbey for the Rolls Series in 1882. He had become a Roman Catholic and in 1879 had married an actress less than half his age. His work did not go well and having broken his arm in a carriage accident and sustained losses from fraud at his bank, he died suddenly in 1888 [447].
Of the women named by Walter Rye, he warmly recommended Miss Walford. She was at 7 Hyde Park Mansions, Edgware Road, in 1888 and at 46 Great Coram Street in 1897, and he described her as 'probably the most accurate and rapid transcriber in the room'. This was Emma Mary Walford (1853-1907) who lodged at Great Coram Street in 1891 and described herself as a ‘literary author’ in 1901. She was a daughter of the thrice-married barrister Cornelius Walford, of Witham, Essex, and Enfield, Middlesex, a prolific writer on insurance and other matters and a relative of the compiler Edward Walford.
The other women named by Rye in 1888 and 1897 were Miss Rita Fox, Miss Collier, Mrs F. Grigson, Miss Hopper and Miss L. Toulmin Smith. Rita Fox, named only in 1888, was then at 1 Capel Terrace, Forest Gate. She had been born about 1866-7 the last of nine children of a dental surgeon, Charles James Fox, who died in 1869, and although described as living on her own means in 1891 she had presumably been obliged to help her widowed mother who died in 1890. She contributed on various subjects to Notes and Queries between 1887 and 1899 and was a subscriber (from 64 Watling Street, E.C.) to the British Record Society in 1898, but any later involvement in record searching has not been found. She seems to have married Joseph Walter Russell, much her senior, in 1903 and to have died in London in 1930.
Rye gives Miss Collier’s address in both years as 83 Charterhouse Street and she must be related to William Walter Collier (1848-1898) who for many years kept a coffeehouse at 83-85 Charterhouse Street facing Smithfield meat market. He was born at Coventry, married three times, became a Freeman of the City in 1881 and went bankrupt in 1886, but who ‘Miss Collier’ was is not clear unless this is his eldest child, Ellen Eliza, born in 1868, but she had married at Stroud Green in 1890 [448]. Rye had classed her merely as a transcriber in 1888.
Mrs F. Grigson of 45 Alma Square, St John’s Wood, is evidently Anna (nee Allsebrook) the widow of Francis Grigson (1852-1886). He was a son of the Revd William Grigson, Rector of Whinburgh, Norfolk, and before his early death at Alma Square in 1886 he had described himself as a ‘professional antiquarian’ though when eighteen in 1871 he was a clerk to a wine merchant at Thetford. She was the daughter of a prosperous master tanner at Worthing, Norfolk, but just prior to her marriage in 1881 was a ‘lady companion’ at Clapham. Perhaps Rye’s information was a little out of date for she seems to have left England before 1891 and by 1911 was living at Durban, Natal [449].
Miss Hopper’s address is given by Rye as 9 Cato Road, Brixton, in 1888 (when she was classed as a transcriber),and as 22 Plater Road, Brixton, in 1897, evidently mistakes for 22 Plato Road, and the home from at least 1881 of Helen (died 1916, aged 91), the widow of Clarence Hopper (1817-1868), a palaeographer and antiquary originally from Savernake in Wiltshire whose genealogical collections are in the British Library and who collected transcripts of records for a history of the Channel Islands. His edition of the London Chronicle during the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII was published by the Camden Society in 1859. Helen is described in the census as living on her own means but the occupations of her daughters are not given [450].
Lucy Toulmin Smith (1838-1911) was a daughter of the constitutional lawyer Joshua Toulmin Smith (1816-1869) and both find a place in the Dictionary of National Biography. Her first major work in original records was the finishing of her father’s English Gilds (1870) and was followed by several volumes for the Camden Society and the New Shakspere Society, and then the editing of Leland’s Itinerary (5 vols. 1906-10). She had been concerned that her name should not ‘go with every Tom, Dick & Harry’ [451] and in 1894 she had moved to Oxford to take up the post of librarian at Manchester College, so she does not appear in the second edition of Rye’s book.
Rye’s information is sometimes a little out of date but the uncertain amount of work coming to some of these ladies is clear. Another searcher of the period who appears in the census as merely living on her own means, was Vernona Thomas Christian Smith (nee Torry; died 1902, aged 73) who lived at Barnes and was the Scottish born widow of a Royal Navy officer Richard Sidney Smith (died 1880) who had served in the West Indies [452]. She herself had Barbadian ancestry and somehow she met and worked for some years (as the great bulk of her surviving manuscripts, mentioned below, testifies) for Vere Langford Oliver (1861-1942), of Weymouth, the compiler of a magnificent History of Antigua (1894) and later the editor from 1909 of the journal Caribbeana. By the end of the century the more commercially organised record agents Ethel Stokes and Mary Louise Cox (described later) had become active but the majority of such agents remained, and perhaps still remain, largely without advanced education or specialised training. In 1897 Rye issued an explicit warning to gullible rich Armericans ‘in their anxiety for pedigrees’ against the activities of some unscrupulous advertising record agents [453].
There were a very few women local historians in the provinces but better known in London was the group of scholarly women that developed at the end of the nineteenth century, centred at the Public Record Office and British Library, and mostly involved in transcribing documents and writing parish histories for the Victoria County History (VCH) which commenced publication in 1899. Five years later the Secretary to the Public Record Office deemed the VCH’s numerous women searchers there ‘a great inconvenience to the general public’ [454]. In 1905 there were twenty-two of them and Horace Round wrote disparagingly to the VCH’s general editor, ‘I would like to teach your 22 girls some topography, were it not that, I reckon, as we say in Essex, “they’re wunnerful plain”’. Two years later he again wrote ‘plain, plodding work that is all that you can expect from the girls’ [455]. These ‘girls’ did their hack work mainly from printed calendars and manuscript lists in London and were not expected to visit the parishes and unpleasant Round, though a tireless promoter of the VCH, could thus sneer at a system of which he disapproved by saying of someone like the competent Norah Niemeyer, subsequently a lecturer at Goldsmith’s College, that her draft parish histories ‘might have been written in Berlin with the aid of a map’ [456].
Fifteen of these young ladies were involved in the writing of the four VCH volumes for Hertfordshire (1902-14), the first county to be completed, mostly in connection with the general descriptions of parishes and the manorial descents. Two of them had university degrees, two had the History Tripos and two had been through the Oxford Honours School of Modern History; none were married. They included Lilian Redstone (1885-1955) of Woodbridge, ‘record agent own account’ in 1911 [457], who also wrote accounts of some thirty-three parishes in Suffolk that were never published and who much later founded the record offices of West and East Suffolk [458]. Others involved in the Hertfordshire volumes included Olive Moger (1880-1961) who in 1911 said that she was a ‘Topographer’ for the VCH [459] and was later well-known for her record agency work in Devonshire (compiling 22 valuable volumes of abstracts of the Devonshire wills the originals of which were later destroyed in the War), and Minnie Reddan (1870-1952),the daughter of a draper at Hampstead, who in 1911 gave no occupation at all [460], although she had contributed the large sections on religious houses to the History. Eleanor J. B. Reid (1874-1954), one of the two graduates, was in 1911 a ‘Teacher & Historical Research Student’ [461] and was the daughter of Sir Thomas Wemyss Reid, a well-known journalist and biographer.
Most of these ladies left the VCH during its financial difficulties in 1908 and although most had written accounts of the descents of manors for the History, none was involved in the foundation of the Society of Genealogists. When the Society was founded it came onto a scene that, from a professional point of view, was completely unregulated. The number of genealogists, record agents and record searchers who said that they were such in the 1911 census of England and Wales was sixty-two [462]. There was some overlap in the three categories and several ‘record agents’ were actually gramophone record salesmen. The great majority were in the immediate London area but the few in other parts of the country were Raymond Tinne Berthon at Selsey, James Cronyn Burrows on the Isle of Wight, Robert Beilby Cook at York, Joseph Joshua Green at Hastings, David Henry Hartopp at Leicester, Arthur Hill in the New Forest, Frederic Johnson at Norwich, William Clement Kendall an ‘Artist & Genealogist’ at Kirkby Lonsdale and Philip Hugh Lawson an ‘Architect’s Assistant & Genealogist’ at Chester. Most were working on their own account but several record searchers (Henry Badger, Alfred Baker, Henry Greaves, Frederick William Ludwell and Thomas Henry Reeks) worked for the General Register Office. William Cartwright was a ‘Record Searcher (private enquiry agent)’. Kate Corner, Mary Salmon, Ethel Thompson and Frederick Walford were literary searchers, Herbert Sayers was a ‘Genealogist & Journalist’ and Percival Lucas an ‘Antiquarian Author & Record Agent’. Margaret Mackay mentioned publishing, George Minns literature and music. Kathleen Thompson said she worked at the Public Record Office and Edith Moodie worked for the ‘American Library and Literary Agency’. Leonard Barnard was a ‘Genealogist & Heraldic Draughtsman’. John Byron Davies was a genealogist aged 74, but two had retired (Harry Clench aged 67, William Selby aged 73) and Mary Louisa Brodnax (nee Dalton), born in Alabama in 1836, had come as a genealogist from Manhattan to work in the Library at the British Museum and was staying in a hotel in Bedford Place. The youngest, Harry Edward Lloyd, aged 14, the son of a compositor at Tottenham, was a ‘Genealogist’s Office Boy’. The remainder described themselves simply as genealogists (twenty altogether, three with private means) or record agents and searchers. Of the sixty-two only sixteen were women and only eight of the total had joined the newly formed Society of Genealogists when the membership list was printed in 1913; they were James Burrows of Bushey, Gerald Fothergill of Wandsworth, William Clement Kendall of Lancaster, Ernest Kirk in Chancery Lane, Philip Lawson of Chester, George Minns of Norwich, Edgar Powell of Reading and George Sherwood of Brockley.
A record searcher in the London area who seems to have led something of a double life was John Robert Hutchinson (1858-1924), named below for his work on migrants, but who was also the author of several adventure books for boys [463]. He had been born in Nova Scotia the son of a master mariner and married there in 1878, having a son in 1881. The family lived for a time in India but he deserted his wife and child in 1890 [464]. At Camberwell in 1891, ‘author’, he was seemingly living with a young woman and their three month old daughter [465], but in 1895 he married as a bachelor at Pancras Register Office one Mary Blanche Shelley by whom he had four children. They were at Clacton, Essex, in 1901 when he said that he was a bookseller and born at Hull, but she divorced him for adultery and cruelty in 1909-10 [466]. She said then that he had a place of business at 11 Clifford’s Inn off Fleet Street. By the time of the 1911 census she was with the four children at 35 Cromwell Avenue, Hammersmith and herself working as a record agent; she died at Lambeth in 1929, aged 60. He had quickly married again at Croydon in 1910 and then moved to Joy Street, Barnstaple, Devon, where he traded as a ‘polished and genial’ bookseller until his death in 1924 [467]. One of his children had been born at Southwold, Suffolk, in 1897, and perhaps whilst in that area he had compiled two large typed volumes of ‘East Anglian Marriages’ (containing about 30,000 entries) which the Society of Genealogists bought in 1919, George Sherwood noting that they came from J. R. Hutchinson of Clifford’s Inn. Other Suffolk material acquired at that time may have come from the same source [468].
One record searcher who escaped the 1911 statistics [469] by describing himself as a ‘Writer for the Press & Record Searcher’ was Robert Westland Marston, the son of Charles Henry Marston a physician, who was born at Devizes in 1866 and was at 37 Millman Street, Holborn, a journalist, in 1901. In 1911 he was boarding with a carpenter at 79 Wood Street, Barnet. Reginald Hine, the historian of Hitchin in Hertfordshire, wrote that Marston ‘could find everything I wanted’ but refused to meet him. Hine could not understand why until Marston was pointed out at the Record Office and Hine, who described him in detail but did not give his name, was mesmerised by ‘the ugliest man I have ever seen’. He lived in great poverty, giving the little he earned to the Children’s Hospital, and died at Croydon in 1930. George Sherwood remembered seeing him last in May 1914 when he was apparently caring for an older woman, perhaps his sister Selina [470].
Although some of the Society’s founders recognised the need for a list of recommended searchers other than that provided by the Public Record Office, it was a long time before a regularly produced list emerged, though the membership list printed in the Society’s Annual Report for 1912 has fourteen persons marked as undertaking professional research. None were women.
The first textbook on the subject, Stacey Grimaldi's expensive but wide-ranging 342-page Origines Genealogicae (1828) has been mentioned. It was basically a collection of references to evidences for proving pedigrees and as the title page says, was 'Published expressly for the assistance of claimants to hereditary titles, honours, or estates'. Some 250 copies were printed and it sold for three guineas. Each record group dealt with was followed by a note on its ‘Genealogical Utility’ with examples of use in previous claims.
In the 1850s Richard Sims, working in the Department of Manuscripts at the British Museum saw a need for a book with a wider approach. As he wrote in his Preface, 'the knowledge of what had already been done for Genealogy might be more diffused; the riches of the valuable libraries in different parts of the kingdom rendered more available; and the students' labours greatly lightened, by a judicious concentration of memoranda, drawn from the best sources, and accompanied by carefully selected lists of books of reference'. It was fitting that he should dedicate his work to Grimaldi on whose 'legal and antiquarian' knowledge he had extensively drawn but his resulting work, known to many as 'Sims' Manual', aimed at the wider market, shows a remarkable and detailed awareness of the sources available at that time.
George 'Richard' Sims (1816-1898) was born at Abingdon, the son of an accountant at Wadham College, Oxford, and had been appointed to the staff of the British Museum Library in May 1841. He married at Paddington in 1846 and the couple lived close by the Museum but they had no children. Richard Sims had mastered several languages, ancient and modern, and was an expert palaeographer. In response to the growing number of genealogical enquiries received in the Department of Manuscripts he produced in 1849 the standard An index to pedigrees and arms contained in the heralds' visitations and other genealogical manuscripts in the British Museum and then compiled a Handbook to the library of the British Museum, &c, with some account of the principal libraries in London (1854). Two years later the bookseller John Russell Smith in Soho Square published the first edition of Sims's A manual for the genealogist, topographer, antiquary, and legal professor, consisting of descriptions of public records; parochial and other registers; wills, county and family histories; heraldic collections in public libraries, etc. etc. (1856),a second edition of which in over 500 pages, at fifteen shillings, came out in 1861 and another in 1888. Sims was described by a colleague in the Library as 'a living index to the treasures around him' whose industry and intelligence made him 'one of the most useful members of the Museum Staff' [471]. He has since gained some note because he considered the damaging letters of Madame Blavatsky (the founder of the Theosophical Society) to the Coulombs genuine [472]. He worked at the Library until he retired to live at Oxford in 1887.
One should perhaps mention here the remarkable compilation by George Gatfield (1832-1901) of a 646-page Guide to printed books and manuscripts relating to English and foreign heraldry and genealogy being a classified catalogue of works of those branches of literature (1892) with large sections by surname and on overseas countries, presumably all taken directly from the Library catalogue of the British Museum where he too had been an attendant since at least 1861. He was the son of a blacksmith at Hanworth in Middlesex and his son Charles later worked at the Public Record Office [473].
A solicitor-antiquary with a brilliant mind was William Phillimore Watts Phillimore (1853-1913), the son of the superintendent of a lunatic asylum at Nottingham who had, perhaps not surprisingly, changed his name from Dr Stiff to Dr Phillimore in 1873. Phillimore had published his first book on the church bells of Nottinghamshire whilst a student at Oxford and left the university with degrees in jurisprudence and civil law but devoted his life to genealogy and the preservation of records. He was greatly influenced by Francis Galton's Hereditary Genius (1869) and believed firmly in an aristocracy of blood or race, as his influential and popular How to write the history of a family (1887, 1888 and 1900) makes clear [474]. Phillimore's book, however, took a quite different approach from that of other manuals, dealing perhaps for the first time with questions of the meaning, relative frequency and distribution of surnames, the layout of the proposed book and its pedigrees (citing good American examples), typography and illustrations, and discussing portraiture and, as a committed eugenicist, anthropometry, recommending the regular measurement and photography (both full and side views!) of all ones family members. Phillimore also laid great stress on 'the duty of giving proof for every assertion made'. Lack of attention to this point, he says, had brought discredit to the study and it was now recognised that an inaccurate pedigree or one falsely seeking, as he put it, to join 'new men to old acres', only brought a family into contempt [475]. His passionate interest is shown in his comment, ‘Monuments and tombstones perish, but he who has written and printed a truthful history of his ancestors has raised for them a memorial more lasting than brass or stone’ [476].
In 1888, Phillimore, way ahead of his time, commenced a campaign for the creation of local authority record offices in each county or group of counties, into which parish registers, probate and ‘all provincial public records’ more than 50-60 years old might be deposited. He wrote at length to The Times in October 1888 suggesting that such an office should be styled 'The County Record Office' and made subject to the supervision of travelling record-inspectors from the Public Record Office. He was entirely against the centralised deposit of such material in London though ‘by a limited number of students it might be highly appreciated’ [477].
In 1896-7 he had played a prominent part in unmasking the 'Great Shipway Pedigree Fraud' in which many records, including parish registers and wills, had been tampered with by a bogus 'Dr' Herbert Davies and in 1898 he published an account of Davies's subsequent trial and conviction for it had, as he wrote, 'so important a bearing upon the safe custody of parish registers, wills and other public documents'. He used the story to show that 'our records are mostly in a very inefficient custody' and to again urge the foundation of county record offices [478].
Herbert Davies, without any particular antiquarian knowledge and quite unused to genealogical investigation had, at the age of 22 in 1895, been recommended to Colonel Robert Shipway (1841-1928), of Grove House, Chiswick [479], for the purpose of some ancestral research in Gloucestershire. Davies, calling himself a doctor and using an Oxford degree that had been awarded to another of the same name, claimed to have studied medicine at Heidelberg but apparently left without taking a degree [480]. Engaged by Shipway for six shillings a day plus expenses, Davies immediately embarked on an elaborate and lengthy scheme of imposture, providing an old silver watch falsely engraved which he said had belonged to the Shipway family and then an armorial seal with a similar story ‘verified’ with a bogus statutory declaration. He gained access to the Mangotsfield parish registers (improperly kept in the vicarage and on one occasion left open in the sun) and interpolated therein six Shipway entries, one a burial in 1625 mentioning the same arms. He excavated the churchyard and finding a lead coffin had it engraved with the name Shipway. During its removal a labourer was injured and shortly afterwards died. He carried out a similar excavation inside the church and finding two effigies identified them (on a screen with appropriate brass plates) as relating to Shipway ancestors, placing the name also on a shield from the Blount family monument, carving it into a beam in the belfry, and having Shipway initials engraved on the hasp of an old church chest which he induced the vicar to give to the Colonel. The herald Arthur Scott Gatty then told Colonel Shipway that he could find no record of any Shipway arms at the College of Arms and that further sources such as wills should be consulted. Davies thereupon turned his attention to the wills at Gloucester. There he was able to remove a will of 1547, clean off much of its surface and use the parchment to give new wording which included mention of a grant of Shipway arms in 1192 (sic !) and then to replace it in the files at the Probate Registry. In the Registry at Hereford he inserted a spurious will of 1524 and at that at Worcester he inserted spurious wills for 1490 and 1537. All the wills gave most extraordinary details of the family and all were verified with certificates provided by the office officials. Colonel Shipway’s solicitors were informed at each step of the search but raised no queries. However, the Colonel, pleased with his new found ancestry (which had cost him £683 in fees and expenses), showed the wills to William Phillimore, a neighbour at Chiswick. The latter went quickly to inspect the originals and the registers and found his suspicions well confirmed. However, the Colonel’s solicitors, having received a favourable report on Davies’s work from Francis Bridges Bickley (1851-1905) an Assistant in the Department of Manuscripts at the British Museum [481], raised strong objections to Phillimore’s conclusions and the latter was obliged to take up the matter with the President of the Probate Division, Sir Francis Jeune. Following detailed enquiries, the Director of Public Prosecutions took action in September 1897 and the case went to the Old Bailey where Davies pleaded guilty to obtaining money by false pretences and on 23 November 1898 was sentenced to three years penal servitude. Two days into the preliminary hearing and describing himself as a doctor of medicine Davies had married Linda Camilla Payne at Christchurch. In 1901 he was a Private in the Royal Army Medical Corps but by 1911 he was a draper’s manager in Brixton where he lived until after his wife’s death in 1918. Their only child, Kenneth, born in June 1898, served for a time as a surgeon at Guy’s Hospital.
Almost every aspect of this extraordinary case had caused Phillimore concern and his account spares none of the parties involved. The unfortunate Colonel Shipway had been reluctant to be involved in legal action and, it was said, ‘cut an undeniably comic figure in the hands of the suburban doctor’. The Pall Mall Gazette thought that he might ‘console himself with the reflection that many lineages provided for brand-new notabilities are quite as dubious’ as the ‘silly mistakes’ perpetrated by Davies, ‘a quarter-educated scoundrel’ [482].
Others took Phillimore’s concerns and ideas about county record offices much more seriously and they were strongly supported by the Congress of Archaeological Societies. In July 1899 the Congress resolved to ask the Government to appoint a Royal Commission to look into the matter and a strong group of concerned people, including Viscount Dillon, President of the Society of Antquaries, the Duke of Northumberland, the bishops of London and Oxford, Sir Henry Howorth, Horace Round, Laurence Gomme, Edward Alexander Fry and William Phillimore, agreed to form a deputation to the Prime Minister, but the latter was ‘unable to receive’ them and the Congress’s Report was referred instead to a Committee on the Preservation of Local Records appointed by the Treasury [483].
The Report, which had been adopted at a Special Congress held on 28 March 1900 and confirmed at the Annual Congress of the forty societies in union held at Burlington House on 11 July 1900 under the Presidency of the industrialist and archaeologist, Sir John Evans (1823-1908), recommended that legislation be passed to allow, but not compel, the deposit in county record offices of parish registers and other ecclesiastical records, the acceptance therein of court rolls and other papers in private custody and the making of the records available for inspection by students. It thought that the PRO should also unload on local county record offices 'all such documents now in the Public Record Office as in the opinion of the Office ought to be preserved in the localities to which they refer' and that it was 'of the utmost importance that none but properly qualified custodians should be appointed'. It also thought that it would be most undesirable for these offices to have any connection with public libraries, for 'the most competent of Librarians may not necessarily possess the qualifications of a custodian of Records'.
The only 'local' record office in existence at this time was the Guildhall Library in London which in 1899 had begun to take in the vestry minute books and churchwardens' accounts of various City parishes (but not the parish registers) as a result of a circular letter addressed to the Vestries by the brush maker and amateur historian James George White (1837-1906), then Deputy of the Ward of Walbrook to the Court of Common Council [484]. After the 1900 Conference its President, Sir John Evans, who was also Chairman of the local Records Committee for Hertfordshire returned to the County and built an air conditioned repository to house its records (costing £1,016), which opened in 1909 [485]. These were important developments along a most tortuous path.
Phillimore’s views were not shared by all genealogists and in 1911 George Sherwood wrote, when remarking on the sale of a further batch of the manuscripts collected by Sir Thomas Phillipps, ‘We do not altogether share the generally expressed opinion that such manuscripts should be all stored away in public libraries. It is better that the originals should be studied, used, enjoyed and passed from hand to hand, but we think that the information they contain should be preserved in print. Let our museums cease to buy, and spend the money instead in printing, cataloguing and indexing; they are crammed already with material more or less inaccessible, and which is, in consequence, imperfectly studied, used or understood’ [486].
Phillimore was, in fact, doing more than his fair share of this work. In 1888 he sought for the first time to provide, not full transcripts, but printed indexes to a variety of public records, issuing monthly instalments of several indexes at once, in a series called the Index Library. In this he had the active co-operation of Walford Selby, the respected superintendent of the Literary Search room at the PRO who was also editor of The Genealogist, and the financial backing of a legal publisher, Charles Clark. After Selby’s untimely death in 1889, Phillimore, in order to secure a stable number of subscribers, was instrumental in forming the British Record Society to carry the Index Library forward, becoming its first Secretary and remaining General Editor of its publications until 1893 [487].
Phillimore also initiated the Scottish Record Series in 1896, the Thoroton Society in 1897, and the Canterbury and York Society in 1904. However, he is undoubtedly best known to genealogists for the great series of printed marriage registers, produced by the firm he founded in Chancery Lane, Phillimore & Co, which from 1897 issued in some counties, with much voluntary assistance, two volumes yearly. One hundred and fifty copies of each were usually printed to sell at 10s 6d each.
Phillimore himself was not altogether a sympathetic character. Although a keen cyclist [488] he has been described as 'a cadaverous figure, six feet of skin and bone with long hair, a long forked beard and heavy lidded myopic eyes; a strict vegetarian and teetotaller' [489]. He was a prodigious writer, producing in addition to the above books, several family histories and other works including, with Edward Alexander Fry, the standard An index to changes of name, 1760 to 1901 (1905). In 1900 he wrote a brief handbook with basic information for beginners, Pedigree Work (1900),costing a shilling, which was revised by Thomas Blagg in 1914 and then again by Bower Marsh for publication in 1936 (3s 6d). Phillimore died at Torquay in 1913; his will expressed a sadly unrealised hope that his only son would preserve his papers. Unknown to him the first county record office was being established that year at Bedford.
Another solicitor-antiquary Walter Rye (1843-1929), already mentioned for his outspoken views on the deposit of early parish registers, was the son of a Chelsea solicitor and himself pursued a legal career (commencing in his father's office at the age of fourteen) in Wandsworth, Croydon and Putney before moving in 1900 to Norwich where he was Mayor in 1908. He was a prolific and indefatigable writer (of some 152 articles and 117 pamphlets and books) and a collector of Norfolk items, who after working for twenty-five years in London archives, wrote Records and record searching (1888; 2nd ed. 1897) [490], the first edition of which came out in the same year as Phillimore's How to write the history of a family. No two books on the same subject could be more dissimilar. It has been said that Rye was 'a long-distance runner, which perhaps accounts for his haste, and a controversialist, that perhaps accounts for his inaccuracies' [491] but his poorly organised work contains much useful matter as well as several asides that will have caused great annoyance to some of his contemporaries. However, the book shows that Rye, who did not work as a record agent but was a full-time solicitor whose research took him frequently to the archives, knew well the practical problems involved and noted, for instance, that the early closing (at 2 pm) on Saturdays at the Public Record Office 'is very hard on those who are engaged all the week, and whose only spare time is the Saturday half-holiday', a complaint that was heard for many more years yet to come.
Walter Rye's book, like that by William Phillimore, gives several credits for assistance to Edward Alexander Mercy Fry (1853-1934), then of Edgbaston, already mentioned as the Secretary of the newly formed Parish Register Society and particularly active as the secretary of the British Record Society. For the latter Society's Index Library Fry edited some nineteen volumes between 1896 and 1915. He is described in the census returns, 1881-1901, as a Brazilian merchant but he can have had little time for his business. In 1901 he edited a volume of Wiltshire inquisitions post mortem with George Samuel Fry, CBE (1853-1938),latterly of Hove, who worked at the Board of Trade. There does not seem to be any reason for supposing that they were closely related [492]. George Fry also edited three other Index Library volumes and is known for his calendars and abstracts of Dorset wills and a large collection of Fry family material at the Society of Genealogists of which he was an early, though not a founder, member.
James 'Henry' Lea (1846-1914) of Freeport, Maine, mentioned below, was one of the American researchers sponsored to work in England by the New England Society. In 1904 he had compiled Abstracts of wills, Register 'Soame', 1620 and two years later he produced Genealogical research in England, Scotland and Ireland: a handbook for the student (1906). The short book, drafts of which had earlier appeared in The New England Register, was aimed mainly at the American market, detailing a search for emigrant origins through probate material, and would have been extremely daunting to an overseas visitor, though a useful reference.
H. A. Crofton's How to trace a pedigree (London, 1911; 2nd ed. 1924) was a slight and very general book in a little series of ‘How to’ books ‘For the bibliophile and book-lover’ published at two shillings. I mention it here because it came out in the same year as the Society of Genealogists was founded and, unusually, was written by a woman, though this is not revealed in the book itself where only her initials appear. She was Helen Augusta Maria Crofton an Irish lady who had earlier been inspired by her aunt, Adelia Margery West (nee Slacke, died 1901), to write the little Records of the Slacke family of Ireland (1902) and thus had some personal experience of work at the Registry of Deeds in Dublin. She died at Lisburn, co. Antrim, in 1919, aged 61.
The descendants of families that have emigrated overseas, in the third generation or perhaps after about a hundred years, frequently turn their minds to their emigrant forebears and their ancestries in the 'home country' and Anthony Wagner noted that such enquiries had been made of the heralds in England from families in America since the seventeenth century. It was unfortunate, therefore, that the petition of Garter King of Arms, Sir Edward Walker (died 1677), for a commission to make an heraldic visitation of the American plantations in the 1660s had been unsuccessful [493]. A later Garter, Sir Isaac Heard (1730-1822), had personal connections in America and took a special interest in American families [494], corresponding at some length in the 1790s, as we now know, with George Washington about the latter’s ancestry and arms.
Historical societies were founded in America in the late eighteenth century, the first in Massachusetts in 1791, and the secretary of that in New Hampshire, John Farmer (1789-1838), published the ground breaking A genealogical register of the first settlers on New England (1829). The better known A genealogical dictionary of the first settlers of New England by James Savage (1784-1873) came out in four volumes in 1860-62. The intervening years saw the foundation in Boston of the New England Historic Genealogical Society in 1845 and the commencement of its quarterly New England Historical and Genealogical Register, generally known as the Register, in 1847.
Americans seeking their roots and 'lost fortunes' in the British Isles had thus been a commonplace of the genealogical scene in London and elsewhere for some years. Wilford Woodruff (1807-1898), a miller by trade and latterly President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, did research on his Woodruff ancestry whilst on missions in London in 1840 and 1846 [495]. In 1845 an early member of the New England society, Horatio Gates Somerby (1805-1872), came to England and spent much of the rest of his life here trying to trace the origins of early American settlers, though 'Unhappily he sometimes provided an ancestry for a generous client that later research has failed to verify’ [496]. Indeed, by the 1880s many of his rich clients’ pedigrees were found to be fraudulent [497].
An uncritical approach, coupled with a lack of knowledge of the social background and geography of the British Isles, has made much early (and not a little contemporary) work of this kind by overseas visitors of little value and the false assumptions of early searchers have frequently bedevilled all subsequent attempts to set the record straight. Similarities of name and date, particularly where early migrants are concerned, have seduced many an American into the adoption of false ancestries here, a frequent pitfall for the uninstructed and uncritical beginner in this field, as much then as it is now.
A critical approach was hardly known amongst amateur genealogists in England, let alone amongst its visitors, and there were plenty who would pander to the desires of distant Americans and provide spurious material. The Latter-Day Saints, with desires founded in religion, were easy prey. Perhaps because of this they eventually sought out trusted members of their Church in England to carry out research for other members and the main American societies took to sending over competent searchers of known integrity to explore likely material for emigrant origins. One unscrupulous ‘professional’, William Paver (1802-1871), who had been dismissed from his position in the Probate Registry at York for inserting fabricated wills amongst those proved there, obtained the position of Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths at York, and he and his son, both industrious professionals, conducted a wide correspondence, particularly in America where in 1857 the New England Society published a list of the Yorkshire pedigrees he had available for sale at a dollar a generation [498]. It is possible, however, that Paver’s fabrications, like those of many other genealogists, related mainly to his own ancestry.
Richard Sims remarked in 1861 on ‘the increasing interest displayed by our brethren across the Atlantic in whatever relates to family history and their connection with the old country’ and was amongst the first to draw attention to their labours as of possible interest to genealogists in England, printing lists of the English pedigrees that had already appeared in the first eight volumes of the New England Register, of American local histories containing genealogies, and of the many individual family histories that had been published in America, the first noted being Joseph Sharpless’s Family Record of the Sharples family published at Philadelphia in 1816 [499].
Horatio Somerby was followed to England by Joseph Lemuel Chester (1821-1882), a man of a completely different calibre where genealogy was concerned. Chester was a poet, temperance lecturer, miscellaneous writer and journalist, originally from Norwich, Connecticut, who rose to be a member of the city council of Philadelphia and, although without military service, was given the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, which he always used. He first came to England in 1858 and settled with an English 'wife', Georgiana George (though I have not traced their marriage), in Finsbury, later moving to Bermondsey where he remained until his death [500]. What led him to historical work is not clear but he began to undertake searches in London for clients in America and in 1861 published an account of John Rogers (1505-1555) the Marian proto-martyr from whom his family had, incorrectly as he showed, claimed descent. The next year he obtained permission to search without charge the pre-1700 probate records then at Doctors' Commons where he specialised in the origins of early American settlers. His major works include some 87 large volumes of extracts from parish registers and church notes by county (given to the College of Arms by his executor George Edward Cokayne), a complete transcript of the matriculation register of Oxford University where he received an honorary degree (the register being edited and published in eight volumes by Joseph Foster in 1887-92), extensive extracts from the Bishop of London's marriage licence allegations (also edited by Joseph Foster in 1887), and a splendidly annotated edition of the baptismal, marriage and burial registers of Westminster Abbey (printed in 1876) [501]. Colonel Chester was one of the founders of the Harleian Society and contributed transcripts of several London registers to its published series as well as, with Joseph Jackson Howard, an edition of the Visitation of London 1633-5 (2 vols. 1880-3). His biography in the old Dictionary of National Biography says that when he died in 1882, 'he had no superior as a genealogist amongst English-speaking people'. He is the only genealogist to have a memorial (in the south aisle of the nave) in Westminster Abbey.
In his early days in England Chester employed as a secretary one Harriet Ann Bainbridge (1829-1908), the daughter of a banker in Euston Square, ‘of the ancient house of Bainbridge of Westmoreland, settled there before the Conquest’, or so she claimed [502], whom he recommended to others. Later working on her own account he found that she was confusing, falsifying, and forging records for clients, and he forced her to give up genealogical work. She had, in 1872, married a clerk in the War Office, William John Salis or De Salis, and subsequently became a prolific writer of cookery books [503].
Meanwhile, the London bookseller and publisher John Camden Hotten, who (as noted above) when young had lived for eight years in America and maintained a close connection with the American market, had compiled the first edition of his Original lists of persons of quality, emigrants, religious exiles, political rebels ... and others who went from Great Britain to the American plantations (1874), a book, the first of its kind, which went through several editions. He had finished overseeing the 580-page work at the Public Record Office just a month before his death in June the previous year [504]. To say that some of these 'persons of quality' were minor criminals, in bondage, or living with someone else's wife, would not, of course, have sold the book! The important two manuscript volumes of 'Servants to Foreign Plantations' with 10,000 names for the period 1654-85 were not found at Bristol until 1925, when an American offered £1,000 for the volume that contained his ancestor’s name [505]. Transcribed by the genealogist Reginald Hargreaves-Mawdsley (1891-1970), they were printed as Bristol to America in 1929.
Following Colonel Chester's death in 1882, at the suggestion of a wealthy Bostonian lawyer, John Tyler Hassam and with his financial support, the New England Society decided to provide a small salary to someone in London who would continue his work and it chose Henry FitzGilbert Waters (1823-1913) who had come to England in 1879 and published in 1880 his first 'gleanings' from English records about New England families [506]. As a result, from 1883 to 1899, that Society's Register contained large numbers of extracts from records contributed by Waters, mostly from London repositories and largely as a result of trawling through and making copious extracts from the wills then at Somerset House. These extracts were collected together and reprinted in the 1,643 pages of Genealogical gleanings in England (2 vols. 1901) a work of considerable value for families on both sides of the Atlantic before 1680.
The New England Society continued the work of Chester and Waters into the twentieth century by sponsoring other searchers in England, notably James Henry Lea (1846-1914) who had joined the Society in 1888 and who claimed in 1906 to have spent twenty years doing work in England. In 1904 he had compiled Abstracts of wills, Register 'Soame', 1620 and two years later he produced the short Genealogical research in England, Scotland and Ireland: a handbook for the student, drafts of which had earlier appeared in The New England Register outlining a search for emigrant origins through probate material. His abstraction of wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in the year of the sailing of the Mayflower was, of course, no coincidence. He acknowledged the assistance of George Cokaigne [sic, recte Cokayne], the editor of The Complete Peerage, whom he calls 'the Nestor of English Genealogists'. However, Lea was probably best known for his work on The ancestry of Abraham Lincoln (1909) about which there has been much argument. In it he collaborated with John Robert Hutchinson (1858-1924), the record agent who for several years had been working unsuccessfully on the John Russell who migrated to Boston in 1635 [507]. Lea’s work was continued by George Andrews Moriarty (1882-1968), of Ogunquit, Maine, but he conducted his research by correspondence from America and employed English researchers.
The reading of the wills of persons of the same surname proved both before and after a migrant left England, as Lea advocated, starting with the Prerogative Court, had become the standard way of attempting to find the migrant’s origins but was particularly laborious when the surname was a frequent one. To make or publish abstracts of all the wills proved in a certain year and thus to reveal all the hidden subsidiary names and connections that they contained was a particularly valuable task. Using the Prerogative Court, Samuel Anderson Smith listed in 1893-4 all the names in the wills of West Country persons prior to 1743 (a manuscript that used to be at Somerset House but is now apparently lost), William Brigg printed in 1894-1914 abstracts of half the wills proved in the year 1658 and John Harold Morrison (died 1935) printed in 1934 abstracts of all those in 1630 [508]. Others later made similar abstracts, Mrs A. E. Rowan for 1651, Frederick Simon Snell for large parts of 1699 and 1751, and George Sherwood in 1917 abstracted and published the whole of the 4,382 wills (naming 40,000 people) in 'Register Greenly' for 1750.
Inspired by the gleanings published in New England, The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography began in 1903 to publish a series of 'Virginia Gleanings in England', initially using material extracted by Henry Waters and then by another well-known searcher Lothrop Withington who was killed on the Lusitania in May 1915. The latter had just sent a postcard to George Sherwood saying ‘Will come by the ‘Lusitania’, subject to Kaiser Wilhelm’s consent’ [509]. The series was then entrusted for three years to the genealogist Leo Culleton (mentioned above) and concluded by Reginald Glencross, of whom more will be said, the latter's contributions appearing intermittently in the Virginia Magazine until July 1929 [510].
One cannot talk about the development of genealogy in the United States and its impact on the United Kingdom without considering the part played by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Latter-day Saints believe that baptism, together with the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, is essential to salvation, but that these ordinances are invalid unless performed by priesthood authority. Their Prophet, Joseph Smith (1805-1844), first preached the doctrine of baptism for the dead in August 1840 and members of the Church that he founded immediately began to perform proxy baptisms for their deceased relatives in the Mississippi River. The following year such baptisms were restricted to the temples where endowments could also take place.
Another early doctrine taught that eternal marriage performed by priesthood authority, when linked to the children of that marriage and 'sealed' by temple ordinance, would create family bonds that would last for eternity. Members of the church believe that these endowment and sealing ceremonies are essential for their salvation and, indeed, for that of those who have gone before, for Joseph Smith said, 'The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead' [511].
After many early members of the church moved to Salt Lake City in 1847 proxy endowments were delayed until the completion of the temple at St George in the far south of Utah in 1877, when the nineteen-year old Susa Young, later an early member of the Society of Genealogists in London, was the first to be baptised for the dead. Two days later her father, Brigham Young (1801-1877), the President of the Church, stood proxy for the endowment of his father [512].
Several prominent early church leaders in Utah set an example in searching for family records. The brothers Orson (1811-1881) and Parley Pratt (1907-1857) did so whilst serving a mission in Washington in 1853 and Orson was the first Latter-day Saint to publish a family history. Their families baptised about three thousand of their ancestors. Wilford Woodruff (1807-1898), later President of the Church, did research whilst on missions in London in 1840 and 1846, and Franklin Dewey Richards (1821-1899) gathered records and an extensive library which he eventually sold at cost to the Church Historian's Office, becoming in 1894 the first president of the Genealogical Society of Utah [513]. In 1893 he had astutely advised Mrs Maria Newman, intent on having searches made in England that she should not tell the parish clerk that the information sought was for temple work as that might antagonise him [514].
As the interest in research grew, requests for assistance from missionaries travelling abroad became frequent. An early professional genealogist, Benjamin F. Cummings (died 1899), served two missions within the United States, 1876-78, and visited the New England Society then and again in 1892 when he made an extensive tour of the eastern States to learn about record-keeping systems [515]. By 1893 it is thought that about fifty people were going to Europe each year for genealogical purposes and that there were at least 178 genealogical missionaries, mostly coming from Utah and going to the UK, between 1885 and 1900. One church member who spent some years in London, James B. Walkley (1863-1940), a carpenter and later an engineer in Salt Lake City who had been born in Islington the son of a pastry cook, emigrated in 1883 but returned to London to do genealogical work for others. Perhaps sub-contracting searches, his services were described in the Deseret Evening News in 1892. He charged $1.50 a day for work in the indexes at the General Register Office, where the fees paid added about $6 to the cost of collecting a hundred names. He is credited with being the first to urge leaders of the Church in Utah to organise a society [516] the subsequent history of which is described below.
It has been noted that William Phillimore was a disciple of Francis Galton and interested in the social status of his family, in heredity generally and, of course, in the passing on of the best genes. An interest in the 'science of human betterment' or eugenics was widespread in middle-class progressive minds by the end of the nineteenth century and although the work of Charles Booth had brought recognition that poverty and unemployment were not necessarily the products of hereditary moral shortcomings, many people who thought like Phillimore founded in December 1907 [517] the Eugenics Education Society in London to promote a public awareness of eugenic problems and of the existence of positive and negative hereditary qualities.
Those who bred horses and other farming stock had always placed emphasis on the need for 'good breeding' but genealogists from farming backgrounds and with their roots in the soil would also have known instinctively, as the eminent genealogist Charles Bernau did, that 'many a good cow hath an ill calf' [518], and that there are ups and downs in most families which have nothing to do with genetic defects but have much to do with economic factors and chance. Bernau himself wrote, 'how much more [than royalty] must those of the middle classes expect to find that some of their direct ancestors were poverty-stricken and lived amid squalid surroundings' [519]. However, Bernau was an early member of the Eugenics Education Society, perhaps (one has to say) because it might give him commercial advantage, and he provided that Society with plenty of space in his International Genealogical Directory [520].
The eugenicist Ernest James Lidbetter (1877-1962) [521] had a somewhat different background. Born in Bermondsey in 1877, the son of a prosperous baker and the grandson of a greengrocer, Lidbetter was in 1898 appointed a Relieving Officer for the Hackney Board of Guardians with responsibility for investigating the claims of applicants for relief. He immediately noticed that many of those who came forward for relief did so repeatedly and were often the children and relatives of others in the same situation and he became convinced that this was due to some defect that was hereditary. He was not the first to notice ‘hereditary paupers’ and an article in the Shoreditch Observer under that heading in 1886 drew attention to a case before the Islington Board of Guardians when a man in his eightieth year applied for relief and was recommended the workhouse infirmary. The man’s parents, both nearly a hundred years old, were in receipt of out-door relief. The Board’s chairman remarked that its late clerk, Mr Hicks, used to say that he was able to trace pauper families back for a century or more [522].
When in 1910 a Research Committee of the Eugenics Education Society started an investigation of actual pauper families in the East End of London, Lidbetter and two neighbouring Relieving Officers, using the records of their three workhouses and assisted in the research by some twenty members of his Society, the Research Committee also came rapidly to the conclusion that 'a single family stock produces paupers, feeble-minded, alcoholics and certain types of criminals. If an investigation could be carried out on a sufficiently large scale, we believe that the greater proportion of undesirables would be found connected together by a network of relationship' [523]. Having no doubt in the truth of this statement, he for several years assembled pedigrees of the inter-married families involved and he published articles derived from them. He regarded the families, as Pauline Mazumdar says, almost as a breeding or 'biological isolate rather like the fauna of the Galapagos Islands' [524], but made no attempt to differentiate between conditions that were truly genetic and those that were environmental, let alone quantifying or providing any form of statistical analysis of what he was finding.
The genealogist Charles Bernau had already seen, when looking at documents in his parish church at Walton-on-Thames, that 'the task of tracing a family in the lowest stratum of society will be easier than compiling the pedigree of one in the upper middle class' [525]. Bernau's string of examples from the Walton-on-Thames poor law records, published in his The genealogy of the submerged (1908), were very similar to those used by Lidbetter and included settlement examinations, lists of inmates in the workhouse and a removal order in 1843 which showed four generations of a family. It is thus doubtful that Bernau could have learned from Lidbetter's techniques even if they had been more widely known in genealogical circles. In any case the 'submerged' were not themselves tracing their ancestors and the few genealogists, such as Bernau and Gerald Fothergill, who realised that working-class ancestors might appear in these records would undoubtedly have had problems in gaining access to the record, even if they could have persuaded their clients to pay for such research.
Whatever the reasons, there seems to have been very little overlap between the so-called 'gentlemen genealogists' of the first decade of the twentieth century and the membership of the Eugenics Education Society whose over-riding interests at that time were in propaganda for their cause. Unlike the Society of Genealogists, more than half their members were medical men, scientists and academics and more than half were women [526]. Lidbetter, an early and active member of the Eugenics Education Society (and subsequently a member of its Council and a Fellow), never joined the Society of Genealogists, and the Society seems not to have played any part in the Eugenics Education Society or in the first International Congress of Eugenics held in London in 1912 at which numerous pedigrees were displayed [527]. Even the standardisation of the medical pedigree format, which received much discussion at the time the Society of Genealogists was founded [528], involved no member of the Society. Francis Galton had himself written that, 'There are many methods of drawing pedigrees and describing kinship, but for my own purposes I still prefer those that I designed myself' [529]. In that at least, most genealogists in England were unfortunately agreed! Reporting on a lecture by the statistician David Heron (1881-1969) on ‘The work of the Eugenics laboratory’ in 1909, George Sherwood said that Heron ‘held that the inheritance factor was more important than the infection factor’, but made no further comment [530]. The Society of Genealogists' general lack of interest and involvement in eugenics seems to have continued into the late 1920s when some prominent members led a considerable change in attitude.
The social backgrounds of two well-known genealogists of the period, George Sherwood and Charles Bernau, both of whom subsequently took a leading part in the foundation of the Society of Genealogists, illustrate an important point. They were not, as some have described them, ‘gentlemen genealogists’. They were little more than lower middle class, though perhaps aspiring to higher station. Sherwood himself agreed that a considerable proportion of those who were now beginning to look into their family history, were, as Dr George Marshall used to say, ‘dug up out of the mud’ between 1800 and 1830 [531].
George Frederick Tudor Sherwood was born in Fulham in 1867, the son of a draper, George Albert Sherwood, who came originally from Wallingford in Berkshire and later ran a restaurant in Claverton Street, Pimlico [532], but returned to run a confectioner’s shop at Wallingford [533] before dying at neighbouring Crowmarsh Gifford in 1905 [534]. As a boy George persistently questioned his older relatives about their family history and he had become a record agent before he was twenty [535], continuing to eke out a rather precarious living in that uncertain profession for almost seventy years. His reader's ticket for use in the library at the British Museum was issued to him for life on 29 September 1886 [536]. He had married in 1887 and his wife died the following year. In 1889 he married again and started his ‘Publicity Reference Books’ [537]. He described himself as a record agent in the 1891 census when living with his father-in-law, a stone mason in Fulham [538], and there on summer evenings he copied the inscriptions in the old churchyard (only to find, as so often happened, that they had already been done twice before) [539]. In April 1895, from his father’s then address at 99 Angell Road, Brixton, he put out a pamphlet Sherwood Genealogy describing his collections for what today would be called a one-name study [540]. A few months earlier, when his children were baptised, he was describing himself as a journalist [541].
Most of the genealogical journals in the nineteenth century had printed queries from their subscribers about specific problems, but in 1896 George Sherwood had the idea of soliciting such queries from his friends and correspondents and publishing them in small quarterly booklets which he called Genealogical Queries and Memoranda. He produced seventeen of these between 1896 and 1900. They contained, besides queries, lists of manuscript pedigrees found in public collections and in recently published books. His few editorial comments mention his own collections, the possibility of co-operative searches and the formation of document files by parish, all heralding his later projects.
By 1901 he was calling himself a 'Record Agent - Searcher & Transcriber of Ancient Records and Archives' [542] and deploring the destruction of so many documents. By 1907 he had built up a large collection of old deeds, papers and pedigrees [543], advertising that he undertook the 'cataloguing, calendaring, abstracting, indexing, and arrangement of old charters, deeds, and documents on the system adopted by the Record Office and the Commission on Historical Manuscripts' [544].
George Sherwood had gone to live at Brockley in Kent in 1899 and soon thereafter got to know Charles Bernau, some ten years younger, who lived nearby at Lee. Charles Allan Stephen Bernau (1878-1961) had been born at Lee in 1878 the youngest son of an army agents' clerk born at Berbice in British Guiana [545], his male line coming originally from Stolp near Danzig and his mother's family of Benest from Jersey. His interest in genealogy is said to have been fired by tales of a pirate ancestor that he heard as a boy when visiting his mother’s relatives.
Charles Allan Bernau (who never used the Stephen in his name), a man of considerable energy and ideas, had been educated at the City of London School and in the Black Forest and Switzerland. Following in his father’s footsteps he became a clerk to agents at the then booming Baltic Exchange at St Mary Axe in the City, dealing primarily in grain, though genealogy seems to have taken up a greater part of his time from about 1903 onwards [546]. When twenty-two, the Electoral Register shows him lodging in two furnished rooms on the first and third floors of his father's house at 4 Winn Road, Lee, paying a rent of 10s weekly [547]. His mother had died when he was twelve and his elderly father had married a much younger British woman born at Moscow. Charles himself married in 1901 at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Rosa Emily the daughter of Samuel Bennion, a prosperous printer and stationer at Market Drayton. Rosa had previously assisted in her father's shop and after marriage she involved herself in her husband’s genealogical work. He had contributed an article on the 'Descent of Bernau from the Dukes of Normandy' to the Genealogical Magazine in March 1901 [548] and he later published, with other small pamphlets, his own short family history, Genealogy of the Bernau family of Stolp, in 1906.
Charles Bernau liked to think that he was a 'firm believer in united action in all matters connected with genealogy and heraldry' [549] but he was by no means an easy man to work with. His work with the Directory encouraged him to think of the possibility of forming a society of genealogists and he cast around for support amongst its subscribers so that he might eventually put the idea into practice. A hesitant Sherwood showed some interest in the idea but was doubtful of the level of support that it would receive. In 1905 Sherwood again asked through Notes & Queries what had happened to Rycroft Reeve’s earlier society but receiving no helpful answer, he asked in June 1906 through the same journal, ‘Will a dozen or so students of genealogy join me in forming a club for the making of what, for want of a better term, I will call “consolidated indexes”’. He was optimistically suggesting that a group of people each take one letter of the alphabet and copy onto index slips references from the indexes of any handy historical works, so that one vast index might eventually be made. He did not say if these slips, a standard layout for which he had devised, would be centrally filed or easily accessible [550]. The suggestion again met with no published response. The basic idea, however, remained with Sherwood.
We know that Charles Bernau corresponded with Sherwood in the course of 1906, perhaps as a result of this article, about the possible formation of a society and that they had apparently agreed, as Bernau later wrote, that 'the best policy would be to lead up to the subject by degrees and not to launch the scheme until the genealogical and heraldic public had become accustomed to the idea of international cooperation in their hobby or profession' [551]. Whether the cautious Sherwood was wholeheartedly committed to the ‘international’ ideas that, in view of his background, came naturally to Bernau, is very doubtful.
Sherwood had stopped publishing his series of Genealogical Queries in 1900 but their content may well have given the idea of producing a more substantial volume on an international scale to Charles Bernau who, with the wider circle of correspondents that he was attracting, published in June 1907 from Pendeen, Walton-on-Thames the first edition of an International Genealogical Directory. Quarto in size and with card covers, it sold for 10s 6d, its 113 pages listing the names and addresses of 1,387 correspondents and giving details of the families in which they were interested. In his acknowledgements Bernau wrote that Sherwood had been 'the first to welcome the scheme' and that his 'constant help and advice have been invaluable'. In turn Sherwood wrote that 'no genealogical work of reference of greater general value than this to the ordinary amateur has ever been issued' [552].
Bernau was amongst the first to realise that the professional middle classes who were his clients usually had much humbler ancestry that might also be traced and prove of interest. Between 1908 and 1910 he put out eight small guides to aspects of the subject in a series called The Genealogist's Pocket Library. They sold for 2s 6d each (or 2s 8d post free). The first, Some Special Studies in Genealogy, contained his own essay, The Genealogy of the Submerged, a pioneering work concentrating entirely on the 'common man' and parish chest material, together with essays by Gerald Fothergill on Emigrants to America: how to trace their English ancestry and Josiah Newman on The Quaker Records (1908).
Volume 2 of the series was devoted entirely to George Sherwood's Chancery Proceedings (1908) and volume 3, entitled Royal Descents - Scottish Records, contained W. G. D. Fletcher's How to trace a Descent from Royalty and J. Bolam Johnson's The Scottish Records (1908). George Sherwood had no time for Fletcher’s work, writing that he had ‘an entire absence of enthusiasm as regards this kind of labour, believing that it does genealogical study more harm than good, and that it fosters insufferable snobbery’ [553]. Volume 4 was Alfred Stapleton's The churchyard scribe (1908) with sections 'On recording the inscriptions in a churchyard or burial ground', 'Hints on reading apparently illegible inscriptions' and 'Typical and authentic examples'. Volume 5 consisted of William Bradbrook's From the Records of Quarter Sessions, Percy Rushen's The Records of Patented Inventions, and Perceval Lucas's Seize Quartiers and Ascending Pedigrees (1909). In the sixth volume William Saunders dealt with Ancient Handwritings and Percy Rushen provided The Genealogist's Legal Dictionary (1909). The seventh volume consisted of William Bradbrook's The Parish Register (1910) and the eighth of Gerald Fothergill's, The Records of Naval Men (1910).
Meanwhile in June 1907 Sherwood had begun publishing a well-printed quarterly periodical, The Pedigree Register at 2s 6d an issue, in which he printed a variety of nicely laid out tabular pedigrees based on documentary evidence. To him ‘a pedigree is the thing’ and ‘a little pedigree chart instantly appeals to all interested in the subject’ [554]. Certainly a drop-line pedigree has never been bettered for quickly communicating a relationship. The Pedigree Register was initially published from 50 Beecroft Road, Brockley, to which he had moved in 1899 and where his main collections were now housed, but soon afterwards he took a small office at 227 The Strand, which, if the drawing in his advertisement in the International Genealogical Directory (1909) is anything to go by, was quickly lined from floor to ceiling with bookcases and box files. His room in the Strand first appeared in the London Post Office Directory as the 'Pedigree Register Office' in 1910 and an advertisement in the 1909 Directory, 'Documents to Prove', illustrates the wide variety of work that he carried out. Down one side it read, 'Documents to prove biography, genealogy, family & local history, hereditary succession, family traits, and the influence of heredity and character, succession of incumbents, etc.' and down the other, 'Documents to prove pedigrees and the right to armorial bearings. The 'pedigrees' of old houses and land, as well as of people. Fishery, foreshore, and common rights, markets, fairs, etc.'
At the same time Sherwood advertised that items from his ‘Loan Collection of Old Deeds’, listed from 1907 in the Register, could be borrowed by subscribers in return for a postal order for half-a-crown (2s 6d) which would be 'devoted to improving the Collection' [555]. In 1909 he purchased 5,183 vellum documents from the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps but announced that the system of lending them out had not worked well and had been abandoned though subscribers to the Register might call and see anything of interest [556]. In his September 1908 issue he had published an early article on 'Criminal Records' and a contributor, Dr William Bradbrook, asked for information about any person of his su name before 1800 'however humble their position or shady their conduct' [557]. As Charles Bernau wrote in 1910 Sherwood allowed 'both Pauper and Prince free access to his pages' [558].
Bernau's family and school background no doubt played a part in his belief that any society brought into being should be international in character, but that belief proved quite unrealistic. A Convention Internationale d'Héraldique had been constituted in Basle, Switzerland, on the last day of December 1907, and in correspondence with its Vice-Chancellor, Rene Droz, on 3 September 1908, Bernau wrote that his International Genealogical Directory, which had just been brought to the attention of the Congrés Universal des Sciences Auxiliares de l'Histoire in Berlin, already had the official recognition of the Office of Arms in Dublin Castle and the semi-official recognition of the College of Arms in London [559]. This was a considerable exaggeration for, as Sir Anthony Wagner later wrote, the officers of the College of Arms, 'took a dim view' of the professionals who had founded the Society 'as an organisation of would-be rivals' [560], and it was some time before the College became reconciled to the idea, apparently on the understanding that any new society would not undertake large scale paid research [561]. Rene Droz, who believed that genealogy was more 'positive' and 'practical' than heraldry, had replied to Bernau proposing an international society for both subjects, but Bernau, in his answer of 10 September 1908, continued to think that the time was 'not yet ripe' for the formation of such a group.
In any case, Bernau was far too busy sending out circulars about his Directory to give detailed consideration to the idea. He told Droz in that 10 September 1908 letter that his plan was to bring out three editions of the Directory in which he would lead up to the idea of a society by degrees and that he would broach the idea of an international one in his third edition. However, he sketched out a few initial thoughts saying that the annual subscription should either be a nominal one of a shilling or two-and-sixpence, or that it should be a heavy one of from one to five guineas to pay for secretary, offices and a library. He thought that members might pay the smaller fee and Fellows the higher one. Ignoring the existence of Sherwood's Pedigree Register, he suggested that his own Directory should be the projected society's official organ [562]. He wrote again a week later stressing a role that county secretaries might play in such a scheme, believing that the use of local figures, such as Maxwell Wood in Northumberland and Durham and William Gerish in Hertfordshire, with their established connections and friendships, would lead to the proposed society obtaining many members in their areas [563].
Bernau persuaded the Convention Internationale d'Héraldique that the Second Edition of his International Genealogical Directory, which was published in March 1909 (again at 10s 6d), should be called the Convention's ‘Official Organ’. It was larger, with 166 pages and 1,381 subscribers, and was immediately followed in April by a First Supplement (at 3s 10d post free) consisting solely of an index to places, compiled by George Sherwood. Like more recent directories of the same kind the International Genealogical Directory was designed to bring together persons interested in the same ancestral families to share research and to avoid duplication [564]. Early in 1910 Sherwood wrote warmly that the organised approach of Bernau’s Directories was helping to remove the reproach that Genealogy was ‘neither Literature nor Science’ [565].
However, Bernau was finding all the work involved a considerable strain and instead of aiming for a third edition he in February 1910 produced a Second Supplement to the Second Edition containing reviews and correspondence as well as amendments to the First Edition and details of the interests of 83 new subscribers, of which he now had about 2,250. In a review of Sherwood's Pedigree Register, Bernau called it 'in a sense, the first-born of the children of the "I. G. Directory"', but as both had first appeared in the same month in June 1907 that seems hardly fair. In the correspondence Charles Fortescue Osmond (1877-1966) called for 'An official register of professional genealogists' and Sherwood appealed 'For those with time to spare' to consider the transcription of parish registers. The volume's index included the surnames of the families for which Sherwood held material that could be consulted in his office.
For those who could read French the Second Supplement to the Second Edition contained, in a report of the work of the Convention dated 1 December 1909, the surprising news that Bernau, who for some years had set himself a heavy workload, had intended that his third edition would be aimed at the rest of Europe, but unfortunately he had seen his health shaken by the onset of a lengthy illness and complete rest had been prescribed. The Convention regretted that his retirement had placed in question his stated aim to found an 'Association Généalogique et Héraldique Internationale' of which his Directory was to be the organ, and it announced that as a result it would look anew at participation in a proposed meeting of the Congrés Universal des Sciences Auxiliares de l'Histoire in London in 1913 [566].
Bernau's English introduction to his Directory had curiously avoided any mention of this turn of events. Perhaps he had realised the impracticality of what he was attempting and that the correspondence involved in a truly 'European' Directory would be considerable. Perhaps he also realised that the numbers of those in England with an interest in European ancestry was small indeed. In a note on page xlv of the Directory he reckoned that there were 30,000 persons in Great Britain interested in genealogy and that his directories had reached only 5-8% of them. How he calculated the first figure is not clear but he appealed for benefactors to come forward so that he could send free copies of the Directory to public libraries and reach a wider readership. One assumes that that appeal fell on very deaf ears.
Whatever the truth behind Bernau's actions, the slow developments in Basle were already being overtaken by events in London where another periodical, Notes & Queries, was playing its part in steps leading to the formation of a society in England and, as a result, the 'international' or 'universal' dimension was largely forgotten. Since its first appearance in 1849 many antiquaries and local historians had used Notes & Queries to publicise their schemes and projects and to lobby for access to records. In the early 1890s Mrs C. A. White had written a note there, between other notes on 'Cuckoos walled in' and 'Quicksilver in Plants', about the need to make and publish catalogues of manuscripts in private hands [567]. A little later William McMurray (1881-1945), a regular contributor, wrote about access to the old ecclesiastical probate records then at Somerset House [568]. In March 1910 William Blyth Gerish (1864-1921), a well-known antiquary in Hertfordshire, urged through its pages the importance of copying tombstone inscriptions [569], and wrote again the same month appealing for assistance with his proposed Dictionary of Hertfordshire Biography.
Gerish would undoubtedly have seen the letter from W. V. Morten of The Drive, Roundhay, Leeds, which appeared in Notes & Queries on 9 April 1910 [570], about an article in the Quarterly Review again calling attention to the desirability of preserving national archives and records. Mr Morten said that he was honorary secretary of a society for collecting, indexing, and properly arranging the old and current records of the Civil Service, though most of those he had obtained related to the Post Office. The writer was Walter Victor Morten (1862-1942), a telephone and post office worker, whose large collection, sold in the 1920s, was the basis of the archive now at Bruce Castle Museum, the former home of Sir Rowland Hill, in Haringey.
In a footnote to Morten’s suggestion the editor of Notes & Queries drew attention to the earlier letters and said that he was 'in full sympathy with such laudable effort to preserve and make known the memories of the past' [571]. There are always those, of course, who can see no reason why papers in private custody should become, as other correspondents put it, 'the property of the mob' or of 'the curious incompetent' [572], but Gerish wrote off immediately. He had himself been instrumental in the founding of the East Herts Archaeological Society and his books and pamphlets had received kind notices in the journal of the New England Historic Genealogical Society in far-away Boston as well as in Sherwood's The Pedigree Register. His letter appeared in Notes & Queries on 23 April 1910:
'This is doubtless an excellent project, but there seems to be room in this kingdom for a society similar in several respects to the New England Historic Genealogical Society. For instance, the increasing quantity of genealogical memoranda, both privately printed and in manuscript, has no habitat; and if a society did no more, in return for a moderate subscription, than secure a permanent repository, it would not have been founded in vain. Many of us have collected material for a history of our families, which, when the last summons comes, will most probably be destroyed; but if there were a society in existence, a clause in the collector's will would ensure the MSS being handed over to it. Perhaps Mr C. A. Bernau, as a genealogical expert, would favour us with his opinion' [573].
Bernau's reply was given prominence under the heading 'A genealogical society for the United Kingdom' in the issue of Notes & Queries for 21 May 1910 [574]. He said that he had received scores of letters on the subject in the last few years and he gave a summary of the various points that he said had been made in them. These points largely reflect his own overly optimistic views, and it is interesting that he now seemed to attach little importance to his original ideas about an international organisation. He wrote:
Bernau added as his own suggestion the idea that as expenses would be incurred in preparing a suitable scheme 'and submitting it to the many thousands in the United Kingdom who are interested in genealogy' they should form a preliminary society of about fifty genealogists to do this, they each paying a guinea towards the costs, a circular from fifty persons proving, as he wrote, that the scheme was not 'what is vulgarly called "a one-man show"'.
A month later the cautious George Sherwood set out his views [575]. He thought that the organisation needed a good name, suggesting 'The National Genealogical Society', a name actually adopted by a newly formed Washington-based organisation in America in 1912, but he made the interesting observation that there were many people who were deeply interested in local history, but for whom the word 'genealogy' had no attraction. He added, 'We must needs impress upon this class that genealogy implies no more (and no less), than the discovery of what their own personal blood-relationship may be to scenes, places, and events, and the men and women who took part in them - that a pedigree is not, as commonly supposed, an affair of mere vaingloriousness and pretence'.
Sherwood firmly believed that the society should not be a printing society, but one devoted to collecting and indexing. He saw its primary function as being the compilation 'of one great Index to genealogical, biographical, and local documents, on the Card Index system'. He too wanted a register of experts and of competent record-searchers in various parts of the country to whom enquiries could be passed, suggesting that these be elected by the Fellows. He ended, 'The ideal which such a society should set before it is the ready production, to any inquirer, of a body of direct reference to documentary evidence concerning any place or family in the kingdom'.
Shortly after this, in June 1910 [576], Bernau and Sherwood got together with three of their friends and fellow genealogists: Gerald Fothergill, Edgar Francis Briggs and Dr William Bradbrook. Edgar Briggs (1853-1928), the son of a merchant in Denmark Street, Bishopsgate, lived at Holmwood, Weybridge, and was a partner in the legal firm of Arnold and Henry White of Great Marlborough Street which subsequently, as mentioned later, was involved in the drawing up of the Society’s constitution, continuing to advise the Society on legal matters and to keep an eye on legal points which would affect genealogists. Not known to many members, he was of a retiring disposition, but he did some indexing, in particular the tedious slipping of the four-volume Armory compiled by a nineteenth-century herald painter, Joseph Eedes (1821-1891), which Briggs had himself loaned to the Society [577] . When younger and managing clerk to his firm he had shown himself remarkably gullible in loans totalling £3,500 which he and his wife had made to an impostor Emir Hafiz [578].
Dr William Bradbrook (1859-1940), the son of a pawnbroker in Bethnal Green who was also the local Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, was for 47 years a general medical practitioner at Bletchley and a man of great energy who became a pillar of the new Society, remaining a member of the Executive Committee for the next twenty years. He had learned to ride a bone-shaker in 1875 and for 60 years he cycled about to practise his hobbies of church architecture and heraldry. An enthusiastic inquirer and accurate recorder in remarkable variety he copied numerous registers and was Honorary Secretary of the Buckinghamshire Parish Register Society, writing one of the earliest articles, in the British Medical Journal, about the analysis of parish registers for statistical purposes [579].
In August the five (Sherwood, Bernau, Fothergill, Briggs and Bradbrook) sent out a prospectus asking for fifty 'Founders and Fellows' to come forward and provide a fund to cover the cost of incorporating the proposed society [580]. They began to keep an account of their outgoings on printing and stationery on 2 July 1910 [581].
Two of the young men who came forward had already offered their support through the pages of Notes & Queries [582]. They were William Roberts Crow (1878-1962), of Wallington, Surrey, and Richard Holworthy (1887-1961) [583], of Bickley, Kent, later an active professional genealogist. Holworthy had been born in Australia but lived when young at Bromley with his grandfather, an Australian merchant who had been born in Holland, and he was educated at a boarding school at Harpenden [584]. In 1911 he had just set up house with his first wife Grace Emily at Cromarty, Claremont Road, Bickley, and was describing himself as an importer of Canary Island produce. Crow came from a family of timber merchants at Bramley Hill, South Croydon and was himself in that trade [585]. Both Crow and Holworthy became Founder Fellows and were on committees in the early days of the Society, though Crow resigned his membership in 1920. Richard Holworthy's letter to Notes & Queries had made it clear that he did not think that the society should be a 'Syndicate' or Limited Company and it was not the only time that he and Bernau would disagree.
Gerish, whose letter had forced the pace and been the catalyst in all this, played no part in the foundation. He was active enough in Hertfordshire and his health was not good. In any case he would not have been pleased by Bernau's statement that the funds of the proposed society should not be 'wasted' in dinners or excursions for he liked few things more than a good excursion, in the organisation of which he excelled [586]. An indefatigable antiquarian, he travelled daily to London to work as a clerk in the London Provincial Bank, but at the same time organised the copying of the inscriptions on some 70,000 tombstones in 131 Hertfordshire churchyards, wrote numerous pamphlets on the county's folklore, indexed a large number of un-indexed works and embarked on several major biographical projects, as well as organising some forty-nine excursions for the East Herts Archaeological Society. His train journeys from Bishops Stortford were devoted to writing index slips. Though born in London, the only child of an engineer, he had been brought up at Gorleston, near Great Yarmouth, and in 1915 he retired to nearby Caister-on-Sea where he continued his local researches, dying there in 1921, aged 56 [587].
In a letter dated 7 October 1910 Bernau told the historian and biographer Lady Elizabeth Cust (1830-1914) that the new organisation was to be called 'The Society of Genealogists of London' in imitation of the Society of Antiquaries of London and that forty-three people had already enrolled themselves as Founders [588]. Bernau wanted Lady Elizabeth (the wife of the barrister Sir Reginald Cust and author of Some account of the Stewarts of Aubigny and Records of the Cust family) [589] to be a Vice-President. She declined but agreed to become a Founder and Fellow. Bernau was already taking subscriptions for the following year [590].
In late November 1910, after the Marquis of Tweeddale (1826-1911) had accepted the Presidency and the Marquis de Liveri et di Valdausa a Vice-Presidency, Bernau wrote to the latter that 'the Fifty Founders were obtained almost immediately' and that they were now hard at work electing the eleven members of an Executive Committee and preparing the Memorandum and Articles of Association. William Montagu (Hay),10th Marquis of Tweeddale, had succeeded to the peerage in 1878 and had various commercial and banking interests but does not appear to have been previously connected with the world of genealogy. He was already old and he died on 25 November 1911.
Rene Droz of the Convention, whom Bernau approached about a Vice-Presidency in December 1910, declined, but Napoleone Barone, Marquis de Liveri et di Valdausa, the author of the Libro d'Oro della Republica di San Marino [591], accepted. He was interested in heraldry, orders of knighthood, and coins and medals [592], had married at Lambeth in 1882 and had a house at Dulwich [593]. A second Vice-President was found in Lord Llangattock (1837-1912), a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a restorer of churches in Monmouthshire, but he also died in September 1912 [594].
On 27 November 1910 Bernau wrote enthusiastically to George Latimer Apperson (1857-1937), the editor of The Antiquary, asking if he wanted to be the first to announce that 'this important new Society will be incorporated at the end of December, if not before' [595]. However, in January 1911, when The Antiquary reported that a Society 'was taking shape' [596] Bernau in fact still awaited the approval of the Board of Trade. William Gerish had seen the report and wrote to Bernau on 3 January saying, 'I observe in The Antiquary that you have practically succeeded in floating the proposed Society of Genealogists. Please accept my congratulations', but as noted above he resisted any involvement in the Society that, as Bernau generously acknowledged in reply, 'started as a result of your letter to Notes and Queries' [597].
However, there were obstacles still to be overcome. On 15 February 1911 a formal notice, dated 7 February, was inserted in The Times over Sherwood's signature stating that an application had been made to the Board of Trade for a licence to omit the word 'Limited' from the Society's name. The notice set out the objects of the proposed Society as the promotion of the study of genealogy and topography through the formation of a library and safe depository for pedigrees, grants of arms, and other manuscripts and 'by forming and carrying on, either gratis or on payment of fees, a register or registers of pedigrees, grants of arms, birth, baptism, marriage, death, burial and other certificates, and other evidence of events in family history' [598].
It was this latter paragraph and the possibility of the growth of a rival commercial concern that gave the College of Arms concern. Pressure was brought to bear and the offending wording about the registration of pedigrees was considerably altered to read, 'By the preparation and use of indices, on the 'slip' or 'card' or other systems, to the printed or other collections of or in the possession of the Society to public records, printed volumes generally, and general sources of reference, particularly with regard to matters of genealogical, archaeological, topographical or historical interest to Members and Associates of the Society, and also by the acquisition and use of Government publications, including indices and reports of the Public Record Office and reports of Royal Commissions'. To this verbose paragraph was also added, 'By rendering assistance (other than of a financial nature) to genealogists and others, whether within or without the United Kingdom, in connection with genealogical, topographical and biographical research' [599].
Honour was thus satisfied, but everything had taken longer than the impatient Bernau had anticipated and it was not until 25 April 1911 that the seven subscribers set their names to the Memorandum of Association and not until 8 May 1911 that the Society was incorporated under licence of the Board of Trade as an 'Association not for profit', with permission, dated 26 April 1911, to be registered with Limited Liability but without the addition of the word 'Limited' to its name.
The seven subscribers to the Memorandum were Charles Bernau and George Sherwood, 'publishers of genealogical works', Gerald Fothergill and Frank Kearsey Hitching, 'authors of genealogical works', two solicitors - Cyril Shakespear Beachcroft (1885-1917) and Edgar Francis Briggs (1853-1928), and a barrister, Frank Evans (1850-1921) [600]. The names of the Founders and Fellows and of the first members of the Society were set out in the Articles of Association. Cyril Beachcroft, a Lieutenant in the Household Battalion with two very young children, was killed on active service in Belgium in October 1917. Frank Kearsey Hitching (1883-1926),another young friend formerly from Lewisham, and Frank Evans, who for many years was a member of the Law Reporting Staff of The Times and was the author of The Practice of the Chancery Division, but who had an accident in 1919 [601], both allowed their memberships to lapse.
The constitution, which closely followed Bernau's original suggestions, was drawn up by the barrister Frank Evans [602] but knocked into shape by Edgar Francis Briggs, a partner in the firm of Arnold and Henry White of 12 & 14 Great Marlborough Street, and described by Sherwood as of 'a retiring disposition' [603]. Sir Henry White (died 1922) was, as Charles Bernau proudly told Rene Droz [604], the King's private solicitor, and he became a subscribing member. The cost of incorporation had been £43 15s. 9d. The Antiquary gave the new organisation a warm welcome in its issue for July 1911 saying that it 'starts under excellent auspices and deserves success' [605].
However, Bernau's dream of an international organisation had proved quite unrealistic. Of the Founders and Fellows and thirteen members named in the Articles, the Marquis de Liveri et di Valdausa was the only European, though Eduardo Hillman, born in Chile, lived in Venice. Henry Boddington, of Pownall Hall in Cheshire, sometimes gave an address in France, two members lived in Scotland and two in Ireland. There were two Americans, the Revd Joseph Brown Turner, the Minister of the First Presbyterian Church at Dover, Delaware, a Founder and Fellow and a noted collector of genealogies, and Mrs William Gerry Slade (1847-1925), of New York City, an obsessive promoter of patriotic societies in America. She and Lady Elizabeth Cust were the only women named.
George Sherwood had acted as Honorary Secretary since at least January 1911 [606] and his little office high up in a modern building at 227 The Strand became the first home of the Society. As he later wrote the Society 'started in my small office in the Strand with a pile of books on the floor' [607]. His 'Room 22' was described as the Society's 'Temporary Office' on the letterhead whilst negotiations for a room or rooms elsewhere continued [608]. Henry Mayhew (1812-1887), the author of the classic social survey, London Labour and the London Poor, had been at No 227 The Strand in 1852, and later a building on the site had housed the 'Army and Navy Toilet Club' which in 1883 was offering hot and cold baths at a shilling each.
The Society's rooms were very conveniently situated above the Temple Bar Restaurant and facing the Law Courts in the heart of the legal district. They were within easy walking distance of the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane. Quite nearby, in the other direction, Somerset House contained the old and new probate records as well as the General Register Office. The character of the busy shop-lined Strand had changed greatly in recent years with wide scale 'improvements' but it still had many small hotels and boarding houses in its riverside lanes [609].
The Antiquary helpfully gave an encouraging report of the Society's first annual meeting, held at the recently restored Prince Henry's Room at 17 Fleet Street (opposite the end of Chancery Lane and one of the few buildings in the City to survive the Great Fire) on Thursday, 29 June 1911, at 5.30 pm, with Dr William Bradbrook in the chair, saying that 'a considerable number of printed books, original documents, manuscripts, and index slips, had been received'. At the meeting accounts were presented covering the period from 2 July 1910 to 15 June 1911 which showed a balance of £2-6-4, some £131-5-0 having been received in subscriptions. It was announced that 97 Fellows, Members and Associates had been elected since the first meeting of the Provisional Committee in June 1910 and that the Society was in negotiations for a room or rooms in which to place them [610]. These concluded on 25 August when two rooms at the same address became available [611]. the cost of the furniture and fittings being £42-11-7 and the rent, to Messrs Spencer, Santo & Co, to the end of the year, £21-1-11 [612]. A further Ordinary General Meeting of the Society was held at Prince Henry’s Rooms on Friday, 28 June 1912, when the accounts for the half-year 15 June to 31 December 1911 were approved [613].
By mid-August 1911 the membership had risen to 114 [614] and George Sherwood was able to announce in September that his Pedigree Register had been appointed the official organ of the Society [615] though, of course, it was not included in the annual subscription and those members who wished to receive it paid a further 10s 6d direct to Sherwood. A possible rival for the honour had withdrawn when Charles Bernau wrote in an introductory note to the Third Supplement of the Second Edition of his International Genealogical Directory which had come out earlier that year, 'Now that the Society of Genealogists of London has come into being, I feel that future Editions of this work will be unnecessary'. Bernau had grown tired of the work and the heavy correspondence involved and wrote that if a successor could be found 'his lot will not be a pleasant one'. A successor might make hundreds of good friends but, 'A tired brain and no spare time from one year's end to another is what he may expect'.
Bernau may well have found also that a subscriber to one edition would not necessarily subscribe to the next and that those actually willing to part with the cost of a subscription were far fewer than he had thought. His Third Supplement, published from Billiter Square Buildings in the City, had only eighty-four new subscribers and it contained a report of a far from satisfactory meeting of the Convention International d'Héraldique held at Lausanne on 5 September 1910 [616]. There had been a lively two-hour discussion but almost no agreement on any subject, though a Commission généalogique had been proposed and the journal of the Société Suisse d'Héraldique, Archives Héraldiques Suisses, had been adopted as the Convention's official organ. Bernau chose to ignore this latter snub and continued to call his Third Supplement the official organ of the Convention. However, he had given up all idea of producing another Directory; he turned his attention to financially more productive ventures and his surviving papers contain no further mention of the Convention or its Commission [617].
In spite of the work of Frank Evans and Edgar Briggs, the Society's first constitution, which remained in force for many years, caused a number of problems, particularly as the organisation grew. It allowed for Fellows, Members and Associates.
The fifty original Founders and Fellows paid two guineas a year, half their first annual subscriptions going to defray the preliminary expenses of the Society. They were a slowly diminishing number. The last survivor was Charles Henry ('Harry') Clinton Pirie-Gordon of Buthlaw, born in 1883, whose varied career included a period as editor of Burke's Landed Gentry (1930-36) when preparing for the 1937 Centenary Edition, who did not die until 8 December 1969 [618].
The Founders and Fellows (and future Fellows) were empowered to elect from amongst the membership new 'Fellows by Election' at meetings at which the quorum was three, but no guide as to the qualifications of these new Fellows was provided. This vagueness was bound to cause future problems and the somewhat questionable honour of election was, in any case, offset by an increase in subscription from one to two guineas. A Fellow could compound all future subscriptions by paying ten guineas and thus become a Life Fellow. Although not envisaged in the constitution, the first Honorary Life Fellow, elected on 7 September 1911, was the Revd Edward Cookson, of Ipswich, Suffolk (died 1920, aged 87)[619], a local record searcher who had given 180,000 completed index slips to the Society [620]. Already by 1913 there were doubts as to the ‘qualifications’ of the Fellows and the Secretary wrote in the Society’s second Annual Report that ‘a Member cannot now be elected a Fellow until he has been a Member for a year, and has shown himself to be a valuable Member’ [621] but that decision, whoever made it, was quickly forgotten, being contrary to the constitution.
Applications to be Ordinary Members had to be supported by two existing members or Fellows to whom they were personally known. They paid a guinea a year but they could compound all future subscriptions by paying seven guineas and becoming Life Members.
The Members and Fellows had access to the library, but initially under the Articles only the Fellows could borrow (an unspecified number of) printed books. In addition the Fellows were entitled to receive quarterly reports of any new information that arrived on a specified number of families or places. Their number was to be specified by the Executive Committee and was agreed to be ten [622]. Reports were made on a simple 'Reporting Form' that gave the name of the contributor and the place where the material was to be found (index slip, document or bound volume of manuscripts) followed by the surname or place-name and the date. No correspondence could be entered into about the report but a member not able to look up the entry could pay a fee of five shillings and ask 'The Officer in Waiting' (a fancy designation borrowed from the College of Arms) for details [623]. In September 1918 it was announced that the Executive Committee had decided that ‘for the future Fellows may borrow two books at a time, and Members one book, from the Library’. Books could be kept for a week, postage both ways being paid by the borrower [624]. However, no appropriate alteration was made to the Articles and the Members’ right to take books from the Library was long questioned by the Fellows, particularly if they had travelled some distance in the expectation that the book(s) would be available.
Besides the Members and Fellows there were also Associate Members, paying a guinea a year. Those Associates who had their principal place of residence 'distant at least 25 miles from the centre on the level of Trafalgar Square of the Nelson Column in that Square' paid only ten shillings and sixpence a year and were called Corresponding Associates. The Associates, who were not deemed members of the Society, also needed two nominees. They had the same privileges as members, but did not have the right to vote at meetings or the financial liability should the Society be wound up. No further associate members were elected following the major changes to the Articles in 1979.
By 1918 those Members who joined late in a year were allowed to pay a proportion of the current year, reckoned from the last quarter day, provided they paid their subscriptions for the following year in advance [625].
The curious 25-mile radius, which was later adopted as the qualification for Country Membership, had been copied from other societies but was a perpetual source of annoyance and argument. It caused considerable ill will, with people at different ends of the same road who used the same railway station paying different subscriptions or quoting the mileage as it appeared in some Road Book and disputing the very large-scale map, with its appropriate circle, that we were obliged to commission especially from Geographia. The map hung in the office until joyously taken down in 1997 when future elections to country membership were abolished, much simplifying my successor’s work.
Bernau was, it seems, also largely responsible for the administrative structure of the Society. The eleven members of the first Executive Committee were named in the Articles of Association. The Committee met in the Society’s rooms initially on the first Thursday in each month, changing this to the second Wednesday from February 1912, usually at 2 pm, the Fellows meeting afterwards at 3.30 pm.
By August 1911 three sub-committees (on parish registers, the Consolidated Index and on family associations) were actively at work [626], and on 2 November 1911 a large number of members was elected to serve on sub-committees, the Secretary being directed to take steps towards their formation [627]. By the end of the year fourteen sub-committees had been developed, each with chairmen, but not all with members willing to act as their secretaries. There were five for the Library alone (one each for printed books, manuscript books, loose documents, the slip-indexes by name and place, and the slip-index by subject), and others for heraldry, pedigrees, monumental inscriptions, parish registers and marriage licences, school and apprenticeship records, family bibles, local records, and family associations.
Details of these committees were all set out in an elaborate 43-page prospectus, of which a thousand copies were printed in January 1912. There were then 161 members [628]. The prospectus stressed that the function of the new society was 'to collect, index, and arrange historical, genealogical, and heraldic evidence, for the use of its members and associates, and to notify to its Fellows, as it accrues, material of special personal interest to themselves' [629]. It reiterated that this was to be accomplished through the compilation of slip indexes and that it was particularly opposed to printing and distributing record material in the manner of the older record societies.
By the end of 1913 two more committees had been added, for Irish and Scottish records, so that there were now sixteen, but it is very apparent from the Annual Report that only a few of the major ones were meeting regularly and several, desperate for volunteers, had not met at all [630].
For the Company Seal the Society adopted a design by the artist-member James 'Duncan' Moul (1864-1927) [631] of a tree showing some of its roots and dropping a leaf and although this was not, I think, one of his more successful works it was used as a Badge on the Society's membership cards (apparently first introduced and sold for a shilling in 1922) [632] and other publications until 1961.
Sherwood took the lead as Secretary of the Society from 1911 to 1914 and had the solicitor Edgar Briggs as Treasurer from 1911 to 1915 when Sherwood took over as Treasurer and continued in that role, not altogether successfully, until 1951. He took the view that if the Society kept its head above water and had enough income to pay the rent that was sufficient and that it did not need to build up reserves. It was a policy that almost had the most disastrous consequences.
However, in the early days it was usually Sherwood or the chairman of one of the committees who took the initiatives or wrote to the press, though other members, like William Bradbrook, Frederick Snell and the barrister Reginald Glencross (1878-1944) who had been Assistant Secretary to Sir Arthur Vicars, Ulster King of Arms, and an assistant to the editor of Dod's Peerage in 1906 [633], were also very active. Snell had been a schoolmaster in Africa but came to Colindale in north London to indulge his antiquarian interests in 1906. He was a regular attender at committees and spent much time as secretary to that on the Consolidated Index but although of great energy he suffered much ill-health and died in 1914 [634]. The chairmen of the executive committee only emerge as active in the mid-1920s.
Of the paid staff several came from the Lewisham area and were clearly recruited either by George Sherwood, Charles Bernau or the Revd Ernest Salisbury Butler Whitfield (1872-1943). Charles Bernau himself later employed quite a number of young ladies in his growing genealogical practice. Frank Ellis Price (1860-1948), a professional genealogist who for twenty-five years had been a herald-painter at the College of Arms [635] and also lived at Lee in Lewisham, acted as the first, and unpaid, Librarian until 12 October 1912 when he resigned [636]. He had been described as the Librarian-Secretary in August 1912 when a clerk was engaged to assist him [637]. The detailed prospectus of the Society printed in 1912 says explicitly that all the completed indexing slips were to be passed to the Librarian for sorting into the Consolidated Index, assisted if necessary by the Members [638], but the Annual Report for 1912 says that ‘the actual sorting-in of slips’ for the Great Card Index was being done almost entirely by the regular staff [639]. One wonders how congenial they would have found regular work of this kind. In January 1912 steps were first taken to install a telephone [640].
Sherwood came to his office from Brockley almost every day and on 20 May 1912 Bernau told the editor of The Antiquary that Sherwood was 'ready to receive contributions for the library at that address' [641]. On 22 September 1912 Miss Bradfield was engaged to assist the particularly active Parish Register Committee [642].
The young Ivy Constance Woods (1893-1971), only daughter of a solicitor's clerk at Shepherd's Bush, was appointed temporary Librarian-Secretary from 31 October 1912 [643] but continued in the post only until March 1914, the sum of £117-11-3 being paid in salaries in 1913. She had acted as Secretary to the inactive Committee on Records of Migration when it met in November 1913 [644] and had become a member of the Society in April that year [645]. In June she had written to The Times in support of a plea for more indexes to the PCC wills [646]. She married at Shepherds Bush in 1917 wealthy Edward Meynell (died 1931), a solicitor some thirty years her senior and himself a member since December 1912, but neither retained their membership. She had no children and died at Southend-on-Sea in 1971 aged 77.
Ivy Woods had been succeeded as Secretary in April 1914 by another lady who lived at Lewisham (though born in Liverpool), the recently married Grace Mary de Mouilpied (nee Councell; 1886-1968), the wife of Alfred de Mouilpied an Inspector of Schools for the London County Council who was originally from Jersey. She, however, left early in 1915 to have a baby, and only the services of an Assistant Secretary were retained. In the difficult War years another young lady, Constance Margaret Victoria Agnew (1897-1990), the daughter of a photographic expert at Ilford in Essex, was the Assistant in April 1916. She was appointed Secretary in June 1917, but resigned with the end of the War in sight on 1 November 1918, marrying Douglas Abbott in 1923 [647].
The rooms were, from October 1911, open from 11 am to 7 pm, Monday to Saturday [648], but from June 1914 they closed on Saturdays at 4 pm [649], the front door being closed on that day at 2.30 and members ringing the bell [650]. By 1918 the hours were 10 am to 6 pm, the rooms closing at 4 pm on Saturdays and on Bank Holidays [651] and those hours continued until August 1928 when the rooms were kept open for a trial period until 8 pm on Tuesdays and until 6 pm on Saturdays [652]. This trial period lasted until the move to Chaucer House in 1933 when the late openings on Tuesdays had to be discontinued. In August 1912 it was agreed that members might attend on the days of the monthly executive committee meetings, between 3.45 and 5, when round-table meetings to discuss genealogical problems, experiences and suggestions would take place [653].
The object of the early members was to transcribe and index original material and to make it readily available in one place. They set to with all the infectious enthusiasm of a new organisation and there was an early rapid growth in the collections. The First Quarterly Report of the Society, issued in September 1911, was circulated with The Pedigree Register. It announced, as an example of the way in which work would be channelled through the secretaries of the various committees, that six volunteers were indexing the registered wills of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury for the period 1790-1800, the Committee on the Consolidated Index having obtained permission to carry out the work [654]. In fact only the year 1792 seems to have been completed [655]. By September 1911 more than a hundred parish registers had had or were having their entries written on slips and filed in the Index.
One of the new organisation's first printed notices contained instructions for those who wrote slips intended for the 'Great Index to records in official custody, to MS collections and to un-indexed and imperfectly indexed books'. This held that a tombstone was a 'document in official custody', and gave examples of completed 5" x 3" index slips 'procurable of the Library Bureau and used all over the world' but freely available from the Society, stressing the importance of uniformity, clarity of writing and dates, and the need to show the source (or 'authority') of the information [656]. Sherwood, like Gerish, was an obsessive writer of 5" X 3" index slips. In November 1911 he was authorised to lend loose documents, pedigree charts, etc., the property of the Society, to members for cataloguing and indexing [657]. A major sort of the slips took place in the summer of 1912 when it was reported that the index contained (apart from the Cookson collection) some 79,440 entries [658]. Later that year it was suggested that the names of subscribers to early printed volumes might be slipped and that those of the 12,000 subscribers to Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary of England (1831), probably the longest list of the kind, should be entered [659]. The Place Index was at that time somewhat neglected and contained not more than 12,000 slips in one alphabetical series, but in 1914 a major reorganisation took place, that whole section being recast by county [660].
In December 1912 it was reported that racks had been fitted in the Society’s inner room to hold the drawers of the Consolidated Index, providing enough space for 460 boxes each containing 2,500 slips or 1,150,000 in all. The Society then possessed about half a million slips in what some called the Great Index and others the Consolidated Index. Two hundred thousand blank slips had been ordered and it was thought that an extension to the rooms would soon be imperative. Membership had risen to 207 [661]. However, the time being taken to sort in the continual flow of slips was becoming considerable. In 1918 Gerald Fothergill was working almost every day on the commoner names and in that year alone 34,880 slips were received. Colonel Gervase Francis Newport-Tinley, of Farnham, an active member whose death was reported in 1918, had contributed over 100,000 slips [662].
The generosity of the early members was notable. Many complete runs of periodicals were given: Charles Bernau and George Apperson gave long runs of the publications of the Society for the Preservation of Memorials of the Dead in Ireland; Colonel Gilbert Parry gave almost complete sets of the printed parish registers of Shropshire and Staffordshire; Dr Bradbrook gave a set for Buckinghamshire [663]. Some 86 volumes of the Gentleman’s Magazine 1731-1817 were purchased in 1912 [664]. Bernard Scattergood gave a complete set of the Yorkshire Parish Register Society volumes in 1913 and offered to subscribe to Phillimore’s Worcestershire Marriage Series if another member could be found to bear half the cost [665]; Mr McDowall gave the 14 volumes for Hampshire [666]. Miss M. E. Noble gave twenty volumes published by the Parish Register Society [667]. Sidney Chesshyre Bristowe gave an original parchment Tithe Book for Ifield, Sussex [668].
Few volumes were purchased but they included the List of Bankrupts 1774-1786 and some fifteen poll books [669], Charles Bernau giving the first three volumes of the revised Complete Peerage which had commenced publication in 1910 [670]. In the early part of 1914 other purchases included the first nine volumes of the Catholic Record Society and 197 volumes of the Phillimore Marriage series. A list of other needed volumes was published prior to the intended move ‘later on in the year’ [671]. By the end of the War the Society was itself subscribing to the main serial publications of bodies such as the British Record Society, the Catholic Record Society, the Harleian Society and the Huguenot Society, and in 1918 alone some 799 volumes were received [672]. Members who wished to sell or exchange genealogical books were encouraged to display them on an allotted shelf in the library, on condition that they were clearly priced and could be used by others [673].
Many groups of original deeds were received, including in 1912, from a firm of solicitors, about 2,500 relating to the eastern part of Kent, some dating from the 14th century [674]. Consequently a form of application to landowners was devised in July 1912, inviting them to deposit with or give to the Society any ancient deeds for which they had no further use. Two hundred and fifty copies were printed in August for circulation by the Librarian, he addressing letters to advertisers offering properties for sale [675]. The ‘enveloping’ of the Kent deeds was a fairly major task and in March 1913 bundles of a dozen or two dozen were being sent out to interested members to work on at home [676]. Later that year a further 600 deeds relating chiefly to Newark, Nottinghamshire, were received from a Fellow, Frederick Arthur Wadsworth (died 1926) [677]. In December 1917, the Society having received more than 1,100 deeds during the last month or so, an appeal was made for members willing to ‘envelope’ them, by writing on envelopes provided the names of all the people and places mentioned, the Society being glad to send out parcels of 25, 50 or 100 deeds for this purpose [678]. In September the following year it was reported that Colonel Phipps and Dr Bradbrook were enveloping large numbers of them [679] and in December, John Laybank Glasscock, the historian of Bishops Stortford, enveloped and presented fifty original documents relating to the parish, 1437-1824 [680].
The first meeting of the Committee on Monumental Inscriptions took place on 31 January 1912 when Richard Holworthy, who had copied the inscriptions at Bromley, agreed to be Secretary. A bibliography of those places already copied was a basic requirement and Holworthy worked on this at the same time as writing to county societies for details of any transcripts of which they were aware, but received little response [681]. The Revd Charles Moor took over as Secretary in 1913 and the bibliography then showed that about 1,000 parishes had been copied, the names in the copies received being indexed, as far as possible, into the Consolidated Index. Those copies held by the Society were listed in the Annual Report that year [682].
In 1913 Moor circulated the Borough Councils in the county of London asking what transcripts of monumental inscriptions of closed burial grounds they had amongst their records, receiving information from twenty-eight authorities. Those at St Pancras were particularly helpful and Colonel Parry (mentioned below) was able to transcribe for the Society and make index slips for all the grounds in the Borough [683]. In the 1930s the Society published a valuable bibliography, drawing on the details received and others collected from members at the time, listing the known copies in the City and county of London in The Genealogists’ Magazine [684].
Many early members of the Society were involved in this work and made valiant efforts not only to record the tombstones in their local churchyards but sometimes more extensively, wherever they went, on their travels at home and abroad. By so doing they preserved for posterity information that in many cases has long since been lost. As a result the names of some early members will be familiar to genealogists working in particular areas today. Many names spring to mind: Frederick Simon Snell (1862-1914) in Berkshire, Arthur Weight Matthews (1865-1937) as 'Ye Olde Mortality' in Bedfordshire (noteworthy for his beautifully crafted little volumes), the Revd James Harvey Bloom (1860-1943) in Herefordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Yorkshire, Charles Partridge (died 1955 aged 83) in Suffolk, Frank Charles Beazley (1857-1931) in the Wirral, Percy Charles Rushen (1874-1962) who copied 60 churchyards in the City of London [685] and Arthur Jewers, already mentioned, who did those in the City churches themselves. Others, like John Beach Whitmore (1882-1957), made great numbers of extracts in many churches, or like Charles Hall Crouch carefully copied just one or two large churchyards. Yet others, more recently, are mentioned below.
Although not a member of the Society, Arthur Leveson-Gower (1851-1922) had copied great numbers of inscriptions overseas when in the Diplomatic Service in Germany in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and had communicated his findings to the genealogical periodicals of the time. An indefatigable Founder-Fellow, Lieutenant-Colonel Gilbert Sidney Parry (1843-1920), retired from the Royal Artillery, continued his work and copied the English inscriptions in such places as Tenerife, Bellagio, Florence, Milan, Naples, Sorrento, Malaga and Mentone, between 1904 and 1913 [686], as well as being active about the library and card indexes generally.
In the West Indies, James Henry Lawrence Archer (1823-1889) who was apparently born in Scotland but had many ancestors in Jamaica, did some important pioneering work when there on Army Half-Pay [687]. ‘In two campaigns among the burial grounds of Jamaica’, as Philip Wright later wrote, in 1858 and 1864-5, he copied or caused to be copied more than two thousand inscriptions (about half of which have since disappeared) which were printed in his Monumental Inscriptions of the British West Indies (1875), a book that, Wright thought, even allowing for all the difficulties involved, ‘contains more than its fair share of errors’ [688].
Lawrence Archer was followed by Vere Langford Oliver, another Founder-Fellow of the Society, who produced a book with the same name in 1927 having earlier published the inscriptions on the Island of Barbados (1915). Oliver, mentioned above in connection with the manuscripts of Vernona Smith, had married in 1885 a niece of the immensely wealthy patent medicine vendor and College founder, Thomas Holloway (1800-1883). Oliver was in the West Indies in the 1880s and 1890s and, in collaboration with John Valentine Bromley (died 1941, aged 86), who had joined the Society in 1912, he published much material on St Kitts [689]. Bromley had married in 1898 Aymee Martha (died 1948, aged 84), the youngest daughter of Thomas Berkeley, CMG, a leading planter and member of the Legislature of St Kitts, and she was interested enough to continue her husband’s membership of the Society through the War until her own death in 1948 [690].
Another object of the new Society was to endeavour to secure by legislation the preservation of public and private records 'and particularly by urging upon the possessors or custodians of such records the necessity or expediency of arranging, cataloguing, calendaring and indexing them, and taking reasonable steps to ensure their protection from fire, injury or theft, and to allow free and ready access to them'.
In this connection the Revd J. Leonard E. Hooppell (died 1936) represented the Society at the Congress of Archaeological Societies at Burlington House in July 1911 when the Congress 'again decided to ask the Government to direct that arrangements should be made by the authorities at Somerset House, so that access to all documents, ecclesiastical as well as probate records, for literary study, might be given in the same way as at the Public Record Office' [691]. Immediately following that meeting it was agreed in September that the Society should be represented at the meeting of the Congrés Universal des Sciences Auxiliares de l'Histoire to be held in London in April 1913 [692].
This was the five-yearly congress that Bernau had been involved with at Berlin in 1908, but it was now called the ‘International Congress of Historical Studies’ and held 3-9 April 1913, being officially sponsored by the Government with King George V as Patron. The plenary sessions were held in the Old Hall of Lincoln’s Inn and there was an opening dinner at the Hotel Cecil. The congress attracted many distinguished overseas visitors known to Horace Round, but few of the talks were published. We are not told if Bernau attended but Sir Thomas Troubridge represented the Society and read a paper at Burlington House on the Society’s scope and objects [693]. Amongst the 194 papers delivered at the nine sectional meetings, held at different locations across London, was that by Round on ‘Historical Genealogy’ mentioned above but not printed until 1930. A young Hilary Jenkinson (1882-1961) spoke on ‘Palaeography and the practical study of Court Hand’ and Robert Whitwell first put forward his ideas for a new Medieval Latin Dictionary. The congress, was criticised as ‘Parish Pump History’ for its approach and parsimony [694] and although about 500 delegates were received at Windsor Castle on Saturday the King, in mourning for the King of Greece, was unable to be present. The journal Nature wrote ‘it must be accounted a real loss to the general public that the very faulty organisation of the congress, combined with our insular aloofness and the ignorance of modern languages which is an accepted item of English education, has prevented the meetings from receiving their due share of attention’ [695].
The Society's Second Quarterly Reportond in December 1911 noted that a committee had been appointed to communicate with the Registrar-General and others with a view to gaining access to the Census Returns of 1841 and 1851 [696]. It seems likely that Gerald Fothergill with his interest in more modern records was the leading man in this lobbying. Soon after the passing of the Old Age Pensions Act in 1908, the General Register Office had come under considerable pressure from the Pension Authorities to allow the census returns to be searched to determine the ages of claimants to the Pension but on 18 January 1912 the Society received a letter from the Registrar General ‘expressing regret that administrative difficulties prevented their being thrown open as desired’ [697]. It was not a decision that Fothergill would easily have accepted though it was clear that there was no room to make the returns available at the General Register Office in Sonerset House.
However, after a good deal of correspondence between the Treasury, the Local Government Board and the Public Record Office, the latter body agreed to take the returns for 1841 and 1851 and to make them available on payment of fees. Accordingly on 6 June 1912 a Principal Clerk at the Home Office, George Atherton Aitken, wrote to Gerald Fothergill to say that ‘the Secretary of State … has authorised the production to the public in the search room at the Record Office of the Enumeration Schedules of the 1841 and 1851 Censuses, on payment of the fees fixed by the Master of the Rolls viz. 1s for one piece, and 2s 6d for each set of 10 pieces’. I was particularly pleased when many years later in 1969 [698], I found this original letter amongst the papers of Fothergill’s step-daughter, Phyllis Shield, at his house in Wandsworth. Initially the number of official searches in the census returns was quite small but, by August 1912, it had so increased that the Public Record Office had to apply to the Treasury for additional staff and in September four additional boy clerks were employed [699]. Amongst genealogists, however, this important decision curiously received little publicity and it was not mentioned in the Society’s Quarterly Reports or in the Annual Report that year. It was not until 1952 that the Society was able to report that the census could be consulted free of charge [700].
As the result of a letter from a solicitor George Edward Moser (1843-1937), of Windermere, about the custody of parish registers and the fees for searches in them, the Executive Committee resolved on 2 November 1911 that 'this Society is strongly of opinion that the Parish Registers of England and Wales, before 1st of July 1837, be vested in the Master of the Rolls, deposited in the Public Record Office, and be open to inspection under the same conditions as other national archives are' [701], not a solution that a gentleman in Windermere would necessarily find most convenient. However, in December it was agreed that copies of the resolution be sent to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Master of the Rolls [702].
The Committee on Parish Registers and Marriage Licences first met on 6 June 1911 when Reginald Glencross agreed to be its Secretary and by the end of 1912 the registers of some fifty-six parishes had been entered onto slips for the Consolidated Index but the number of volunteers involved was very small [703]. Glencross circulated all the bishops of the established church to collect information about the fees charged to look at Bishops Transcripts and Marriage Licences in the various diocesan registries. At the same time a start had been made on indexing the Bishop of London’s Allegations for Marriage Licences, commencing in 1750 [704]. In June 1912 it was announced that this scheme was being ‘methodically taken in hand’, some six or seven members being involved in the writing and sorting of slips, but further volunteers were required [705] and in December that year the period 1751-5 was nearing completion [706]. In March 1913 they were being sorted into what was now being called the ‘Great Index’ and another five years had been started [707]. Several members contributed funds to the project and the work was then continued with paid labour [708]. Much of the later work on this series was overseen by W. P. Haskett-Smith and in 1925 it was reported that altogether the period 1700-1785 had been covered (and the typing completed in 1926 [709]) and he was engaged in copying the admissions to the freedom of the Fishmongers’ Company [710].
Reginald Glencross had also given two large volumes arranged by county listing all the parishes in England and Wales, with the dates when their registers began and what had been done towards printing and indexing them [711]. These two volumes, with parish maps that he also devised based on the Ordnance Survey key maps, which together must have taken a considerable time to prepare, were for many years kept up to date and they remained basic reference material in the library for the next sixty years.
On 13 March 1912 the Executive Committee agreed to attempt to purchase at auction Linton’s Gretna Hall Marriage Registers, 1825-1844, with the original certificates and an index, and quickly circulated the members asking for promises of donations. The Society received guarantees totalling £190, but on 29 March the registers were sold at Sotheby’s for the surprising figure of £420 [712].
On 10 July 1912 a report of the Law Society on the Custody of Parish Registers was read to the Executive Committee but the Quarterly Report makes no comment thereon [713].
The continuing unhappy situation in the Literary Search Department in Room 9 at Somerset House was a major concern to the Society and in January 1913 Gerald Fothergill gave some very cogent written evidence on the subject (and about the conditions in some local probate registries of which he had a fair experience) to the Royal Commission on Public Records appointed in 1910 and chaired by Sir Frederick Pollock [714]. This he amplified with verbal evidence on 23 January 1913, he and Reginald Glencross, elected an Honorary Life Fellow in December [715], representing the Society [716]. It was during the course of the verbal evidence that Fothergill mentioned his many earlier attempts to gain reform, describing himself as 'an awful agitator' [717].
The members of the Royal Commission who went to Somerset House in February 1913 found Room 9 'cold and dark' and noted that the records though 'fairly well arranged ... require extensive cleansing, flattening, repair, and rebinding, whilst there is a considerable residuum of undescribed documents. The state of most of these was exceedingly dirty'. Many were in bundles or sacks, roughly labelled. The then Superintendent of the Room, Francis Warren Xavier Fincham (1861-1931), who had worked in the Probate Registry for many years, reported that the inventories and other loose documents of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury were in 30 hampers and 46 boxes but 'practically untouched for years and covered inches deep in dust' [718]. His verbal evidence was particularly evasive and unhelpful and although he considered Ernest Cheyne's earlier work on the indexes 'a perfect masterpiece' he made several references to 'The Literary' being 'from beginning to end a privilege pure and simple'. If the increase in interest had been foreseen he said, the Department would not have been created. It was 'in the interest of order absolutely necessary to enforce the rule of keeping seats or chairs exclusively for literary searchers' [719]. Although he himself spent time looking at the non-testamentary material which was closed to all others and saw its historical value [720], he strongly defended the decision taken in 1910 not to allow it to be seen. Literary searchers were only to be allowed access to the specific testamentary records for which a schedule of fees (to the other legal searchers) had been fixed. The Commissioners were much troubled and thought the Search Room 'obviously regulated with a view to the receipts from official fees' [721].
Outside London the Court of Probate Act 1857 had also established some forty District Probate Registries and many of the wills proved in the local church courts prior to the Act had been hurriedly distributed amongst these registries. Apart from complaining about Room 9, genealogists had long agitated about the conditions in some of these local registries, though their possible use as district record offices for the deposit of other local material (and the temporary deposit of records for transcription) was advocated by some at the time of the Royal Commission on Public Records in 1912-13. To that Commission Dr Eli Wilkinson Crossley (1864-1942), the Secretary of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, had given evidence about the general lack of indexes and of being kept standing a whole day at Chester, no chair or stool being provided for literary inquirers. At York, where the officials had no interest in the preparation of new indexes, he had to pay for the production of each bundle of wills even though he had permission to index them. He put in two memoranda about the inaccessibility of many records and the lack of any basic guides to the contents of the offices, but suggesting their limited use as 'Local Record Offices' [722]. Ethel Stokes also commented on the conditions in some local registries, saying that searchers were not welcomed at busy times and drawing attention to the difficulties placed in the way of those who wished to compile indexes (as she was doing for the Index Library) [723]. The rules said that literary searchers were to be admitted at local registries if they did not impede the business of the registry and Fothergill told the Commission that at Chester he had been kept out for three weeks running, meanwhile amusing himself at Llandudno, because the officials were 'too busy' to attend to him [724].
The problems with the local registries were highlighted by arguments about the two series of wills proved in the Archdeaconry Court of Richmond which had been brought to London in 1861 and 1874. The wills for the Eastern Deaneries of the Court (relating to the North and West Ridings of Yorkshire) were, on the application of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, sent to the York registry in April 1912 [725]. The wills for the Western Deaneries of the Court prior to 1748 (relating mainly to Lancashire) were in London and the Yorkshire Archaeological Society proposed that they be sent to the registry at Lancaster (which already had the post 1748 wills) but the Council of the Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society declined to ask for them 'as it was considered that the documents were more conveniently accessible in London (where there is a skilled body of professional searchers and transcribers) than at Lancaster' [726]. It was then proposed to transfer these wills to York but there was an outcry from the Lancashire and other societies and it was decided that they should remain at Somerset House. The influential Frank Charles Beazley (1857-1931) of Birkenhead, a founder member of the Society of Genealogists and very active locally (he was Treasurer of the Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society), had meanwhile called attention to the 'regrettable transfer of Lancashire, Westmorland and Yorkshire wills from London to York where', the Society’s Quarterly Report noted, 'they will certainly be less accessible to inquirers' [727]. On 8 May 1912 the Executive Committee had passed a resolution urging the authorities not to make further transfers of ancient records from London ‘where they are chiefly required for purposes of research’ [728]. Following this reasoning, the Society continued for many years to oppose the distribution of material away from London to the provinces.
Also in 1913 the Society had made unsuccessful representations to the Master of the Rolls that the Chancery Proceedings before 1842, the Feet of Fines before 1834 and the Close Rolls before 1842, or to within seventy years of the present day, be opened freely to students at the Public Record Office. The ‘restrictive regulations’ with regard to the registers of births, marriages and deaths at Somerset House since 1837 and the records of the High Court and the Legacy Duty Office which were not sent to the PRO were also matters of complaint [729]. Sir Henry Maxwell-Lyte the greatly respected Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, a historian and keen genealogist, had been elected a Vice-President of the Society that year.
George Sherwood had published his quarterly The Pedigree Register at 2s 6d an issue or 10s 6d post free annually since June 1907 and in September 1911 it had become the 'Official Organ' of the new Society, eight detailed 'Quarterly Reports' being included in its pages or circulated with it until June 1913. In March 1913, however, young Richard Holworthy had somewhat impetuously launched (with Charles Bernau as publisher!) a monthly magazine called The British Archivist saying that a quarterly magazine would take three years to print material that he could issue in twelve months. He intended to print a monthly eight page magazine, each issue containing at least four four-page supplements that could on completion be bound separately [730]. The first of the latter were to be the Protestation Oath Rolls for Middlesex, some Chancery Depositions before 1714 [731] and the Monumental Inscriptions at Bromley. He was helped with brief articles by Arthur Jewers, Charles Bernau, Frank Marcham, Henry Boddington and others and he kept up the regular issues until August 1914, but the number of subscribers must have been very small.
Charles Bernau had meanwhile also been very active in the development of his private business. About 1909 he had started his 'Card Index to the Public Records of England', today known as the 'Bernau Index', and this he now developed commercially, gaining a reputation as a highly efficient record agent on a grand scale. In 1911 he published his Sixteenth Century Marriages, 1538-1600, an index to every marriage during the period in 94 parishes in 26 English counties (1911; 21s 6d) naming 25,000 individuals. He had intended this to be the first of a series of volumes that would cover the whole country and include every known marriage prior to 1600. He had even thought to ask 'every Incumbent in one County or all over England' to furnish an index to their sixteenth century marriages for inclusion but he not surprisingly rejected the idea as impractical [732] and Volume 1, taken partly from published transcripts and partly from original registers, was the only one to appear. The duplication of work must have caused those like Phillimore and the members of the struggling Parish Register Society, considerable unease. In his short review Sherwood, quoting Jacula Prudentum (1640), wrote of the book, 'The best of the sport is to do the deed, and say nothing'. [733] That same year, Bernau published for Frank and S. Hitching their two volumes References to English surnames in 1601 and 1602 (1911) each containing about 20,000 entries, more with the idea of localising surnames than identifying particular marriages. It is surprising therefore, that he should have described himself in the 1911 census, without reference to his genealogical activities, as 'steamship chartering agent, employer' [734] and one has to assume that this agency continued to be his main source of income.
It is difficult to review the history of the Society at this time without gaining the impression that there were considerable differences of opinion behind the scenes. These differences would have been exacerbated by the natural rivalries within the small group of professional genealogists who were actively involved in the Society, particularly as paid professional work became scarcer on the outbreak of War in 1914.
The Society's Annual Meeting in 1913, held in the Council Chamber of the Duchy of Cornwall in Fleet Street on 14 June, was something of a turning point in its affairs. At the meeting George FitzRoy Henry (Somerset), 3rd Lord Raglan (1857-1921), a grandson of the Lord Raglan who commanded in the Crimea and had lost an arm at Waterloo, was elected President in succession to the Marquess of Tweeddale. As a child in 1868-74 Raglan had been a page of honour to Queen Victoria and he subsequently served with distinction in the Afghan War, 1879-80, was Under-Secretary of State for War, 1900-2, and then Governor of the Isle of Man, 1902-19. He had been introduced to membership by Sir Thomas Troubridge (1860-1938), a great supporter of the Society, in December 1911 [735]. Very tall and known as 'Old Honesty' in the Guards, Raglan was said never to have worn a collar-stud or, when he could help it, a frock coat [736].
At the Meeting Messrs Bernau, Fothergill, Sherwood and Snell, were re-elected to the Executive Committee and its membership was increased, the new members including the Revd Henry Denny and Richard Holworthy. There were now 239 members. Sherwood had frequently stressed that the new Society was not to be a publishing one, but at that meeting the newly elected President, Lord Raglan, announced 'we have a valuable list of genealogical documents of a legal nature in preparation for the printer ... I refer to the List of Chancery Proceedings temp Elizabeth, now being compiled for the Society by Mr Holworthy'. Lord Raglan also said that the Society had 'what is probably the largest extant register of living persons interested in various families, so far as Great Britain is concerned. It contains some 4,000 references to people in this country and abroad who take an interest in English genealogy, and we are continually adding to it'. Raglan had clearly been talking to Charles Bernau and seems to have been under the impression that Bernau's Directory and the Society were one and the same thing, which, of course, they were not. The list to which Lord Raglan referred was the Calendar of Chancery Proceedings, Elizabeth, being those suits omitted from the printed Calendar published in 1827/30 by the Record Commissioners (1913) which Holworthy had offered to the Executive Committee on 12 June 1912 when it was proposed to print it in 24-page instalments at 3s 6d per part [737]. The Annual Report for 1913 called this a departure from the Society’s ‘original scheme’ and in the event Sherwood’s counsel prevailed and Holworthy agreed to print the parts in the name of the Society but at his own cost, the first instalment being issued free to members with the September 1913 Quarterly Report, with non-members paying five shillings per part [738]. In December that year the second part was in preparation [739] but Holworthy was still not ready with it by March 1914 [740] and the project then failed with only the first part printed.
One may speculate that relations between the conservative and slowly careful Sherwood and the impatient and unrealistic Bernau were not going too well. Bernau cannot have been pleased that Sherwood's Pedigree Register had become the official organ of the Society and he may have been behind the decision, briefly reported by Sherwood as 'with a view to reaching a new constituency' [741], to transfer that honour in June 1913 to The Antiquary. This popular illustrated quarterly had been edited by Edward Walford in 1880-1 and had attracted a number of early articles by Horace Round but Walford had then left to found the Antiquarian Magazine and Round had transferred his allegiance to that journal. Now under George Apperson's editorship The Antiquary had shown interest in the Society but was devoted mainly to archaeology. However, as a result members of the Society received those copies of The Antiquary which contained the Society's Quarterly Reports [742]. Four such Reports appeared in its pages between September 1913 and June 1914 but the circulation of copies to members proved very expensive (£30-00-10 in 1913 alone) and was then stopped. With the onset of the War, The Antiquary found itself in financial difficulties and it ceased publication altogether in December 1915.
In November 1913, with the new committee in place, it was decided to appoint in each county, honorary local secretaries to look after the Society's activities. In this scheme to reactivate the idea of county secretaries, Bernau's influence is undoubtedly to be detected. An apparently keen young Ivy Woods had become Secretary of the Committee of Local Records at the end of the year when the Annual Report said that ‘developments may be expected’ [743] and in the December issue of The Pedigree Register, George Sherwood printed a lengthy and overly daunting statement about the suggested role of the county secretaries which bears all the hallmarks of a Bernau composition [744]. However, a much watered down version was sent to the members in April 1914 [745]. The statement had said that the business of the secretaries would be to feed the Society with local material but the more reasonable letter enclosed detailed 'Suggestions' as to how members could be the eyes and ears of the Society in their county and how they might promote its interests, suggesting that the members in each county elect one of their number, not a professional, cards being enclosed asking for those interested to signify their willingness to act. The response was disappointing and in June it was reported that many counties were without representation; indeed in two counties, Northamptonshire and Shropshire, the Society still had no members [746].
As fewer Fellows were being elected it had also been agreed in November 1913, as an inducement to new ordinary Members and Associates, that those who paid a guinea a year might, like the Fellows, receive quarterly reports of new material accrued on any three named families, and that Corresponding Associates paying half a guinea might receive a similar report on any one named family [747]. Although one or two people came forward as possible local secretaries there was little enthusiasm for these ideas and the sending of reports to new members was quickly forgotten, the Fellows already paying a higher subscription partly for that very purpose. From 1 June 1914 an Entrance Fee of 10s 6d was for the first time imposed on all new applications for membership [748]. This fee was increased to a guinea on 1 January 1920 [749] when the subscriptions of Town Members were increased from one to two guineas.
With the impending removal of the Society from Sherwood's office, it is perhaps no surprise that Sherwood early in 1914 gave up the post of Honorary Secretary (there was already a paid Librarian-Secretary) and that by April 1914, Miss Grace de Mouilpied had been appointed Secretary in his stead.
In September 1913 George Sherwood had endeavoured to raise a little income for himself by soliciting subscriptions to cover his time in going through the 459 pages of un-indexed West Indian will extracts, 1625-1792, made by the late record agent Mrs Vernona Smith and deposited in the British Library [750]. He asked for 10s 6d for each surname sought. The idea apparently worked well and he repeated this 'co-operative search' early the following year, at the same time as publicising a more ambitious search through the eighteenth century lawsuits relating to Lancashire and Cheshire in the Public Record Office [751]. This would cost each subscriber 10s 6d for every 25 hours spent. A major part of Mrs Smith's large collection of material relating to the West Indies had been acquired by Bernard Page Scattergood (1862-1937) and in 1913 he presented the 45 volumes to the Society where volunteers began to index them into the Great Card Index [752].
In the summer of 1914 Charles Bernau unashamedly copied George Sherwood's idea for co-operative searches and launched from 20 Charleville Road, Barons Court, to which he had moved that year, a Genealogical Co-operative Research Club, the members subscribing a minimum of a guinea or five dollars a year to have specified groups of un-indexed records or books searched, the period covered depending on the number of subscribers. It is not clear when he gave up his steamship chartering agency but he had given up his office in Billiter Square in 1912 and with the outbreak of War in 1914 his agency work would have fallen completely away. He was fortunate therefore that for the next ten years his Research Club was a considerable success. Through his many contacts it expanded into three branches, for General, Local and Minor searches. With typical bravura he had persuaded Lord Raglan, Sir William Bull, M.P. for Hammersmith and Chairman of Singer and Sons, Sir Thomas Troubridge, Baronet, and the herald Sir Henry Farnham Burke to lend their names as 'Council' to the Club, which had Edgar Briggs as Treasurer (as he was of the SoG) and the Revd Ernest Salisbury Whitfield, of Lewisham, as Treasurer for Local Searches. In its first year it provided, Bernau said, 'occasional but well-paid work for nine persons, some of whom on account of the War would otherwise have been without employment' [753].
Meanwhile the Society's membership remained small but the growth of its collections necessitated the first move to larger premises and in the autumn of 1914 two rooms were rented on the first floor of 5 Bloomsbury Square, near the British Museum. Future meetings would be held there for many years. The Annual Meeting on 25 June 1914, as arranged by Grace de Mouilpied, had been held at 4 p.m. at Caxton Hall, Westminster, and the Twelfth Quarterly Report issued that month had announced, 'At Michaelmas the Society hopes to remove to larger quarters, where greater facilities will be possible to readers and volunteer workers, and the exact locality will be given later on' [754].
The move was not, in fact, mentioned in The Antiquary and it is curious that the change of address was not mentioned in George Sherwood's The Pedigree Register. Bernau's name had not appeared in his pages for five years and the launch of Bernau’s Research Club must have caused some concern at the Society. Sherwood was not doing too well and although in December 1914 he had announced his intention of continuing to publish the Register ‘as usual’ from his office in the Strand, ‘sanely keeping the old paths’ as he put it [755], he naturally faced a loss of subscribers and increased costs because of the War [756].
The new rooms in Bloomsbury Square, of which the lease was taken on 29 September 1914, were to be the home of the Society for almost twenty years. The larger one, south facing and overlooking the street, has a round-headed window flanked by two narrow lights matching the narrow 'attendant' windows either side of the entrance immediately below. To reach the rooms from the fine hall with its Ionic columns and white marble floor, one ascended a staircase with an ornate iron balustrade that continued to the top of the building. A fair sketch of the stair by the pen and ink artist Duncan Moul (1863-1927), an active volunteer, was published in the Society's Annual Report for 1923. By a curious coincidence I chanced upon and recognised the original drawing, propped up with other abandoned pictures, in the hall of Gerald Fothergill's house at Wandsworth, after the death of his stepdaughter Phyllis Shield in 1968, and it subsequently hung in my offices at Harrington Gardens and Charterhouse Buildings.
At the time of the move in 1914 many people believed that this dignified, but rather sombre house on the southwest corner of Bloomsbury Square but facing Hart Street (since re-named Bloomsbury Way) had been designed and occupied by the architect Isaac Ware, a well-known follower of Palladio who died in 1766 and that it had later been the home of Isaac D'Israeli, the father of the Prime Minister [757]. However, research had already shown that there was no evidence to support such a claim [758]. The two houses, numbers 5 and 6, appear to form a single house but have in fact always been divided. A former house on the site of number 5 had been occupied from 1704 to 1714 by Dr John Radcliffe, a physician to Queen Anne, whose great wealth endowed the Radcliffe Infirmary [759]. Number 6 had been the home of Isaac D'Israeli from 1817 to 1829 and the future Prime Minister had played as a child in the Square [760]. However, following the publication of Gladys Scott Thompson’s The Russells in Bloomsbury (1940) [761] it seemed likely that the two houses had actually been designed by the architect Henry Flitcroft (1697-1769) who had designed the neighbouring church of St Giles-in-the-Fields and, indeed, Woburn Abbey for the Duke of Bedford, and that appears now generally accepted [762].
The Society's removal expenses came to £18-15-6 [763] and the rent and cleaning here were £100-8-2 a year [764]. Walter Parry Haskett-Smith (1859-1946), a committee member who lived in Russell Road, Kensington, loaned most of the furniture and chairs for the new rooms, but at the end of the War he was beginning to wonder if and when he would get them back and an appeal was made for the gift or loan of further chairs [765]. However, an item for ‘hire of chairs’ continued to appear in the Annual Accounts for at least another ten years. Haskett-Smith, one might mention, had made a lone pioneering climb of Nape’s Needle, Cumberland, in 1886, and has consequently been described as the ‘father of modern rock mountaineering’. He repeated the climb some fifty years later in April 1936 [766].
The outbreak of War, in the month prior to the move, affected the Society in different ways. Several members fought at the front and many others were engaged in war work at home. The new rooms were much more comfortable and convenient but everyone felt the need for economy. There were, of course, some resignations, but the well-known Marquis of Ruvigny joined in 1915 and at the end of that year membership is said to have stood at 303 though the Balance Sheet shows that a total of 287 members had paid. That number fell to 265 in 1916, had recovered to 282 by 1917, was 321 in 1918 and 380 in 1919. Every expense was curtailed as far as possible and, as mentioned, only the paid services of the Assistant Secretary were retained, she being helped by volunteer committee members [767].
Just before the War the Society had purchased the large series of Phillimore's Marriage Registers [768] and in order to lessen the expense the Library Committee had issued a special appeal in January 1914. This met with a fair response, some £21 1s 6d being received, but in general as little as possible was spent on the library. The unique and important series of Berkshire manuscripts in 51 volumes, bequeathed by Frederick Simon Snell who had died in November 1914, were, however, beautifully bound with the proceeds of his legacy [769]. The appeal to members was renewed in October 1915 when it was said that the Library now contained upwards of 1,800 volumes [770].
At the suggestion of Revd Charles Moor, DD (1857-1944), in the Summer of 1914 the Committee for Cataloguing Pedigrees made an appeal for members to send in copies of their pedigrees to 'be preserved in boxes alphabetically arranged' of a uniform size, written on foolscap paper provided by the Society at a shilling a quire (refunded on receipt of a pedigree!), but it fell on deaf ears [771], producing only 7s 3d [772]. Good paper became extremely expensive during the War when many ledgers and cashbooks fell victim to the constant salvage drive.
At the Annual Meeting held at the Society on 25 June 1915 the resignations from the Executive Committee were ‘announced and confirmed at their own request’ (a curious wording used by Richard Holworthy) [773] of the Chairman and Honorary Treasurer, Edgar Briggs, of Charles Bernau, of Richard Holworthy and of Sir Thomas Troubridge, all considerable losses to the Society and evidently again the result of some internal argument, perhaps over the various journals, in which Bernau and his friends had not got their way. Bernau and Briggs were now much engaged in the former’s Research Club.
Bernau’s formal involvement with the Society of Genealogists now ceased altogether. He had been a member of several of the earlier sub-committees of the Society but he played no major part in any one of them though as secretary to that on family associations he collected details of the societies in America [774]. In 1913 he gave index slips to the marriage registers of his home parish at Walton-on-Thames, about 1,100 entries for 1639-1777 only, but they showed only the surnames and had not even been sorted into order [775]. That is hardly what George Sherwood had in mind!
With the advent of the War, Richard Holworthy was beginning to think that ‘there are duties more urgent than the publication of a genealogical magazine’ [776] and that it would probably be necessary to delay the publication of his The British Archivist. He produced one issue, dated September 1914 to June 1915, and then ceased publication until April and May 1920, these last two issues fulfilling his obligations to his subscribers. The April issue contains a note from Charles Bernau, revealing himself as the journal’s ‘publisher’ and announcing its fusion with Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica under the joint editorship of Richard Holworthy and A. W. Hughes Clarke [777]. They produced a final title page and index to their twenty-four issues in December 1921.
The circulation to members of copies of The Antiquary containing the Society's Quarterly Reports had ceased in 1914, but the Executive Committee was anxious to keep in touch with members and decided the following year to hold a series of Quarterly Meetings. The first was held in the library at Bloomsbury Square at 4.30 pm on Friday, 22 October 1915, with tea provided by a member at 4 pm. Colonel Parker, CB, took the chair and Dr Charles Moor, read a paper on 'The modern uses of armorial bearings', there being about thirty-five members and their friends present. These included Gerald Woods Wollaston, then Bluemantle Pursuivant [778], Sir Henry Howorth, President of the Royal Archaeological Institute [779] and the architect Earl Ferrers [780]. George Sherwood thought the talk ‘surprisingly interesting’ and wrote warmly of its delivery [781]. Dr Charles Moor, an active member of the Society for several decades, had retired from his clerical appointments in 1901 to live in Lexham Gardens, Kensington, writing a History of Gainsborough (1904), Erminois (1919) and then editing the five volumes of the Knights of Edward I (1929-32) for the Harleian Society [782].
The meeting being a fair success, Moor's paper was printed with a preface outlining the state of the Society in December 1915. The second of what became a regular series of meetings with published texts at 6d each was organised for 21 January 1916, with Herbert J. T. Wood (1863-1919) speaking on ‘Elementary Welsh Genealogy’. It was well attended though George Sherwood thought that the strings of names found in Welsh genealogies were like strings of onions and devoid of all interest, saying that the value of a pedigree ‘depends upon what it tells us of the people who figure in it’ [783]. Three years later Sherwood spent time trying to sort the collections of Welsh pedigrees received from Joseph Morris (died 1860), of Shrewsbury [784], from Philippa Swinnerton Hughes (1824-1917) [785] and from Herbert Wood (just mentioned) and decided not to include them in the main Document Collection [786].
It proved difficult to persuade further speakers to come forward but those lectures that were published were the Revd Henry Denny's 'Anglo-Irish genealogy' in May 1916, George Sherwood's 'How to make pedigrees interesting' in November 1916, and Walter Haskett-Smith's 'Surnames' in March 1917. The printed versions were not great money-spinners though the first two were advertised in The Church Times [787] and several were publicised ‘post free 8d’ in 1920 [788]; that by Charles Moor was still in print in the 1960s. Further talks in 1918 were by Dr Bradbrook on 'A scheme for a Dictionary of Surnames' and two by the Revd Harvey Bloom, 'Genealogical work in the Midlands' and 'Vicissitudes of families', but it was not proposed to print them 'during the present dearth of paper' [789] and they remained unpublished [790]. These ‘Quarterly Meetings’ continued to be publicised as such until December 1923 when it was said that those country members who intended to come should apply to the Secretary for invitations in advance, something not previously stated. The suggestion that talks on the records of the War Office, Admiralty and Clerks of the Peace might prove acceptable found no volunteers [791]. Lecture meetings tended afterwards to be held between October and April, but not always regularly.
The notice of the first meeting in 1915 announced also the formation of a Committee for Members' Interests to which inquiries received by the Society would be referred. It would consist of amateurs and no fees would be charged. The notice asked for those who had special knowledge on particular subjects to let the Secretary know and added that Members 'are aware that there are in the Society a few professional genealogists, whose names may be obtained on application to the Secretary, in case special researches are desired'. George Sherwood called it a ‘Committee of Amateur Genealogists to advise beginners how to set to work’ which probably gave a better idea of what it intended to do [792] but it was not mentioned again.
In April 1916 the Society's Committee voted a small sum towards indexing the personal estate suits in Chancery Proceedings, Mitford Division, and was able to send several hundred entries as 'interests' to members [793]. An undated circular, 'Original Research', signed by Constance Agnew but obviously Sherwood's composition, appealing for funds with which to sponsor the slip indexing of the PCC wills 1651-60, was also sent out, emphasising that 'to print these facts is economically a mistake'. A start was then made on abstracting the first year and in June 1918 it was said that the work was costing 25s a week. By September two thousand wills had been abstracted, the appeal having produced £34 [794]. A note with the circular in 1916 said that a recent appeal to Members to copy monumental inscriptions had resulted in copies from more than 277 parishes being received, many being completely covered, and that more than 1,000 original deeds had been received and filed.
Sherwood returned to the attack on the subject of the Society not being a printing one in a letter to The Spectator in November 1918 where, acknowledging that it was a 'pretty subject for controversy', he stressed the point that 'criticism has been directed to the Society's declaration that it is not a printing society, like, for example, the excellent Harleian and the British Record Societies. Our position is, especially at the present juncture, we believe that more useful work can be done by collecting material than by printing it, and that matter can be collected and made readily available for reference much more rapidly, at a tithe, a fiftieth, or a hundredth part of the cost of printing' [795].
The Annual Report for 1918 also spoke of the 'urgent need for economising labour and paper' and said that 'for patriotic reasons, the Quarterly Reports are not being printed at present'. In fact, they did not appear again. In June 1917 the Society had started publishing Quarterly Queries. These were only folded sheets, each of four pages, but they soon became the simple media through which to report progress to the members. The thankless task of editing them fell to the Revd Thomas Dale [796] and they continued until December 1924 when the last one noted, 'it is hoped to issue this paper in a much enlarged and more interesting form next year' [797], the first reference to the projected quarterly Magazine.
In his December 1914 issue of The Pedigree Register Sherwood had surveyed the records’ world in a lengthy review of the Reports of the on-going Royal Commission on Public Records but the Commission’s valuable recommendations came almost to nothing because of the War. In May 1916 he produced an index to his third volume of The Pedigree Register and sadly ceased its publication, though he hoped to renew publication when the War was over. The death of Sir Lionel Carden (1851-1915), a former British Minister at various places in Central America, at the age of 64 in October 1915 had been ‘a heavy personal misfortune’ to him. Carden’s unvarying kindness and interest in the subject had, Sherwood wrote, been uplifting and encouraging and in an unusually warm tribute Sherwood greatly mourned his loss [798].
That January 1916, Sherwood had launched a weekly bulletin called Dramatis Personae: new discoveries in Biography and Genealogy, consisting of loose, typed, quarto sheets that he supplied to friends at a shilling a time, the material being taken from a variety of documents and, 'Giving the names of those who took part in the minor dramas, comedies, tragedies and ordinary domestic affairs of the English from time immemorial, and showing from whence further details may, by the curious, be obtained' [799]. He had thought of it as a weekly periodical but the exigencies of record searching and the frequent difficulty of getting at original documents, made the plan impracticable, so in 1917 he invited subscribers at a rate of one guinea a hundred sheets and pro rata, beginning at any time, sixpence being added for postage ‘and a neat portfolio in which to keep them until they are bound’ [800], but the scheme did not proceed beyond the first few numbers.
In March 1916, Sherwood had also launched, as 'a War-work relaxation and a War-time economy', a scheme to abstract all the names mentioned in the PCC wills for the year 1750, hoping to find two hundred subscribers who would each pay a guinea for which they would receive about 4,000 names from a specified group of counties [801]. He believed that 1750 was 'roughly the beginning of a period when much of the migration of modern times, so baffling to the genealogist, took place'. As previously mentioned he published these names in a volume in 1917 but there was no call for further volumes as he had hoped, though Snell had started listing the names in the wills proved in 1751.
In another attempt to attract subscribers and following in his earlier footsteps, George Sherwood then launched The Pedigree Directory 1917: a list of pedigrees and of those interested in pedigrees, in one alphabet, published at 2s 6d. A sub-title described the 71-page booklet as ‘A key to the vast store of information in private hands’. Sherwood saw it as a development of his earlier Genealogical Queries and Memoranda to which it was very similar and he solicited insertions for an intended 1918 edition, but sufficient numbers were again not forthcoming.
In November 1916 Bernau was very annoyed to find that another un-named record searcher had copied his idea for co-operative searches and he sent out a circular saying that 'neither this Club nor myself has any connection whatever with him or his proposed schemes'. The identity of this person is not revealed but it seems to have been Bernau's friend Richard Holworthy who had put the The British Archivist on hold and was now the Genealogical Editor of The Connoisseur. Holworthy, still not yet thirty, was promoting a very similar co-operative scheme, though at a much lower rate of pay, through a series of articles about genealogical sources in the latter magazine.
After the War Bernau continued to prosper and in 1918 brought in his first wife Rosa as a partner in the Research Club. Together they acted as its main record searchers and their daughter, also called Rosa, became involved in the work. For the Local Search Branch they had noted all the deponents in the Exchequer Depositions by Commission 1559-1800 [802], publishing the early results in three volumes of Exchequer Deponents 1559-1695 (1916-18). In 1921 he completed an eight-year search through (and slip index to) the 114,849 names of plaintiffs and defendants in Chancery suits for the period 1714-1758, for which he had received subscriptions from about 150 people. That year he also published a Genealogical Register in which the members of the Club registered their 'interests'. This quickly ran through four editions, giving him the idea that it might gain as great support as had the International Genealogical Directory [803].
Bernau's Research Club continued into the mid-1920s, his 50th Local Search being completed in October 1924, but his slip index had grown so large that he was soon forced to leave London in order, as he wrote, to provide it with reasonably cheap accommodation in the country. By 1927 he had moved from the Barons Court and Fulham area, where he had lived since marriage, to a house that he called Bartica (presumably named from his father's time in British Guiana) in the remote village of Breage near Helston in Cornwall [804], though he retained rooms at 59-60 Chancery Lane until 1929 and his daughter Rosa continued with them until her marriage in 1931 [805]. At Breage he was far less active, though in 1932 he published a booklet, ? County, to publicise his index and in 1946 he reported that he had indexed the 30,000 people mentioned in the PCC wills proved in 1721 [806]. It was the only time that he advertised in The Genealogists’ Magazine but he still described himself as ‘Searcher in the Public Records’ in the 1939 Register. His wife Rosa had died in 1937 and in 1939 he married a widow, Dorothy Marian Jenkins (nee Thomas) [807]. He died in Penzance Hospital from Breage on 28 December 1961, aged 83 [808]. As is mentioned below, not long before his death he offered his vast index to the Society of Genealogists for a very modest sum and the purchase was carried out a few weeks before he died [809].
By curious chance Holworthy had died earlier that same year. In the late 1920s Richard Holworthy, no doubt with the anniversary of the Great Migration to America in mind, had, with the American genealogist, Charles Edward Banks (1854-1931) [810], launched an Anglo-American Records Foundation, intending to search out and publish British records of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries relating to the founding of the American colonies. He approached for support people such as the steel magnate Myron C. Taylor (1874-1959) and gathered a subscribing membership, publishing Banks's Able men of Suffolk 1638 (1931) and Dorothy Shilton's and his own High Court of Admiralty Examinations 1637-8 (1932), but the enterprise seems to have foundered following the death of Banks. Holworthy was elected a Fellow of the Society of Genealogists in 1932 but allowed his membership to lapse before the Second World War, making something of a name for himself as the 'record keeper' [811] or archivist to Kent County Council. The Society received some of his papers (including those of his relative Arthur Jewers) in 1962 [812].
A plan to publish a Roll of Honour of those members who had taken an active part in the War was announced in the Annual Report for 1918 [813] and in subsequent Reports to March 1922 [814] but subsequently abandoned, it being decided to engross the list so that it could be framed and hung in the rooms [815]. That plan also seems to have been abandoned in due course.
At the end of December 1915 the membership of the Society stood at 303, in 1920 it was 406, and in 1925 it was 681. By 1930 it had grown to 860. In the first year of its existence the American genealogist William Bradford Browne (1875-1953) of Blackinton, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, urged that a more definite appeal be made to other Americans by pointing out that the Society hoped to identify emigrants to America with their places of residence in the British Isles and the families to which they belonged [816] and by 1919 there were twenty-three members in America, the largest group outside the British Isles, though Browne himself was not amongst them.
An analysis of the membership list printed in August 1919 (the first since before the War) [817] shows that there were, in addition to those in America, fifteen members in Ireland, six in India and one in Ceylon, five in Scotland, four in Australia, two each in Canada and France, and one each in Portugal and South Africa. Of the total membership of 380 in 1919, there were only thirty-four women. Some 22 of the original members named in the Articles had died or resigned. The number of Fellows included in these figures remained at about 100 until at least 1920 but the number of Associate Members (also included), 83 in 1918, rose to 92 in 1922, the subsequent Annual Reports not providing a breakdown of the figures, nor for some years after 1930 giving any total figure at all.
At the turn of the century the Mormon/LDS Church had less than 5,000 members in the British Isles and after the First World War there were even fewer here [818]. However, amongst the Society of Genealogists' early women members was the very remarkable Susa Young Gates (1856-1933) [819], of Salt Lake City, a daughter of the Church's President, Brigham Young. In 1893 the Church's then President, Wilford Woodruff, a keen genealogist, had affirmed the importance of eternal family units, the necessity of sealing families under priesthood authority, and the obligation of Church members to trace their lineages for that purpose. The foundation of the Genealogical Society of Utah in November 1894 had followed closely on these revelations. It is to Susa Gates and to Joseph Fielding Smith (1876-1972) that much of the credit for the early work of the GSU is due.
Gates, the mother of thirteen children, was active in many fields, teaching, writing and publishing, and was well placed to increase the influence of the GSU within the Church, working tirelessly to that end, but the GSU was not at that time funded by the Church and it was the Relief Society that was responsible for promoting genealogy amongst Church members, for many of whom it had a low priority.
After a serious illness in 1901 Gates devoted herself to temple and genealogy work, helping to found the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, being elected its President and becoming aware of the GSU and its library in 1904, besides compiling a thirteen-volume history of the Young family. She instituted genealogy classes at the Lion House and, from 1907, wrote weekly genealogical articles in the Deseret Evening News. In 1908 both the classes and the articles were taken under the wing of the GSU which at that time had just 173 members.
Gates was also prominent in the Relief Society and under her influence it adopted regular church-wide lesson manuals in 1909. The GSU itself published a 45-page Lessons in Genealogy in 1912 and the Relief Society published Gates's Surname Book and Racial History, copies of which were sent to societies and libraries worldwide. I remember finding the copy at the SoG helpful even in the 1950s. The Relief Society went on to organise a genealogical convention in 1913 and the following year some 500 delegates attended a three-day conference in Salt Lake City.
With Joseph Fielding Smith, a GSU worker for nearly six decades (and long after Gates’s death President of the Church), Susa Gates 'exported classes and instructional materials, promoted the growth of local genealogical institutions, started classes at Brigham Young University, and instituted an annual 'Genealogy Sunday' in the Church'. In July 1915 the highlight of the decade for the Church's genealogical programme was when she chartered a train and took 250 Church members from Salt Lake City to the International Congress of Genealogy at the San Francisco World's Fair [819].
The great number of committees originally organised at the Society had fallen by the wayside during the course of the War, but in 1919 with the accumulation of work during the ‘weary years of the War’ it soon became apparent that more help had to be sought from the general body of Members and it was decided to reconstitute four of the committees: those for the Index, Library, Heraldry and Finance [820]. Though the Library Committee was to deal with printed and manuscript books and the document collection, the Consolidated Index Committee had charge of the index, parish registers, marriage licences, school and apprentice registers, migrations, monumental inscriptions and the cataloguing of pedigrees, a not altogether satisfactory division. The Society was much handicapped by the high price of labour and materials of all kinds, especially printing, but the Executive Committee thought it highly important to publish a list of the Members (which, as mentioned above) it did in August 1919.
In September 1918 it was reported that Colonel Phipps, Leoline Jenkins Griffith (1863-1938), an insurance broker, and Gerald Fothergill were giving much time to the sorting-in of the index slips and that Griffith was invaluable for reference on Welsh matters [821]. The members of the Consolidated Index Committee had each taken a special subject into their care, the overall Secretary being Griffith who supervised the work and devoted much time to the task of sorting the slips which, due to the War, was in arrears. He attended on most days at 4 pm to show others the ropes. Also in September it was reported that the Revd E. S. B. Whitfield, apart from Shropshire, was taking an interest in the neglected ‘Migration’ slips [822] for which additional material had been requested in March [823] but little was forthcoming until the index was revived by Cecil Brand in 1951. Paid assistance was once more being used to feed the main index and provide ‘Interests’ to members, the money being used to write slips to the PCC wills for 1651, the Bishop of London’s Marriage Licences, and the Chancery Depositions, Elizabeth to Charles I [824].
In 1920 pedigree forms or ‘Birth Briefs’ on which to record parentage to four generations were sent to all the members with the June issue of Quarterly Queries. Additional copies were available at 2s a dozen, postage extra, and the Society was glad to file any copies, even though incomplete, the left-hand page being intended for notes, authorities or proofs of evidence. The spaces on the forms were numbered for ease of reference, odd numbers referring to males and even numbers to females [825]. With the advent of the Magazine in 1925 the surnames from the forms were listed there and indexed accordingly.
Griffith, Fothergill and Dale continued their labour on the large number of incoming slips in 1920 [826] but in 1921 the sorting was again considerably behind [827] and despite the assistance of Colonel Phipps and Messrs Fothergill, Griffith and Sherwood, in 1922 some paid labour had again to be employed to reduce the backlog [828]. The Consolidated Index was, it seems, first called the Great Index in June 1920, but from September 1922 was generally called the Great Card Index [829]. Attention had been drawn to its separate ‘Topographical’ section in December 1919 when a request was made for slips relating to the descent of manors and other properties [830]. During three months in the autumn of 1922 the committee received 6,500 slips of London Marriage Licences from Mr Haskett-Smith, 6,500 of Exchequer Deponents from Mr Knapp, 4,100 of Kentish deeds from Clarence George Paget, of Croydon, and 3,500 from the Canterbury will abstracts by Albert William Waterhouse, of St Leonards-on-Sea [831].
However, much voluntary time was now being spent on the apprenticeship index and in March 1922 an appeal was made for additional help with the Great Index for which a hundred thousand slips still awaited filing and reporting to interested members [832]. The industrious Cregoe Nicholson, who had joined the Society in 1920, then organised a band of volunteers and in 1923 it was reported that they had almost overtaken the arrears which had accumulated during the War. They reckoned then that the Index contained about two and a half million slips, over a hundred thousand being received in the course of the year [833]. The struggle to keep on top of the incoming flow continued, many volunteers being involved. In 1924 the active sorter Colonel Phipps moved for a while to the country and Major E. P. Stapleton contributed 65,000 slips [834], transcribed from those given by Edward Cookson [835]. Nicholson and his band of helpers were still striving to overtake the arrears in 1925 [836].
The donation of books and periodicals continued and included, in 1919, 41 volumes of the Parish Register Society by Harry Pitman, but the works which were purchased included several volumes of the Index Library, Chester wills and marriage licences, Exeter marriage licences, Irish wills, various poll books, a fine set of Wiltshire Notes & Queries, seven volumes of abstracts of Kent Archdeaconry wills 1444-1731, two volumes of office copies of Worcester Wills 1665-1840 from the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps, and the Suffolk marriages and other material collected by John Robert Hutchinson mentioned above. Dr Bradbrook loaned 67 volumes of the Parish Register Society and volumes 7-32 of the Durham and Northumberland Parish Register Society. Members had been encouraged to send details of known poll books to the Society in March 1918 [837]. In September 1924 it was agreed that the Society would make ‘small searches’ in the printed and manuscript parish registers for a prepaid fee of two shillings, but the book had to be indexed or the year of search given [838].
In March 1919 The Times gave space to a long report on a lecture about book-plates given by Dr George C. Peachey (died 1935) which he had illustrated with many examples hung around the walls of the room. After the talk there had been a proposal that the Society take over the role of the recently dissolved Ex-Libris Society and collect and arrange ‘these alluring little works’ [839]. Inspired by the talk Viscountess Wolseley (1872-1936), the only daughter of the former Commander-in-Chief, who had joined the Society and was elected a Fellow that year, loaned several books on book-plates and gave a handsome collection of them, she being an avid collector [840].
In 1920 six volumes of original apprenticeship indentures, 1641-1749, collected by Frederick Arthur Crisp (1851-1921) in his series Munimenta Antiqua, were purchased and slip indexed [841]. To the latter Harry Clench (1843-1934), of Leytonstone, a retired genealogist and accountant, added in 1924, some 979 further indentures, 1775-1888 [842]. Crisp, who lived latterly at the Manor House, Godalming, had made a fortune as a patent medicine vendor and, I was told by the late Marc Fitch (himself from a family of bakers and provision merchants), that Crisp’s family had a secret recipe for baking and that he would go down to the East End of London early in the morning to mix sufficient for the day but then spent his profits collecting documents, later forming the Grove Park Press in Walworth Road to print extremely fine transcripts and pedigrees.
In 1922 Herbert Foster Anderton (died 1937) gave 44 volumes of the Lancashire Parish Register Society [843] and nine manuscript volumes of the Male Servants’ Tax 1780, of unknown provenance, were purchased [844]. The following year the widow of Cecil Spencer Perceval (died 1920), one of the Society’s founders, gave a long run of the Reports of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts and Frank Charles Beazley gave thirty volumes of the Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society publications, bringing the total number of books in the library to about 5,000 [845]. In 1923 the Society had purchased (spending £57-14-9 in the year) a large number of manuscripts that had belonged to Crisp, including 1,226 loose wills and deeds, 613 pedigrees, eight volumes of contemporary and draft copies of wills, 1415-1841, and thirty-six volumes of original bonds, 1582-1876 [846], the bonds being later indexed by Oswald Knapp (1858-1947). In 1922 Lord Raglan had completed the Socciety’s run of Harleian Society publications [847] and in 1925 Lord Farrer gave 42 volumes of the Oxford Historical Society’s Publications [848]. With the start of The Genealogists’ Magazine in 1925 details of the library and manuscript accessions were published there instead of in the Quarterly Queries and Annual Reports. When cumulative indexes to the Magazines were produced every few years they usefully included all these items, indexed by name and by place.
Early in 1919 there was a flurry of correspondence in The Times about parish registers. Seemingly unaware of the work of the Society, Montagu Lloyd wrote in February about their preservation and urged their publication in parish magazines [849]. Reginald Glencross immediately replied saying that probably a third had already been printed to 1812 and described the work of the Parish Register Society and of the various local societies, urging the collection of the original registers in London. Dr F. W. Dendy of Newcastle-upon-Tyne said that more support should be given to the local societies, pointing out what had been done in Northumberland and Durham. George Sherwood, however, writing from the Society thought that with the high cost of paper this was not the time to print but that copies should be made to 1837 and deposited in one central place. Ernest Baker, the President of the Greenwich Antiquarian Society, which was printing the early Greenwich registers, thought that public funds should be made available for the purpose [850]. Sherwood wrote again to The Times a few months later giving some idea of the problems encountered by searchers and the various reactions of the clergy to their requests. He noted the great size of some of the London registers and again urged their transcription and the deposit of copies with the Society [851]. The previous month Sherwood had written to the Church Times about the portfolios that the Society was creating for each parish (in its collections by 'Places') and soliciting donations of original documents for filing by surname and place [852].
The First World War had intervened, but Gerald Fothergill had not given up his struggle with the Principal Probate Registry. In April 1920 he sought unsuccessfully to clarify whose authority was required to provide access to the contentious records there [853] and, no doubt urged by him, the new President of the Society of Genealogists, Lord Raglan, wrote to the President of the Probate Court about these records which, as the Annual Report says, ‘have hitherto been jealously guarded from all access’. As a result, the Report says, ‘we have been granted permission, as a Society, to consult the collection’ [854]. In 1920 the Revd Harvey Bloom visited Somerset House and reported on the records [855] but obviously they were in no state to allow access to searchers. When Fothergill was being interviewed by the Evening Post that year (about his discovery of the apprenticeship records) he took the opportunity to say, 'There are still many records of the very highest importance to the genealogist, the antiquarian, and the student of manners lying neglected, unseen, unheeded in Somerset House', going on to describe the records of the ecclesiastical courts [856]. In 1922 he persuaded Brigadier-General Herbert Surtees, M.P., to once again ask the Secretary to the Treasury about the possible transfer of the probate records to the Public Record Office, but was yet again told that this would require legislation [857].
In 1919 the Society had joined the Congress of Archaeological Societies as a ‘valuable medium for the ventilation of matters affecting our interests’ [858], and in 1920 the Society was represented by Lord Farrer and Dr Charles Moor. At the Congress, John Arthur Watson-Taylor (1857-1923) [859], a Fellow who was also a delegate from the Wiltshire Archaeological Society and well known as a Cambridge oarsman in the 1870s [860], made an impassioned appeal for ‘The preservation of old deeds from destruction’ which was reported at length in the Wiltshire Gazette [861]. He spoke about the section of the report of the local records committee in 1902 on the loss of old deeds from banks and the offices of agents and solicitors when large estates changed hands and referred to the report in 1904 of the Historical Manuscripts Commission on the Laing manuscripts which had been rescued from a waste-paper dealer’s warehouse in Edinburgh, as a result of which the General Register House had said that it was willing to 'examine miscellaneous collections of old documents and to keep such of them as may be of real historical interest or in any way suitable for preservation as public records'. But, he said, destruction had continued at a greater pace. Government appeals for old paper had driven up its price from thirty shillings to £14 a ton. With the paper were parchment deeds that were cleaned with lime and sold to be re-used by law stationers, bookbinders, goldbeaters and makers of toy drums, or to be boiled down to make gelatine for use in photographic films and in the size on banknotes. Watson-Taylor thought that the solicitors were largely to blame and the Society of Genealogists had brought the matter to the notice of the Council of the Law Society as a result of which a notice had appeared in the Law Society's Gazette suggesting that disposals of records should take place only after consultation with a local archaeological or other learned society. There were fifty-nine local law societies in England and Wales and he urged that they all be directly approached.
However, suitable places for the deposit of old deeds, other than the Society of Genealogists, remained a considerable problem, though just before the First World War the first county record office had in fact already been established in Bedfordshire. There Dr George 'Herbert' Fowler (1861-1940), a retired professor of zoology from University College London who had bought The Old House at Aspley Guise and become interested in its history, founded a historical society for the county and, in 1913, when Chairman of the County Records Committee, created a muniment room for the deposit of local material which, in reality, was the first county record office. In 1923 Fowler published The care of county muniments, a pioneering work that saw the world through the eyes of the local archivist in distinction to his close friend Hilary Jenkinson's Manual of archive administration (1922) based on work at the Public Record Office which had come out the previous year. An interesting idea, suggested in the Society of Genealogists’ Annual Report for 1922, that privileges of access might be gained to private and semi-private ‘collections of genealogical and biographical fact’, such as were available to members of the National Art Collections Fund, perhaps fortunately made no headway at all [862].
At the Society in London Mrs Annabella Ellen Rowan (1875-1960), who had been trained as a genealogist by Gerald Fothergill, was appointed Secretary the day after Constance Agnew resigned in November 1918. Some £103-9-2 had been paid in salaries in 1918, £89-7-0 in 1919 and £138-19-11 in 1920. Mrs Rowan, the wife of a journalist, Hill Willson Rowan (died 1951),who lived at Hampstead, was much liked and greatly respected for her careful and accurate work. Before being appointed Secretary she had begun to extract all the wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in the year 1651 and she completed the work in fifteen volumes, the subsidiary names being indexed by others into the Great Card Index [863].
With the growth of the library in the two rooms on the first floor at Bloomsbury Square, the Secretary was largely responsible for much of the work but in 1919 two new members of the Library Committee, Lieutenant Hugh William Peel (1887-1975) and Arthur John Christopher Guimaraens (1882-1971), working alongside George Sherwood, had usefully re-arranged the bookcases to increase the space and ease of access to the shelves [864], some additional shelving for books and racks for index-slips being assembled [865]. The Annual Report says that although Harry Anderson Pitman (died 1942), a London wine merchant and generous benefactor of the Society, was the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Gerald Fothergill had continued his valuable work of representing the Committee in the administration of the Society’s day to day affairs [866]. The following year (1920) Sherwood gave considerable time to the arrangement and labelling of the books and Annabella Rowan, supervised by Gerald Fothergill, began to make a much-needed card index by subject [867].
The arrangement adopted, as the Annual Report said, was basically topographical: 'England (under counties), Wales, Scotland and Ireland, Foreign Countries. Exceptions to this rule are the publications of the Learned Societies, and periodical publications, which will be found in their own series, e.g., British Record, Catholic Record, Harleian, Huguenot, The Genealogist, etc., and certain subjects grouped under their respective heads, such as Legal, Heraldry and Book-plates, Parish Registers, Poll Books, School and University Registers, Quakers, etc. Family Histories are under the names of respective families, and other items, not included in the above, under authors alphabetically' [868].
The abovementioned Lieutenant Hugh William Peel, better known in the 1930s as the comedian Gillie Potter, had become a Fellow of the Society in 1918 [869]. He lectured to the Society on 'Old Bloomsbury Square and its surroundings' on 24 April 1924. Arthur Guimaraens, who acted as Secretary to the Library Committee in 1919, had joined the Society in 1912 when a land agent's assistant and had been on various committees. Peel and Guimaraens are sometimes described as the Society's Honorary Librarians [870] but there is no evidence from the Annual Reports of their making any particular contribution after 1919. Guimaraens was also Honorary Secretary of the British Record Society and was often spoken of as a competent genealogist by Cregoe Nicholson, being elected a Fellow in 1955, but he resigned in 1957. The amusing but sometimes tediously garrulous Gillie Potter, still a well-known name and long interested in the subject, opened the Society's Jubilee Exhibition which I organised in 1961.
In May 1920 the Executive Committee approved a draft revision of some of the Articles but these were not registered or put into effect. In November that year it also agreed that the annual subscriptions of members should be increased to two guineas as from 1 January 1921. It also agreed in November that the life membership fee be increased to twenty guineas, but the Committee unfortunately omitted to register the necessary amendment to the Articles with the Company Registrar. The Committee apparently believed that it was entitled to vary the life membership fee in the same way as it could the annual subscription and from 1921 until 1962, when a most unpleasant argument developed, it was the practice for the fee charged to be ten times the annual subscription. In 1929 there was a further suggestion that the fee be related to the applicant’s age and calculated on an actuarial basis but this was not agreed.
Annabella Rowan unfortunately gave up the post of Secretary on 7 September 1921 in order to take on professional genealogical work [871]. She became a member of the Society in 1928 and although she had a severe accident in 1954, she continued to work and was elected a Fellow in 1955, coming to see Lord Mountbatten elected President in 1957. She died aged 85 on 17 February 1960 [872].
Her successor as Secretary, Miss E. Hutchinson [873], was appointed in October 1921. Over the next seven years whilst she was Secretary the membership rose from 420 to 750 and, as mentioned below, the library expanded to fill all the rooms on the first floor. Its cataloguing had continued throughout the year and the general works by Subject were finished and those under Counties commenced [874]. The steady progress was maintained in 1922 when the Parish Registers and Topographical sections were also catalogued. The number of cards written was about 7,000 and it was then said that the catalogue had 68 divisions, the more important being America, Bibliography, Biography, Church, Directories, Family History, Heraldry, Ireland, Manuscripts, Monumental Inscriptions, Nonconformist, Parish Registers, Pedigrees, Periodicals, Records, Scotland, Societies, Text-Books, Topography, Visitations, Wales and Wills [875].
With the growing pressure on space it was decided in late 1922 that some duplicate books should be sold and these were marked at low prices to ensure a ready sale and placed on a table in the Index room. Amongst them were a number of printed parish registers at five shillings each. These were listed in Quarterly Queries but a year later exchanged for other registers to complete gaps in series [876]. In 1923, with the acquisition of a further room at Bloomsbury Square, the parish register collection was hived off and placed in special bookcases there for greater ease of consultation [876]. There was an attempt in June 1924 to reactivate the Committee on Monumental Inscriptions, inspired (if I remember correctly) by Cregoe Nicholson, and an appeal for further transcribers was sent out with the Magazine. Its suggestion that a duplication of work did not matter would not, I think, have inspired potential transcribers.
With the growth in membership and visitors after the First World War the ‘necessity for more space’, as Lord Farrer said at the ‘poorly attended’ Annual Meeting on 27 June 1923, ‘had been pressed upon their attention’ [878] and later that year the Society took and furnished most of the remainder of the first floor at Bloomsbury Square, including an elegant panelled room with floor-to-ceiling windows, some twenty-four feet by seventeen, which had been the drawing room and then (but not now) had a very fine mantelpiece. This room, overlooking the Square, housed the heraldic and Scottish material [879]. It seated about sixty people and the Quarterly Meetings were now held there, extra chairs being hired in for the purpose [880], a further appeal for donations of chairs being made. However, the cost of this much-needed space was a severe strain on the finances, the rental being £160 a year and Sherwood himself paid for an appeal to be printed and circulated with the Magazine [881]. The publication of a new membership list was contemplated that year but a new list was not actually published until 1936 [882].
By the end of 1926 the membership had reached 720 and in the course of that year the Society decided to acquire the lease of a small room between those already held (today a kitchen) and thus to occupy the whole of the first floor of the Bloomsbury Square house. This enabled the rearrangement of the library and document collection. The drawing room, called the East room, was re-shelved and fitted up as the main library and the West room allotted to the Great Card Index. The doors between the rooms were opened up so that the whole area was now self-contained. The total rent and cleaning bill that year came to £402-16-10 [883]. Elsewhere in the building at this time was the office of the English patriotic society the Royal Society of Saint George which had been founded by Howard Ruff in 1894 and which at his death in 1928 had more than 25,000 members in a hundred branches worldwide.
Those who visited the Genealogists’ rooms frequently commented on the pleasant scholarly atmosphere of the old house and of the view over Bloomsbury Square. The Evening News in 1925 referred to the ‘courteous and patient staff working methodically in an old-world atmosphere of peace and quiet’ but wrote of the ‘Palace of Hope’ where the undue hustle of the American visitors was the genealogist’s worst enemy [884]. The article mentions a story which appeared in several papers about a young lady from Boston who was anxious to have her descent traced from ‘Pharaoh’s daughter’. One supposes that this has something to do with the surname Farrar which sometimes appears in that spelling but one wonders if anyone told her that the phrase was also used to describe a courtesan! In a more detailed and illustrated article the following year the same newspaper wrote of people climbing the picturesque staircase full of hopeful family pride and descending them crestfallen as a result of the discoveries made [885]. An interview given by a Society member, almost certainly George Sherwood, to the Nottingham Evening Post the following year calls genealogy ‘a somewhat expensive luxury’ and remarks on the numbers who came not thinking that the chances were that they came from ordinary plebeian stock. If they found no trace of royal blood or nobility, he said, ‘people are usually most disappointed – even resentful’ [886].
Not all was perfect in the rooms, however, and Mrs Blomfield wrote later that Hart Street was ‘both dirty and noisy, and the Lectures either took place in an atmosphere which was most unhealthy due to closed windows, or else in a din of passing traffic which rendered the Lecturer inaudible except to the first two rows!’ [887]. The novelist Anthony Powell (1905-2000), who joined the Society in 1926, wrote much later that ‘The accommodation was decidedly cramped for the number of people who did research, and books and papers were unavoidably in rather a muddle too, owing to lack of space’ [888].
These rooms at 5 Bloomsbury Square, occupied by the Society from 1914 to 1933, were renovated in 2006 when the house was purchased (for £1.5 million) by the Russian Cultural Centre and renamed Pushkin House. I first visited it in 2009 for a quite fascinating and moving production by the Walking Thoughts Theatre Company of Marcelle Maurette's play Anastasia in a new version by Kate Sellers and Andrei Vironov which took place in the former West Room, a very clever and effective use being made of the doors onto that fine central staircase.
One of the Society’s committees that failed during the First World War after a short but active period was that on School Registers. Mrs Annie Florence Pitcairn Aman (nee West; died 1939, aged 78), who had joined the Society in February 1913, had been elected Secretary to the Committee on School Registers later that year. She worked on the Index and Library Committees and sent circular letters to many of the older public and grammar schools to collect information about their registers. A small collection of printed registers was also thus begun [889].
After the War, Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh (1872-1961), who was working on the Eton school registers, spoke to the Society in 1919 on 'Editing a school register' [890] and described their genealogical value, urging their editing with care and on some systematic plan. Austen-Leigh, a great-great-nephew of the novelist Jane Austen [891], was himself an Eton scholar and after taking classics at Cambridge had worked for a time as a Clerk in the House of Commons but had then gone into the family printing business. In later life he was President of the Bibliographical Society and of the Huguenot Society. He had joined the SoG in 1918 and was elected a Fellow in 1919. He edited two volumes of the Eton College Register, 1698-1752 (1927) and 1753-1790 (1921) but is probably best known as co-author of a Life and letters of Jane Austen (1913). He resigned his membership in 1938.
The editors of school registers, conducting wide correspondence, were some of the best known genealogists of their day and we certainly owe a debt to their labours. Mentioned later are Sir Wasey Sterry who edited the early Eton College Register, 1441-1698 (1943), William Gun who edited that of Harrow School 1571-1800 (1934) and the very active John Beach Whitmore with his Record of Old Westminsters 1883-1960 and his assistance with the earlier two volumes in that series. A note by Geoffrey Radcliffe in the third volume calls Whitmore ‘the outstanding genealogist of his day’. The first list of transcribed or printed school registers held by the Society was printed in the Magazine in 1929 [892].
The Society's President, Lord Raglan, was a first cousin of the Ladies Mary and Margaret Lygon, both close friends and in the Household of Queen Mary, and in June 1919 on Lord Raglan's return to England from the Isle of Man, Queen Mary agreed to become the Society's Patron. George Sherwood later recalled that he 'conferred with Lord Raglan, who induced H.M. Queen Mary' to accept the position [893].
The Queen was well known for a passionate interest in the history of her family and it became a guiding factor in the later years of her life when she continually added pictures and objects of family interest to the Royal Collection. Her interest had been fuelled by her mother, a granddaughter of George III, and fed by her aunt Augusta, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who had attended the Coronation of William IV in 1831 and did not die until 1916 [894]. In 1948 Queen Mary told the Librarian at Windsor Castle that she was the last of the family 'who has a good memory of what the family in 1874 looked like'; she was only seven that year but whenever they visited her mother she had, as she wrote, 'a good stare to take them all in' [895].
Queen Mary remained the Society's Patron until her death in 1953 but never visited its rooms and her intention to come to the 25th anniversary exhibition in 1936 was sadly frustrated by the death of the King. She did, however, take an interest in its activities and at one stage was sent specially bound copies of the Annual Report. She gave some sets of periodicals to the Library and I remember being very amused when later finding that one nicely bound set of something had been placed in store and replaced on the shelves with a not so nice set that she had given, just in case she should call and expect to see it there!
Lord Raglan was the Society's President for eight years. He lived at Usk in Monmouthshire and on the Isle of Man, where at one stage he had 25,000 German internees in his charge, but he took a keen interest in the welfare of the Society and was 'a fairly regular attendant' on its various committees. Having been in indifferent health for some years, he died on 24 October 1921, aged 64 [896]. The Revd Leonard Hoopell and the Revd Dr Charles Moor represented the Society at his memorial service at Wellington Barracks [897] and the new Lord Raglan gave some ninety-seven books from his father’s collection, including many visitations, to the Society [898].
The early death of the meticulously careful Marquis de Ruvigny (1868-1921), who had joined the Society in 1915, was also noted as 'a great loss to Genealogy' in the Annual Report for 1921. Melville Henry de Massue who styled himself, it seems improperly [899], Marquis of Ruvigny and Raineval, is best known for the five volumes of his The Blood Royal of Britain and The Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal (1903-11), The Jacobite Peerage (1904) and The Titled Nobility of Europe (1914), but he had earlier been a most ardent and controversial Jacobite legitimist [900]. Horace Round thus considered him ‘a charlatan’ [901] but the Society’s Annual Report said that he was 'a most industrious worker, and, of his many publications, the ambitious attempt to collect all the living descendants of Edward III was a monumental undertaking' [902]. Ruvigny's fellow genealogist, the amusingly provocative and outspoken journalist Oswald Barron (1868-1939), in 'To-days Gossip' in The Evening News, had thought that working on this 'monstrous pedigree' would keep any genealogist 'serenely happy' and it was thus a 'harmless folly', just like, he wrote, the 'hideous craft of fretwork' or the 'precious trash' of the stamp collector! [903].
Early in 1920 the Society received from the historian Cardinal Gasquet (1846-1929), through the good offices of the Revd E. Horne, the papers of the Hampshire antiquary Francis Joseph Baigent of Winchester (died 1918, aged 87), relating to about six hundred Hampshire families [904]. Baigent, a keen genealogist from his teenage years and 'the best man in that county for record work' [905], was a godson of Lady Arundell of Wardour, the aunt of Roger Tichborne, whom he knew well, and he was amongst the first to meet the impostor Arthur Orton, who claimed to be Roger, in 1866. Baigent, described as precious, shrill, disingenuous and a busybody, became one of Arthur's warmest supporters and took a prominent part in the famous trial that, turning on the proof of Arthur Orton's identity, was of great interest to genealogists. I have often quoted a comment by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Coleridge, who, when Arthur Orton was asked, 'Were you born in June 1834?', intervened to say, 'I don't think a man can know when he was born' [906]. However, after the first civil trial found against Orton in 1872, Baigent was said to be ‘in an exhausted and wretched condition, broken in health and spirits’ [907] and he took no part in the later criminal trial.
Much of the Society's growth and prosperity in these years was undoubtedly due to the hard work of the Secretary, Miss Hutchinson, and I am sorry not to have any personal details about her but, as with her predecessor, her duties were as much librarian as office assistant and she was always ready to welcome inquirers and to show them how to use the books and card index to best advantage. From 1921 she had the help of her eventual successor, Agnes Webb, and in 1925 the Society was able to pay £178-16-6 in salaries. Together they were busy on most fronts and the Society had a continual stream of press publicity, the library sometimes being advertised in the personal column of The Times (3 lines for nine shillings in 1922). Its meetings, from 1922 often with Lord Farrer in the chair, and its major Magazine articles were regularly reviewed there and in other newspapers, sometimes at considerable length.
When I first went to the Society some years after these events the story was told that Gerald Fothergill took pleasure in reading those Acts of Parliament that might lead to the creation of records and then making enquiries to see if the records had survived. In this way he found mention of an Act of 1710 that introduced a tax on apprenticeship indentures, made enquiries, and located the records in the basement at Somerset House. The story gained much valuable publicity for the Society in 1921 [908] when it launched a campaign to transcribe and index these 'Apprentices of Great Britain'.
Gerald Fothergill told the Morning Post that year that he had known about the records since 1910 [909] but it was not until December 1914 that he first formally applied to look at them, writing to Samuel Ellison Minnis (1882-1971), then a young Committee Clerk from Ireland in the Secretary's Office of the Board of Inland Revenue, who had described them briefly to the Royal Commission on Public Records in a submission in June 1913 [910]. As a reference Fothergill gave the name of Hubert Hall, the prominent Keeper at the PRO and indeed Secretary of the Commission [911]. Samuel Minnis replied that 'there are numerous volumes and no facilities for examining them in the place where they are kept, [and] it would be a great convenience if you would let me know in advance when you wish to call and for what period you would like to see the records, so that I might have the proper volumes readily accessible'.
Subsequently the Society sent a deputation to Somerset House to see if it could persuade the authorities to allow the books to be more easily consulted and as a result, in August 1920, these valuable records, believed at the time to relate to a million children, were transferred to the Public Record Office. The Society considered them of such importance that it voted £100 towards indexing them on slips. By March 1922 the three lady workers were producing about 3,000 slips a week and members were asked to contribute to the cost but by June progress had to be curtailed (to about 500 slips a week) though by the end of the year the members had subscribed almost £75 and 82,350 slips had been written [912]. The slips were fortunately kept in a separate series and not filed in the Consolidated Index [913].
The apprenticeship tax related to the whole of the British Isles. Its records run to 1804 and give the name of the child's father up to about 1752. Unfortunately a premium was not normally paid when an apprentice was bound to his father or to some other relative and the premiums of parish and charity apprentices were not taxed, so the records are far from complete. The Society organised the writing of index slips and their typing to 1774, but completed the indexes to the names of masters to 1762 only. Volunteer members sorted the slips into order prior to typing and the helpful Duncan Moul, who had been slipping the Bunhill Fields burials, 1823-54 [914], but unfortunately died in July 1927, was responsible for a large part of the early work. Moul was badly missed [915] but his place in the task of sorting was taken by Mrs Grace Hart (died 1950) [916], who had joined in 1924, and who later compiled the Register of Merchant Taylors School (1561-1934) where her husband was Secretary and Bursar.
It was a slow process, but by 1932 slips had been written to 1766 and a 'First Series' of the index to 1762 typed as far as 'Minn' in twenty volumes [917], an index to the names of the masters in the first five volumes having been completed the previous year. By 1935 the index to 1762 (with its 255,000 entries) had been typed as far as 'Smith' in 27 volumes, but the slips for the 'Second Series', 1762-1774, which came in at a rate of 1,000 a month, remained incomplete and largely unsorted. The index of masters in the first twenty volumes had also been typed [918]. The typing of the First Series was completed in 33 volumes in the summer of 1936 when the slips to 1774 were also ready for typing [919], the first typed volume being produced the following year [920].
It was surprisingly not until 1994-5 that the remainder of the masters to 1774 were indexed by a group of volunteers. The less useful registers from 1775 to 1804 remained un-indexed and involved lengthy searches until they were digitised by Ancestry.co.uk in 2011.
In spite of his health problems Fothergill had many irons in the fire. He started indexing the Defendants in Chancery 1714-58 and completed the first nine volumes, for which he charged one penny per reference, with a minimum charge of 3s 6d [921]. As well as writing two volumes for Bernau’s Pocket Library he had also compiled from Treasury records found in the PRO A list of emigrant Ministers to America 1690-1811 (1904) giving details of 1,200 ministers and schoolmasters who had received a bounty to travel [922]. That same year, advertising his work, he had put out a leaflet From whom are you descended or have you the right to use Arms? He transcribed the apprentices in the records of the Paviours' and Cutlers' Companies and, again as we have seen, spent much time in the early days of the Society in sorting slips for the Great Card Index. He died after a lengthy illness on 30 November 1926 [923] and was succeeded in his business and, indeed, in his direct and delightfully forthright approach by his stepdaughter Phyllis Shield (1896-1968) whom I knew well [924].
Lord Raglan's successor as President, Thomas Cecil (Farrer), 2nd Lord Farrer (1859-1940), elected on 15 June 1922, was a committed genealogist and antiquary. His father the 1st Lord Farrer who died in 1899 was descended from the Farrers of Eawood, Halifax, and had been a barrister and permanent Secretary to the Board of Trade [925]. He himself was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. As well as being President, Lord Farrer was unusually also elected a member of the Executive Committee [926] and he regularly presided at lectures and meetings, often using the library and collections and frequently contributing to them. He held the office for eighteen years until his death in 1940. It was initially a fruitful period in the Society’s history but latterly his extreme conservatism and Mrs Blomfield's not always welcoming attitude did not inspire the growth in membership that might have been expected.
The original Fellows, as we have seen, paid a higher subscription for the privilege of borrowing printed books and being informed about material on their 'interests' that came into the Library. To the outsider, of course, Fellowship implied that these persons were in some way more 'qualified' than the ordinary members. That idea slowly grew within the Society but no definition of their 'qualification' was attempted until 1979 and this lack of clarity in the Society's constitution caused many problems.
At a meeting of the Fellows held in August 1913 it was agreed that other than in exceptional cases, members would not be elected Fellows until they had been members for a year or had shown themselves valuable members [927], a self-imposed rule that was easily forgotten, particularly as a higher subscription was then due. At their meeting on 29 March 1922 the existing Fellow resolved that in future the names of those members wishing to be elected Fellows should be circulated in advance of the meetings and they were asked to send in their names before 15 August in each year, so that their applications might appear in the September issue of Quarterly Queries [928]. That, however, did not always happen.
The names of two who sought election were noted in September 1922 [929], but one of these 'desired to defer his candidature' [930]. Four more sought election early in 1923 [931] (not all being elected) and then two candidates put themselves forward from Canada and America in June 1923, when it was again stressed that 'Applicants should have some qualifications, such as having published a genealogical work, or done some signal service for the Society' [932]. That notice was repeated in September when there was one applicant [933] and in December it was noted that Lord Farrer would be proposed for Fellowship [934].
Early in 1924 it was announced that the name of Cregoe Nicholson would be put forward at a meeting on 27 March 1924 and it was said that, 'He has given valuable service to the Society as honorary Secretary of the Card Index Committee, and spent much time in organizing fresh workers on the Index'. At the same time it was said that Duncan Moul 'sought election' as a Fellow, having arranged and sorted nearly 140,000 apprenticeship indexing slips and devoted much time to the advancement of the Society's interests [935]. Duncan Moul queried the difference in wording and Quarterly Queries then noted that he had not 'sought election', but that Fellowship had been 'conferred on him by the unanimous vote of the Fellows, in acknowledgment of his many valued services to the Society' [936]. That he thus had to pay a higher subscription for his honour was a point that was not addressed.
Although not all those whose names were published as having put themselves forward for Fellowship were elected, the system continued for some years and caused a measure of concern and unpleasantness, the self-imposed 'rules' being continually changed. At a meeting on 11 February 1926 when prior notice had been given of proposals to elect three Fellows (Dr Arthur Adams, Percival Boyd and Geoffrey White) [937] and the name of Dr Theodore Thomson was brought up at the last minute, it was agreed, when all four had been elected, 'That Candidates for election as Fellows of the Society of Genealogists shall, in future, be proposed and seconded by Fellows or Members of the Society, and the Nominators shall state the grounds on which they consider that the Candidate merits election, which shall be entered in a book to be kept by the Secretary' [939]. Those present again overlooked the fact that the constitution did not allow nominations from Members.
In February 1929 the Revd Thomas Dale, then Chairman of the Executive Committee, wrote to the Morning Post suggesting that the minor scientific societies should follow the Society’s example and only elect to Fellowship, ‘after careful scrutiny …those who have made a real study of the subject’. He said that last year, for example, only two Fellows had been elected and that Fellowship could not be ‘bought with money and represents a real distinction’ [940]. He reverted to the subject at a meeting of the Fellows on 18 December 1932 when he said that too many Fellows were being elected and that the value of Fellowship was in danger of being diminished. He proposed that in future the number of Fellows should not exceed one tenth of the total membership. Only eleven Fellows attended the meeting, but the motion was carried, though two abstained and two dissented [941]. The proposal, again not being in the constitution, could not, of course, bind any future meeting.
In May 1916, at the end of a talk about 'Anglo-Irish Genealogy' the Revd Henry Denny, a founder Fellow and expert on county Kerry who served on the Executive Committee from 1913 to 1933, had voiced his relief that the precious contents of the Dublin Public Record Office had 'come through the recent rising comparatively unscathed'. He had said that, 'When the Four Courts were seized by the Sinn Feiners, books and bundles of documents from the Record Office were used to form barricades. But the majority of the valuable documents, though much tossed about, have not been seriously damaged. Some bundles of wills were thrown out into adjoining streets and were taken away by the residents, not so much, it is thought, as "loot", but rather as curious souvenirs of the rebellion. When these people learned that the authorities were once more in possession of the Record Office many of them brought these documents back to their custodians, and it is hoped that any others taken away will also eventually be returned' [942].
However, after the War the news from Ireland was terrible indeed. Sir Arthur Vicars (1864-1921), a diligent researcher and scholarly writer, best known for his index to the Prerogative Wills of Ireland [943], a Vice-President of the Society, who as Ulster King of Arms and Principal Herald of Ireland, had done much for the Irish Office of Arms in succession to Sir Bernard Burke from 1893, but who had been sadly dismissed for negligence in 1908 following the theft of the Irish 'Crown Jewels' from a safe in his office [944], was brutally murdered by a local band of the IRA outside his burning home on 14 April 1921 [945]. A year later on 30 June 1922 the Four Courts complex in Dublin, which included the Public Record Office of Ireland and had been used for storing ammunition by the 'irregular' anti-Treaty forces, was bombarded and burnt to the ground [946].
There was an immediate rush to collect Irish material and our member William Henry Welply (1886-1960) of Rantarlard, Whitehouse, Belfast, gave a large collection of abstracts of Irish wills [947] to which he added over the next twelve years until there were eighteen typescript volumes, known as Irish Wills and Pleadings 1569-1859. Their value was considerably increased when Monnica Stevens, with my encouragement and assisted by the Computer Group, organised a composite every-name index to all the volumes in 1985-7 [948]. Welply was interested in the family and descendants of Edmund Spenser and lectured to the Society on that subject in October 1922 and again about the little-known artist George Chinnery in 1925.
In 1924 the Society commenced a small advertising campaign by placing various notices in the personal column of The Times, Country Life and even in the Boston Evening Transcript. It seems also to have targeted some newspapers with short articles about its work and indexes. A short note in the Evening News early in 1925 saying that it had ‘full records’ of two million different surnames [949] produced, as George Sherwood carefully noted, some 120 inquiries. In July 1925 Sherwood made a ‘comprehensive search’ of the Society’s collections for the Daily Chronicle in connection with the death of William Newton Shansfield, a Parliamentary journalist, who had claimed, it appears correctly, to be the last bearer of that surname as only likely variants of the name were found [950].
The search for a pedigree has, since the nineteenth century at least, been something associated with the American visitor to the British Isles. A typical piece of snide journalism based on this belief appeared in the Morning Post in the summer of 1924: 'Pedigree hunting, always a favourite sport in the United States, is exceptionally attractive to Americans in London just now, and has brought a little ripple of badly-needed "affluence" to the pathetic folk who work at cataloguing and philological and general research in the British Museum Library to the order of chance patrons. For the really good pedigree, your American business man pays a really good price, and many of his hearty and optimistic kind are to be seen in the library of the Society of Genealogists in Bloomsbury-square, seeing what can be done for them. Needless to say, the Society does not manufacture pedigrees. But it discovers them sometimes' [951].
Two years’ later the Daily Mail, apparently prompted by someone at the College of Arms, warned the growing number of American visitors that although it was a praiseworthy instinct that made people interested in their ancestors, ‘pedigree hunting’, if a fascinating pursuit, was also one requiring much labour and great expert skill, and that it was scarcely surprising to hear that every year numbers of Americans returned home with imposing but bogus pedigrees prepared for them by unscrupulous persons, more interested in fees than in precision. The American visitor, the newspaper’s Leader said, who was provided at short notice by an obliging stranger with a complete and splendid account of his family would be well advised to treat it with a good deal of scepticism [952].
In August 1924 it was agreed to drop the 'of London' from the name of the Society, something that was even reported in The Times [953], and to expand the series of Quarterly Queries into a quarterly journal, The Genealogists’ Magazine. Notice of the change of name was given in the penultimate issue of Quarterly Queries and made at an Extraordinary Meeting on 12 September 1924, being confirmed at another meeting on 26 September [954] A new seal was consequently required and cost the Society £3-17-6 [955].
The decision to publish The Genealogists’ Magazine was taken, as previously mentioned, following the demise of the old periodical The Genealogist in 1922. Its first issue appeared in April 1925 [956]. It was originally proposed to acquire the rights to The Genealogist and to continue that as the journal of the Society, but it was finally decided to make a fresh start [957], the President, Lord Farrer, writing in the first issue that 'a permanent record of pure Genealogy will aid the sister crafts of History and Heraldry'. The Revd Henry Denny (1878-1953) [958], a member of the Executive Committee from 1913 to 1933, had agreed to be the first editor.
Henry Denny had joined the Society in 1911 and given a lecture on Irish records in 1916. He came from a long line of Members of Parliament for county Kerry where an ancestor had been granted Tralee Castle and 6,000 acres by Queen Elizabeth I [959], but he also held several appointments in England. He remained editor whilst Rector of West Wickham, Kent (1925-30), succeeded his cousin as 7th Baronet in 1928 and edited the Magazine until the June issue in 1931, when he became much more active in Church affairs and moved to Surrey [960]. He wrote many articles as well as a History of the Denny family of Tralee (1911) and Some pedigrees of Denny (1927). With him on the Editorial Committee were the Welsh expert Leoline Jenkins Griffith and Cregoe Nicholson [961] who sometimes acted as Editorial Secretary [962] and did the general correspondence.
The Genealogists’ Magazine, which was free to members and 1s 6d an issue to non-members, was given a yellowy-orange cover so that it might stand out, Nicholson used to say, on a bookstall, though I fear that it rarely if ever appeared on one. The colour, however, was destined for use on most of the Society's publications for the next sixty years, becoming orange for the National Index of Parish Registers and, in its extreme form as a particularly bright yellow ('vile yellow', as I then described it), on the exhibition boards prepared for the first Family History Fair in 1993. Duncan Moul's early drawing of a tree for the Company Seal was elaborated for the new cover by Charles Winckworth Allen, of Rathmines, co. Dublin [963]. His design also had a long life, lasting until the re-vamp in 1961.
With the advent of the quarterly Magazine the names of the new members elected during the year, obituary notices, lists of the main accessions to the library and the quarterly queries that had formerly been issued as a separate pamphlet appeared in its pages and the need for a less detailed Annual Report became apparent, it being reduced from a nicely produced 12-pages with cover to a single folded sheet in 1929, a format that the Annual Reports retained until 1975.
The new Magazine gave a boost to the Society but there were serious initial problems, not always with the printers, causing havoc with the accounts. All the first year's issues were delayed, that for December 1925 carrying news of events that had taken place the previous February [964] and the Annual Report for 1926 had to admit, but without explanation, that only one of the four intended issues had appeared [965]. A copy of the December 1926 issue that I have has been annotated by one irate member, 'Delivered 21 Dec 1927'! Problems and delays continued to distort the accounts into 1928 [966]. By 1933, however, the Secretary was able to refer to the Magazine’s appearance ‘with its usual punctuality’. By then it had 75 non-member subscribers, a goodly sum was being received from advertisers and, an important by-product, the number of books being received and reviewed had greatly increased [967].
In 1925 the wireless had for the first time invaded the domain of genealogy and Edward Le Breton Martin (1873-1944), the author of books on scouting and a history of Westbury in Buckinghamshire gave a talk entitled 'Mystery, History and the Family' which The Listeners' Library published as Family Foundations: a concise guide to genealogical research for the beginner (1s 1d including postage). A review in the Magazine said that the author pointed out 'the charm and value of genealogy and heraldry' and indicated briefly how the study of these subjects might be begun and carried out [968].
Following the demise of The Genealogist some doubted that another periodical would succeed. The old record-printing quarterly Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica founded in 1866, and now with an annual subscription of 15s 6d, was still appearing and in spite of financial losses continued to do so until 1938, from 1915 under the proprietorship and editorship of Arthur William Hughes Clarke (1873-1953) an interested and wealthy printer who lived at Wimbledon [969], Sherwood wrote privately in 1940 that ‘Misc Gen’ had done magnificent work and that all lamented its demise, but that its reviews were written by the office boy! [970].
The September 1925 issue of The Genealogists’ Magazine contained an interesting quotation from a letter that the Editor had received from the great Horace Round, who had been approached as a possible contributor, saying that, 'It has been proved to be most difficult to keep a really good genealogical magazine going, and the fact is, that hardly any care for the study of any family history but their own' [971]. It was a view that many shared, the genealogical bore being regarded as the greatest bore of all, and it remained a widespread view until the pedigrees of persons marrying into the Royal Family, politicians, and in this century of other celebrities became fair game for journalists.
Of course there were exceptions and the suggestion, in a lecture to the Society on 16 December 1933 by Lieut.-Colonel C. P. Hawkes that the father of the late Lord Birkenhead (F. E. Smith) was of pure gipsy descent on both sides, received much publicity with articles in The Times [972],The Observer [973] and Daily Telegraph [974], though Birkenhead’s sister, Lady Eleanor Smith, was not so certain. The attendance at these monthly lectures had more than doubled since the removal from Bloomsbury Square [975] and by 1935 was generally about fifty.
In 1938 Anthony Wagner stirred up something when he showed in the Magazine that the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, was nineteenth in descent from Edward I, sharing the first eleven generations with the American president John Quincy Adams [976]. The article was mentioned in several newspapers. George Sherwood told the Birmingham Post that thirty years earlier he had done work on the Chamberlain male line at Lacock for the Premier’s father, Joseph Chamberlain, and that he had a mass of material on the surname [977]. However, the editor of Truth wrote (and the Bristol Evening Post copied), ‘I can imagine nobody more indifferent to blue-blooded ancestors than Mr Chamberlain, unless it were the great Joe himself, who indeed used to wax furiously ironical on the subject of the flaneur descendants of kings. I am rather surprised that the Society of Genealogists and Mr Wagner (who is a man of learning) should stoop to this kind of tomfoolery, and that The Times should subsequently have given countenance to it’. The radical Truth concluded that proof that the reigning monarch was amongst half a million ancestors nineteen generations ago was of no more interest or importance than proof that one of the others was hanged for felony [978].
However, in the 1920s the editor Henry Denny quickly found that, if he excluded accounts of particular families and record material, there was a shortage of good articles. His own interests lay in the gentry and he published a regular record of the sale of portraits and did so for some years. However, an early issue, for June 1925, was notable for the publication of the first part of an article by Revd Henry Isham Longden on the 'History of the Washington Family', beautifully illustrated by Duncan Moul. Denny also published many reviews, including several of Irish interest, and in the first year, some 143 queries. He persuaded Horace Round, 'notwithstanding his very great infirmity and suffering' [979], to contribute an article to the June 1926 issue about his edition of the Colchester Free School register in the course of which he made the remark quoted above that 'Love of genealogical study is an inborn quality'.
Denny worked with Leoline Griffith (to June 1932) and Cregoe Nicholson (to March 1930) but they were clearly not altogether happy in their task, being under pressure to speed up production and to overtake the arrears. The Magazine’s editorial in September 1926 gave a long account of what was involved in its production and shows that at that time the three of them were responsible for its every aspect. As well as keeping up-to-date details of the members' addresses and invoicing non-members, they compiled the lists of accessions and queries, organised the advertising and soliciting of books for review, hand addressed and packed the envelopes (with any inserts) and stamped and posted them. 'We venture, therefore', they wrote, 'to express the hope that our readers will try to refrain from any unnecessary criticism, giving us, rather, all the forbearance and practical help possible' [980].
The committee of three was strengthened in June 1927 by the addition of Thomas Arthur John Pile (1874-1947) [981], an active member since 1915, who was Assistant Editor for a year only to June 1928, and then in March 1928 by William Townsend Jackson Gun (1876-1946) [982], another county Kerry man, trained for the Bar, editor of the Harrow School Register (1934) [983], interested in eugenics, as discussed below, and the author of Studies in hereditary ability (1928). Another member of the editorial committee (from March 1928 to June 1936) was the Founder-Fellow and Lancashire antiquary, Colonel John Parker, C.B. (1857-1938) [984], a Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries. The Revd Thomas Cyril Dale (1870-1937) a member since 1915 and former chairman of the Executive Committee joined them in March 1929. Henry Denny resigned as Editor in June 1931 but remained on the Editorial Committee until June 1933. Thomas Dale and William Gun were then Joint-Editors from September 1931 to February 1937, they being assisted by Colonel Parker (to June 1936), Dr Theodore Thomson (from September 1931 to June 1938), Ralph Jermy Beevor (1860-1937), a professional in the eastern counties [985] (from September 1931 to December 1933) and by Cregoe Nicholson who joined the Committee again in December 1933.
In 1932 the number of pages was increased from 44 to 48 and the Secretary, Kathleen Blomfield, was now obtaining the advertisements and increasing the income. She expressed the hope that 'if financial considerations permit, it may be possible to issue the Magazine in a larger and more attractive form' [986] but at the Annual Meeting in 1933 Thomas Dale said that this had not proved possible. The Magazine's appearance had been criticised and the Committee were anxious 'to present it in a more dignified form' but the Society could not afford to spend more on it even though it cost so little because of the income from advertisements. The cost of printing was then about ten shillings a page [987]. Dale repeated his comments in 1934 when the circulation was about 950 of which about a hundred were sold to non-members. The cost to the Society was only £54 a year. Not for the first or last time 'some objection was taken to the colour of the cover'! [988]. The Annual Report reveals that careful consideration had been given to producing the Magazine in a much larger format so that tabular pedigrees could be more adequately set out but that this idea had been shelved because of the costs involved. However, as the Annual Report also noted, the Magazine had attracted some 97 books for review, a valuable addition to the Library and a testimony to the standing which it had reached [989]. By 1935 it regularly contained 48 pages and in December, Kathleen Blomfield started a publicity campaign to try to get more public libraries to subscribe, claiming some encouraging results [990] and reporting at the end of 1936 that fifty libraries subscribed [991].
The senior Editor, Thomas Dale, was a man of considerable learning, universally popular and the soul of kindness. In 1931 the Society had given its name as publisher to his two volumes, Inhabitants of London 1638 which listed the 15,000 householders, though it had no monetary liability for the book, a useful arrangement from the publicity involved [992] though the stock was not exhausted until the 1960s. Dale's sudden death on 12 February 1937 'in the full flush of his activity' was a great loss to the Society [993] and the Annual Report recorded ‘deep sorrow at his untimely death’ [994].
William Gun then worked with his friend Byrom Stanley Bramwell, MA, LLB, TD (died 1948), who was Joint-Editor from March 1937 to December 1939, they together enlarging the Magazine to 56 pages in 1937 and (for two issues) to 68 pages in 1938. Bramwell was also interested in eugenics [995] and a noted speaker. He had been introduced to membership by Gun in 1932 and was Chairman of the Executive Committee, 1936-38 [996]. Other members of the Editorial Committee at this time were the medievalist Geoffrey H. White (from June 1937 to December 1938), Kendall Percy-Smith (from September 1938 to June 1940) and, for a very short time (March-June 1940), the playwright and author Herbert Wotton Westbrook (1881-1959) who had been on the editorial staff of the Globe newspaper.
The front-page editorial had been replaced by 'Notes and News' at the start of the new volume in March 1935. An index to the first sixteen numbers of the Magazine had been printed (250 copies) as an extra in October 1930, selling for 2s 6d [997]. Later indexes, compiled by Thomas Dale, continued to be published separately and to sell badly [998]. That for volume six (1932-4) also sold for 2s 6d and was thought indispensable for owners of complete sets [999]. Following the death of Dale in 1937 the index to volume seven (1935-7) was compiled professionally and did not appear until 1939 [1000]. It was then agreed to make volume eight a much smaller volume and to print its index (1938-9) as a major part of the December 1939 issue.
In 1937 the Society had produced for the first time a little folded card ‘Syllabus of Lectures’ for the coming winter season and this was produced annually until the War.
When English eugenicists came together again after the First World War, the pedigrees of 'social problem groups' constructed by Ernest Lidbetter which, unlike those collected by the similar eugenic movements in the United States and Germany paid no attention to the possible transmission of Mendelian traits, received searching criticism from the young statistician Roger Aylmer Fisher (1890-1962) who had now joined the Eugenics Education Society's Research Committee. As a result by 1923 funding for research that did not include statistical analysis dried up and Lidbetter's work which was beginning to be widely criticised [1001] came to an end with the publication of his Heredity and the social problem group (1933). The book contained 26 pedigrees, the first alone containing 387 individuals over seven generations of whom 204 had been in receipt of relief, but the promised analysis and further volumes never appeared. He had not modified his pre-War conclusions and now believed that, 'The best in civilization is the best biologically. What is therefore necessary today is attention to the problems of reproduction and its control'.
At the end of the year in which Lidbetter's funding dried up, William T. J. Gun, who had joined the SoG only a few months earlier, gave a talk to his fellow members on 'Hereditary ability as exemplified in certain genealogies', based on a study of the Dictionary of National Biography and designed to show the descent of positive traits. It was as weak in its scientific analysis as any Lidbetter pedigree. A report in The Morning Post the following day says that he concluded that while genius is rarely inherited, high ability persists for at least three or four generations and that it descends more through the father than the mother [1002]. An editorial in the same paper questioned the thesis, as did a sharp notice in the Westminster Gazette which thought that 'ability is handed on, but its expression may be inhibited by inheritance from the other side, and limited as well as directed by circumstances' adding that too little was known to say anything about 'genius' except that like 'sport' it appeared to arise from no adequate antecedents that could be readily identified [1003]. The amusing Oswald Barron as 'The Londoner' in the Evening News said that his mind was unsettled by all this talk of hereditary genius when the sons-in-law of bishops often held canonries and plump rectories. He reckoned that 'ability is wont to earn a better living than disability' and 'can give its children their regular meals, send them to a good school and push them handsomely out into life'. One did not need to ask questions of science, he wrote, to find out why ability should often be the child of ability [1004].
However William Gun, 'the last of the Guns of Rathoo' in county Kerry, who had taken History at Trinity College, Cambridge, and been called to the Bar, was elected to the Executive Committee of the SoG the following year (1924) and remained a member until 1946, being Chairman 1931-3 and editor of the Magazine 1937-42. He also served on the Council of the Eugenics Society from 1930 to 1946. Unabashed by the reception of his lecture, he enlarged on similar themes in his Studies in hereditary ability (1928), a book which was seen by some as a supplement to Francis Galton's Hereditary genius (1869) and a forerunner to the eugenicist Paul Bloomfield's Uncommon people: a study of England's elite (1955). In the book Gun discussed, without tabular pedigrees, descents in the female as well as the male line and the interlocked families involved, illustrating his account with many incidental anecdotes. He was, like Eric Lidbetter, highly selective and the book retains little reference value.
William Gun's interests are shown by his articles in the Magazine. He discussed direct female lines in history, the succession to baronies by writ and to the crown, the representatives of the Magna Carta barons, the oldest earldoms and their representatives and those Scotch peerages inheritable by females, and he provided a series of notes on successive generations in various fields. In a 1930 review of Charles Edward Banks’s The Winthrop Fleet of 1630 in which the majority of the emigrants listed came from the eastern counties, he had written, ‘The advocates of an almost purely Nordic origin for New England can in this connection point to the undoubted fact that the Eastern Counties are the most purely Nordic portion of Old England’ [1005]. His last paper for the Eugenics Review, in January 1938, was 'Haemophilia in the royal caste'. In the year in which he was Chairman, the SoG included in its Magazine a leaflet about the Eugenic Society's 'Pedigree Schedules' which consisted of an album of 'Individual Case Sheets', specimen charts and forms that aimed 'to provide educated persons with a means of conveying to their descendants a record of their ancestry', rather in the way that W. P. W. Phillimore had earlier recommended. The binder and forms were available for ten shillings but the idea did not catch on.
Meanwhile the Eugenics Education Society had, in 1926, changed its name to the Eugenics Society and between 1929 and 1934, when there was a fierce dispute between the environmentalists and the scientists (at the end of which Fisher resigned), it mounted a major campaign for voluntary sterilisation on eugenic grounds, eventually sponsoring a Bill introduced by the Labour MP for Wandsworth Central, Major Archibald Church, DSO, MC (1886-1954), 'to enable mental defectives to undergo sterilizing operations or sterilizing treatment upon their own application, or that of their spouses, parents or guardians'. The Bill was defeated by 167 votes to 89 at its Second Reading on 21 July 1931. The Eugenics Society's Education Secretary, Cora Hodson, had a year earlier been in touch about sterilisation with the subsequently notorious German psychiatrist and geneticist Ernst Rudin (1874-1952). It was, as Rudin later argued, little more than the science of the day, in which numerous geneticists around the world were involved [1006]. However, in England the accent now moved from sterilisation to birth control, the Eugenics Society ironically only surviving into the 1930s as the result of annual donations and a large bequest from Henry Twitchin (1869-1930), an Australian sheep farmer, who had believed in compulsory sterilisation of 'inferior types’ [1007]. That Society's membership, which was under 400 until 1925, was still less than 750 in 1939. Pauline Mazumdar, looking ahead, has suggested that 'the insistence on mathematisation and statistics led the movement as a whole in the direction of demography and population studies' [1008].
In 1932 William Gun had introduced to membership of the SoG another prominent member of the Eugenics Society, Byrom Stanley Bramwell (died 1948 aged 72) [1009], and he was a member of the SoG’s Executive Committee 1933-48 (Chairman 1936-8) and joint editor with Gun 1937-9. Byrom Bramwell, a son of Sir Byrom Bramwell (1847-1931), a prominent physician in Edinburgh, took law at Edinburgh University. He had joined the Eugenics Society in which several members of his family were involved in 1921 and was Treasurer 1929-33 and then a member of Council and Chairman until 1943. John Maynard Keynes was his contemporary on the Council, 1937-44. It was Bramwell when Treasurer who wrote, 'The subject of eugenics seems fertile in raising rows' [1010]. His few articles in The Genealogists’ Magazine included notes on the frequency of cousin marriages, span of life, genealogy and the Order of Merit, and surnames in Scotland, but he was interested in family investment trusts and had a career in London with Barclay and Fry Ltd, lithograph and letterpress printers.
The Society's former honorary librarian and co-editor of the Magazine 1931-8, Theodore Thomson, also had a lifelong interest in eugenics and joined the Eugenics Society in 1935, becoming a Fellow the following year. In 1935 the Eugenics Society had assisted with the compilation of the second edition of his Catalogue of British family histories and two years’ later in 1937, benefiting from these links with the SoG and as described below, the Eugenics Society exhibited its well-known pedigrees at the SoG’s Exhibition of Genealogical and Heraldic Records.
The possible existence of a published pedigree of any family was becoming more difficult to find as the years receded from the last edition of George Marshall's The Genealogist's Guide in 1903. After Marshall's death in 1905, Eric Geijer at the College of Arms had begun to collect material for a continuation of the Guide and this he passed to the London solicitor John Beach Whitmore (1882-1957) [1011] who, in the mid-1920s began to devote the greater part of his leisure to the task [1012], conducting a large correspondence and spending much time at the British Library, searching systematically through books and periodicals for printed accounts of families that contained information on any family for at least three generations in the male line. In view of the number of prospectuses and advertisements for projected family histories that were never published, Whitmore insisted on seeing all those he included in his forthcoming Guide and he bought dozens from booksellers, donating a stream of books to the British Library and to the Society.
Whitmore, the only son of a wealthy General Practitioner in Kensington, was a Major in the Queen’s Westminster Rifles who had served in France and Belgium throughout the First World War and was admitted a solicitor in 1920. By all accounts, however, he did little legal work, at least latterly, as his involvement in a wide spectrum of historical research grew apace. He had contributed his first note, on ‘chained books’, to Notes and Queries in 1912, and from 1920 onwards was a frequent contributor, mainly of biographical points and corrections, to its pages. By the time of his death in 1957 he had written upwards of 250 articles there and in The Elizabethan. In 1940, along with Hughes Clarke, he edited for the Harleian Society the London Visitation Pedigrees of 1664. He was a voracious reader and frequent corrector of other people’s books on a wide variety of subjects, even checking and correcting the fractional problems in R. W. Sloley’s chapter on science in Glanville’s The Legacy of Egypt (1942).
Apart from his work on the Guide and on the former pupils at Westminster School, Whitmore in 1922 began a correspondence with John Venn (1834-1923) and his son John Archibald Venn (1883-1958) the compilers of the truly remarkable Alumni Cantabrigienses, second only to the DNB as a biographical reference work, on which they had started work in 1907 and which attempted to identify the 140,000 students, graduates and office holders at Cambridge University from earliest times to 1900, the first two volumes of which (of four covering the period before 1751) were published that year.
These early volumes of the Alumni owed much to the skill of Florence W. S. Bloxham (1873-1939), the Venns’ principal assistant since 1915, who died suddenly in 1939 and who the younger Venn described as ‘one of the outstanding genealogists of her time’. Once their publication started in 1922, many well-known genealogists and editors of school registers contributed material to an Addenda placed at the end of the fourth volume and then to the more detailed six volumes covering the years 1752-1900 which appeared between 1940 and 1954. Much was contributed by the writer on cricket, Robert Langford Arrowsmith (1906-1988), who taught classics at Charterhouse and compiled the Charterhouse Register 1769-1872. In 1952 the younger Venn asked Whitmore, who was sending a stream of additions, if he would be willing to look through the proofs of the final two volumes prior to publication so that his additions could be incorporated at proof stage and Venn was later to write that their value and accuracy owed a very great deal to his vigilance and labour [1013]. These volumes appeared in 1953-4, but to the day he died Whitmore continue to send Venn further additions and corrections to add to the interleaved Alumni kept in the University Archives.
Whitmore was not just a proof reader. He was out and about checking additional sources all the time and he also gave casual employment to a surprising number of part-time professionals in the checking of parish registers and wills for his work on both the Guide and on the Record of Old Westminsters.
The results of Whitmore's labour on the Guide did not begin to see the light of day until 1949 but in 1928 the active Dr Theodore Radford Thomson (1897-1981) [1014], who was later Honorary Librarian of the Society, produced the first edition of A Catalogue of British Family Histories containing references to all those that he could trace. There were about 2,250 of them and the book sold for 7s 6d. With the assistance of the closely linked Eugenics Society, he produced a second edition in 1935 (all the profits going to the SoG) and forty years later, at my urging, a third in 1976 [1015]. With the support of the American Library Association this became something of a best seller and it was reprinted with an addendum by Geoffrey Barrow in 1980, when Thomson was 83. Thomson had insisted that his book contain only 'British' family histories and no amount of argument would persuade him to include any family of recent foreign origin, even the American ones being excluded, though a few appear in Barrow's addendum [1016].
The collection of parish register copies was always a priority for the Society and in August 1924 Percival Boyd very generously paid for the publication of the first list of the 2,500 in the Library entitled Catalogue of Parish Register Copies in the Society's Possession, an interleaved copy of which was sent to each member [1017], but the hoped-for printing of catalogues of other sections of the Library [1018] did not then materialise. The idea for the list may have come from the publication by Phillimore & Co the previous year (1923) of a list of the 1,400 parishes covered by their Marriage Register Series.
In September 1925 Percival Boyd made the first announcement of a project on which he was already working 'under the auspices of the Society' to compile the vast Marriage Index which today bears his name [1019]. He believed that one of the greatest difficulties in genealogical research was to find the record of lost marriages. His intention was to index all the available marriage registers by county in periods of twenty-five years and he commenced by making a slip index to the printed registers. To this he intended to add slips for the marriages in manuscript copies of registers and then to attempt to secure copies of the entries in registers that had not previously been copied. Finally he hoped to add entries from the Bishops Transcripts where the registers were lost or incomplete.
At the time of the announcement Boyd had already written slips for a hundred thousand marriages in four different counties and by early 1926 he had completed 213,000 slips. He was a business man engaged in the textile trade and he used to say that he had dreadful insomnia and that he needed some spare time occupation that would tire him out and so he started this index. The Society was then charging 2s 6d for any marriage found [1020] though at one stage whilst the Society was still at Bloomsbury Square he was putting out a little leaflet saying that a search could be made for a specific marriage for six pence and I received such a form in 1992 (when the postage alone was 24 pence), forwarded from the old address, with six penny stamps attached!
In 1926 Boyd used the Annual Report to thank the members who had helped with manuscript registers, and especially Phillimore and the Devon and Cornwall Record Society for allowing their transcripts to be included in the index [1021]. The first index volumes to appear on the shelves at the Society were those for Cornwall, 1538-1600, but by the end of 1927 some forty-four 25-year parts had been completed [1022].
In 1929, the index having reached nearly a million names, Percival Boyd had printed a list of all the parishes then covered, A marriage index on a new plan, and sent copies to every member of the Society. He made quite extraordinary progress. In the one year 1929 he added 46 volumes to the Index [1023], in 1930 the number was 27 [1024] and in 1931 it was 38, the Index then totalling 208 volumes and including about two and a half million names [1025]. In 1932 he added another 39 volumes [1026]. By 1934 the index had reached 283 volumes and had three million entries [1027].
Of course Boyd did not work alone and he wrote in 1932 that amongst all those who had helped in his scheme, the name of Norman Hindsley (1886-1966) was pre-eminent. Hindsley had become a member in 1924 and in five years indexed 200,000 marriages from the registers of 140 Yorkshire parishes. Boyd himself added 50,000 from another 60 registers and Hindsley sorted them together and had them typed to form the Yorkshire sections of Boyd's Marriage Index as they exist today. Hindsley allowed his membership to lapse when he went to Canada as a chartered accountant in the 1930s but I remember corresponding with him when he re-joined in 1961 and he died at Granby, Quebec, in 1966, aged 80 [1028].
Between September 1932 and July 1934 Boyd gave the forty volumes that he and his staff had completed for Suffolk to Ipswich Public Library and it was then reported that they contained every marriage in the county prior to 1753 (and many to 1837), including many from the licences as well as 20,000 marriages, 1563-1661, copied by Vincent Burrough Redstone (1853-1941; father of the Lilian Redstone mentioned above) from the Bishops’ Transcripts at Bury St Edmunds. Altogether there were 220,000 entries [1029].
Another man who made a great contribution was the Revd Evelyn Young (1866-1936), latterly Vicar of Colston Bassett, Nottinghamshire, who in November 1935 gave transcripts of some 130,000 marriages in Cambridgeshire, having covered the whole of the county except for a few parishes in the south east, supplementing the entries from the Bishops Transcripts at Ely. His copies were bound at the cost of the Society the following year when transcribers were being found to complete the remaining parishes. He died on 15 April 1936 [1030]. Similarly Herbert Maxwell Wood (died 1929), of Sunderland, chartered accountant, had done nearly all the work on the counties of Durham and Northumberland, he being the Secretary of the Parish Register Society for those counties.
By 1935 Boyd had completed 300 volumes with 3,561,400 names [1031] and by 1938 there were over four million entries from about 1,500 parishes and he was working on the miscellaneous volumes [1032]. Publicity about Boyd's obsessional work, which aimed to index a thousand names a day, greatly aided the Society and was frequently mentioned in the press [1033]. In January 1939 the Dundee Evening Telegraph said that at the present rate the index would be completed in 2024! [1034]. At 31 December 1939 it contained 5,611,000 entries [1035].
However, in March 1944 Boyd explained that additions to the typed volumes had been stopped by the War which 'had robbed him of his typists' [1036]. In March 1948 about 250,000 un-typed slips remained with Boyd at his home at Warlingham, Surrey [1037], and he was then working on slipping the 78 volumes of Phillimore's Marriage Series which had not been covered by the main Index, so that they could be included in a Miscellaneous Series [1038]. By the time of his death on 17 April 1955, aged 86 [1039], Percival Boyd had indexed the marriages in most transcribed registers and his Marriage Index contained over six million entries. The slips for the unfinished parts of the First Miscellaneous Series and additional slips for a Second Miscellaneous Series which he had also started to compile were bequeathed to the Genealogical Society of Utah, sorted into one series and subsequently typed in Salt Lake City as is mentioned below.
In March 1935 it was reported that Boyd, in cooperation with the College of Arms, was working on an Index of London Burials, 1538-1852, from easily accessible transcripts of burial registers and had so far typed to letter 'R' in twelve volumes, each of about 280 pages and containing 185,000 names. He had indexed the adult males only, mainly as an aid to finding their wills [1040]. By the time the Annual Report for 1934 was circulated, the finished work in 16 volumes, containing about a quarter of a million entries, had already been placed on temporary loan with the Society [1041] and they were purchased for a nominal sum in 1935 [1042].
The same Magazine (March 1935) reported under the heading 'A New Epoch in Genealogy', that the Executive Committee had agreed on 16 January to begin a collection of 'Family Units' on which, it was hoped, members would record details of complete family groups in a standard manner. Forms had been printed and were available and it was hoped to place the first completed volume on the shelves shortly [1043]. Fifty forms could be had for two shillings. The following June it was noted that six volumes had been compiled and that 'No way that has been invented up to the present can compare with this in making genealogical work accessible for other searchers' [1044]. In September it became clear that the man behind the idea was Percival Boyd and by then there were nine volumes of 'Boyd's Units' on the shelves [1045] and sixteen by the end of the year [1046]. However, the scheme did not catch on and was discontinued after forms for 34 volumes had been written, a collective index being compiled to the first 22 volumes. Some bound volumes of uncompleted forms were then sold off to interested individuals. Similar forms, known as 'Family Group Sheets', became very widespread in the United States, particularly after 1942 when a revised form became the basis of the Church Records Archives of the Genealogical Society of Utah [1047].
Since 1919 the Society had continued to send representatives to the annual Congress of Archaeological Societies at which the main record societies were also represented but there was a growing feeling that the proceedings of the Congress were overshadowed by the archaeologists and in June 1927 the Magazine’s editorial committee, led by Henry Denny, proposed to the Executive Committee that the time had come for the SoG to take a lead in arranging a special congress of record societies. He thought that co-ordination of methods, the avoidance of overlapping, some measure of uniformity in size and style, and the perennial problems of publicity and finance, would be subjects of mutual interest, strength coming from union [1048]. The suggestion was not acted upon and was overtaken by events with the formation of the British Records Association in 1932, though the Society’s membership of the annual congress of archaeological societies continued to be mentioned in its Annual Reports until 1928.
Conditions in the District Probate Registries with both their ancient and modern records, like those at Somerset House, were generally far from ideal. Their numbers had been reduced by amalgamation to twenty-five, but there often was 'neither accommodation for searchers nor any inducement to officials to give facilities for research'. The official view was that access might be allowed provided only that it was no 'impediment to the business of the registry'.
Following the Report of the District Probate Registries Committee in 1923, alterations were made to the jurisdiction of the local Registries in 1926 and their number was further reduced to twelve in 1928 (that at Hereford, where the wills had been tampered with during the Shipway frauds, was one of those closed). Lord Farrer persuaded the Society to write to the Lord Chancellor saying that although 'Wills are still by far the most important documents for establishing family records' yet they were dispersed in various counties and 'often difficult of access and kept at out-of-the-way places'. On behalf of the Society, he recommended that the ancient wills as well as the modern ones should be 'aggregated' at the proposed District Registries and indexed at the expense of the State. As so much had 'already been effected by voluntary effort', he concluded that 'this need not be a costly proceeding' and as 'Each of the 12 would of course have an Index of the others so that to discover the actual place of deposit of any particular Will would be easy as compared with the difficulties of to-day' [1049].
There spoke a very simple soul! The outcome was hardly as one would have wished. The Hereford wills went to Llandaff. Those from Lichfield, Northampton, Bedford and Worcester all went to Birmingham. The Canterbury wills, unwanted at the Principal Registry or the Public Record Office, were put in a redundant prison at Canterbury and were not available to the public. As Bethell Bouwens wrote about the latter ten years later, 'It is a pity the records & the official obstructionists cannot change places - the former being conveniently housed in London & the latter relegated to the empty prison' [1050]. He summarised the feelings of many genealogists when he wrote that the pre-1858 records 'ought at once to be centralised in not more than four depositories, - two, one in each province - would be even better, on grounds both of preservation & ease of access. District Registries are strictly business Departments, concerned with earning fees & do not want or welcome literary search as a rule; nor, generally, are the Registrars fitted by temperament or tradition to the custody of irreplaceable records' [1051].
The recommendations of the Local Records Committee in 1902 as to the deposit of registers and records were given further strength when in 1920 the Royal Commission on Public Records said that English parish registers should be deposited in a local centre or centres by some public authority, a recommendation unanimously welcomed by the Society at a meeting in October that year [1052] but stories about the neglect and destruction of registers continued. In 1925 a fire in Sutton church that had damaged the ‘archives and registers’ prompted Maurice Orlando Bridgeman, the Rector of Wakes Colne in Essex, to write to The Church Times about the paramount importance of having copies made (using Phillimore’s pamphlet Parish Registers, with suggestions for their transcription) and recommending that a copy be entrusted to the Society [1053]. He had copied his from 1549 to 1837, working two hours a day, in about a fortnight.
In 1927 a Committee of the Church Assembly concluded that the parishes would still generally desire to be the custodians of their own registers, but in order to prevent loss, neglect, or misuse, it suggested that there should be frequent and periodic occasions when they should be produced and compared with the list in the terrier or inventory, especially when a new incumbent was inducted and on the visitations of archdeacons or rural deans. The lists were to be signed in the presence of the churchwardens and other members of the parochial church council. Receipts were always to be given and remain with the parochial church council for any registers held away from the church or parsonage. If the inspection revealed a case of loss, neglect or ill usage, power was to be given to the bishop to order the removal of the registers to the diocesan registry or other central repository or to order the repair of a register at the cost of the parish. If the incumbent or parochial church council resolved that the registers had best be resigned into the keeping of the diocesan registry (or other local record office),the Bishop was to be empowered to give an order for their transfer. The search fees would still be paid to the incumbent, but the latter might be empowered to waive his fees ‘on being approached by historical students’. The county of Surrey became the first that year to publish a detailed list of its surviving registers [1054].
Details of the Church Assembly’s recommendations were printed in the Society’s Magazine without comment [1055] but the Parochial Registers and Records Measure in 1929 unfortunately put few of them into law, though importantly it did empower the bishops to establish one or more diocesan record offices at their diocesan registries or elsewhere into which registers might be deposited. A power to compel deposit in cases of neglect was also given though never, it seems, used.
However, also in 1929, largely through the initiative and influence of Ethel Stokes, the British Record Society, which until then had been concerned solely with the publication of indexes to records but had become very concerned at the widespread destruction of documents resulting from the break-up of landed estates and changes in the law of property which threatened the survival of title deeds and manorial records (in particular as a result of the Law of Property Act 1924 which came into force on 1 January 1926 and made the sale and transfer of land easier and cheaper and abolished copyhold tenure) [1056], decided to divide itself into two sections, one to continue the publication of indexes and the other, the Records Preservation Committee, to endeavour to save manuscripts from destruction and to place them in appropriate custody. With the approval of the Master of the Rolls and a grant from the Carnegie Trustees a large room was hired at 2 Stone Buildings, Lincolns Inn, and with Miss Atwood in charge, documents from all kinds of sources, chiefly the unwanted papers of solicitors, were collected, stamped, scheduled and distributed to the various approved depositories, by volunteer workers [1057]. By December 1935 the British Records Association, as the new organisation had become, had 340 individual members (at five shillings a year) and 160 institutional members [1058].
An editorial in the Society’s June 1930 Magazine noted with satisfaction the opening of new muniment rooms by the town Council at Guildford (with Surrey Record Society taking an active part in its management) and at Leicester, where Lord Hanworth (1861-1936; formerly Sir Ernest Pollock, created Lord Hanworth in 1926), the Master of the Rolls, said that it was ’reassuring to know that there is a place of deposit authorised and used in every county – thus proving that what was initiated by the manorial records has extended to the wider field of all records of interest in the county’ [1059]. Hanworth took a strong personal interest in his work, involving much contact with stewards of manors, solicitors and others, which, as the official history of the PRO says [1060], gave a real impetus to the study of local history and local records, the manorial material now becoming accessible to students in these approved places of deposit. The SoG’s Magazine encouraged its readers to add to the collections of documents in each county and in December it published a complete list of the places approved by the Master of the Rolls for the deposit of manorial records. In London these were the British Museum, the Society of Antiquaries, the Society of Genealogists and Hendon Central Library [1061]. Another article that year described the efforts of the Institute of Historical Research (attached to the University of London and founded in 1921) and the Congress of Archaeological Societies to build up a centralised record of the movement and acquisition of major groups of records and of the facilities for their consultation [1062].
In April 1931 Lord Hanworth opened a fine new county muniment room in the Shire Hall at Taunton that had been equipped by the Records Committee of Somerset County Council. Particularly concerned with the facilities for the preservation of manorial records since the 1924 Act, Lord Hanworth said that the rooms were the best that he had seen anywhere in the country. The chairman of the records committee who was also the president of the Somerset Archaeological Society, Sir Matthew Nathan, appealed for the deposit of other local records in private hands, but those of the church were not mentioned [1063]. Indeed, amongst the array of local notabilities present there was no representative of the Church of England. However, the Local Government Act, 1933, required County Councils from time to time to inquire into the manner in which the documents under the control of Parish Councils and Parish Meetings were kept, and Somerset became the first county to complete such a survey. The fine published work, completed with the co-operation of the church authorities, took Dr J. E. King three years to compile [1064].
In November 1933 a ‘Leader’ in The Times, taking its cue from criticisms by Professor Powicke at the first Annual Meeting of the British Records Association which had just taken place, criticised the variant fees in diocesan registries and cathedral muniment rooms and mentioned the proposals of the 1929 Measure to establish diocesan record offices [1065]. The Times thought that difficulties of finance had prevented the scheme from coming into action and recommended the example of Worcester where a disused church which might otherwise have been pulled down had been turned into a diocesan registry, though, as had been pointed out, the diocesan registrars had neither time nor training to act as archivists. However, as a result of the Measure some county record offices and large libraries such as the Bodleian Library at Oxford and Gloucester City Library were recognised as diocesan repositories. The loss and destruction of registers did not now cease but it was certainly slowing down.
One of the weaknesses of the Society’s ‘vast eternal plan’ of putting everything into one great slip index had encouraged some members to transcribe registers directly onto slips so that no independent transcript was created and one had to rely on the completeness of the index, a dangerous thing when slips were so easily misplaced and/or taken by searchers. In May 1927 James Howard gave a valuable slip index of the pre-1835 contents of the parish chest of Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, which was fortunately kept separately, but its contents, like those of the Great Card Index, were very vulnerable.
By the time of the second edition of Herbert Fowler's book on the care of county muniments in 1928 he was acknowledging the assistance at Bedford of an enthusiastic Clerk of the Records, the young Frederick ('Derick') George Emmison (1907-1995), who had commenced an apprenticeship to Fowler, the honorary director of the office, five years earlier. Derick Emmison joined the SoG in 1930 [1066] and described his work and accomplishments in The Genealogists’ Magazine in 1935 [1067].
Fowler and he were following the recommendations of the Local Record Committee of 1902. Between 1928 and 1934 Emmison visited every parish in the county to catalogue the records in the churches. Concurrently with the cataloguing, a few parishes began to deposit their records in the County Record Office. Following the Parochial Registers Measure and the Local Government Act, both in 1929, he had collected the insecure early registers of ten parishes and every known document relating to the relief of the poor in the county.
Emmison was wary of having the registers under the same roof as the bishop's transcripts but in 1930 he inaugurated a series of Bedfordshire Parish Registers in which the registers and transcripts were collated for printing and by 1935 ten volumes had been published containing the registers of 30 parishes prior to 1812. They were no money-spinners and caused much financial worry, not only to him, but also to the Society of Genealogists, for in 1937 the Society was embarrassed to find that it had spent £6 or a tenth of its total library budget on the series. Mrs Blomfield wrote that it was 'too high a percentage to devote to one county' and she unhelpfully suggested that he publish only one volume a year! The wonderful general indexes of names, particularly in deeds and miscellaneous documents, that were such a hallmark of Emmison's work were quickly started at Bedford and he early paid tribute to the work of Harry Causton (died 1947, aged 82), of Bedford, who had written 25,000 index slips [1068].
Fowler took the view that the 'Concentration of all County Records in the care of a single custodian is undoubtedly to be recommended' but as we have seen the development of local record offices was not in any way anticipated by Lord Farrer at the Society of Genealogists and his 1935 article 'English Genealogy', with its accent on local record societies and public libraries [1069], forms a distinct contrast with that by the more percipient Derick Emmison which appeared in the same issue of the Society's Magazine. Emmison moved to Chelmsford as the first county archivist for Essex in 1938. By then a similar office had already been established for Kent where a specially constructed Records Block had that year been built behind County Hall, Maidstone. The foundation of similar offices in most other counties, however, which had such an effect on the deposit and preservation of local records and the ease with which they might be consulted, did not occur until after the Second World War.
In December 1933, following the damage by fire of the registers at Mariansleigh in Devonshire and the apparent loss of a register at Coleridge in that county, Lord Devon, the president of the Devon and Cornwall Record Society, wrote to the Bishop of Exeter a letter which was printed in the Exeter Diocesan Gazette and in The Times [1070]. He expressed deep concern and anxiety at the inadequacies of the old iron safes and said that he did know if there was power to enforce it, but that parish registers should either be kept in ‘a real fire-proof safe in the parish to which they belong or some place should be appointed where they can be kept, together with the registers of other parishes, in a fire-proof room or building’.
Bernau's ideas about local societies had been much ahead of their time, the First World War intervened, and his suggestions were not acted upon for another fifty years, though a leaflet about the Society sent to the overseas press in 1921 which suggested that 'residents in India can by joining the Society have reports on family matters posted to them' was noted by The Englishman in Calcutta with the comment, 'What about starting a Society of Genealogists of Calcutta?' [1071]. A few genealogists like Emmison did foresee the possibilities. In 1926 a member, Hugh Beaver (1890-1967) [1072], then of Walton on Thames, Surrey, suggested in a letter to the editor of the Magazine that very small local groups might be a way of organising co-operative searches in local records [1073], but there was no response. A similar suggestion, put forward by a Fellow, William Fowler Carter (1856-1942), of Bromsgrove, Worcestershire in 1935, was that local groups of members should be formed at various centres to hold meetings and discuss (and record) local genealogies, the papers read at London meetings being passed on [1074], but that idea also sank without trace.
There was, indeed, strong opposition to the very suggestion. The influential but now very elderly, Lord Farrer believed that the Society should confine its efforts to England and Wales and 'become the recognized Clearing House for genealogical research within those borders'. In his 1935 article mentioned above he wrote that the Society should have the fullest and friendliest relations with any societies in Scotland and Ireland, but said that the county record societies and local libraries did 'much the same work as ourselves' and provided the 'loose decentralization' that he thought was needed. Quite how the public libraries would cope with 'any Tom, Dick or Harry, seeking his great-grandfather', as Farrer put it, except by charging for student's tickets, as he suggested, was not at all clear [1075].
With a grant of £10 from the Executive Committee in 1929 a special fund was opened (to which members were asked to contribute 'from one shilling upwards') with which to make abstracts of the allegations for marriage licences dealt with by the Vicar General in continuation of those printed by the Harleian Society which had ended in June 1694 [1076]. By 1931 the first index volume 1694-99 had been typed, but Miss Barclay who did much of the transcription of these licences and those of the Bishop of London died that year [1077]. In 1933 an appeal was made for funds to type the full details of the licences for the years covered [1078]. Two years later it was said that the indexing had proceeded to 1707 [1079] but it was not until 1940 that the slips for 1705-1709 were completed, the indexes being typed in 1946. In 1940 a possible new period commencing in 1801 was contemplated [1080] but slips of the allegations were only written for three years.
Miss Hutchinson regrettably was obliged to resign through ill health in May 1928 [1081] when her assistant since 1921, Agnes Webb, was appointed Acting Secretary. Mrs Agnes Phoebe Webb (nee Goadby), who had been born at Maidstone in 1867 was the widow of Sidney Robert Webb, a medical missionary in the Congo who had died from fever there at the age of 28 in 1895. They had married immediately on his graduation from Edinburgh in 1892 and went to Africa the following year, he having from childhood 'a most absolute singleness of purpose' to be a missionary [1082].
She organised a Conversazione after the AGM in June 1928 to which members brought objects of antiquarian interest [1083] and was confirmed as Secretary later that year (£320-7-9 being paid in salaries in 1928), but served only until the end of 1930 when she resigned owing to ill health [1084]. She became a Member in 1932 and undertook some voluntary indexing for the library [1085]. Her whole-hearted devotion to the best interests of the Society and her careful efficiency were recalled at the time of her death at Tonbridge early in 1955, aged 87 [1086].
In the short period that she was Secretary the Society obtained some further publicity through a series of interesting articles, ‘London and other Items’, about its meetings and lectures, apparently written by P. G. Robertson a friend of the Revd Henry Denny [1087], which appeared in the Hamilton Advertiser, a Lanarkshire paper, and through others, perhaps from the same source, in the Northern Whig and Belfast Post. When in May 1928 the American genealogist George Andrews Moriarty spoke at the Society about Thomas Hutchinson, the last of the English governors of Massachusetts, this correspondent recorded that there were about sixty people present, and following the Annual Meeting that year he wrote that Lord Farrer had spoken about the duties of Miss Hutchinson’s successor as Secretary and said that as a rule secretaries largely made their own duties and in a very real sense were practically the organisations which they served.
George Sherwood, the Treasurer, who (only two years earlier had told the Daily Graphic that the Society was growing so fast that it wanted to move from Bloomsbury Square) [1088] had revealingly remarked with regard to the financial statements ‘that the policy pursued was not that of forming “a nest egg”, for they practised the method of spending wisely, and leaving only a small balance’, and Dr George C. Peachey (died 1935) of Ridge in Hertfordshire, a medical historian and ‘champion of the voluntary hospitals’, had suggested that the Society’s new committee should be entirely comprised of those who could and would take regularly active interest in the work [1089].
The correspondent to the Hamilton Advertiser, who often wrote of the ‘genial genealogists’, did not mention a lecture on ‘Pedigree Tracing’ that was due to be given in February 1929 by Harold Waring Atkinson (1868-1946) [1090], but described instead three shorter talks given, for the first time, on a Saturday afternoon (by Percival Boyd, Mrs Hart and Haskett-Smith). I am not sure if Atkinson’s lecture took place but in March, George Sherwood made a plea in the Magazine for genealogists always to express their dates with the months written in full [1091], only to be answered by Harold Atkinson in the next issue foolishly dating his letter ‘16/4/1929’ [1092], contrary to all that the Society had taught! Sherwood had written in one of its first printed notes in 1911, ‘Dates, in all cases, should be fully expressed, e.g., “1585, July 9th,” to facilitate reference; “1585.7.9” would, in this case, be misleading and inaccurate’ [1093].
Mrs Webb resigned as Secretary in December 1930 and her assistant Miss Whitby, who had served the Society well for several months, resigned on account of her health at the same time [1094]. There was thus almost a complete break in the staffing when Mrs Dorothy 'Kathleen' Bell (1895-1989), then in her mid-thirties [1095], and Mrs Webb's assistant from only that November, was appointed in her stead with Miss Claudia Maidie Ord-Young (1888-1975) as her assistant [1096]. Mrs Bell was the daughter of Edward Abrahamson, an East India merchant who had come originally from Holland [1097], and after her divorce from her first husband Eric Preston Bell (1894-1979) in 1925 [1098] she had worked at the College of Arms as Secretary to Sir John Heaton-Armstrong (1888-1967) then Chester Herald and well-known for his meticulous genealogical work. In April 1933 she married the much older Dr Joseph Blomfield, OBE (1870-1948), a distinguished anaesthetist [1099], and although she later claimed that she had intended to stay only 'for a few months' [1100], she continued as the Society's Secretary until 1950, her long tenure giving it great stability. It was a period in which much was accomplished though the membership remained stubbornly small and she never saw numbers above a thousand.
Kathleen Blomfield was a small wiry woman of great energy and determination, highly efficient in the office and much respected, but with a reputation for not tolerating fools gladly. She could, indeed, be quite unwelcoming and her absolute insistence on small fees as one entered the door (frequently commented upon in later years – I often heard it said that ‘nobody would speak to you unless you had paid half-a crown’) may account for the fact that the membership remained almost static. The wording of the Minutes of the Annual Meeting in 1935 that 'an increase of the subscription might be regarded as a retrograde measure and hinder the growth of the Society' is characteristic of her thinking [1101]. In June 1936 she inserted a typical note in the Magazine that the 'intention of resignation must be sent to the Secretary before the 31st December in each year, otherwise the Member renders himself liable for another year's subscription' [1102]. In a subscription reminder in March 1937 members were told 'constant applications make much extra work' [1103] and in September 1937 there was 'Will those members who have not yet paid for the above (the Catalogue of Parish Registers) kindly do so, as a second application makes much extra clerical work' [1104]. The pages of the Magazine throughout her later years with the Society are peppered with such admonitions.
Although the Revd Ernest Whitfield had been nominally Honorary Librarian from 1926 to 1930 he does not seem to have been very active, though the rearrangement of the rooms that year must have given him some work, and the Library Committee had for some time been searching for a suitable person to take on the post [1105]. As a result of an appeal in the Magazine in 1930 Dr Theodore Thomson, the compiler of the published catalogue of family histories, came forward and commenced as Honorary Librarian after the Annual Meeting in 1931. He set to, according to William Gun, 'with the utmost zeal and efficiency', making considerable improvements [1106].
There was much to do. Early in 1930 a member, Mrs Henrietta Georgiana Mainwaring, of 11 Wilton Crescent, Westminster, had left the Society some three hundred books [1107] and the following year Frank Charles Beazley (1857-1931) [1108], a Founder Fellow particularly interested in Cheshire, left £100 and a large collection of books and clearly written manuscripts that filled seven large cases. An amusing note in the Liverpool Post, ‘With the Pedigree Hunters’, speaks at this time of taking tea ‘with the genealogists at their society’s old house in Bloomsbury-square, where there is a new high-tide of one-way traffic. Nevertheless in their quiet, cultured manner they proceeded to hold an annual meeting. Theirs is a dignified enthusiasm. The only form of hunting which man does not share with the brute beasts is pedigree hunting, and monkeys at least cannot climb a family tree. The genealogists were rejoicing over a legacy from one of their number – boxes of books and a pile of MS’s – and their joy was the greater on account of the singularity of this man among genealogists. It appears that he wrote in a legible hand’ [1109].
The Library Committee had already been selling off duplicate books and those that were not 'mainly genealogical' and typed lists were available to the members, but it was at this time that it was decided to keep duplicate sets of the books which were not available for loan, such as the heralds' visitations and the publications of the Harleian and British Record Societies, so that members could borrow copies [1110]. Over four hundred books were sent on loan that year [1111], almost seven hundred, a record, in 1932 [1112] and again about four hundred in 1933 [1113].
Theodore Thomson, as is mentioned below, made considerable improvements in the classification of the library and was Honorary Librarian during the move to Chaucer House in 1933, being entirely responsible for the arrangement of the Library in the new setting. He gave up the post sometime between March and June 1934 but assisted greatly with the preparation of The Genealogists' Handbook in 1935 [1114]. Cregoe Nicholson was then appointed Honorary Librarian and did duty for four years until June 1938 after which, as described below, Colonel Percy-Smith took over until June 1940.
In July 1931 there was considerable press interest in an elaborate bronze memorial that had been unveiled by Lady Eustace Percy (nee Drummond) in the Castle of Falaise in Normandy in honour of William the Conqueror and his companions. On it was inscribed the names of 315 knights who were said to have fought at the Battle of Hastings. A wealthy amateur historian from New York, Mordecai 'Jackson' Crispin (1875-1953) [1115], had earlier inspired the creation of a Comité Guillaume le Conquérant (which included Lord Eustace Percy the M.P. for Hastings) and, advised by Leonce Macary a schoolmaster at Falaise who was unfortunately quite unaware of English research on the subject, the committee had accepted the 315 names, largely taking their list from the Roman de Rou by Robert Wace, a poem written a hundred years after the event.
The touchy subject of the names of those present at the battle had, of course, been of considerable interest to British genealogists for many years, various versions of the so-called ‘Battle Abbey Roll’ having appeared in print since the sixteenth century. Between 1925 and 1930 Walter Rye had published an index to six versions of the Roll in The Genealogists’ Magazine [1116].
In December 1931, prompted by the celebrations at Falaise, Dr Theodore Thomson assisted by the leading expert on Anglo-Norman genealogy, Geoffrey White, wrote a trenchant article in The Genealogists’ Magazine in which they evaluated the sources used by Macary and concluded that the names of only fifteen ‘Companions’ were proved or extremely probable [1117]. An unsigned editorial in that issue of the Magazine, probably written by William Gun, said that the commemoration at Falaise had been made 'ridiculous' by the inclusion of the 315 names [1118].
That issue of the Magazine also announced that there would be a discussion meeting on the subject of 'The companions of William the Conqueror and their possible descendants', led by Geoffrey White and Dr Thomson, at the Society, on Saturday, 13 February 1932. It was a heated two-and-a-half-hour debate, chaired by William Gun (with the President, Lord Farrer, in attendance), which attracted considerable press publicity [1119] and was reported at length in the June Magazine [1120]. White dealt with the contemporary sources and Thomson with the descendants, saying that the public should be protected against charlatans and the ‘absurd people’ who tried to prove descents from the Conqueror’s companions. A paper by the relatively young Arthur Ronald Holman (1900-1978), who had joined the Society in 1929, was also read reinforcing some of the earlier points. Captain Bernard Stephen Townroe (1885-1962), General Secretary of the United Association of Great Britain and France which had arranged the expedition to Falaise, said that the expressions ‘charlatans’ and ‘absurd people’ were derogatory to French historians. Others criticised the tone of the Magazine article and its use of the word 'ridiculous'. At the start of the meeting some light relief had been given to a ‘room full of furious Normans’ by an elderly Chinese gentleman (not a Member!) knocking loudly on the street door downstairs and demanding to be let in, something he repeated later in the proceedings [1121]. However, the meeting’s general conclusions remained the same; the names on the monument should have been submitted to the most severe scrutiny but the Society had not been approached or consulted. Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Stanley Clack (1888-1945), an early Fellow of the Society who years earlier had fallen out with Sherwood [1122], had been at Falaise and was very critical of the Society’s ‘flippant’ approach, writing to The Times to clarify a point and to say that the names had been collected by a ‘French committee of historians and scholars’ independent of the subscribers before ‘any decision to ask other than Frenchmen to “assist”’ [1123]. Macary, because of the unfriendly attitude of Dr Thomson's first Magazine article, had declined to discuss it and wrote to The Sunday Times that his committee was extremely surprised that the Society had allowed some of its representatives to refer repeatedly to the work of the committee in extremely unfriendly terms. Complete documentation of the 315 names would, he said, be placed in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris [1124].
The editorial to the June Magazine drew attention to the lists of descendants of the so-called companions that had been published in France and in the Journal of the United Associations of Great Britain and France [1125] and asked for proofs of the descents to be published, but that, of course, never happened, though the biographical details of the 315 so-called companions assembled by Crispin and Macary were published in 1938 as the Falaise Roll, they having ‘after their compilation’ been ‘reviewed by Richard Holworthy, archivist and genealogist, London’ [1126]. At the meeting Holworthy had said that help rather than ridicule should have been offered by the Society. His sympathies were, he said, with the proceedings of the Falaise Committee which had worthily commemorated a great historic event. However, the Falaise Roll was savaged in America by George Andrews Moriarty for its ‘indiscriminate mixture of sound facts with fiction and error’ [1127].
The conclusions of Geoffrey White and Theodore Thomson as to the names of the known companions were not seriously challenged until 1944 when Professor D. C. Douglas wrote a paper for History in which he suggested the addition of a few more names [1128]. Mr White's extensive commentary on Professor Douglas's paper, published by the Society immediately afterwards [1129], accepted a total of nineteen companions of whom fifteen certainly and four almost certainly fought at Hastings [1130].
Meanwhile, on 7 September 1933 the controversy had been further ignited when Lord Raglan, the son of the Society's former President and himself the President of the Anthropology Section of the British Association, pronounced at a meeting of the Association in Leicester, that no existing family could trace a descent from a Saxon ancestor and but few from a Norman 'who came over with the Conqueror'. He, of undoubted Norman descent, was speaking on the theme ‘What is tradition?’ and gave as an example of the work of the ‘pedigree fakers’ the ancestry of Sir Hereward Wake. The Daily Mail, under a banner headline ‘Lord Raglan on ‘faked pedigrees’ of famous families: bombshell at scientists’ conference’, quoted the Earl Marshal’s secretary as saying that Raglan was ‘much too sweeping’ and that there were a small number of British families that had authentic pedigrees back to Norman times. The Daily Mail recalled the celebrations two years previously when Lord Derby had chartered a special steamer for the ‘pilgrimage’ to Normandy and listed a dozen ‘accredited descendants’ who had participated [1131]. An unnamed spokesman for the Society of Genealogists, however, agreed ‘wholeheartedly’ with Lord Raglan’s statements. The Evening News, under ‘Family trees “all a fake”’, had noted that more than 2,000 people attended the Conference in eleven different halls, but Lord Raglan’s comments seem to have received the most publicity [1132]. Lord Raglan was unperturbed and in an interview to the Daily Express mentioned Lord Salisbury and the Duke of Bedford’s unsubstantiated Norman ancestries [1133]. Even Punch had a little poem, ‘The Fading-out of Lady Clara Vere de Vere’, which concluded:
‘But now that age-old pedigrees, Are proved each one of them a dud,
The kindest heart, the simplest faith, Will disbelieve your Norman blood’ [1134].
Of course there was a back-lash. The Sunday Express, under ‘Famous Family Answers Scientist’s Charge of Bogus Ancestry’, quoted Admiral Sir Drury St Aubyn Wake as saying that Raglan was talking utter nonsense and the Earl Marshal’s Secretary (A. G. Blomefield Russell, Lancaster Herald) said the Wake pedigree was ‘beyond doubt’. The Morning Post immediately received letters from aggrieved people declaring that they were exceptions to Raglan’s sweeping assertions but Thomas Dale wrote in to say that not more than half a dozen families could prove an unbroken male descent from a Domesday tenant and that none had such a descent from an ancestor living in the time of Edward the Confessor [1135]. He and his co-editor, William Gun, wrote in The Genealogists’ Magazine that the Society stood for scientific genealogy and that 'the assertion of a pedigree without documentary proof is valueless' [1136].
In January 1932 in a lecture to the Society on 'Manorial Records', Herbert Wheatley Knocker, FSA (1874-1945), said, 'We may all agree - first, that the genealogy of the individual is good; secondly, that the study of his family's story is better, and thirdly, that the study of the individual's social group or village community from century to century is a fitting addition to the other' [1137]. The article’s ‘delightful reading’ was mentioned as far away as the Northern Whig & Belfast Post [1138].
Knocker was Secretary of the Manorial Society and his thoughts were certainly catching on at this time. The professional record searcher William Miller Higgs (1878-1958) [1139] joined the Society in 1922 and was elected a Fellow in 1923. He had written The Spurgeon family about the ancestry and family of Charles Haddon Spurgeon of 'Tabernacle' fame in 1906 and in 1933 produced with M. A. Higgs, A history of the Higges or Higgs family, showing in quite remarkable detail the history of a yeoman family at Thatcham, Berkshire, and South Stoke, Oxfordshire, which eventually sold 500 copies [1140]. Another fine example of the period was the will indexer John Harold Morrison's The Underhills of Warwickshire (1932). In a review of Thomson’s Catalogue in 1936, Ronald Stewart-Brown (1872-1940), FSA, sheriff of Denbighshire and elected a Fellow in 1934, wrote that the standard of research had risen in recent years and that it was one of the aims of the Society, by example and criticism, to set a higher standard [1141], a view echoed by another member, Arthur W. Vivian-Neal (died 1962), who two years later wrote that 'one of the most useful functions of the Society' had been, by criticism and advice, to assist in the development of the now established and widely recognized conventions on which family histories were best constructed. In commending The Bax Family (1936) by Bernard Thistlethwaite (died 1960) he wrote that rarely of late was a family history found to lack an index or the necessary chart pedigrees required to simplify the tracing of intricate relationships [1142].
A few years later Charles Edmund Lart (1867-1947) [1143], the expert on French and Huguenot pedigrees, noted that 'Genealogical research to-day seems to trend towards the making of pedigrees of lesser folk and ordinary mortals, who are after all the backbone of a nation and can be carried back as far and father as those of "Great Families", with fewer unsavoury incidents - such for instance as that of the Oglanders, country squires in the Isle of Wight, just published under the title of A Royalist Diary' [1144].
John Harold Morrison (1883-1935), the professional just mentioned for his work on the Underhill family, had joined the Society in 1930. He was an extraordinarily rapid and persistent worker and following the Underhill book he produced in quick succession three books derived entirely from the probate records at Somerset House. The first, Register Scrope, distributed to 67 subscribers in June 1934 and containing extracts of all the wills proved in the PCC in 1634, was an innovation in printing technique. It had been printed entirely on a Gestetner duplicating machine 'driven by a small motor (working on an ordinary electro-light circuit), and turning out copies of the pages at the rate of 70 a minute', he having cut the stencils on a Motor-Varityper which allowed him to use half a dozen different typefaces. Both techniques were only a few months old and this is thought to have been the first book of any size printed entirely in this manner. In the introduction he thanked the Superintendent of the Department for Literary Enquiry, Mr J. H. Pettit, for being 'unfailingly courteous in granting me all the facilities at his disposal'.
In December that year he published his second great work, an index containing abstracts of all the PCC administrations between 1620 and 1630. He was in a fever to fill in the gaps in the indexes printed by the British Record Society and in his preface wrote, 'Life is short by the measure of the work which remains to be done in this field ... It would remain to press on with the continuation of both series across the gulf which still intervenes before the official publications begin in 1858. And then the minor courts might receive further attention. How much of this will be accomplished, before the bombs fall and the original documents are destroyed for ever?' It was a prophetic comment but he did not live to see it come true. In August 1935 he published his third great work, an index to the PCC wills proved between 1661 and 1670. The Probate Act Book for the year 1662 was missing and, 'I had proposed', as he wrote in his Preface, 'with the aid of a friendly official, to collate my list with all the filed wills proved that year. But when this was about to be done, it was vetoed by Mr Horsford, of the Principal Probate Registry, who has done so much to obstruct access to the records of which he (unfortunately for all who are interested in them) is the official Keeper. Accordingly, unregistered wills proved in 1662 remain unlisted and unknown' [1145]. The official obstruction so well known in the Department had clearly preyed on his mind and with this final attack and after dedicating his book in Latin in a way which intimated that he was 'about to die', he dated the Preface 18th August and thirteen days later, upset also by the recent death of his mother, he gassed himself. He was fifty-one. Morrison's death greatly shocked the genealogical community and was long remembered and commented upon but the situation in the strong rooms at Somerset House remained the same.
Herbert J. Rumsey (died 1956) [1146], a member since 1924, had been a frequent visitor to the Society's rooms in 1931, assisting with the apprenticeship index, and was elected a Fellow in 1932. He returned to Australia and at a meeting of genealogists in Sydney on 29 August 1932 with Edward McCreery Shea Hill (1861-1946), a Fellow since 1911 and a member of early committees, and three others, was elected to a temporary committee to draw up a constitution for a projected Australian Society of Genealogists that Rumsey thought should function like the Society in London [1147]. The latter long considered the Society in Australia its 'daughter' and, although there was no formal connection, gave it what encouragement it could. In December 1933 our Magazine reported that Rumsey was the President and Hill the Honorary Secretary of the new Society and gifts of books would be welcome [1148]. The Society of Genealogists gave many duplicate volumes to the fledgling society and photocopied for its library several volumes of cemetery inscriptions.
Herbert Rumsey, who was the editor of The Australian Genealogist from 1932 to 1944, had himself witnessed the destruction by fire in 1886 of the Garden Palace building in Sydney where many public records had been stored. He came to England again in 1938 and spoke about the early and rapid development of his society in a talk after the Annual Meeting in July. His comments about the changing attitude to convict ancestry in Australia and the numerous claimants to dormant funds ('a common "complaint" with us') are particularly interesting [1149]. Hill had served as Secretary until 1942 [1150].
I have often said that it takes three generations or a hundred years for descendants to start questioning the reasons for some past great move in their families and by 1968 it was a hundred years since the last convicts were transportated to Western Australia, arriving in the Swan River on 9 January 1868. By 1978 it was reckoned that one in twenty living Australians had convict ancestors and great numbers of their descendants were happily tracing their ancestries and collecting as many convict ancestors as they could find [1151]. Many migrants went to New Zealand in the 1860s and it is no coincidence that the New Zealand Society of Genealogists at Auckland was not founded until 1968 [1152].
George Sherwood had been talking about the need for larger premises in 1926 but the lease at Bloomsbury Square was not due to expire until 25 March 1933 and so little was done until 1932 when the search for alternative premises became really necessary. Their possible location was discussed at the Annual Meeting in July when it was formally proposed and agreed that whilst preferring to remain in the Bloomsbury Square neighbourhood, the Meeting was of the opinion 'that a move to another central quarter such as the region of Victoria would be justified if better financial terms could be obtained' [1153]. In September the Society advertised for 1,500 square feet, preferably located on the ground and first floors of a building somewhere in central London or Kensington and near a station [1154], and in December it announced 'with the utmost satisfaction' that it had secured premises in a quiet little cul-de-sac called Upper Malet Street (formerly Upper Gower Mews and today called Malet Place) near University College, within four minutes’ walk of the buses in Tottenham Court Road and Goodge Street Station [1155].
At the time the University of London was drastically transforming that whole area and had recently bought two acres of land to the south of University College formerly occupied by Messrs Shoolbred, [1156] the furniture store in Tottenham Court Road. On the land was a ‘black wreck of a warehouse’ which in 1931 the Carnegie UK Trust thought might be converted for use as the headquarters of the rapidly expanding Library Association with which the Trust shared premises in Bedford Square. Arundell Esdaile (1880-1956), the editor of the Library Association Record, who had looked at numerous possible buildings, fortunately had the vision to see the warehouse as it might be. It was transformed beyond recognition, just over half the needed funds coming from the Carnegie Trustees. It was Esdaile who suggested that it be named ‘Chaucer House’ [1157].
The necessary work on the building took place in the latter part of 1932 and the Library Association officially opened there in May 1933. The Society of Genealogists had negotiated a twenty-one year lease of the whole of the third floor, the 1,750 square feet being a major improvement on the 1,250 at Bloomsbury Square. I remember Chaucer House quite well, having taken the examinations of the Library Association there after the Society left, in the 1950s. In 1932 it was thought that the new premises were 'in what is becoming the most important centre of the intellectual life of London' [1158] but initially they were noisy with the building work going on around them and the approach, as the Magazine editor said, 'lacked dignity since it was through a converted mews'. In Chaucer House, the Museums Association took part of the floor above the Society, the Library Association occupying the first and second floors and adapting the remainder of the upper floor for its own library later in 1933 [1159]. At the same time the National Central Library obtained an adjacent building. The development of the nearby Senate House complex was completed in 1936.
A small reserve fund, tended by Percival Boyd, had been accumulating for some time [1160] and the Annual Report for 1932 said that 'Cash and investments stand at £987 5s 5d, so there should be no anxiety about meeting the expenses that will be incurred in removing to and fitting up the new and enlarged premises' [1161]. The total cost, including the dilapidations at Bloomsbury Square (£96), legal fees (£42-16-0) and new furniture and shelving, came to £640, borrowed from the Bank and secured on the Society's investments [1162].
The move in March 1933, overseen by Kathleen Blomfield, was a considerable undertaking, requiring new furniture and shelving, but there was a great improvement in space, light and comfort, and there was a lift to the third floor. The space there was partitioned into a large library for bound books, a room for the card indices and document collection with convenient tables and a small room for the Secretary. Kathleen Blomfield later described the Society's old home in Bloomsbury Square as 'a lovely house with a beautiful staircase and Adam decorations shewing dimly through the gloom of the accumulated dirt of years', adding that 'the atmosphere was friendly - more that of an intimate small club than the headquarters of a learned Society', but she believed that with the move to Chaucer House 'all this intimate atmosphere was lost' [1163]. It was a sentiment that one heard again after the removal from Harrington Gardens to Charterhouse Buildings in 1984. However, at the end of 1934 she was able to say that the rooms at Chaucer House, far from the traffic of Bloomsbury Way, were ‘above all, quiet’ [1164]. Of course not all were pleased with the location and the journalist Francis Humphrey-Davy (1880-1953), who had been secretary to Lord Northcliffe and a member for several years, wailed from Kensington, ‘I have no idea where Malet Place is or how to get to it, without a taxi’, and that was after having been sent a map and told about the buses! [1165].
Kathleen Blomfield had Claudia Ord-Young as her assistant during the move and until March 1934 when, for a while, she worked alone, but from September 1934 she had two assistants, Miss Audrey Jennings and Miss Anna Luddington. The latter had gone by March 1935 (and married in 1937) but Audrey Jennings, who had been born at Streatham in 1890 and was living at Berkhamstead, served loyally as Assistant Secretary [1166] into the War years.
The books were arranged in the new bookcases by Theodore Thomson [1167], the Honorary Librarian, who many years later recalled unpacking on arrival at Malet Place and, as he wrote to me, the 'ensuing battle with Mr Tonks' fittings' (the metal strips and tags in the new adjustable shelving) [1168]. He had divided the lists of library accessions published in the Magazine by subject for the first time in September 1932 and his arrangement of the Library followed this pattern, which had slowly developed and now forms the basis of the present library classification. Writing about the library in the March 1933 issue of the Magazine, Thomson said that the bookcases would be labelled and each book would have its place indicated on the inside of its front cover 'so that it may be put back in its proper place'. He hoped to have a new and much better catalogue completed by the end of the year. He invited the loan of further books, saying that they would be safe in the new library and pointed out that the library was especially weak in the large standard county histories and needed a copy of the Dictionary of National Biography and more army lists. Offers from members for the old bookshelves were welcomed [1169]. The rooms, previously open on Tuesdays until 8 pm, were after the move open only from 10 am to 6 pm (including Saturdays) and late-night opening was not re-instituted until late in 1954 after the Society’s next move.
One great advantage of the new building, however, was that the Society's previously overcrowded meetings and lectures could now be held in the Library Association's Council Chamber, a room on the second floor which held 250 people. As a result the numbers attending the monthly winter lectures more than doubled [1170]. At a reception to mark the opening of the new rooms on Tuesday, 10 October 1933, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Hanworth, gave a talk on 'The History of the Public Records' and there was an exhibition of illuminated pedigrees and 'objects more or less connected with genealogical science'. More than two hundred members and friends attended but the President, Lord Farrer, was unwell, his place being taken by Alfred Trego Butler, Windsor Herald and Chairman of the Executive Committee [1171].
The Annual Report for 1934 stressed the importance of the unique typescript volumes that were now being received in the Library, twenty-four having been received that year. Mrs Blomfield said that although a member might not have the time to slip index a whole register containing perhaps 20,000 names and then to type the slips in quadruple copies, as had become usual, they might slip a smaller register, of twenty to forty pages, for the Society to have typed. A typed copy of the registers of Mitcham, Surrey, had been sold for six guineas. Donations to the fund, called the Research Fund, for typing the Vicar-General Marriage Licences and the Apprenticeship Index were few that year [1172], but greatly improved in 1935 when several manuscripts typed from the Fund (costing £44) were listed in the Annual Report [1173], it being there said that an average typescript volume cost £10 to produce. As a result it had been decided to add these costs (£250 in the year) to the 1933 valuation of the Library (£3,000) in the Balance Sheet.
When the Parish Register Society, founded in 1896, ceased publication in 1935 a donation of £60 was made to the Society of Genealogists and the Committee decided that it should be spent on the acquisition of further register copies [1174]. That same year 'an electric typewriting-machine' was purchased that enabled several copies of a transcript to be made at one operation [1175], one copy of each being sold to pay for more typing [1176] and in 1936 the Annual Meeting was told that many transcripts were in the process of being typed [1177].
Quantities of material for the document collection were also being received. In 1933 a large collection of extracts and copies of deeds, wills, parish registers and monumental inscriptions relating chiefly to Surrey and Sussex and made by Robert Garraway Rice, JP, FSA (1852-1933), of Carpenter’s Hill, Pulborough, who was well-known for his care and precision [1178], was received by bequest and filed by name and place in the “D.MSS”, as Sherwood called the Document Collection, D.MSS standing for Documents and Loose Manuscripts [1179].
However, in 1934 Kathleen Blomfield noticed that many members were disappointed that their gifts were not regularly being noted in the Magazine in which George Sherwood was now usually only recording the receipt of Birth Briefs. As a result, although the document collection 'is in the hands of Mr G. F. T. Sherwood', she began the system by which she endeavoured to acknowledge there practically everything that came in, although it was, as she wrote to John E. N. Walker, who had given an unacknowledged parcel of deeds relating to the Earls of Oxford, 'a severe tax on my already overfilled time' [1180]. The implied criticism of Sherwood is interesting. An unsigned note with the letter says, 'I can't find any entry in Mr Sherwood's book!' but he has curtly endorsed it 'Filed at "St Marylebone", Middx'. His rough and ready system was clearly not always working or indeed adequate.
About this time, for some unknown and not, I think, overly good reason, the member Oswald Knapp, instead of filing them in the D.MSS, pasted many miscellaneous abstracts and copies of documents into fifteen guard books, roughly in order of date, calling them ‘Evidences’, and provided each with an index [1181]. The D.MSS by family now filled 120 boxes and that by place 349 boxes, but there were in addition 160 parcels in order and 65 parcels awaiting attention, a somewhat daunting backlog.
Owing to the great influx of books some additional new shelving, costing £100, had to be obtained in the summer of 1936, the arrangement by county being continued within the bays, with runs of periodicals and outsize folios on the outer shelves [1182]. The sale of some old furniture had produced £12 the previous year [1183].
Following the death of the stalwart Revd Thomas Dale in 1937, the well-known antiquary Revd James Harvey Bloom (1860-1943) [1184], who had been a member since 1917, wrote a memorandum worrying about the Society, the lack of attention to the Card Index, the slow growth in membership and the need for publicity. The President, Lord Farrer, replied privately to his various points saying that with the recent new library shelving the Society probably had sufficient space for another seven years, though they were constantly receiving original documents, such as conveyances, mortgages and leases, from the British Records Association. John Francis Ainsworth had spent almost a year weeding duplicates from the Great Card Index and putting it in order but it did not remain in order due to the carelessness of the members. Farrer agreed that a paid librarian would be very desirable but the funds did not permit that or the expansion of the magazine. The total staff salaries in the last year had been £331 and the employment of a press agent was quite out of the question. Dr Dale's loss was indeed 'irreplaceable', he wrote, 'for he was the one person to whom the Staff could always appeal for information and from whom it was always forthcoming' [1185]. However, for a short time in the second half of 1937 the Society employed a 'Library Assistant', H. A. Taylor [1186], but the position was not retained into 1938 probably because of Kendall Percy-Smith's growing involvement in library matters.
The problems with the Great Card Index mentioned by Lord Farrer had been exercising the Committee for a number of years and there were continual appeals for people to help with the sorting. At the same time the typing of particular surnames had been encouraged, but members sometimes applied for a selection of entries to be typed and it was decided in 1927 that typing could take place only if all the entries for a surname were typed, a fully typed index being the Society’s ultimate object [1187]. The slips thus typed could be purchased for three pence a hundred and lists of the names involved were then published in the Magazine [1188] The charge for typing was a shilling a sheet of about forty entries (a sample sheet for the surname Sabin was printed and sent with the Magazine), but non-members were charged 10s 6d a sheet [1189].
In 1931 the Editor of the Magazine wrote that 'a very large amount of time and labour is occupied in correcting the carelessness of those who replace the slips in the wrong order or even upside down' [1190]. At that time there was still a Secretary to the Slip-index Committee and Miss Florence Bowman (died 1962) [1191], a member since 1928 who had been elected a Fellow in 1930, and who had laboured so hard to keep things under control, gave up and was succeeded by Miss Marjory Sophia Sinclair (1896-1980), a Member who had joined in June 1930 and who lived in Red Lion Square. She came from a ship-building family in South Shields and described herself in the ‘1939 Register’ as a genealogist. The Annual Report for 1931 noted that the index then contained almost three million slips but that 'numerical progress had far outrun systematised order'. A hundred and forty-four non-members had used the index that year and the slips for thirty-eight surnames had been typed [1192].
In 1932, when Miss Sinclair was again appealing for help with the work [1193], it was said that although 6,112 slips had been added to the index (some twenty members being involved in the work), another 4,724 had been withdrawn after typing, and that 'this branch of the Society's work is clearly expanding', there being a larger proportion of Country Members and a decrease in the number of foreign visitors [1194]. The dedicated Miss Sinclair was elected a Fellow that December and the following year supervised the re-housing of the index in its new quarters at Chaucer House [1195].
In an effort to attract more slip sorters a series of special monthly meetings with excellent speakers was organised throughout the winter, 1933-34, and publicised in the Magazine. These were open only to sorters [1196]. At the first, on 4 October 1933, Miss Sinclair provided sherry and lemonade, her little party being glowingly reported in the Magazine as a further inducement to volunteers [1197]. A second party was held on 3 January 1934 when a Vice-President, Thomas Ulick Sadleir (died 1957) [1198], Deputy Ulster King of Arms, spoke about his records [1199]. The other speakers were the Revd Thomas Dale, Edward Lynam, C. B. Oldman, Guy Parsloe and T. Rowland Powell [1200].
When Thomas Dale spoke to the sorters on 14 February 1934 he said that the size of the index, which he thought about two million slips, was only slowly increasing because of the slow trickle of new slips and the typing. As a result very few 'interests' were being sent to members (they were normally sent every quarter) [1201] and many members received none at all. In the first dozen years of the Society the enthusiasm for the index had been immense but it had then fallen away. He had made an analysis of the 6,667 slips added in 1931 and showed how very miscellaneous they were. He calculated that, at the very most, only 440 parish registers had been completely slipped [1202]. The number of slips added in 1933 had again fallen to 5,267. Some seventeen surnames had been typed [1203].
Following the report of Dale's talk Lieut. Colonel Henry Ramsay Phipps (1874-1949) who, over the last three years had spent much time on the index, cross-referencing variants in letter 'B' and removing a large number of duplicates, contributed 'Some Remarks on the Card Index' to the Magazine and said that the Society should give strict guidance as to the records suitable for indexing, stressing that every slip should be self-explanatory and that the lists of variant surnames on the head cards were a valuable guide to the beginner. People should be told to be more careful in its use. His outspoken comments about users and typists also queried the curious and unexplained way in which the slips were re-arranged into chronological order before being typed. On that point he received no answer [1204]. Colonel Phipps's many quite rude, but entirely justified comments, scribbled in thick black pencil on the slips about the foolishness of users and contributors, their handwriting and their inability to sort correctly, are probably still sometimes found, though a shocked Mrs Sherwood removed the worst of them! I remember also the deep embarrassment and offence caused to one visiting searcher by the comment 'Wasters all' that Colonel Percy-Smith had scrawled on a slip relating to the man's family!
Unfortunately Miss Sinclair was obliged by pressure of other work to resign the Honorary Secretaryship of the Card Index in the autumn of 1934. An optimistic note that appealed for a successor said that the index was in good working order and only required supervision for two or three hours a week, but two more sorters were needed [1205]. The same story was told three months later [1206] and it was presumably after this that the new member mentioned by Lord Farrer, John Francis Ainsworth (1912-1981), just out of College and working as a professional genealogist but also a member of the Executive Committee, agreed to be Honorary Secretary, the Annual Report congratulating him ‘on the headway he has made in the formidable task of going through each box, sorting the sadly disarranged slips, eliminating duplicates and typing or orienting neat head cards to replace those which in the past have been badly written’ [1207]. Some 13,377 slips had been added that year but in 1935 John Ainsworth, who was ‘now engaged elsewhere’, was only able to attend for a short period each week and only 7,280 slips were added [1208]. In 1936 an appeal was made for contributors to contact the Society before indexing a parish register as it had been found in 1934 that letter 'A' had about 33% of slips in duplicate and about 10% in triplicate. Contributors were requested to type their slips, something that must have dissuaded many from helping, and to follow the Society's scheme of abbreviations [1209].
In 1938 Percival Boyd described the task of keeping the slips in order as a 'labour of Sisyphus', for as fast as they were put in order members carelessly mixed them up again. In an effort to get more typed, the Society offered to type names at 3d a sheet, accepting postage stamps in payment [1210], and large numbers of names were then typed [1211]. In March 1942 it was announced that new material coming into the card index would be placed at the end of the surnames concerned and divided from the slips already there by a red card, but that the Executive Committee wished to limit the slips added, there being (because of the War) no voluntary labour to keep them in order. This and the recommendation that entries be placed on quarto sheets that might be filed in the Document Collection, spelled the end of the Great Card Index as a growing entity [1212], though for thirty years from the 1960s onwards the research assistant Alan William Rolfe regularly filed large numbers of 'stray' entries and 'late baptisms' [1213] which he found whilst searching London parish registers.
Wear and tear on the Great Card Index had reached a height in 1931 when, Mrs Blomfield later said, seventeen day-searchers from overseas were using the library every week, but the number had fallen to only two or three a week in the 1934 summer 'season'. The Society was, however, then receiving far more letters from America (as well as those from Germany mentioned below), the enquirers seeking to establish connections with well-known English families and to use their arms [1214].
As a result, just prior to the move, in 1932, the Executive Committee agreed to revise the scale of charges for more general searches in the library. A day's search was now to cost ten shillings, a shorter search being charged pro rata, with a minimum of 2s 6d. Non-members were to be charged double these rates [1215]. A note in the catalogue of parish registers printed in 1924, however, had already indicated that members requiring extended searches ‘by the Secretary’ would be charged ten shillings a day.
I have not seen the letter from Harvey Bloom mentioned above but it seems that he asked about the possibility of recommendations for professional work, as in his reply Lord Farrer added that the Society did not recommend record agents and that he was sure that this was 'the right attitude for a voluntary society'. According to his advertisement in The Genealogists’ Magazine, Harvey Bloom 'specialized in family and parochial history, transcripts and translations' [1216]. He had, of course, over many years been responsible for a series of highly regarded published works, including not least the well-paid but unacknowledged transcription of the deeds at Warwick Castle for Lady Warwick’s Warwick Castle and its Earls (2 vols. 1903) for which she sent him £50, more than double his estimate [1217].
In July 1931 there had been a sharp exchange at the Annual Meeting when the well-known professional Reginald Glencross, a much respected Life Fellow and supporter of the Magazine in which he had advertised since March 1929, asked for a reply to a letter in which he had inquired as to the Secretary's method of dealing with people who applied for the names of professional searchers, asking on what principle their selection was made. In reply Lord Farrer, the President who was also a member of the Executive Committee, read a letter that he had sent to the Secretary (Mrs Bell) instructing her to refer all such enquiries to the Executive Committee until a definite rule had been formulated. George Waterworth Younger, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and Theodore Thomson proposed that a list of professionals be prepared and given to inquirers but Thomas Dale and George Sherwood wanted the matter referred to the Executive Committee and it was eventually agreed that the Executive's decision be put to an Extraordinary General Meeting of the Society [1218]. Immediately thereafter in July 1931 the Executive agreed that it recommend that 'the Secretary be not allowed to give any names whatever of Record Searchers to inquirers' she being directed to strictly adhere to that rule [1219]. One has the impression that this was the view urged by Lord Farrer. He took the chair at the Extraordinary Meeting on 8 October when the suggested 'rule' was approved 'without dissent' it being pointed out that the Secretary of the Public Record Office kept a list of record agents and that inquirers might be directed there [1220]. That, of course, did not help those looking for local searchers outside London.
The Society's negative attitude to professionals is summarised in an interesting letter written by Kathleen Blomfield in 1937, 'The Society exists primarily for amateur genealogists who undertake their own research work aided by the records we are able to place at their disposal. Anything which increased the professional element is therefore not to be encouraged within the Society' [1221].
However, shortly afterwards, when Lord Farrer was no longer on the Executive Committee, the Society had second thoughts about its attitude and for the first time in March 1939 published a list of some eighteen record searchers which had been recommended to the Society for their work by its Members [1222]. At least eight of them had advertised in the journal. In the years 1929-39 there had been 38 advertisers of genealogical services in the Magazine. Of these nineteen were local searchers, eleven were London based (including those doing heraldic work),three in Ireland, one in Scotland, one in Germany (Peter von Gerbhardt in Berlin in 1929-30), one scrivener and two dealers in deeds.
The people on this list of 'Recommended Searchers' introduced in 1939 had, in theory, been recommended by at least two members for whom they had done work. From June to September 1939 the list contained twenty names but the number declined greatly during the War and for some years afterwards when only four or five people were listed [1223]. The number rose from eight to thirteen in 1957. The list was, however, a sensible compromise which was widely used to answer unwanted research requests and it lasted until after the foundation of the Association of Genealogists and Record Agents in the 1970s. The only problem with the list was that once a name appeared there was no agreed machinery for removing it!
At the end of her first year at the Society, Kathleen Bell (or Mrs Blomfield as she became in 1933) accepted an advertisement in the Magazine from Artcards Ltd of Folkestone, Kent, saying simply, 'Earn money writing Showcards at home. We teach and supply work' [1224]. She charged a guinea for four insertions of the text [1225] and the first appeared in mid-March 1932 when a member at Folkestone was quick to point out that Artcards was only that week being charged with conspiracy to defraud and that the case was receiving a good deal of notice in the local newspapers. The case went to the Old Bailey in May when five young men were given various terms of hard labour in connection with bogus advertisements for home employment. Their advertisements had appeared in a wide range of journals and one of the men had boasted that they had received 30,000 orders, each usually containing about £4, in six months [1226].
William Gun, one of the joint-editors of the Magazine, had meanwhile sought advice about the Society's legal position from Harry Pirie-Gordon (1883-1969) [1227] a Founder and Fellow who was on the editorial staff of The Times, and he in turn consulted the Manager of The Times, who said that the advertisement should continue to appear until a verdict was obtained [1228]. Fortunately it was thus not necessary to include the advertisement in the June issue.
It was not the first such case to interest the Society and in March 1928 it had expelled from membership one Colonel Edmund Octavius Eaton (1864-1946), of St Leonards, Sussex, who for twenty-five years had promoted bogus companies and in January had been sentenced at the Old Bailey to four years penal servitude for conspiracy, with a bankrupt baronet and others, to defraud through the extraordinary Chalk Fuel Power Gas and By-Products Corporation Limited [1229]. His prospectuses were often aimed at women and he perhaps had more interest in the possible use of the Society’s membership list than in tracing his ancestors.
In 1933, however, Mrs Blomfield began to receive complaints from members in America to whom she had forwarded letters from a Mr R. Bolton or Vincent, as he was sometimes called, of 273 Moseley Road, Birmingham. Bolton had been taking members' names and addresses from the Magazine and offering deeds and documents about their families for relatively small amounts of money. The money he always acknowledged in a most business-like manner but the documents never arrived. Members were warned against such offers in the Magazine [1230] and in November 1934 Mrs Blomfield was able to say that Bolton had been convicted of false pretences and sentenced to nine months imprisonment [1231].
The trade in deeds and documents of every description was widespread at this time. James Coleman left some 50,000 documents at his death in 1908 and these were sorted into county lots and offered for sale by his executors at the rate of £10 per 100, Edward Alexander Fry having specimen lots on view at his office at 124 Chancery Lane [1232]. Only two counties were sold immediately and the remainder were marketed by Coleman’s successors, S. & E. Coleman, who also published catalogues, 1910-13. About 1,500 deeds were bought by the National Library of Wales which published detailed abstracts of them [1233]. Meanwhile some of the stock had been taken over by another dealer Frank Marcham (1883-1944), of Edmonton, who with his brother, William McBeath Marcham (who lived at Hornsey and edited the local Court Rolls), was particularly interested in the early stage and in material about Shakespeare, publishing works on The King's Office of the Revels (1925) and on William Shakespeare and his daughter Susannah (1931). Frank Marcham, the son of a surveyor, had been interested in bibliography from an early age. He was a member of the Society from 1919 and joined the long established firm of Myers & Co, booksellers and printsellers in New Bond Street. Although he had come through the South African and First World Wars safely, he was killed in a bombing raid in Camberwell in 1944. Kathleen Blomfield called him 'an industrious and painstaking worker who spent a vast amount of time in research without expectation or hope of pecuniary reward' [1234].
Another extremely well known dealer in records of every description Herbert Richard Moulton (1861-1939), of Richmond, Surrey (later active in connection with the Society’s Jubilee Exhibition), in 1930 produced an enormous 342-page and large format illustrated catalogue Palaeography, Genealogy and Topography, in which he gave short but careful abstracts of some 10,000 deeds which he had for sale, ranging in date from the 12th to the 19th century. In 1936 he produced an 120-page index to the 30,000 surnames mentioned which aroused considerable interest [1235]. In a review of the catalogue itself George Sherwood wrote that it was a great advance on the earlier catalogues of the dealer, James Coleman, 'a pioneer of this kind of thing' [1236]. The Society has a long run of Coleman's catalogues (9 vols. 1859-1911) collected by Frederick Snell and to these, also in 1936, the member Brigadier-General Alfred E. J. Cavendish (1859-1943) added a valuable slip index in seventeen trays to the 45,000 names mentioned in the catalogue's short extracts [1237]. In 1931 Sherwood himself advertised 'Neglected old deeds and papers, after I had looked through them, realised £765. May I look at yours?' [1238].
It could thus be a busy time for frauds of the kind perpetrated by Mr Bolton and in March 1933 the journal Truth drew attention to the activities of Janson & Co of 12-13 Prudential Buildings, Clapham Common, which had circulated people with relatively frequent surnames, such as Warren, Finch and Bennett, announcing that they were writing histories of their families. They offered a discount if payment were made in advance, saying that a volume which would cost five guineas after publication could be purchased for £4, a deposit of £1 being required with the order, but that a copy could be secured by paying three guineas with the order. The firm had left the Clapham Common address in September 1932, but letters were still being forwarded and it was now trading from 56 Alderbrook Road, Balham [1239].
In July 1933 under the heading 'Bogus Genealogists' Harvest: Victims from U.S.: Missing Heirs: Guineas Roll In', the Daily Mail reported that the United States Consul-General's Office in London was receiving more than sixty letters a week from people who believed that they were missing heirs, and said that bogus genealogists in England were reaping a rich harvest by preying on the vanity of people who believed that they had claims to noble birth. Without naming the firm the article went on to describe the activities of Janson & Co, saying that some time ago 'a trickster living in obscurity in South London' had collected subscriptions for a history of the Bennett family that never appeared. The Daily Mail leader said, 'Some of these genealogies may be genuine, but in most imagination plays a large part. Human credulity, however, in such matters is only too anxious to be duped' [1240]. As a result of the article the firm commenced an action for libel against Associated Newspapers, the owners of the Daily Mail, but it was not pressed [1241].
The forthright member Phyllis Shield (1896-1968), the step-daughter of Gerald Fothergill who lived at Wandsworth and was well known for her strong and un-ladylike language, took an interest in Janson's activities and in October 1933 found that 'our slippery friend' was living at 15 Evelyn Mansions, W.14. She wrote, 'Oh how I'd like to have him right under my hands in a nice quiet corner where he could not run away, and where there were not any witnesses! I'd tell him much for the good of his soul' [1242].
In 1935 another member, Colonel Ernest Achey Loftus (1884-1987) [1243] of West Tilbury, Essex (the first headmaster of Barking Abbey School and later, according to the Guinness Book of Records, ‘the longest serving civil servant in the world’), was given a circular that had been received by his father-in-law, Allen Charles Cole, about a proposed history of the Cole family. It was from Janson & Co, now trading at 6 Conduit Street, London W1, and Colonel Loftus entered into correspondence with the firm in order to discover the name of the man who was supposedly working on the book. The latter was, of course, 'so busily engaged with the work of completing this book that he regrets that however much he would like to meet his different correspondents he is really unable to find the time' [1244].
A little later in 1936 a man describing himself as Sir John Brunton of the Faculty of Genealogical Research, also at 6 Conduit Street, London, offered 'authentic and certified Crests and complete genealogies' of 'intense interest' on the 'finest parchment' [1245]. Complaints were so numerous that Scotland Yard began to take an interest and Mrs Blomfield was able to say that by March 1940 the 'Faculty' no longer existed [1246].
However, Janson & Co had again moved and was at 7 Princes Street, Hanover Square, sending out circulars about a projected history of the Roberts families, said to be by one 'F. B. S. Roberts, assisted by a well-known historian and genealogist', which was to be published in December 1937, but again the book never appeared. This particularly annoyed Mrs Ethel Adair Impey (nee Roberts; 1877-1961) [1247] a Society member in Birmingham and a generous benefactress who was herself about to publish A Roberts family: quondam Quakers of Queen's County (1939). She continued enquires about 'F. B. S. Roberts' for some years but, not surprisingly, without success [1248].
The prospectus that Mrs Impey had received said that the firm had published histories of the Armitage, Banastre or Bannister, Chapman, Finch, I'Anson, Martyn or Martin and Wightman families, and histories of these seven families had indeed been printed; all had been compiled by Arthur ‘Bryan’ I'Anson (1873-1949). Five had been published in the period 1914-18, including that on the I’Anson family in 1915 'for the Genealogical Research Society', an organisation which did not exist, but the histories of the Finch and Martyn families had not appeared until 1933 and 1935 respectively.
Bryan I’Anson, from Saltburn in Yorkshire, was the son of a civil engineer and had been a fairly prosperous chartered accountant in Middlesbrough but his father died in 1915 and by 1918 he had moved to Epsom, Surrey, where his wife died in 1930, aged 51. He had continued to describe himself as an accountant and in 1935 was at 60 Warwick Street, Westminster, but he married again in 1936 and continued at that address until at least the outbreak of War. He died in Kensington in 1949 and his widow in Chelsea in 1981 [1249]. One presumes that following the death of his first wife he had intended to compile and publish a number of family histories for which the subscribers largely sent him the material and he was undoubtedly the man behind Janson & Co [1250], ‘Janson’ sometimes being an alternative form of ‘I’Anson’. His initial intentions may not have been fraudulent but he seems to have found it more remunerative to take subscriptions than to compile books. After the police involvement at Conduit Street in 1936 and his second marriage that year, no further books appeared. Large numbers of prospectuses had, however, been circulated and people still came forward asking for these phantom publications into the 1950s and 1960s, as I well remember.
Another particularly tiresome fraud which Kathleen Blomfield had to deal with was that perpetrated by the then young William Kingston Fudge (1904-1985) through magazines called The Topographical Quarterly and The Genealogical Quarterly owned by his company, Fudge and Co Ltd, of 94 York Road, SE1. In July 1933, just a few days before its disclosure of the activities of Janson & Co, the Daily Mail's reporter Montague Smith, who wrote that 'the world is full of people who think they are missing heirs' but that 'it also contains a few astute individuals who are prepared to foster that delusion at a price', noted that several readers had recently written to record the receipt of a postcard with the following announcement: "The Topographical Quarterly. The Editor presents his compliments and, in case you have not seen the Summer number of the Topographical Quarterly, begs respectfully to draw your attention to its Index to Advertisements for Next-of-Kin, Missing Heirs and Relatives, in the world's newspaper press, which mentions the name of ...". The postcards gave only the surname without forename or initials for that would, as Montague Smith wrote, 'assist in identification and blur our hopes at the same time'. The cards mentioned that copies of the Quarterly could be obtained from the publisher for 5s 6d post free, or 'if you do not wish to purchase it, ask for it at your library'. The cards concluded, "The Editor feels that you probably would wish to be informed of the matter".
'Recipients', as Montague Smith wrote, 'can hardly fail to think that the fortune is as good as theirs', and he went off to 94 York Road, near Waterloo Station, finding it to be the Pentland Bookshop, a dusty emporium of second hand books looking 'as much as possible unlike the Gateway to Wealth'. He bought a copy of the Quarterly and found that it contained about 300 names, complete with forenames or initials, but not addresses, taken from newspapers around the world. The details of the entry in the appropriate newspaper could be obtained on payment of a further 2s 6d.
Asking to see the publisher, Montague Smith was introduced to an informative Mr Fudge who admitted that for every issue of his journal he sent out about 20,000 postcards to people with similar surnames, their addresses taken from telephone directories in English-speaking countries, but that only about six libraries in the world actually subscribed to his Quarterly. Sometimes he concentrated his mailing on one town so that people would ask the local library for copies and encourage it to subscribe. He had only about a thousand actual subscribers and the copies of each issue cost him about two shillings. Mr Fudge claimed to be 'fulfilling a very useful purpose' but as Montague Smith's article remarked, 'Quite so, but for whom?' [1251].
Despite a warning article in the June 1935 Magazine which quoted extensively from a further interview with Mr Fudge, 'a short dark man with a merry eye and an infectious laugh', in the Evening Standard of 16 March [1252], dozens of people then and for the next thirty or forty years contacted the Society with copies of the pale green post cards that they or their relatives had received. Finding the idea remunerative Mr Fudge and his staff of twelve also published lists of names taken from old trade directories and sent out similar postcards as from the Genealogical Quarterly with offices in Lincoln's Inn Fields, drawing attention to 'information regarding the ... family'. For this Quarterly the annual subscription was 17s 6d but in it the unhappy subscriber found only a name and address.
In 1937 the periodical John Bull recounted the story of a reader called Dench who had received a card from the Genealogical Quarterly saying that its autumn issue contained some interesting information about the Dench family. He had paid 5s 6d for that issue by post and found that the information consisted of a one-line entry headed 'Leading Tradesmen of London in 1830' which ran 'Dench, Thomas, Hardwareman, 3, Shoe Lane, Fleet Street'. For every 20,000 postcards sent out Mr Fudge was said to receive 1,000 replies. John Bull concluded, 'Queer method of earning a living!' [1253]. The industrious Mr Fudge took exception to this, claiming that the article suggested that he was a dishonest and fraudulent publisher and was thus libellous. His action against Odham's Press Ltd (the owners of John Bull) eventually went to a Special Jury in the King's Bench Division in 1939 but was thrown out with costs [1254].
Meanwhile Mrs Blomfield had had to find excuses not to address circulars for Mr Fudge, not to refer the authors of rejected Magazine articles to him and not to place a reciprocal advertisement in his journal or co-operate with him in any way, though he claimed that the Genealogical Quarterly was 'purely and simply a magazine sold to subscribers (chiefly libraries)' and that he would promote the objects of the Society and 'the interests of its professional members' [1255]. His magazines and postcards continued to cause problems for several decades, many enquirers supposing that the Genealogical Quarterly was the Society's publication.
A rare case of champerty (the making of a bargain to share the proceeds of a lawsuit in the event of its success, then illegal in common law) came up in July 1935 when Mr Justice Eve in the Chancery Division held that an agreement by which Mrs Margaret Mary Charlotte Uttley, of Heywood, Lancashire, had contracted to pay Messrs Alfred J. Hooper and Company, a well-known firm of probate genealogists founded in 1923, one-third of her share of the estate of Miss Alice Jane Blake, a cousin once removed who had died intestate worth £7,569, was disgraceful and void. He gave judgment for the plaintiff with costs [1256]. Mrs Uttley claimed that she was cajoled into signing the document by Alfred James Hooper who told her that the money had been in Chancery for over a hundred years and that it would not be released - and none of the other beneficiaries would get anything - unless she signed. She had no idea that she would be giving away one-third of her share. All this was denied by Mr Hooper who said that he had conducted lengthy searches, including use of the 1841 and 1851 census returns to prove the pedigree. His firm's total expenses were £161 16s 6d and it would have received roughly £2,000 [1257].
In June 1934 the Magazine reported that a correspondent from Australia had written to say that when he was in Rome in 1884 'he was assured by the officials of the Vatican Library that all persons born in England from the time of St Augustine to the present time, of the Catholic Faith, had their names recorded in the registers of the Library, thus providing an immense store of genealogical information'. However, the officials said that no one was allowed to examine these registers without special leave from the Court of Cardinals, which leave was difficult to obtain.
The Magazine editors thought that the officials 'were misled by a too exuberant imagination' [1258] but George Percy Townend (1864-1941), an early Fellow of the Society who lived in Australia and claimed to have seen some of the registers, wrote to say that they were kept with such secrecy that no British archivist would be allowed even to know of their existence [1259]. The dreams of this former tester of worsted yarns from Bradford were, however, shattered when on 17 January 1935 the Prefect of the Archives at the Vatican said that no part of the archives was kept in such secrecy and that there were no such registers as those described [1260]. Sadly, of course, the story caught on and occasionally continues to raise its unlikely head.
In September 1934 it was announced that the Corporation of Trinity House had presented to the Society several thousand petitions from the wives and children of distressed seamen, 1780-1854, and Major Edward Parker Stapleton, OBE (1890-1967), of Barkston Gardens, who was sorting them into order, described them in the Magazine, some 44 volumes having already been bound and placed on the library shelves [1261]. Major Stapleton completed the work, in 102 volumes, in 1938 [1262].
Apparently at a later date (probably during the War) a number of further petitions were passed to the Society but not dealt with. They were placed in one of the basement stores in the housekeeper's flat in Harrington Gardens at the time of the move in 1954 and not found again until I cleared the bin during the structural alterations in 1969 [1263]. These also were then bound up and placed on the shelves. With them were a large number of interesting apprenticeship indentures and other papers for the period 1818-1845 (with one for the year 1780) and an index to them by Mrs Margaret Duggan was published in the Magazine [1264].
At the Annual Meeting in July 1934 William Gun suggested that the Society produce a handbook containing a list of the parish registers in its possession, specimens of calligraphy, a list of probate registries and other useful information, and the idea was referred to the Executive Committee [1265]. As a result in November 1935, Mrs Blomfield organised the first edition of a 20-page Genealogists' Handbook: being an introduction to the pursuit of genealogy (1935) containing basic information about parish registers, marriage licences, wills, searching at the Public Record Office, the College of Arms, with notes on Scottish, Welsh and Irish genealogy, and facsimile examples of the letters found in 16th and 17th century registers. The latter were, at the suggestion of Percival Boyd, included and written by the heraldic artist and calligrapher Claire G. M. Evans (died 1965) [1266]. An offprint of this key, with a map of the area around Chaucer House, was used as a publicity leaflet (costing 6d) which stressed the facilities for non-members then available at 13s 6d a day or 7s 6d for half a day [1267].
Much of the material in the Handbook had been collected by Theodore Thomson [1268] and the Annual Report for 1935 credits the original idea to him [1269]. A note in the Magazine, that he or Kathleen Blomfield perhaps wrote, showed great sympathy for the struggles of the beginner [1270]. The book sold for a shilling and received warm reviews in The Law Times and elsewhere [1271]. By the end of 1936 it had sold 526 copies mostly outside the membership and Mrs Blomfield wrote in the Annual Report that ‘better support from Members for this excellent publication would be appreciated’ [1272]. One understands why she was not greatly liked! The income was carried forward into the 1937 Accounts when the booklet had made a profit of £28 in the year (and a further £12-18-0 in 1938), ‘quite a considerable sum for a publication selling at a shilling’ [1273]. The review in The Law Times told the story of an old Scottish genealogist who, when he quarrelled with any of his acquaintances, used to threaten to 'bastardise' them, as his investigations in family history had shown him that if he went back far enough he was almost sure to find at least one ancestor who was a bastard! The little book was reprinted in 1944 and again in 1948.
In late 1935 the Society received on loan from Herbert C. R. Gillman (1912-1970) a set of the rare Irish newspaper the Hibernian Chronicle, October 1769-1802, and was given donations totalling £20 to start a fund to index the births, marriages and deaths recorded in its pages. A further £6 was received in 1936 and good progress made, the years 1769-1775 being quickly completed in two typescript volumes [1274].
The Society had for some time hoped to publish a new List of Members and eventually decided to do so in the Silver Jubilee Year. The list was in the printer’s hands by the end of 1935 and it appeared early in 1936 [1275]. Its successor waited until the next Jubilee in 1961.
At the Annual Meeting in June 1936 Lord Farrer proposed and it was agreed that under Article 10 not more than three Honorary Members at any one time might be elected [1276]. It is not clear what prompted that proposal, but in September that year, without any formal alteration in the Society's Articles, it was announced that in future second and subsequent Members of the same family residing at the same address could on election pay one-half the entrance fee and one half the annual subscription, they receiving only one copy of the Magazine and of any notices [1277]. I am not sure when the charge was first introduced (or indeed abandoned, for astonishingly it was never mentioned in the Magazine) but in the 1937 Annual Report Kathleen Blomfield remarked on the increased number of day students who were using the library, saying that ‘the arrangement whereby those engaged on special research for a limited period could take out a monthly season ticket for one guinea’ had been especially popular [1278].
It had been the intention to hold an exhibition in March 1936 to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary or Silver Jubilee of the Society but this was postponed owing to the death of King George V [1279] and the 'Exhibition of Genealogical and Heraldic Records' eventually took place in the Library Association's Hall at Chaucer House from Tuesday, 29 June, to Saturday, 3 July 1937, the Society's rooms being closed at that time. It was thought that London would still be full of overseas visitors for the Coronation in May [1280] and more than 1,200 attended [1281]. Some prior publicity in the Daily Telegraph proved useful [1282].
An organising sub-committee with Cregoe Nicholson in the chair had been set up in 1935 [1283] and the exhibition, which was designed to be instructional rather than just a display of rarities, involved various well-known specialists. George Sherwood was responsible for the section on Chancery Proceedings, Reginald Glencross for that on marriage licences and Catholic records, Anthony Wagner for that on the Heralds' Visitations, and Harvey Bloom for that on early deeds. Frank Tyler provided photographs of various parish registers. Eric Geijer, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, organised a fine heraldic display for which Wilfred Harris loaned some heraldic silver. The Librarian of the Institute of Historical Research provided a section of works illustrating 'Preserving and Making Accessible the National Records' and to this Lt. Colonel W. R. Mansfield contributed some impressive examples of his pioneering work on luminograms using ultra-violet light [1284]. Amongst others the dealer Herbert Richard Moulton loaned a large number of original documents from his collection and the Society's library was plundered for typical examples.
The Eugenics Society, which donated £30 towards the cost of the Exhibition [1285], showed several pedigrees 'illustrating how talents, health, various forms of skill as well as diseases and mental disorders and defects are passed from one generation to another', the accent being on positive rather than negative traits, though one of Lidbetter's pedigrees was also shown as 'part of a research into the population of an East London area'. The Eugenics Society had displayed pedigrees at many exhibitions and public meetings over the years, pointing up its moral and biological message, and it found that they were a 'powerfully direct means of persuasion' [1286] though, as Robert Resta has pointed out, they were sometimes extremely misleading and, on close study, revealed more about the biases of their compilers than about the families displayed [1287]. The exhibition catalogue controversially noted that, 'It is difficult to separate the effects of environment and heredity. There is little doubt that both contribute to the result, but where there is no inherited ability, the best environment cannot produce talent which is not innate. A bad inheritance tends to produce a bad environment and placing defective people in a good environment does not raise them above a certain low standard' [1288]. It would be interesting to know how many members of the Society of Genealogists shared those views.
The Secretary, Kathleen Blomfield, was responsible for much of the exhibition's organisational work and it was, from the publicity point of view, a considerable success, though Queen Mary was unfortunately unable to come. There was a private view on the Monday evening attended by the President, Lord Farrer, and an array of notabilities from the record and library world [1289]. Mrs Blomfield was keen to stress that this was the first exhibition of its kind in England [1290] but the newspapers were more interested in some of the pedigrees provided by the Eugenics Society that showed, for example, the transmission of colour-blindness and the genealogy of the Terry and Gielgud families [1291]. A diary started by Anne Prewe in 1581 and added to over some three hundred years by members of the Nicholson family also attracted much attention [1292], as did the pedigree of the former Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin (created Earl Baldwin earlier in the month), which showed that his ancestor renounced any right to Arms in 1663 [1293]. The curious records of the 'Society of Unanimous Sisters' of Sunderland, founded in 1818, which were exhibited, were also noticed [1294]. In interviews Mrs Blomfield said that the Society's work had doubled in the last year, the number of casual visitors doubling in the last five months [1295]. The value of the Great Card Index, of the growing index to apprentices and of Boyd's Marriage Index, was frequently mentioned [1296]. The fact that genealogy 'is not necessarily an expensive process and that it is a most enjoyable task for one to do it oneself' was also remarked upon [1297]. There was even an informative article in Exchange & Mart [1298].
Entrance to the exhibition was free but a detailed catalogue had been put together and was available for a shilling. Its striking cover, with a design of different generations of people in a tree surrounded by simple coats of arms, was again the work of the heraldic artist Claire Evans [1299]. The drawing was far too good to use only once and I later adapted it for use as the cover for many editions of the library guide. Receipts from the sale of the catalogue were supposed to cover most of the cost of the exhibition (some £146 [1300]) but a considerable number remained unsold. They were the subject of an appeal to the members later in the year [1301] and still not selling the price was reduced to six pence in 1939 [1302]. The publicity for the exhibition had overlapped with that for the centenary of the General Register Office for which an important exhibition at Somerset House had also been organised [1303].
Publicity for the Society was doing quite well and in 1938 the cartoonist Lee did two drawings of incidents at the front door of the Society for his series ‘London Laughs’ in the Evening News. In one a wealthy but explosive gentleman is entering a chauffeur-driven car exclaiming, ‘Well! They tell me my great-great, great, great, great grandfather was hanged for stealing sheep’ [1304] and in the other a sad monkey-faced gentleman is saying, ‘They’ve traced me back umpteen generations … then there’s a link missing somewhere’.
Byrom Bramwell's article on cousin marriages (mentioned above) resulted from a lecture on 11 January 1939 which attracted considerable notice in the press. The talk had been publicised in the column 'What's On' in the Daily Express that morning which said 'you can get in free if you let them know beforehand' and it took the line that every stranger passed in Tottenham Court Road was at least one's thirteenth cousin and that cousin marriages were more frequent in the north then in the south, being uncommon in Devon and very infrequent in London. The lecture concluded that people were gradually becoming more related to each other and that English people today are more unlike those on the Continent than they were 600 years ago. The talk and subsequent interviews with Bramwell were reported in the News Chronicle, the Eastern Daily Press (Norwich), the Daily Herald and the Liverpool Post, the last saying, 'Touching a certain fashion for 'Aryan' ancestry, Mr Bramwell said that in the case of English families, if there were no Jewish ancestors in the last three generations it was most unlikely that there would be any further back'.
After the racial decrees were promulgated in Germany in 1933 the Society of Genealogists dealt with 'many hundred inquiries' and it received more after the annexation of Austria in 1938. In 1934 Mrs Blomfield said that nine out of ten did not know the maiden names of their grandmothers, others with ancestral marriages in London had 600 parishes to search but the record of a marriage at an Anglican church was considered sufficient evidence of 'non-contamination'. Most enquiries were from the professional classes and many were from English widows of German officials [1305]. Seeing an opportunity for a little work the professional genealogist Reginald Glencross of Wimbledon advertised in the March 1935 Magazine, 'Aryan descents traced’. The following year the News Chronicle reported that a whole new industry had sprung up, but that Hitler was not satisfied with registration at Somerset House and demanded certified copies of entries from incumbents and ministers. Occasional assistance from the 1861 census cost the Society ten shillings for each entry [1306]. The Society had noticed that in Germany itself practising genealogists had now to be examined in heraldry and history before being registered with the 'Board of Family Research'. Those with local knowledge were particularly welcomed and set fees could then be charged [1307].
In 1938 Mrs Blomfield was reported as saying that, 'The inquirers, professional men or government officials, often have to establish their pedigree back to 1790' and that she had helped many with English ancestry who were worried about their positions. The search fee was £1 a day, but she often did it for much less as those affected could not send more than ten shillings a time out of their country. She said, 'we are so sorry for these poor people - it is often a matter of life or death for them to get the information - that we try to trace their family history as we would for our own members' [1308]. The authenticity of some claims was doubted and at the end of the War a reporter for the Evening Standard, after talking to her, remarked on this 'spate of frantic inquiries from Germans of real or pretended British origin' [1309].
The Times of 14 August 1940 had a leading article, 'Great-Great-Greats', on the compulsory establishment of 'racial purity' in Germany and the genealogical difficulties that would arise if there were ever a similar requirement to name all one's 32 great-great-great-grandparents in England. The paper’s leader had been prompted by a letter from the barrister L. G. H. Horton-Smith (died 1953) which described the booklets that were needed to record the pedigrees and saying that after some years of research he could only identify 21 of his 32 [1310]. He wondered if the records in England were any less well kept that those in Germany. Anthony Wagner replied that the parochial registration in Germany was and still remained much fuller than that in England and that there had been recent large-scale microphotography of parish registers there [1311]. C. L. Norden then wrote that one in thirteen births in Germany were illegitimate and that a large proportion of the population would thus have difficulty in completing their booklets [1312].
Bramwell's conclusions, valid or not, on the frequency of cousin marriages came from a study of the duplication of surnames found in Percival Boyd's marriage index and it should be noted that much of the Society's activity in the period immediately prior to the Second World War undoubtedly owed its success to the industry of Percival Boyd (1866-1955) [1313], MA of Cambridge, chairman and managing director of J. C. Boyd Ltd, of Friday Street, London, merchants and warehousemen, and fifth generation partner in the firm. He had joined the Society in 1922 and had been elected a Fellow in 1926. He was elected to the Executive Committee in 1928 and was its Chairman, 1929-31, when he resigned due to ill health. He served on the Committee again, 1933-49, and was Chairman from the summer of 1938 to that of 1940, being elected a Vice-President in 1944 [1314].
Percival Boyd had a much more progressive attitude about the Society than many of his contemporaries and said that he regarded it and its collections as a sort of laboratory for the use of genealogists, the library providing the tools [1315]. It was a frequent later boast, as he said when elected a Vice-President in 1944, that he was not a genealogist but merely a 'tool-maker', providing the means by which genealogists might work [1316]. In 1938 he initiated a detailed 'Chairman's Page' in the Magazine and in the first one said that he intended to print small specialized sections of the library catalogue where that could be done with little expense [1317], but, beyond parish registers, marriage licences (listed in the National Index of Parish Registers) and poll books (published as an insert to the March 1939 Magazine) [1318], further lists were not published for many years.
On 18 April 1939 Boyd gave a sherry party at the Society which was open to any member, 'as it would be a good thing for the members to know one another better' [1319]. In the event more than two hundred members and their friends attended and the success of 'Mr Boyd's Sherry Party' was remembered for many years. There was a small exhibition of books organised by the Honorary Librarian, Captain Percy-Smith, to illustrate classes of record that were perhaps overlooked in the larger collections on the Library shelves and at intervals throughout the evening there were six 'two-minute talks' about the document collection, the National Index of Parish Registers, the making of the Marriage Index, the Great Card Index, provincial newspapers and the Society's library [1320].
That same March 1939 Boyd announced as 'an experiment in co-operation' the completion of the first 10,000 unit sheets of his 'Citizens of London', later called the 'Inhabitants of London', the index to which had been placed on the library shelves [1321]. In the event he received very little co-operation and he ended up, over the next fifteen years, writing the vast majority of the 59,389 sheets himself, retaining them at home as he worked on them. By September 1939 he had written 19,500 [1322] and, when Beach Whitmore drew attention to their value in March 1944, there were 38,000 [1323]. By 1948 there were 210 volumes and Boyd was appealing for more unit sheets to be added for the period 1701-1850, blank sheets being freely available from the Society [1324]. In October that year, however, he wrote to Whitmore, ‘My own work is limited to my own house, & owing to age & diminished resources is not as large as it was’ [1325]. He was still working on the unit sheets in December 1954 [1326] but the next February [1327] (just before his death on 17 April 1955) he passed the 238 completed volumes to the Society and his index sheets were bound into a further 27 volumes at a cost of £40, paid for by Professor R. C. Gale [1328]. A large number of annotated books from Boyd's library also passed to the Society. In a tribute to this remarkable man, William Harold Challen (1889-1964) [1329] a great transcriber of the City of London marriage registers, wrote that Boyd was 'always intensely and lucidly interested in any problem. What is every day in use is apt to be taken for granted or undervalued, but constant consultation of his works will never diminish grateful remembrance of his untiring industry, unstinting help, and friendliness' [1330].
As already described the old firm of Phillimore & Co Ltd founded in 1897 [1331], had in the early days of the twentieth century published a very large number of marriage registers, covering some 1,500 parishes in 238 volumes, but owing to the high cost of printing after the First World War the firm had only produced a very few more, though it owned several hundred manuscript transcripts [1332]. The company's founder, William Phillimore, had no connection with the Society but several of his successors in the firm were involved in the Society. When the firm was incorporated in 1910 one of the shareholders was Thomas Matthews Blagg (1875-1948) [1333] of Newark on Trent, who joined the Society in 1917, and he continued to work on the marriage volumes for many years, becoming a recognised authority on parish registers generally [1334]. In 1914 he revised Phillimore's useful little book Pedigree Work: a handbook for the genealogist (1s 6d) and published a Supplementary Catalogue of the marriage volumes then available for sale (at 10s 6d a volume, except for Yorkshire at 15s).
In 1921 a controlling interest in the firm passed to the genealogist Bower Marsh (1866-1935) who had formerly been an assistant to the document collector and publisher Frederick Arthur Crisp (1851-1921) with whom he had edited a record of the foundation scholars at Charterhouse in 1913. Bower Marsh was later well known as the transcriber and editor of seven volumes of records of the Carpenters’ Company. He died in November 1935 [1335] but shortly before his death in April 1935 he had sold his interest to Charles 'Harold' Ridge (1890-1957) [1336] who was Managing Director until 1951 and who immediately began to publish further registers, the first being volume 26 of the series for Cornwall in an edition limited to 100 copies at 15s 6d each [1337], quickly followed by 80 copies of volume 12 of the Norfolk series [1338]. The energetic Ridge, who had joined the Society in 1929 and was a member of its Executive Committee during the Second World War, also re-issued Bower Marsh's revision of Phillimore's Pedigree Work (1936) and the following year published a Select bibliography of English genealogy (1937) by Howard 'Guy' Harrison (1886-1963) which remains a valuable book in spite of (or perhaps because of) the selective revision published in 1965 [1339] and the highly inaccurate and deficient one published later [1340]. The newly published marriage registers did not sell at all well and it was feared that the series would have to be discontinued. Members of the Society were urged to support the endeavour [1341] and at the end of 1937 owing largely to the support for the Nottinghamshire volumes edited by Thomas Blagg, more were produced [1342]. In 1938 the many unpublished transcripts held by the company were loaned to Percival Boyd for inclusion in his marriage index [1343].
It may be noted here that the well-known professional genealogist Edward Dwelly who had been elected a Fellow in October 1911, died at his home at Fleet, Hampshire, in January 1939, aged 74 [1344]. He had no obituary in the Magazine but although originally a bank clerk in London he had made a name for himself by publishing at Herne Bay five important volumes (the first two with Arthur Jewers) of Bishops’ Transcripts at Wells (1913-19) for parishes where the early registers were lost, and latterly for single-handedly compiling, printing and publishing a Gaelic dictionary of over 1,000 pages including 675 illustrations, for which he was awarded a civil list pension of £50 in 1909 [1345]. Dwelly had also been responsible for publishing, amongst other things, the Somerset subsidy rolls for 1624-74 (1930), and like Sherwood, had put together a miscellaneous index of genealogical material, much of it relating to the West Country, which at his death contained about 900,000 entries. The index was crated up during the War and sent to Bristol University where it remained for many years before being given to the Society in 1988, when it was found that letters A-B and part of C were unfortunately missing [1346].
The fees for personal inspection of parish registers laid down by the 1836 Act and confirmed in 1853 long remained the same (at 1s. for the first year and 6d. for every subsequent year, with 2s. 6d. for a certificate) but in 1938 the Church Commissioners were given powers to increase the fees for access to the baptismal and burial registers. The Commissioners had already, in 1929, empowered the bishops to establish diocesan record offices in which to deposit registers and as a result some libraries, notably (as already mentioned) the Bodleian at Oxford and Gloucester City Library, had been nominated for their receipt. Where registers were deposited in this way the fees were to be shared between the offices and the incumbents but there was a growing unease amongst genealogists that these fees would now escalate.
As a result of the 1938 Measure any individual parish could apply to the Church Commissioners to set a table of fees for the searching of its registers and many thousands of separate orders were made under which two shillings could be charged for the first year of a search and one shilling for each succeeding year, the parishes without such an order remaining at the old (1836) rate. In 1949 the Marriage Act set the fee for searches in marriage registers at one shilling for the first year and six pence a year thereafter and that, of course, applied everywhere [1347], the charge being increased by a Statutory Instrument in 1952 [1348]. These legalities were not widely known or understood and much confusion ensued. Many clergy insisted, contrary to the 1853 ruling, that entries could only be copied on a ‘certificate’ basis, others charged additional fees for unspecified ‘facilities’ provided during the search [1349] and some bizarrely sought to charge search fees from the year of the ‘opening’ or commencement of their first register to the date, perhaps some hundreds of years later, at which a required entry was found. There was also some legal opinion which did not accept that the 1836 Act applied to parish registers in the first place [1350]. The public at large rarely understood that the rates were for personal inspection of the registers; if the application for a search were made by post the incumbent could charge whatever he wished. Personal inspections were permissible ‘at all reasonable times’ but some clergy thought it unreasonable to give time to the dead rather than to the living and were quick to say so. The inspection of a bundle of bishop's transcripts in a diocesan registry might cost anywhere from half a crown to as much as three guineas [1351].
The Ecclesiastical Fees Measure of 1962 standardised the fees for all parishes (with a doubling of those set in 1938; the fees for marriage searches remained the same) and the Local Government (Records) Act the same year allowed local authorities to permit the deposit of registers in their record offices. The situation about fees for general searches remained very unclear though there was provision in the 1929 Measure for fees to be waived when the search was for historical (including genealogical) purposes. In view of the great difference in size of some registers, genealogists now began to think that any fee should depend on the time taken in the search and not on the number of years searched, and that as the registers were 'public records' that no fee should be levied for access to those in local authority offices. The question of fees remained a very sore one until the vast majority of the registers were taken out of the hands of the clergy in the 1970s and 1980s.
Meanwhile the increasing public interest that was being shown in parish registers had greatly reduced the losses in original registers which had been such a deplorable feature of the past. However, the need for more transcription and publication was continually pressed. As Frederick (‘Derek’) George Emmison (1907-1995), the son of a railway telegraphist and then an assistant in Bedford Record Office, wrote in 1931, 'Prohibitive fees, costly journeys from village to village, and lack of expert assistance, demand that our registers be published for the benefit of students' [1352]. He argued that the material obtainable from parish registers might be used to foster an interest in local history and he urged the complete publication of these 'records of the people' as an object worthy of the assistance of local authorities. In 1934, with the assistance of Bedfordshire County Council he commenced the publication of the parish registers of Bedfordshire prior to 1837, checking the entries against the surviving bishops transcripts, a task that he saw completed only in 1992. It was the first county to see all its registers in print and I was particularly pleased to be at Bedford with Derek Emmison to see the last volume launched in April that year [1353].
In a note about the needs of the Society which appeared in the Magazine in December 1934 it was said that the bishops of Chelmsford, Ely and Norwich had given permission to their incumbents to lend their parish registers to approved applicants so that they might copy them at home. Applications were to be made to Charles F. D. Sperling, FSA (1861-1938), of Ballingdon Hall, Sudbury, Suffolk [1354]. The number of transcriptions was now increasing steadily and in the late 1930s and early 1940s it became the custom to send typescript and manuscript copies to the British Library where the names of transcribers such as Colonel Frank Wall (1868-1950) in Kent, Oswald Greenwaye Knapp (1859-1947) in Dorset, and the Revd Richard Grosvenor Bartelot (1868-1947) also in Dorset, regularly appear in the British Library catalogue. Bartelot loaned a collection of 96 Dorset transcripts to the Society for re-copying in 1937 [1355]. The work of William Harold Challen in the transcription of London registers at this time has already been mentioned.
Kathleen Blomfield had known Kendall Percy-Smith (1897-1975) [1356] for some years before he joined the Society in 1936 and became so active in its affairs. His will, dated in April 1965, speaks of ‘many kindnesses received by me over nearly forty years, from her, her late husband Dr Joseph Blomfield and their families’. Kendall had been born at Tong in Shropshire the son of a chartered accountant, Horace Percy Smith (died 1928) [1357], who abandoned his own wife and children to take his brother’s children to Hong Kong [1358], but subsequently returned to England. Kendall, educated at Shrewsbury and the Royal Military College, was gazetted to the 14th Punjab Regiment and served in Turkey and Mesopotamia before being posted to India in 1919. There he developed a great interest in the families and biographies of those who had served with the Honorable East India Company, but whilst still a Captain he had retired from the regular army and by 1922 had returned to live at Eardley Crescent, Earls Court where he remained until 1935, moving then to Maida Vale and then to Fordwych Road, Kilburn, where he was when he joined the Society in December 1936. Whilst in the East he had made an unhappy marriage and his wife, Alice Sophia (died 1946), who had come to live at Streatham, divorced him in 1935 [1359]. He was generally known as Hubert ‘Kendall’ Percy-Smith but he appeared in the 1901 census as Herbert Kendall David Percy Smith [1360].
As mentioned Percy-Smith became a member of the Magazine’s editorial team and was appointed Honorary Librarian in the autumn of 1938 when Cregoe Nicholson was unable to continue owing to the pressure of business. Percy-Smith was fortunately able to ‘devote practically all his time to the library’ making considerable improvements in its arrangements and he had made an immediate impact by spending £173 on the acquisition of directories and poll books and in the completion of various runs of books [1361]. Various collections were also received. Ethel Fry gave a great number of books and papers that had belonged to her father George Samuel Fry who died in July; the executors of Leoline Griffiths gave his books and papers; those of Frederick Montague Farrar also gave a valuable collection of books; Florence Hankin, the widow of the playright and essayist St John Hankin (and a daughter of George Routledge the publisher) gave twenty volumes of cuttings of births, marriages, deaths and obituaries from The Times to go with the Index of Deaths 1894-1931 already held; Harry Pitman gave fifty very valuable poll books; and Mrs Bird, the widow of W. H. Benbow Bird, gave her late husband’s papers for sorting by George Sherwood [1362]. Percy-Smith prepared the little exhibition at Mr Boyd’s Sherry Party in 1939 but immediately after joining he worked with Kathleen Blomfield on the catalogue of the Society’s collection of parish registers.
A catalogue of the Society's growing collection had, as mentioned above, been published at the cost of Percival Boyd in 1924, but at the end of 1936 it was announced that a new edition was in preparation and that copies would be 3s 6d to those who subscribed in advance [1363]. The much revised second edition of the Catalogue of Parish Register Copies in the Possession of the Society of Genealogists was produced by Kathleen Blomfield and Kendall Percy-Smith in June 1937 and listed the three thousand five hundred transcripts then held. Although at the end of the year it was said that ‘it is clear that the sale of this will cover the cost of printing very shortly’ and that it was anticipated that a profit would eventually be made [1364], the book sold very slowly indeed, being remaindered some twenty-three years later [1365]. However, the couple appealed in its preface for information about further transcripts of registers that might be held by other organisations or in private possession, saying that they would also publish a list of these, no such list having been printed since those produced by George Marshall and Arthur Burke prior to the foundation of the Society.
In furtherance of this work, on Monday, 21 February 1938, a letter under Mrs Blomfield's name appeared in The Times in which she appealed for information about transcripts of registers held privately or by other organisations so that a 'national index' showing their location could be published. The Times gave warm support to the idea in a lengthy Leading Article published the same day [1366]. Both made the important point that such a list would help to prevent duplication of effort in the future. The resulting correspondence pleasingly revealed that there was a desire by many incumbents to have transcripts made of their registers and some even offered to send them to the Society for that purpose. About eighty people came forward to offer help with the copying of both originals and copies. As a result copies relating to some 106 parishes were placed on the shelves that year [1367].
The Society's Executive Committee had no prior notice of Mrs Blomfield's letter to The Times but a month later she put a memorandum before the Committee proposing the formation of two committees, a powerful one of influential people to make an appeal for funds for register transcription and a small sub-committee to organise the work. She mentioned that Captain Percy-Smith was already working several hours a day on the various lists of existing transcripts, the College of Arms had agreed to its copies being included and public libraries would need to be circulated. She suggested that in view of the number of Americans interested in 16th and 17th century registers that an appeal be made to the Pilgrim Trust for a grant, that the businessman and philanthropist, Lord Wakefield (1859-1941), be approached about the City of London registers, and perhaps the motor magnate and philanthropist Lord Nuffield (1877-1963) about those in Oxfordshire. She said that the local parish register societies and the various archaeological societies would all need to be involved [1368], There is little doubt that Percy-Smith was the organising force behind these ideas.
The Executive Committee agreed to set up a sub-committee consisting of Alfred Trego Butler (1880-1946) then Windsor Herald, Eric Geijer (1894-1941) then Rouge Dragon Pursuivant [1369], and Captain Percy-Smith, with Percival Boyd as chairman. They were to consider the compilation of what became the National Index of Parish Register Copies and to deal with the offered loans of registers, £25 being authorised to pay for the making of copies of transcripts [1370]. In May, Boyd reported on a visit by Sir Josiah Stamp (later Lord Stamp), a trustee of the Pilgrim Trust and a member of the Society since 1931, and said that a formal application to the Trust for funds with which to copy registers was being prepared by Mrs Blomfield. Meanwhile Captain Percy-Smith was, he said, busily working on the Index but clerical assistance would be required 'if the work was to proceed at all quickly' [1371].
By June 1938 letters of enquiry had been sent to all the public libraries and archaeological and record societies about transcripts in their possession [1372] and it was found that one society alone had 450 transcripts in manuscript. Percival Boyd, about to become Chairman of the Executive Committee, told the Annual Meeting in July that the aim was to get the un-copied registers copied but the best thing would be for the copying to be done locally [1373]. Later that month he was able to tell the Executive that the Society had received a grant of £300 from the Pilgrim Trust towards the cost of preparing and printing the index. Kathleen Blomfield noted that his announcement was greeted with applause. She was then formally made a member of the sub-committee [1374].
Although the receipt of the £300 was mentioned in the Society's Annual Report for 1938 [1375] the money had, for reasons which have never been fully explained, been put in a special account and although in the name of the Society, it did not appear in the Society's audited accounts, the auditors later saying that they had been told by Mrs Blomfield that the account had 'nothing to do with the Society' [1376]. The National Index of Parish Registers eventually appeared in late September 1939, having taken much longer to compile than was expected owing to its size [1377] and it had then been delayed at the printers by 'urgent government work' [1378]. The title page said that it was 'compiled for The Society of Genealogists by Kathleen Blomfield and H. K. Percy-Smith'. One thousand copies were printed at a cost of £56-3-10 and they sold for 3s 6d each. The 'Index' listed over four thousand transcripts outside the Society's library, the slip writing being the work of Kendall Percy-Smith. The Annual Report noted sadly that, ‘Whilst it was a most unfortunate moment for any book to appear, a certain amount of support has been forthcoming from Public Libraries and other institutions, but the number of copies sold to Members has been surprisingly few’ [1379].
By late 1938 Percival Boyd was able to list the names of some 85 people, not all members, who were actively engaged in copying registers for the Society [1380] and in February 1939 a three-page spread in the magazine Picture Post gave some excellent publicity to their work and that of the Society in general, showing the remarkable baptismal register of Ware in Hertfordshire which in the 1790s has as many as 1,200 entries across one opening [1381]. In the summer of 1939 Kathleen Blomfield used the publication of the National Index to gain further publicity for the campaign to involve people in the transcription of registers and, following an interview with the Evening Standard, successfully obtained notice in several local newspapers [1382]. She said that some registers 'have been found in dustbins, others on rubbish heaps and in second-hand book shops' and that teachers, governesses and retired Civil Servants all over the country were becoming amateur genealogists in their spare time, taking part in a nationwide campaign to copy the registers before 1837.
The ultimate aim was to make two or three typescript copies of each register. The member Frederic Vaughan Cowell (1881-1955), a London accountant who had joined in 1939, had been transcribing registers at a rate of 300 pages a week for several months [1383] and was paid a special tribute in 1941, having written 1,000 pages [1384]. Writing about the destruction of records during the War, Mrs Blomfield said that the register found on a rubbish heap had been collected from the stables of an outgoing incumbent and was being burned by his gardener [1385]. One major coup of her campaign was when a woman brought in a register from Filey in Yorkshire dating from 1573 that she had found amongst her family papers. How it came there she did not know or was not willing to divulge but it had been missing from the church ‘for many generations’ and to salve the family conscience, as The News Chronicle said, she became a member of the Society which repaired the register (at a cost of £4-10-0) and returned it to Yorkshire [1386].
At the Annual Meeting in July 1939 Captain Percy-Smith said that copies of registers were coming into the Society at a rate of five a week and that almost 500 had been received since the letter in The Times. Percival Boyd said that Mrs Blomfield had worked in her own time almost night and day on the National Index and that Captain Percy-Smith was putting in almost as much time as any member of the paid staff [1387].
In August 1939, however, David Ensign Gardner (1915-2007), a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints then living in Liverpool, later to become well known for his books on genealogical research, wrote to the Liverpool Post expressing concern at the slow progress of transcription and, with the danger of air attack being discussed, stressing the urgent need for the micro-filming of registers. He wrote that 'several thousand folios can be recorded in a day'. The films could then be preserved, he said, until such time as a more leisurely transcription could be made, either from the originals (if they survived) or from the projected film [1388]. The previous year the possibilities of the new technology had been praised in a circular to members of Gardner's church by Archibald Bennett, the Secretary of the Genealogical Society of Utah and, with the 'world trembling on the brink of wholesale war', an approach was made through University Microfilms to film the registers of the Isle of Man. This, however, was rejected because the ministers there feared the loss of income from people who came to the parishes to do their own research, and the registers there were not filmed until 1950 [1389]. In England, Hugh B. Brown, President of the British Mission, wrote to all 43 diocesan bishops of the Church of England asking for permission to approach the parish priests within their jurisdictions and reported that although he had received outright permission from some, 'provisional permission by others, and curt refusals from still others', the majority of bishops were favourable to the idea. In the event, however, in Europe most filming by the Latter-day Saints had to wait until after the War [1390].
Unfortunately, on the outbreak of War in September 1939, Kathleen Blomfield's stalwart supporter, Captain Percy-Smith of the 14th Punjab Regiment, was recalled to service and once more sent to India. He was an indefatigable indexer of magazines and parish registers and a characteristic letter from him written on the day that War was declared, continued the following day 'en route for India', asked for 15,000 indexing slips to be sent to meet him at Bombay so that he could finish indexing the June 1939 Magazine and complete the West Bromwich parish registers! [1391]. Mrs Blomfield was not so keen and, wary of the considerable cost involved and the fact that even blank paper had to be declared for customs, she suggested he try to obtain them in India and debit the Society [1392].
With the outbreak of the War, however, Kathleen Blomfield began to think about the possibilities of microfilming parish registers and started a vigorous promotion of this important pioneering project. Marc Fitch (1908-1994) gave £100 to forward the work of copying or filming in June 1940 [1393] and the Pilgrim Trust gave £500, adding a further £500 in 1941. These amounts were also paid into the special bank account [1394]. After an item about the filming appeared in the Amateur Photographer some of its readers offered help and placed their cameras and services at the Society's disposal. Mrs Blomfield hoped that if sufficient volunteers came forward it would be possible to carry out the work locally with the aid of the record societies [1395].
In September 1940 the Magazine mentioned that the Society had been offered the loan of a microfilm projector and an appeal was then made for someone to transcribe from it a few of the shorter registers which had been filmed. Some churches had been bombed and registers destroyed but other registers were being sent by post to London and could be filmed within 48 hours or whilst the messengers waited [1396]. It was said that a country parish could be filmed for twenty-five shilling, but that a London one might cost from fifty to a hundred pounds [1397]. In an article about the library at this time Bethell Bouwens, who had replaced Percy-Smith as Honorary Librarian, remarked that the reduced office staff should not be bothered with queries as it was 'now usually busy on parish register work' [1398].
In March 1941 the Chairman of the Executive Committee prematurely reported that the 'sub-committee on parish register copying having completed its task is now dissolved' but that the 'Provisional Committee which was looking after micro-filming parish registers continued' [1399]. This is the first mention of a Provisional Committee, no record of its appointment having appeared in the Society's minutes. However, the Executive Committee agreed that the Society 'supports the work and is willing for the scheme to continue to be organized from its premises under the patronage of the Society' [1400].
Kathleen Blomfield, who had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, was quick to attempt to explain the position in the March Magazine. She wrote that, "Following the publication of the National Index of Parish Register Copies, it was the intention to form an Association to deal exclusively with parish registers, their preservation, duplication, printing, etc., the Council of which was to be composed of people in touch with the various Parish Register and Record Societies having an interest in this subject. Unfortunately, the war began before the Association could be formed, and although many distinguished people had expressed their willingness to serve on the Council of such a body, the general opinion was the moment was not propitious to launch a new enterprise. The position then was that parish registers might be destroyed by enemy action without any copy having been taken unless members of the Committee originally concerned with the production of the National Index of Parish Register Copies undertook the work of getting parish registers micro-filmed and the information they contain thus safeguarded" [1401]. Quite whose intention it had been to form such an Association is not clear, but one must assume from later developments that it was the joint idea of Kathleen Blomfield and Kendall Percy-Smith. Meanwhile the Provisional Committee soon became the 'Committee for Microfilming Parish Registers' [1402]. Quite why Kathleen Blomfield opened a separate bank account for the funds is not known. At a time when the Society's funds were in a precarious state she perhaps wanted to ring-fence the money obtained for filming and transcribing and, sensing some opposition to her ambitious scheme, she may have wished to place her enterprise beyond the interference of the Society's committees.
In her article she said that the microphotography scheme had the 'benevolent support' of the Society but that the Society had no interest in the films beyond sometimes being their temporary custodian when other arrangements could not be made. She stressed that all the organization and office work had been done voluntarily and she paid tribute to the generous help of the research assistant, Freda Podmore, who since September 1940 had been closely involved. Prior to that date the filming had been carried out in a studio in London, any registers kept overnight being housed for safety in the neighbouring National Central Library through the courtesy of its Librarian, Colonel Luxmoore Newcombe (1880-1952), but with the constant air attacks in London from September onwards filming centres had been set up with the cooperation of local record offices outside London. Some clergy had even allowed their vestries to be used for filming, collecting registers from neighbouring parishes and offering hospitality to the operators. The registers of about a thousand parishes had thus been filmed.
Mrs Blomfield stressed again that the Society would not have access to the films so that there would not be any loss of fee income to the parishes. The Society did not even have a projector and, in any case, to make typescript copies of a large number of registers would 'need many experts' and several projectors. Copies could, however, be made free of charge, at the request of the incumbent, though 'it is not expected that they can be provided (except in the case of registers which are destroyed in the meantime) until after the war'. She added that, 'Although it would then be desirable to provide typescript copies for those who wish for them, here again the project is one which must be undertaken by the Association when formed, and not by the Society'. She would be haunted by this rash promise for the next forty-eight years.
In September 1941 Kathleen Blomfield mentioned in an obituary of Lord Stamp that he had presided over short informal meetings of the Provisional Committee and again said that the registers of over a thousand parishes had been filmed [1403], some 64 transcripts having come into the Library in the last six months [1404]. In April 1942 she reported that she had secured the services of two juniors - one for the office and one for microfilm work at a pound a week each [1405]. Concerned at the legal validity of microfilm copies of parish registers if the originals were destroyed, she was also pleased to note that in March 1942 an infra-red photograph of a brittle will which had been charred by enemy action had been admitted to probate by the President of the Probate Division [1406].
That year the Committee for Microfilming obtained the patronage of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and its membership was strengthened by the addition of Charles (later Sir Charles) Travis Clay, Librarian at the House of Lords, Canon Alan Campbell Don and Prebendary Christopher Cheshire. Even Cregoe Nicholson, who disliked Kathleen Blomfield and was an early critic of the scheme, was impressed at the Committee's 'National character' [1407]. When in 1943 the Pilgrim Trust gave a further £500 it was entered in the Books of the Trust as being paid to the Provisional Committee [1408].
Mrs Blomfield gave a report on the Committee's work in the March 1943 issue of the Magazine, saying that half a million pages of registers had been filmed. In London Messrs Lever Brothers and Unilevers Ltd had placed an apparatus and operator at the Committee's disposal for the filming of London registers and eleven parishes had been completed, including St Andrew Holborn and St Margaret Westminster. About 1,500 parishes altogether had been filmed. She made a point of saying that the child had outgrown its parent, for the Committee 'is quite independent of the Society except that it gratefully accepts office space at Chaucer House for its secretarial work'. That the Society also paid her salary was not mentioned. The Committee was using a portable Graflex camera which, loaded with a hundred feet of film, could photograph about 1,600 pages, the exposures being automatically controlled by a foot pedal. About two to three hundred pages could be photographed in an hour. Anything not in good condition was excluded from the scheme. Mrs Blomfield wrote that the Committee would arrange for the camera operator to go anywhere in England provided that not less than 5,000 pages were available to film at the chosen centre. No register was being filmed beyond 1812 [1409].
In May 1943 it was reported that the sixty-five Kent parish registers transcribed by Sir Thomas Colyer-Fergusson (1865-1951) had been loaned for re-copying [1410] and the following year the Society's recommendations for the copying of registers (with an approved list of abbreviations) were, for the first time, published in the Magazine. In spite of the shortage of paper, ruled sheets for the first rough transcript were being supplied by the Society [1411]. Some people were particularly busy on the Society's behalf and Mr A. C. Glynn Grylls an instructor in languages at the Royal Naval Engineering College Devonport, who had transcribed the registers of eight Cornish parishes, went to Launceston in March 1943 to explore further possibilities in that area, distressed at the number of churches being blitzed and registers damaged. Known as the relative of a prominent solicitor at Launceston he attracted useful publicity for the Society in the local press [1412].
When the National Emergency was declared in September 1939 the Society's opening hours (which had been 10 am to 6 pm, Monday to Saturday) were restricted to 5 pm on weekdays and to 1 pm on Saturdays and Mrs Blomfield wrote to The Times saying that the continuation of normal activities and recreations should be maintained as far as possible and that the Society’s facilities for borrowing books would be extended [1413]. She wrote in the Society’s Annual Report that attendance of members at the rooms since September had varied little in numbers compared with normal times and that this indicated that the decision to keep the services available as far as possible ‘was a wise one’ [1414]. However, in December 1939 it was announced that the remainder of the lecture programme had been abandoned owing to the difficulties of restricted travelling and from 18 November, when daylight saving ended, the rooms were opened from 9.30 am to 4 pm and to 1 pm on Saturdays, the whole building being closed at that time due to the depletion of staff on war service. The number of books that could be borrowed was increased from two to four, the period of loan being increased from one to two weeks [1415], but the rule had reverted by March 1942 when those offenders who detained books longer received a severe rebuke from a stern Mrs Blomfield [1416]. A detailed list of what could not be borrowed unless there were duplicate copies had been drawn up in January 1939 [1417].
In December 1939 some of the members engaged in ARP work, particularly on switchboards, were already using the long intervals between calls in indexing for the Society [1418] and a year later Mrs Blomfield appealed to bored ARP wardens 'in their dug-outs' to help sort a considerable collection of will abstracts [1419]. In May 1940 when the Annual Report for 1939 was written she complained that the staff had been ‘working under considerable pressure and during the cold weather when the heating proved quite inadequate, discomfort. It is to be hoped’, she wrote, ‘that these special conditions will not last long or occur again’ [1420] but the Annual Report for 1940 again said ‘the winter has been unpleasant because the heating has been most inadequate’, though otherwise the daily routine of the Society had suffered very little. As for the world situation Sherwood, who was doing a little research for Percy-Smith, wrote to him in India that August, ‘we have our tails well up, and think we shall conquer the beast, once again. It seems worse to you, far away, than it does to us at home, I daresay’ [1421].
And so when 'Summer Time' commenced in 1940 it was possible to return to normal hours including Saturday afternoons, but only two lectures were then held [1422], with tea provided, though members who took sugar were asked to provide their own [1423]. Indeed Kathleen Blomfield does not seem to have waivered in her view that the rooms should be kept open at all costs, even when in September 1940, some of the windows were blown in with consequent ‘small damage’. She wrote in the Annual Report that the Executive Committee had considered the matter but that it would not be possible to put away any particular section of the library considered specially valuable to a safe place, if such could be found, and she urged members to continue their support of the Society, for if it ‘were allowed to decline it would take many years of hard work to build it up again’ [1424].
However, in the winter of 1940 the opening hours were again restricted, the rooms closing half an hour before the official 'black-out' times, Saturdays included. If the closing was obliged to be earlier than 4 pm the rooms did not open at all on Saturdays [1425]. There were iron gates at the end of Malet Place and under the Defence Regulations members had to show their Identity Cards at the gates [1426]. In March 1941 it was said that attendance at the library had been sparse throughout the winter but the rooms were then opened until 5.30 [1427]. In the winter months of 1942 the rooms were again closed about an hour before 'black-out' [1428] and this then remained the practice until the end of the War.
In 1941 monthly lectures were held in the spring and summer and advertised in the 'Personal' column of The Times (a practice that continued throughout the War), members being asked to notify the Society in advance 'to allow for accurate catering' [1429]. Members were asked to bring friends, as the few lectures that were organised were not well attended. Attendance was ‘very poor’ in 1945 [1430] and this complaint was still heard in June 1946 when tea was dispensed with because of the rationing of milk, bread and cakes. It cannot have helped that owing to the extreme shortage and rationing of paper no separate lecture syllabus was sent out and that until September 1947, when the provision of tea was still doubtful, the members had to rely on the twice-yearly Magazine for information [1431].
As we have seen the Honorary Librarian, Kendall Percy-Smith, had been recalled to serve in the Indian Army in September 1939 and Bethell Bouwens, a member since 1918 who had recently moved to London, kindly offered to carry on his work. Bethell Godefroy Bouwens (1884-1942), a retired motor engineer, of Dutch ancestry, was also Chairman of the Executive Committee in 1940-41. In March 1940 he had succeeded Byrom Bramwell as joint-editor of the Magazine with William Gun and they worked together until March 1942. Bouwens’s only sister Hyacinth (1890-1968), subsequently Lady Walsingham, had been a Fellow since 1912 [1433]. His remarkable family history, A thousand ancestors (1935), in which he attempted to trace all the lines of his ancestry for ten generations, had been followed by the valuably detailed Wills and their whereabouts (1939) copies of which he (and subsequently his son Derek) generously donated to the Society for sale to benefit the Library Fund [1434]. Bouwens' books had been printed photographically from his own handwriting in a 'Replika' process and that distinctive black writing was soon to be found on large numbers of the cards in the Library Catalogue, for, despite considerable ill health he was an extremely active man. The Annual Report says that he made a ‘material improvement to the card catalogue’ and it was he who was responsible for bringing all the printed tracts on families together and binding them in a series of volumes in distinctive canary cloth [1435] thus undoubtedly saving many from loss or theft, as well as introducing the first card catalogue of the periodicals.
There was also a considerable accumulation of books needing to be accessioned [1436]. Of the 1,000 books accessed in 1939, sixty-three had been received for review, but large donations of books had also come from the executors of Captain James M. C. Gibbon, of Abberton Hall, Pershore, who died that year and of Leoline Griffith who had died in 1938 [1437]. In addition Bouwens, who Sherwood told Percy-Smith was ‘devoted to the library’ [1438], made various changes in the library, removing the volumes of visitations, wills and marriage licences from the county shelves and placing them in separate groups, still in county order. He intended to do the same with the poll books and directories but this never happened. Although apparently planned by Percy-Smith it was not an altogether satisfactory arrangement. Searchers working on the county shelves frequently overlooked the additional volumes and after Lawson Edwards retired we returned many of them (except those that covered a whole diocese or more than one county) to their original places. Bouwens also took the folio books, mostly county histories, which did not fit on the county shelves and placed them together, at that time in the central aisle [1439].
At the Annual Meeting in July 1940 Bouwens said that the number of books received in the Library in the last six months had almost equalled that in the previous six years (‘as people die or reduce their establishments’ as Sherwood said [1440]) and he was anxious to fill the gaps in many of the periodicals that he had been cataloguing, a subject that he reverted to in March 1941 when he published in the Magazine a long list of missing journals [1441]. In September 1940 he had printed there a fairly detailed explanation of the arrangement of the library, adding that he was usually present from noon onwards. As a joint-editor of the Magazine, he appealed in vain for further correspondence [1442] and later expressed his dissatisfaction with the journal as it then stood, though suggestions for its improvement (other than to print outline pedigrees taken from the document collections) were not forthcoming [1443].
The Society's third President, the ‘excellent’ Lord Farrer (as Sherwood called him) [1444], who had taken a very active part in the Society's affairs and had attended its meetings regularly, died at Abinger Hall, Dorking, on 12 April 1940, aged 80. At the Annual Meeting in July the former Sir Josiah Stamp, who had been so helpful with the funding of the National Index of Parish Registers and had been created Baron Stamp in 1938, was elected President in his stead. Lord Stamp's father had been the manager of a railway bookstall at Wigan and he himself had entered the Inland Revenue Department as a boy clerk in 1896. He became an eminent statistician and administrator and was one of the original trustees of the Pilgrim Trust and, in 1936, President of the British Association. Not himself a university man, he received 23 honorary degrees. He had been a member for some years but sadly after less than a year as President he was tragically killed with Lady Stamp and their eldest son Wilfrid, in the shelter of their home in an air raid on 16 April 1941, just a few days before the Society’s Annual Meeting on 24 April [1445].
George Sherwood had continued to maintain his office at 227 The Strand until at least September 1917 but had moved to another small office at 210 The Strand (near the Savoy on the other side of the Aldwych) by August 1919 [1446] and he advertised in the Magazine into the 1930s, mentioning his indexes, selling small indexes of records, transcripts of registers and typed notes of lawsuits, wills and deeds [1447], and charging about £1 for each one hundred sheets. In 1930 he had written, 'The fixed plan of nearly forty years work amongst the records has been the discovery of fresh material and the systematic typing out and filing of matter already in hand. It is progressively acquisitive and exploratory, never at a standstill, and in that we find our sustained interest and pleasure' [1448]. In 1931-2 he acquired, for instance, a collection of 250 original marriage licences, 1750-1850, from Southwark which he offered at £2 each and a collection of 250 engraved portraits from James Granger's Biographical History of England (1769) which were £12-10-0 each.
Sherwood had a considerable knowledge of the problems of tracing the origins of early emigrants to America and in 1932 he also published the '1st Series' of his American Colonists in English Records: a guide to direct references in authentic records, passenger lists, &c, quickly following this with a '2nd Series' a year later, but his projected '3rd Series' never appeared [1449].
In 1934 he said that his general index, which rivalled that of the Society and probably contained about two million slips, was valued at £1,000 for insurance purposes. It filled six six-foot bookcases and had a large overflow [1450]. By December 1935 he had acquired a collection of about four thousand letters on genealogical, heraldic and ceremonial topics addressed to Sir William Betham, Ulster King of Arms, in the years 1810-30, and he published a catalogue of them the following year. The intention was to sell the letters individually but the venture was a failure and he sold the great bulk to the National Library of Ireland during the War. The subject of the letters was not entirely genealogical and there is one catalogued, 'Anonymous (signed William Betham) to Walter Cox, bookseller, Dublin, Oct. 1815, as to O'Donnell pedigree and wife beating - 15s' [1451]. The Betham catalogue mentions his earlier work sorting the Clayton deeds and papers prior to their sale and the cataloguing of the deeds, letters and papers of Sir Mark Sykes, Sir Henry Jerningham, Sir William Lawrence Young and the Pownall Hall deeds of his client Henry Boddington.
Sherwood moved from 210 The Strand about the end of 1935 and worked until June 1937 from Phillimore's rooms at 120 Chancery Lane [1452]. However, by December 1937 he had given up his London base and was working entirely from home, now at 48 Beecroft Road, Brockley (to which the family had moved in 1933), advertising that he undertook research as well as the compilation and verification of pedigrees, particularly those dealing with the middle classes [1453]. His name appears on the Society's first list of recommended searchers in the advertisement pages of the Magazine in March 1939.
Sherwood was married three times. His first wife, Alice Mary Hutchinson, whom he had married in 1887, sadly died the following year aged 23 and he married secondly at Fulham in 1889 after a six-month courtship, Sophia Mary Floyd Gibbs, five years older than himself and the daughter of a stonemason, by whom he had four daughters and one son. He observed in 1911 that ‘most people marry near their own class … it is distinctly uncomfortable to marry far out of it’, saying that, ‘The old rule was for men to move a step up by marriage; women a step down’ [1454]. Surviving letters from Sherwood to 'Sophie' in their early years of marriage give an idea of their hand-to-mouth existence as he travelled around the country looking at records for his clients, uncertain when, or indeed if, they would pay him for his work [1455]. George's only son, Ralph Tudor Sherwood, who had been born in 1891 and in 1911 was assisting his father in the business, served in the First World War but unfortunately died in late 1927, just a few months after his mother Sophia who was sixty-four.
George then married thirdly at the age of 62 in October 1929, May Ethel Trinder (1891-1975), who had worked for some years as secretary to his old genealogical friend the Revd Ernest Salisbury Butler Whitfield (1872-1943) when Curate of St Andrew, Holborn. Whitfield, who also lived at Brockley, had joined the Society in 1912 when Vicar of St Luke, Deptford, and was later a member of the Executive Committee and Librarian, 1926-30. May Trinder had been born at Deptford, the daughter of the Official Coal Meter at the Coal Exchange. She charmingly appears in the 1911 census as a ‘Lady Secretary’. In 1922 she made an unhappy and childless marriage to Harry McIntyre whom she divorced in 1926 [1456] but meanwhile late in 1925 she had become a member of the Society [1457]. She must at some stage have let her membership lapse for she joined again after her marriage to Sherwood in 1929. She and George Sherwood had two sons, John in 1930 and George in 1932. Her stepdaughters, who lived with them for a while and with whom she was good friends, were, of course, almost the same age as herself. I remember one of them, Barbara I think, coming to see her at the Society. May always seemed much in awe of ‘Mr Sherwood’, as she referred to her husband, but as will be seen, was a great support to him in his later years. It would have amused him to recall reading in 1916 some statistics that proved that it was ‘impossible for anyone born within a century of his great-grandfather’s birth to become a distinguished man’ [1458]. It was said that a child of a man of 60 has more than fifty-one times as good a chance of becoming eminent as the child of a man under 24. Sherwood had commented then, ‘The recipe is not to marry early and to marry often but to marry late and the later the better’ [1459].
May Sherwood used to tell stories of how the two boys were brought into their father’s office at tea-time and stood on his desk for inspection. Not surprisingly, they took little or no interest in their father’s work. He was completely immersed in his indexing, typing and filing, the large book cases with their box files and parcels arranged around him. He used silver paper to make the parcels more attractive and if the heavy parchment deeds were too intractable he would jump up and down on them so that they could more easily be filed. He was not averse either to cutting the seals off late documents that he considered of little importance so that they too could be easily ‘enveloped’. Money was always short and one day, May recalled, she found him in the bathroom attempting to wash out a typewriter ribbon so that it could be used as tape. String cost money and there were little drawers in his office labelled with various lengths, the last with the words, ‘String too short to be of any use’.
Their marriage was certainly not an easy one financially and May Sherwood always advised me against thinking of genealogy as any form of career. Early in 1940 George Sherwood put out a little leaflet setting out his Credentials [1460] and aimed at raising some work, but May used to say that he received no commissions at all throughout the duration of the War. At the end of that year he wrote to Beach Whitmore from Brockley worrying about the effect of the bombing in the City, but he had been busy at home putting in order some 13,584 slips of marriages from an incomplete run of The Monthly Magazine, 1796-1825, which he valued ‘for ordinary middle-class people’ because his own great-grandparents on both sides appeared in it, one at Canterbury and the other at Oxford. However severe the bombings, he optimistically wrote, there would still be ‘plenty of material to work upon’ [1461].
Without Sherwood at the Society in the early War years, Bethell Bouwens took on the task of sorting some of the manuscript material that was received. Bouwens was appalled at its quality, writing in the Magazine under the heading 'Memento Mori', that it was 'dreadful to review the waste of effort' and 'a saddening business' attempting to reduce the collections into order. He thought that 'the more distinguished the worker the scrappier and more disorderly' were his 'literary remains', some being 'wholly chaotic and unintelligible' [1462]. It was a point that came up many years later when I told the then Chairman, Robert Garrett that the money spent on sorting dud collections might perhaps be better spent on purchasing worthwhile ones [1463].
Realising the possible risks arising from air warfare, the possible evacuation, dispersal and duplication of records was much discussed by London archivists in the early days of the 'phoney' war in 1939-40 and some 90,000 large packages weighing two thousand tons were dispersed from the Public Record Office to seven different regions of the country. They went to a prison at Shepton Mallet, a poor law institution at Market Harborough, to Belvoir Castle, and to various private houses, and yet every record remained available for official use and, from November 1939 onwards the Search Room with the 1841 and 1851 census returns remained open and some street indexes to the larger towns were compiled by the staff. Shelter in the safer parts of the building was then given to other vulnerable records such as those from Lambeth Palace and from some City Companies. There were, of course, many incendiary attacks and some twenty-three fell on the Chancery Lane building in one night in 1941-2. The records were not always safe in their new homes and although none were destroyed by bombing, some suffered from damp and mildew. In London there was much damage to papers stored in basements from mains and sewers broken by high explosive bombs and the Chancery Lane Safe Deposit was flooded with sewage that could not then escape through the solid concrete walls. At Exeter, although twenty-five tons of books and records had been removed from the City Library and saved, the Probate Registry was completely destroyed. Only then, following the intervention of Ethel Stokes the Secretary of the Records Preservation Section of the British Records Association, did the President of the Probate Division order a systematic dispersal, evacuation, and interchange of records in the remaining Probate Registries [1464].
By March 1940 the Society's document collection, arranged by surnames and places, filled 663 heavy box files [1465], but whilst Chairman in 1940-41, Bethell Bouwens put on permanent loan with various local repositories most of the original deeds from the 'places' section, on condition that they were available to members and that abstracts would be prepared for the Society's use [1466]. Their extent may be seen in that the Society then offered for sale about 300 box files that had contained them [1467]. Many schedules of these documents were returned to the Society but in one county some documents found their way into private hands and were offered for sale, much exercising Mrs Blomfield who was obliged to involve the Society's solicitor. After Bouwens became unwell she wrote grumblingly to Kendall Percy-Smith in India that 'the acting Hon Librarian who was at that time also Chairman ... took over the disposal of these things although they were rightly Mr Sherwood's province' [1468].
The whole of the nearby Maples furniture store between Tottenham Court Road and Gower Street was destroyed by bombing on 16-17 April 1941 [1469] and the question of removing some of the Society's irreplaceable documents and records to a place of safety was again discussed at the Annual Meeting a few days later on 24 April, but the general wish of those members attending was that the collections should be kept intact as a working library in London 'but that if advisable part of its collections might be sent to a place of greater safety' [1470].
Only a few days later, in the terrible raids on the night of Wednesday, 10 May 1941, the library had a very lucky escape. A correspondent to the Society of Australian Genealogists who had been on fire-duty that night described Chaucer House as 'a mass of flames, from floor to roof, an incredible inferno', but went back the next day to find that the building, 'soaked in water from hoses and the burst pipes, and filled with the dust and grime of such an occasion, with windows broken by high explosive and the heat of the fire', had in fact been saved and that Mrs Blomfield (who had lived since her second marriage in St Andrew’s Mansions, Dorset Street, off Baker Street) [1471] was there with the cleaners, nothing having been damaged [1472]. She herself played the incident down and wrote that it would be well to stress, 'especially for our overseas readers, that no material damage was suffered to Chaucer House itself. Some highly coloured reports of flames licking up the lift well, etc., seem to have been circulated, but that is sheer nonsense. A certain amount of water entered the building from leaking hoses, etc., playing on adjacent premises; but the fact that the library was only closed for a couple of days, and only then in order to remove broken glass and dirt which had blown in, should prove how light the actual damage was' [1473]. The truth seems to have been, as W. A. Munford later wrote, ‘Chaucer House might have been completely burnt out had it not been for the prompt action of its senior porter, E. A. Hornsby, who gallantly fought the fires alone until help was forthcoming; thanks to him, damage was slight’ [1474]. The adjacent National Central Library was very seriously damaged by fire, but since most of the Library Association staff had been transferred to temporary accommodation in the Public Library at Launceston (from 1940 to 1943), the vacated space at Chaucer House was able to be placed at the disposal of the stricken National Central Library. University College to the north and other buildings on both sides of the mews’ entrance were seriously damaged [1475].
Cyril Hankinson (died 1984, aged 88), the editor of Debrett’s Peerage, later recalled the worrying days that month when he could not get to his office in Ludgate Hill, once walking down Fleet Street whilst flames shot up from the man-holes where escapes of gas had become ignited, the way eventually barred by fire engines and unexploded bombs, and then telephoning from the Post Office in New Bridge Street to hear the reassuring tones of the bell ringing in his abandoned but unscathed office [1476].
Very sensibly later that year all the Society's 'duplicates for loan' were sent to safety [1477] and later the collection of poll books, which included the fifty given by Harry Pitman in 1938 [1478], was also wisely sent to the country [1479]. The Society's material was taken to Gloucestershire by the kindness of one member and housed by another, Charles Holmes Harrison (1872-1949), at his home at Algars Manor, Iron Acton, about ten miles from Bristol [1480]. Harrison, late of the Indian Civil Service, was married to Marjorie Delves Broughton, a first cousin of the librarian Bethell Bouwens [1481]. It was, as Lord Mersey remarked in 1945, 'most fortunate' that the Society had not suffered damage from bombing and worthy of mention that it had kept the library open throughout the War [1482]. The records and principal collections of the College of Arms had been removed to Thornbury Castle, also in Gloucestershire, the home of Sir Algar Howard, from 1939 to 1945 [1483], and the College had a very narrow escape from destruction by fire, also on 10 May 1941, when all the buildings on its east side were destroyed [1484]. Upwards of 30,000 books at the Guildhall Library were destroyed by bombing and many thousands more badly damaged [1485].
Mrs Blomfield recorded at the end of 1941 that some thirty-four new members had joined the Society since the start of the war but at least two of the younger members had been killed on active service and overall, with other deaths and unpaid subscriptions, there had been a decrease in numbers [1486]. Her Annual Reports sadly provide few statistics, but the entrance fees paid by new Members, £97 in 1939, slumped to £22 in 1940 and did not recover to the pre-War figure until 1952. For the first time in some years there was an excess of income over expenditure (of £78) in 1941 though Percival Boyd had made a donation of £168. The number of daily visitors had surprisingly been greater than in 1940.
In 1942 there were fifty-eight new members, of whom thirteen were in the UK or Allied Forces, an average of six members using the rooms daily, together with, in the course of the year, eighty day or half-day searchers. She noted that ‘statistics were never very welcome’ but gave these to justify the policy of keeping the library open and providing the usual services [1487]. One wonders what statistics she would have produced if the library had had a direct hit. Percival Boyd made another donation of £35 and £200 was received under the will of Harry Pitman.
George Sherwood was Chairman of the Executive for the three years during the War, 1941-43, as well as being Honorary Treasurer. He advertised, 'Ancestors traced; descent and kinship proved. Speciality, the conservation of records in War time, and, above all, indexing' [1488]. In 1942 Reginald Glencross, whose home at Wimbledon had been much damaged by blasts in 1939 [1489], presented to the Society his own large collection of papers, many relating to Cornwall and described in the Annual Report as ‘equal in importance to any of the collections previously received’ [1490]. Sherwood thought it 'one of the most important the Society has received' [1491], but he was later much criticised for breaking it up, regardless of its index, and filing each careful pedigree amongst the others in the Society’s Document Collection.
Another important accession received about this time but not mentioned in the Magazine or in the Annual Reports of the Society was a cabinet containing a fifty-seven draw slip index compiled by James William Fawcett (1867-1942), of Satley, county Durham [1492], relating generally to North Country families. Fawcett, who was not a member of the Society, was the son of a small farmer at Satley and had travelled extensively overseas when young but returned to publish The Birds of Durham and Tow Law, its Foundation and Early History in 1890. Then, after a period in Australia where he continued his interests in natural history and the local clergy, he came back to Satley to write a series of books on the Derwent Valley, to transcribe local parish registers and to become a prolific contributor to various local papers and journals on every aspect of local history, usually describing himself as a journalist. He had a considerable interest in the clergy and in the early Primitive Methodists of the area and his index, which was little used and not fully alphabetised until the 1960s, contains much material about them.
The most active Bethell Bouwens continued to attend regularly at the Society until within a few months of his death on 24 October 1942, aged 58, his courteous and helpful presence being particularly appreciated because of the lack of other staff [1493]. Kathleen Blomfield's Assistant, Audrey Jennings, had been obliged to leave in August 1940 'owing to retrenchment and economy' [1494]. It was ‘a pity’, as Sherwood wrote to Percy Smith, ‘but we had no choice’ [1495]. Her departure was followed by that of Miss Locke, about whom I have no personal details but who had been with the Society for nearly four years. She left shortly before the Annual Meeting in April 1941 when William Gun paid a tribute to her as 'always so efficient and ready to help Members'. Mrs Blomfield said that ‘her pleasant personality is greatly missed’ and much difficulty was experienced in replacing her for she had, since July 1940, done much of the work formerly undertaken by Miss Jennings. Staffing problems generally were acute and at the Debrett office Cyril Hankinson recalled young girls coming and going and being obliged to engage boys and girls in their school holidays to address envelopes [1496]. At the Society Mrs Blomfield was then described as the only remaining member of the permanent staff [1497]. So that she could have a holiday and because it was impossible to obtain relief help, the Society closed its rooms for two weeks in 1941 (20 September - 6 October) and no correspondence was attended to [1498]. The Annual Report says ‘The Executive Committee propose to continue this practice’ [1499] and the closure was repeated in June-July 1942 [1500], June-July 1943 [1501], August 1944 [1502], June-July 1945 [1503], June-July 1946 [1504] and June-July 1947 [1505].
However, matters were slightly improved when Miss Kathleen Sayers (1902-1951), who had been with the British Dental Association for nine years and had latterly acted as Senior Library Assistant there, was appointed Assistant Secretary in October 1941, an appointment that Mrs Blomfield considered ‘most fortuitous, since she already had experience in a specialist library and was accustomed to dealing with library enquiries’. The Society was, however, ‘without a junior of any kind, and all the work, which is not less than in peace-time, must be shared between the Secretary and Miss Sayers’ [1506]. That was remedied with the arrival in 1942 of ‘our youngest and latest comer, Rita Drenon’ [1507], who was only fourteen! [1508].
A new President of the Society, Charles Clive (Bingham), 2nd Viscount Mersey (1872-1956) [1509], a noted traveller and diplomat, was elected at the Annual Meeting on 11 April 1942 when it was mentioned that he was a trustee of The Complete Peerage and had been a keen genealogist all his life [1510]. He took a close interest in the Society, particularly during the move, and presided at many of its meetings and at the popular luncheons mentioned below, remaining President until 1956. His father, the 1st Viscount, had made a name for himself when heading the Board of Trade enquiries into the sinking of the RMS Titanic, the RMS Lusitania and the RMS Empress of Ireland.
I have the impression that Kathleen Blomfield did not altogether approve of Bethell Bouwens' activities in the Library and after his death in October 1942 the Committee decided not to appoint another Honorary Librarian for the duration of the War [1511]. There had been some criticism of Bouwens’s re-arrangement of the books in the Library bays but the Executive Committee agreed in 1943 that the then arrangement followed the lines laid down by Major Percy-Smith when he was honorary-librarian and that any further alteration should await his return. He had been appointed Corresponding Member of the Indian Historical Records Commission for the next five years [1512].
Kathleen Sayers acted as Assistant to Mrs Blomfield from March to September 1943, but the latter apparently worked without a formally named Assistant for the remainder of the War, describing herself in the Magazine as 'Secretary and Acting Librarian' from March 1943 to March 1945. In May 1945 Lord Mersey said that Mrs Blomfield had, we might think not surprisingly, been 'ill for some considerable time', but she had carried on working 'and had managed to surround herself with an efficient staff' [1513]. The strains and stresses of wartime London may have had their effect on Miss Sayers also, for she left late in 1943 and died in Paddington Hospital aged 48 in 1951.
After the War, however, Mrs Blomfield complained (through Lord Mersey) that salaries generally had almost doubled since 1939 and that well-qualified staff were not obtainable with the salaries offered. Aside from members, there were about 500 non-members a year coming to the rooms and considerable correspondence [1514]. The following year the situation improved and in 1947 she was able to say that the assistants were interested in the work and their advent had done much to further the smooth running of the Society [1515].
As during the First World War many irreplaceable records were destroyed, so in the Second many were destroyed as a result of the incessant salvage drives. As early as November 1939 Mrs Blomfield had written to the Radio Times challenging a remark that if anyone was in two minds as to what to do with waste paper they should ‘throw it away’, appealing to listeners who were in doubt not to throw old documents away but to consult either the British Records Association or the Society about them [1516]. She returned to the subject in the Magazine in March 1943, commending the great enthusiasm of the volunteers at the Annual Meeting of the British Records Association but at the same time chastising the collections and actions of incompetent genealogists! [1517].
Some years before the War there had been a sudden growth in a fashion for making lampshades from old parchment documents but the wartime concentration on military production fortunately meant the virtual disappearance of the lampshade industry. Sadly, after the War the manufacture revived, the parchments generally coming from solicitor's offices. Deeds, bonds, indentures and probate copies of wills thus found a ready market [1518]. Once more, Cregoe Nicholson pointed out the activities of the Records Preservation Section of the British Records Association in sorting and distributing unwanted records from solicitors' offices and urged the members to support its work [1519]. Nicholson had a life-long interest in the work of the Association, encouraging me to become a Life Member in 1957, and again stressing its importance to the members in 1959 [1520]. Back in 1936 when Honorary Librarian he had written to the Observer about a fashion for collecting Revenue Stamps cut from documents, urging those involved to preserve the complete record, but perhaps unwisely mentioning the large collection of such stamps on original apprenticeship indentures at the Society [1521].
In 1943 there was an upsurge in membership, with seventy-three new members joining and many visitors, particularly from the American and Dominion Forces stationed in England. One hundred and thirty one persons used the library as day searchers (as against eighty the previous year), the youngest being twelve years old, and some 600 books were borrowed. Donations of books continued, some 387 were received of which sixty were parish register copies [1522]. However, the overhead expenses continued to increase and as the Annual Report said, money was now much needed with which to pay for typing and indexing the parish register transcripts. It was a vain hope, the Society being on a strict quota of paper because of the War.
Mrs Blomfield gave a very upbeat assessment of the Society's general situation in a 'Retrospect and Prospect' which appeared in the Magazine in March 1944 [1523] and in the Annual Report she said that the year had proved to be one of the busiest in the history of the Society [1524]. At the Annual Meeting in May the President, Lord Mersey, said that some fifty new members had been elected since January and that a friendly invasion of our American allies and Dominion servicemen had overtaken Chaucer House, where enquiries, both in person and by letter, averaged forty a week [1525]. The total numbers for the year are unfortunately again not given in the Report. A note in the September 1944 Magazine put the number of American visitors at only thirty a week and less after the Normandy Landings. The Americans’ problems were the same: so few knew anything about the identity of their first migrant ancestor, let alone where he came from in England.
The American section of the library was, however, for a time the most in use and owing to the great demand it was decided to prohibit loans from its shelves [1526]. Over 800 books were borrowed in 1944, but the loan of outsize books by post was stopped early in the year, it being difficult to obtain adequate packaging and quite impossible to get damaged books repaired. In spite of the great reduction in the number of books being printed, the library received 318 books and it was decided to increase by fifty per cent its valuation for insurance purposes. The accessions of unbound register transcripts were again delayed because of the problems of getting them bound. A non-member, Miss Rosalind Pole-Stuart (died 1986), voluntarily typed a large number of registers at this time in spite of living on the front line at Folkestone, but the home of Mrs John Glyn, a member who was also typing registers, was destroyed by a rocket though she fortunately escaped unhurt and was able to salvage the work on which she was engaged [1527].
The Society’s staffing problems continued throughout 1944 in the face of the Ministry of Labour’s veto on the employment of people aged between eighteen and fifty in unscheduled occupations and this, coupled with the inadequate heating in the winter months, combined to oblige the Society to close for a while on Mondays though it stayed open all day on Saturdays. Members and staff could thus avoid the coldest day of the week, after Sunday when there was no heating at all. The heating system was designed to be on at all times but was on only in the mornings, which was all that was allowed by the fuel controller. As a result even the library bays with radiators were frequently below forty degrees, and never, even at 5 pm, above fifty if the weather was at all severe [1528].
The situation in Scotland was much the same, with many Canadian servicemen and Americans coming to make searches for their ancestors whilst on leave, and in 1945 the Scots Ancestry Research Society was founded on a non-profit making basis, supported by the Secretary of State for Scotland and with money in trust for the purpose given by a private donor. An article in The Scotsman said that, compared to the Public Record Office, the Scottish Record Office was starved of funds and that Scottish historical scholarship was thus impeded. Research into ancestries was only a 'frill' though successful search depended upon adequate indexing of the records. It might, however, the article concluded, have some economic value in inducing American tourists to visit the scenes of their ancestors' exploits [1529]. By 1972 it had investigated more than 26,000 enquiries [1530]. A Scottish member, the accountant Matthew Stirling (died 1981), had meanwhile given the Society of Genealogists a most valuable collection of works on Scotland [1531] of which 140 volumes were placed on the shelves and a large number of duplicates disposed of [1532] and he followed this up with a complete set of volumes published by the Stair Society [1533]. The Scottish Genealogy Society, 'an academic and consultative body', which did not undertake any form of research, was founded in 1953 and commenced a quarterly journal in 1954 [1534].
Back in March 1938 it had been agreed that searches for particular entries might be made in the Library at a charge of one shilling per entry per index, but more general searches could still be made for ten shillings a day, or about 1s 6d an hour [1535]. However, the Society, finding that there were an increasing number of small accounts that were not met, decided the following year that all orders for publications and research should be pre-paid [1536]. It was in 1938 that the highly efficient Miss Freda Podmore, BA (Cantab) (1895-1982), commenced work at the Society as a research assistant, a post that she retained until 1950 when she embarked on research on her own account [1537], then becoming a regular visitor.
In 1944 the Executive Committee increased the charges for searches in the library 'by a competent research assistant' to 3s an hour for members and to 6s an hour for non-members. Specific searches in some indexes such as Boyd’s Marriage Index or the Apprenticeship Index still being made for a shilling (two shillings for non-members), but the charge for typing index slips from the Card Index was increased to a shilling for the first page (about 30 entries) and six pence per page thereafter, all fees being payable in advance [1538]. However, the services of the Research Department were much in demand and there was an appreciable delay in carrying out the work [1539]. Perhaps as a result, in 1948 the charges for members were increased to 5s an hour or 35s a day, with only 'straightforward copying' at 3s an hour, non-members paying two guineas a day and pro rata [1540] In early 1951 the fees were reduced to the pre-War rates, a whole day’s research costing only 10s, shorter periods being charged pro rata, the 1s fee for specified indexes remaining and non-members paying double [1541]. However, these unrealistic fees were quickly increased in June 1951 to two guineas a day for members and two and a half guineas a day for non-members [1542].
The number of visitors at the Society continued relatively high into 1945 with 2,000 visits by members and 300 by visitors, as well as many day searchers. Sixty new members had joined [1543]. Again detailed comparative statistics rarely appear in the Annual Reports and those that do (and have been mentioned above) must be taken with a degree of scepticism. New members paid an entrance fee of a guinea and yet in 1943 we are told that there were 73 new members, whereas the Accounts show an income of only £59-6-6. In 1942 some 58 new members produced £43-1-0 and in 1941 some 34 produced £26-2-6. Perhaps Mrs Blomfield, with her dislike for statistics, thought such things of little importance. After I retired at the end of the century some entrance fees were waived but that was not previously the case so far as I am aware. Entrance or Joining Fees (then at £10) were wholly abolished (and that source of income lost) when the two tier membership of full and associate members was introduced in 2017, though no announcement was made to that effect.
Percival Boyd had suggested in his last 'Chairman's Page' in June 1940 that the annual subscriptions for new country members which remarkably had not changed since 1911 and those of town members, unchanged since 1921, ought to be increased to reflect the great growth in the value of the Society's collections. He recommended that Town Members should pay three guineas (instead of two) and Country Members two guineas (instead of one) and that overseas members be charged one guinea, the entrance fee remaining at one guinea. He also thought that the search fee levied on non-members for use of the Library should be 21s a month or 5s a day [1544].
Boyd had obviously followed the Society's financial affairs closely for some time and when he retired from the Chairmanship in the summer of 1940, although George Sherwood was technically the Honorary Treasurer, the hope was expressed that Boyd would 'continue to help look after the finances of the Society as in the past' [1545]. Boyd continued to press the Executive Committee about the subscriptions and at the Annual Meeting in May 1944 again spoke about his earlier suggestion for increases after the War and it was agreed to recommend them to the Executive Committee [1546].
As a consequence when the War ended the subscriptions for new members joining after May 1945 were increased to three guineas for the town and two guineas for the country members as Boyd had recommended [1547] and an appeal was made to the existing members to voluntarily increase their subscriptions to these rates, as some had already done [1548]. The subscriptions of new overseas members were allowed to stay at a guinea, thus creating a separate class of member [1549].
In 1941 Mrs Blomfield had warned members of the likely increase and said that anyone who resigned for the duration of the War and then joined again would not only have to pay the increased rate but also an entrance fee, whereas those who continued to subscribe would be able to do so at the pre-war rate [1550]. With the rules as they were this was correct, but it did not bode well for future increases and tedious arguments (and careful calculations!) as to whether it was worthwhile for a lapsed member to pay up the intervening subscriptions or to re-join at the new rates continued to waste much office time for many years.
Throughout the War the Society’s Annual Reports briefly mention the work of microfilming parish registers, the slow receipt of transcribed copies and the problems and cost of adequate binding before transcripts could be placed on the Society’s shelves. In 1945 Mrs Blomfield wrote, ‘Many enquiries have been received regarding the possibility of copies of Registers being made from the microfilms which were taken under the auspices of the Committee for Microfilming Parish Registers. We must emphasize that the Society has no rights whatsoever in these films, and that when things become more normal the Committee for Microfilming Parish Registers hopes to go forward with its scheme of transcribing from projected films. At the time of writing, however, there is no prospect of obtaining either a suitable projector or experienced workers to transcribe the film or type when transcription is complete. To carry out such would be a major undertaking and this must await more settled times’ [1551].
The Committee consisted of herself and Kendall Percy-Smith. Uneasy observers, and there were several, had cause for concern as to how this situation would develop. The Society’s own Parish Register Sub-Committee had been abolished. She had a full time job (though that had not hindered her from spending much time on the microfilming project previously) and Percy-Smith, although a charming and helpful man, was devoted to his Indian projects and as time passed not at all capable alone of the extended hard work that the problem needed if it were to be resolved.
Kendall Percy-Smith returned to London as a Lieutenant Colonel after six years in India 'in charge of the Indian Army's pay' [1552] and resumed his duty as Honorary Librarian to the Society in the autumn of 1945. The Annual Report in December says that the Library had greatly benefited by his return, his helpfulness in the Library and the confident expectation of an improved catalogue and shelf arrangement. With a small band of voluntary workers he began systematically to re-catalogue the library and by the end of 1946 had completed several counties [1553]. The wording of the Annual Report is exaggerated for large numbers of catalogue cards made by Bethell Bouwens and others were still very much in evidence ten years later.
Percy-Smith had had a ‘good War’ and he brought with him for the library over a hundred books dealing with Europeans in India and a number of typed volumes, compiled in collaboration with Brigadier Humphrey Bullock, containing 30,000 'Births and Deaths in India' [1554]. At some stage he started a card index to officers and others in India which was housed at the Society. Called the 'India Index', its ownership (rather like that of the Committee for Microfilming) was somewhat uncertain, particularly when whole drawers disappeared to be worked upon. In 1953 it was reported that he and others had recently added some 50,000 fresh cards [1555]. Earlier, in 1948, he had started to compile a slip index to the marriages registered in the India Office Records, 1698-1900, and he and Miss Goulding completed 12,000 slips which were kept separate, but the valuable project was unfortunately never completed [1556], the slips being much later interfiled with those of his main 'India Index'. He would have been appalled at the suggestions made in 1955 that the India Office Library and its records be divided and sent to New Delhi and Karachi [1557]. In later years Kendall Percy-Smith spent much time making additions to a card index at the National Army Museum of officers of the East India Company, 1600-1860, which had been started by his friend Major Vernon C. P. Hodson (1883-1963), also a Fellow of the Society and the author of the monumental List of the Officers of the Bengal Army 1748-1834 (4 vols. 1927-47), who had retired to Georgeham, North Devon. Working with Lieut. Col. Charles Barnard Appleby (died 1975), the first Director of the Museum, Percy-Smith extended the 'Hodson Index' to include India and Burma Government Services, 1861-1943.
Before the War the Society had helped many Germans looking for English ancestry as a result of Hitler's Ahnenpass requirements and now the Society found itself receiving even larger numbers of enquiries from many former servants of the Raj, often long resident in India or Burma and their descendants who wished to retain British Nationality after the passage of the 1947 India Act and who needed to establish British ancestry. In this they were greatly assisted by Percy-Smith and the collections he had built up and placed in the library. When these were not of help, he himself freely devoted his time to obtaining the evidence required from outside sources [1558]. The Society’s staff assisted in the work and even some ten years later I remember dealing with many such enquiries. By July 1949 Mrs Blomfield was able to say that 500 people had won British passports because of the Society's aid [1559] and the work attracted further publicity when the Evening Standard twice reported that people of mixed and British descent were asking the Society to trace their male-line ancestry and that others of 'pure British stock' who had lived in India or Pakistan for generations without establishing their citizenship were now keen to do so, some with the thought of going to Australia [1560]. In 1951 it was noted that there had been a falling off of research work in this connection [1561].
With the steady growth in the Society’s collections the space available for the Library was now becoming extremely cramped. Lord Mersey referred to the situation at the Annual Meeting in 1945, saying that 'the question of library space and seating accommodation was becoming very urgent' [1562]. At the next Meeting in June 1946 he made a plea that members enter into seven-year covenants so that the Society could claim the tax paid on their subscriptions, a scheme first put into operation that year and which usefully produced an extra £77 for the Society in 1947 [1563]. At that 1946 Annual Meeting, Lord Mersey had spoken about the Society’s salaries, saying how difficult clerical labour was to obtain and that salaries had almost doubled since 1939. Well-qualified staff were essential, he said, but had not previously been obtainable on the salaries the Society had been able to afford. There was apparently some discussion (not reported in the Magazine) which resulted in a break-down of the salaries being shown in the Income and Expenditure Account that year. The administrative costs were £572, the research staff cost £296 (against an income of £340) and transcribing, indexing and typing parish registers cost £170 plus £23 for stationery [1564]. I suspect that there was some underlying unease about the financial arrangements with the Committee for Microfilming, let alone about who paid Mrs Blomfield’s salary, and the Accounts show that the Committee, perhaps prompted by this discussion, made a grant of £100 to the Society towards the copying costs in 1946 and again in 1947. The sale of typescripts produced nothing in 1946, but £95 for the Society in 1947.
However, conditions in the year immediately after the war, Kathleen Blomfield thought, did not differ greatly from those in the late war years. Restrictions on paper for printing continued and there was a fuel crisis affecting heating and lighting, but ninety-five members joined as against sixty the previous year. The number of members using the rooms also increased by about a thousand and some three thousand signed the book. This, however, caused overcrowding on Saturdays and members were asked not to bring visitors on that day. The possibility of excluding day searchers on Saturdays was also discussed but it was found that on average only one came then [1565]. Only two issues of the Magazine were being published each year but it was at last possible to re-print the Articles of Association. The winter series of lectures was resumed, but without tea because of the rationing [1566].
Many overseas visitors, service and civilian, had found their way to the Society during and immediately after the War years, particularly Americans and Canadians seeking to confirm English ancestry, but the problems in helping them were considerable. Many American service men who had seen first-hand the research difficulties, wrote subsequently and commissioned research, the Society charging ten dollars a day [1567] or ten shillings if they came to do the work themselves. An article in The Spectator about lack of guidance drew a swift and detailed response from Mrs Blomfield [1568] and The Sketch under 'The dollar-value of an ancestor' provided an illustrated account of the Society's work, commencing 'Masses of Americans want ancestors; we want masses of dollars, and combined operations produces both', showing both an illuminated pedigree and a microfilming operator [1569]. The Spectator's suggestion that the British Travel Association should get involved was not, however, taken up until 1957.
In March 1947 because of the growing numbers using the rooms and the consequent overcrowding it was decided not to admit guests who were not paying search fees unless they were attending a lecture [1570] and at the AGM in July Lord Mersey again stressed that much more space was needed and that steps should be taken to look for new premises. The Honorary Treasurer, George Sherwood, in view of the loss that year, rather uneasily noted that some £250 had been spent on the purchase of books [1571]. The Annual Report, however, recognised ‘a pressing need to build up the capital fund’ and said that the Executive Committee was considering ways and means whereby larger premises might be acquired, preference being given to the purchase of a freehold with rooms for expansion which, in the first years, could be sublet [1572]. The number of new members fell back to sixty-eight in 1947 and those overseas visitors who had joined during the War were now letting their memberships lapse, though the number of enquiries by mail was now running at about five or six daily. Some 839 books were received in 1947 and the number received for review doubled on the previous year, from twenty-four to fifty-three. There was also a large accumulation of books that needed to be put through the accession process and catalogued. Tea was, however, once more available on the six lecture days [1573].
In 1947 Percy-Smith was singled out for praise at the AGM as devoting much time to the Library, though, as Viscount Mersey said, the Society's prosperity was largely due to Mrs Blomfield to whom it was difficult to express sufficient thanks [1574]. However, the expenditure had in fact exceeded income by ‘the moderately large’ amount of £192 that year. The situation improved in 1948 when a hundred new members joined and there was a net gain of forty-seven. There was a substantial increase in the number of visits made by members to 3,700 as against about 3,000 in 1947 and the numbers of books added to the library, taken out on loan and received for review, all increased [1575]. The improvement did not, however, last and there was a marked drop in new members (to 65) in 1949; the total membership at the end of the year being 989. It was the first time the Annual Report had mentioned the total figure for many years [1576] and twenty years earlier it had been 875.
However, the joint-praise of Mrs Blomfield and Colonel Percy-Smith for the 'tremendous amount of work and time which they devote to the well-being of the Society' was once more repeated [1577]. The long-standing friendly relationship between Dr and Mrs Blomfield and the Colonel was, however, the cause of much speculation, particularly after the doctor's death on 9 November 1948 [1578] and when, later, the two friends moved to neighbouring houses with an interconnecting door at Mayford near Woking!
In September 1942 a former long-serving judge in the Sudan and at Alexandria, Sir Wasey Sterry, CBE (1866-1955), had been prevailed upon to take over as Editor of the Magazine in succession to Bouwens, 'for the duration of the War'. He was much assisted with the twice-yearly publication by Mrs Blomfield and continued as Editor until June 1947, but the production of the Magazine was latterly seriously delayed owing to the fuel cuts.
However, in September 1947, Philip John Ryves Harding (1906-1972), a distinguished and well-connected journalist and a member since 1929, was persuaded to take over the Honorary Editorship, and, in spite of the increased cost of printing (by now £70 an issue when it had been £37 before the War) [1579] four issues were once more provided in that year. However, some £210 was recovered from Magazine sales and advertising. Harding had been Lobby Correspondent of the Financial News 1935-39 and after active service in the War he was appointed Diplomatic Correspondent of the Financial Times, 1946-48. He then joined The Times, writing on financial and commercial subjects, afterwards as deputy to the Diplomatic Correspondent and later as editor of Special Supplements.
It is interesting that at this time Anthony Wagner should have considered that 'the development of modern genealogical technique has consisted largely in the construction of special indexes and the development of the use of selected sources as indexes to others' [1580]. However, either Sterry or Harding was responsible for an interesting series of articles designed to show in a practical manner the procedures by which several members had researched their ancestries. They reveal in a fascinating way the sources that searchers were then using and the problems that they encountered along the way. The idea for the series probably came from Hugh Shellshear Pocock (1894-1987), a member from 1924 and Secretary of the British Record Society, who said in the first article that he had often thought it would be helpful to the less-experienced genealogist if he could learn through the Magazine how other beginners had succeeded in fitting together a pedigree of, say, four or five generations and the successive steps that this had involved.
Pocock's article 'Five Generations' [1581] had used the Middlesex Deeds Registry, and was followed by John Nissen Deacon, MC (1892-1959) with 'Twelve Generations' [1582] and its elements of luck in the records of the Excise and Duchy of Cornwall, then by Gerald Hamilton-Edwards, 'Six Generations' [1583], with its use of a wide range of sources for a middle-class family, and by Erik Chitty (1907-1977) [1584] with 'Nine Generations' [1585], stressing the importance of the Society's apprenticeship records. In 1948 Gerald Hamilton-Edwards also contributed one of the first major articles on the indexing and filing of genealogical material, including notes on pedigree reproduction and on reflex and photographic copying [1586].
Owing to the pressure of his newspaper work Harding sadly gave up the editorship of the Magazine after the June issue in 1952 [1587]. His short-lived successor as editor was Edward Stewart Gray (1913-1989), a Fellow of the Irish Genealogical Research Society and a member since 1931, but Gray gave up due to ill health after the March 1954 issue [1588].
Harding and Gray were not able to make any innovations to the Magazine owing to the general need for economy. They were greatly aided by the officers of the Society where all the administrative work, the make-up and proof-reading, was then done, the editors merely selecting material from that received, and making a final check of the proofs, any questions of policy being decided by the editorial committee [1589]. There was always some criticism of the Magazine and at the Annual Meeting in 1952 Dr T. Hare said that he thought that more space should be given to genealogical research, names, dates and places, but Cregoe Nicholson replied that the Magazine was principally intended as a news magazine and should not attempt to print records [1590].
An effort was made in 1948 to find volunteers to index the PCC wills, 1721-1730 [1591], but only Charles William Winstanley (1878-1954), of Chorley Wood, who had joined the Executive Committee that year, came forward. At his death in 1954 he had written slips from the old calendars for the years 1721-1725 only [1592]. For many years this short period remained the only one covered and it was not superseded until the indexing work of the Friends of the Public Record Office much later in the century.
Meanwhile the microfilming work of the Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU) had, after the War, revived somewhat and as early as December 1945 that Society had obtained permission to copy the collection of register transcripts in Newcastle Public Library. A local LDS church member, James Cunningham, obtained an old camera from a local bank and within two weeks he and Frank Smith had finished the work, having taught themselves how to operate the machine [1593].
In 1950, as mentioned, the GSU had filmed the registers of the Isle of Man and in 1951 permission was granted to film the Old Parochial Registers and Census Returns in Scotland [1594]. Permission to film church registers in England remained particularly difficult to obtain, but the GSU had more success with the civil authorities and in 1952 it commenced an enormous and highly important ten-year programme to microfilm the pre-1858 probate records at Somerset House and elsewhere [1595].
In March 1949 the Bishop of Norwich had found that the clergy in his diocese were again being approached by the GSU for permission to microfilm their registers and he put out a statement saying that apart from the questions of copyright this would mean the loss of future fees for searching and 'for this and other reasons he was strongly of the opinion that no incumbent will agree to the request' [1596].
In the following November, however, the Archbishop of Canterbury issued a statement confirming the arrangement with the Society of Genealogists (saying that it was 'set up just before the war') and warning against the filming of registers 'under any condition' by 'other bodies' [1597]. The statement received some publicity [1598] and an unsigned note printed in the Magazine at the same time said that the work was being done by the Committee 'under the auspices of the Society', that microfilms were still being made and that it would 'provide typewritten indexed copies of parish registers for the use of Incumbents so that wear and tear on the originals through handling may be reduced to a minimum'. The microfilms would be deposited in official repositories and not issued on any pretext whatever, but if the Incumbent could show that the original register had been destroyed then a copy would be made [1599].
At the Society of Genealogists many hundreds of registers were filmed on the promise that these indexed transcripts would be given to the churches concerned, but the ease with which something could be microfilmed greatly outpaced the work of typing and indexing and there began a stream of complaints and public criticism of broken promises. In 1946 and again in 1947, as we have seen, Mrs Blomfield and Colonel Percy-Smith gave £100 to the Society to facilitate the typing [1600], aiming to provide one new register a week [1601], and in 1948 the Annual Report spoke of the Committee, now calling itself the Committee for Microfilming and Copying Parish Registers, making itself ‘responsible for the payment of typists’, but no further donations appeared in the accounts and the Report again appealed for volunteer typists and indexers [1602].
The problem was exacerbated, as the two involved fully recognised in the Society's Annual Report for 1949, by the fact that although the Committee had provided the Society with a large number of transcripts, many of these were not reaching the library shelves. Some were awaiting indexes, whilst others were too small to bind, the heavy expense of binding making it imperative that only volumes containing the maximum number of pages be bound. The registers of small parishes in the same county were bound together when sufficient had accumulated but this sometimes took several years. Binding very thin volumes also aggravated the problem of lack of shelf space [1603]. These problems were very real and not always appreciated by the members. Temporary catalogue entries on pink cards were made for unbound transcripts and these were available on application to the library staff but the members were not always accustomed to using the library catalogue.
Unfortunately the transfer of funds to an independent group outside the control of the Executive Committee began to be questioned and at the AGM on 28 June 1950 it was announced that Mrs Blomfield had signified that she wished to retire at the end of the year [1604]. She would be 55 in July and it was said in the Annual Report that her retirement was ‘partly due to ill-health’. An unsigned note, probably written by William Edward Coode Cotton (1901-1961) [1605], Chairman of the Executive Committee in 1950-53, appeared in the Magazine immediately after the Minutes of the Meeting and paid a glowing tribute to her work, saying that she had served the Society with a rare combination of unselfish loyalty, administrative ability and wide knowledge of the genealogical field. In twenty years she had missed only one Executive Committee. Her dependability and inexhaustible energy were, indeed, for many years deeply missed [1606]. At a lecture by Michael Trinick on ‘A country house index’ in January 1951, with her successor in place, she was presented with a cheque from the Executive Committee 'in sincere recognition of her long and valuable service' [1607]. In an interview reported in the Belfast Telegraph on page 5 of its issue for 14 December 1950 she said that 55 was the best age for retirement, adding 'Go while you are still wanted instead of waiting to be wanted to go'. She intended to do some work on her Dutch grandmother's family which involved a visit to Holland, with a band of volunteers she was preparing a history of Isleworth, and as hon secretary of the Committee for Microfilming and Copying Parish Registers she 'would help to complete records which will be stored permanently in a place of safety and will make copies to enable the original historic documents to be preserved'.
Cotton's statement had also noted that Mrs Blomfield intended to devote part of her leisure to the work of the Committee for Microfilming Parish Registers [1608] with which she would ‘remain actively associated’ [1609] and in February 1951, at the request of that Committee, the Society closed the special account (then containing £205-17-6) and it was re-opened in the name of the Committee. Mrs Blomfield then became a member of the Society [1610] and at the AGM on 14 June 1951 she was proposed for election to the Executive Committee by two of its members, Geoffrey White and the professional genealogist Cecil Warburton Brand (1886-1982), but the much-respected Wilfred Sampson Samuel (1886-1958) [1611], another Committee member and a friend of Nicholson, said that this would not be fair to the new Secretary and Mrs Blomfield was not elected [1612].
The problem of the future extent of the Society's involvement in the transcription of registers remained, it having no typists or organisation of its own. At that June 1951 meeting a long-standing member Richard Dodson Cheveley (1887-1983) said that repeated reminders to the Society had not produced a register to transcribe and the Chairman, William Cotton, said that steps were being taken to clarify the functions of the Society and of the Committee for Microfilming in that connection. Herbert John Willis (1887-1979) of the Bank of England, just elected to the Executive Committee, said that when he copied registers he was not aware that he was doing work for the Committee and Cregoe Nicholson, in his general dislike for Kathleen Blomfield, urged the Society to continue its own work of transcription, not through another body, pointing out that years ago it received on average a typed copy of a parish register each week. Hilda Hooper (1880-1962) [1613], a forceful art mistress at the City of London School for Girls, thought that mistakes were made in transcripts and for that reason the work of the Committee for Microfilming should be encouraged, though by this time the filming work had in fact long since ceased and the films, in any case, would not be accessible.
A month after the AGM the Executive Committee set up a new 'Sub-Committee on Copying Parish Registers' to consider the means by which the flow of copies into the library might be increased and appealed for offers of help from amongst the members [1614]. Major V. W. B. Church, the new Secretary of the Society, then put out a statement that the Society had agreed to extend its work of transcription by setting up local committees. He hoped that interested persons might contact him, reverting to the idea in a letter to The Times the following year [1615], but his appeal fell on deaf ears.
Although the nominal Chairman of the Committee for Microfilming, Lord Mersey (died 1956), was also the President of the Society, and Mrs Blomfield and Percy-Smith were the Joint Honorary Secretaries, the whole affair had caused deep divisions within the Society and there were those who would not let the matter drop. At an Executive Committee on 11 February 1953, Cecil Brand proposed and Cregoe Nicholson seconded and it was agreed to set up a Fact-Finding Sub-Committee about the copyright of the National Index and the payments made by the Pilgrim Trust. Its members were William Cotton, Sir William Elderton, John Beach Whitmore and Sir Stanley Wyatt [1616]. Looking back over the Minutes it must have been clear to them that there was fault on both sides but the copyright undoubtedly belonged to the Society and the printers were so informed.
The Sub-Committee recommended that the Committee for Microfilming 'be asked to supply accounts showing how the sum of £149-11-4 (the balance of the original £300 unexpended in May 1940) and the proceeds of the sale of the remaining copies of the National Index have been applied'. The other £1,500 was 'undoubtedly a gift for copying or micro-filming parish registers'. When the report of the sub-committee was received by the Executive Committee, it was agreed that it be noted and no further action was taken.
The Society now distanced itself from the former valuable work of the Committee for Microfilming and there was a period of almost twenty years in which difficult and embarrassing telephone calls and letters from irate incumbents had to be dodged by the staff, gentle enquiries being occasionally made of Mrs Blomfield and Colonel Percy-Smith as to their progress with particular registers.
Such enquiries were generally dealt with, if sometimes rather slowly, by the ever-courteous Colonel, who for some years did his best to continue the organisation amongst his other interests, disgorging occasional transcripts to be typed, and apparently keeping on good terms with most of those involved. In 1957, whilst living at Old Isleworth, he was able to borrow for transcription by Kenneth Vaughan Elphinstone (1878-1963) the registers of All Saints, Old Isleworth, which had been severely damaged by fire in 1942, the Society making all the arrangements. I came also to know Kathleen Blomfield from her occasional visits to the Society though she did not involve herself in this type of enquiry. The Colonel was involved in the transcription of registers to the end of his life and four months before he died (at Woking on 3 June 1975) sent me a small donation for the Society in exchange for some lined copying paper [1617]. Later in 1975 I went with Brian FitzGerald-Moore (1914-1989), then Chairman of the Executive Committee, to have lunch with Mrs Blomfield, and she showed us a deep garage packed almost to the ceiling with crates and boxes of papers and books which she said, as the Colonel’s residuary legatee [1618], she was determined to deal with. She was employing solicitors in an attempt to recover some of his books loaned to Phillimore & Co and sought to sell others. The Committee for Microfilming's canisters of films had been distributed to safe areas and sixteen films for Oxfordshire parishes were found at Preston in 1976, but the master list could not be found [1619]. Other films passed through the hands of the British Records Association and were distributed to county record offices. However, despite offers of assistance from the Society, Kathleen Blomfield did not tackle the accumulation in the garage and it was not until after her death at Bramley near Guildford at the age of 95 on 1 November 1989 that its contents were sorted and despatched to their appropriate homes. Amongst them her nephew, greatly aided by the archivist Duncan Harrington, found various original registers, long thought lost. The microfilming scheme had been, in the Archbishop's words a 'wise precaution', but it needed much greater resources than were available at the time and it sadly turned into a most discreditable affair that cast a very long shadow.
As mentioned the Society had a large collection of book-plates and other heraldic illustrations and in 1950 it was completely reorganized and arranged [1620] in 68 files by Professor Robert Cecil Gale (1888-1975) [1621] who continued to send additions to it, as acknowledged in the Annual Report in 1959 [1622]. He was so pleased when John Phillips and I went down to see him at Eltham at that time. Professor Gale, who because of ill health rarely came to the library, had been Professor of Chemistry and Metallurgy at the Royal Military College, Woolwich, before the Second World War, and was a great benefactor to the Society. As mentioned below he had given a display unit for the hall in 1954 as well as money for binding and other improvements such as a photocopier and he was a regular donor of extremely valuable books, many foreign, including a long run of the Almanac de Gotha. His work on the book-plates was followed by his important Indexes to quartered coats in Harleian Society Visitation Series (£1-10-0; 1961) and Index and Key to the Armorial Glass in the Inns of Court (£2-12-0; 1962) [1623] both of which he compiled, typed and published himself, giving us 150 copies to sell in our embryo bookshop.
The latter part of 1950, with Mrs Blomfield’s pending departure, saw other changes and in December the Magazine announced that the Executive Committee had ‘decided to abolish the office of Honorary Librarian’ and to promote Miss Gwynneth Barbara Priddle (1923-1996) to be Librarian, and that future correspondence on library matters should be addressed to her [1624]. Kendall Percy-Smith’s name was strangely not mentioned at that time. Gwynneth Priddle, a practical no-nonsense lady, had been on the staff since 1947 and she served as Librarian until late in 1953 when she became a professional genealogist and record searcher, based at Shoreham [1625]. I remember her as a valuable member of the Executive and other Committees in the years 1963-70 [1626]. However, a tribute to Percy-Smith appeared in the Annual Report which said that his ‘whole-hearted service’ would continue to be available as Chairman of the Library Committee [1627] and he continued in that post until just after the move to Harrington Gardens in 1954 but taking little part in it, being obliged through illness to leave matters to others [1628]. In January 1953 he had written a most enthusiastic article about the Society for The Amateur Historian in which he described Sherwood as the ‘Grand Old Man’ of genealogy and paid a glowing tribute to Kathleen Blomfield, writing of the Society’s ‘rapid growth and expansion’ in her time as Secretary and of her need to retire ‘owing to ill-health’ [1629].
Miss Priddle's successor from December 1953 was Miss P. M. Jones who served as Librarian during the move but left later that year, her name last appearing in the September 1954 Magazine. History does not seem to relate whether she played any part in the organisation at the new building though she must have been involved to some extent. She was followed by Miss Margaret Eva Cohen, BA, FLA, Librarian from late 1954 to November 1956, whose handwriting later became quickly familiar to me. She had private means but was the first qualified librarian to be employed by the Society. She seems to have been hard working and industrious but was criticised ever-after by Cregoe Nicholson for wearing carpet slippers in the library! Neither was mentioned in the Society’s Annual Reports. Miss Cohen had been born at Leeds in 1898, the daughter of Julius Berend Cohen, and she died at Hounslow in 1986, aged 87, being buried with her parents at St Andrew’s, Coniston, Cumbria.
Kathleen Blomfield's relatively short-lived successor as Secretary, Major Valentine William Bland Church, OBE, MC (1890-1973), had until recently been Manager of the Bank of India at Bombay, it being rightly thought that his long administrative and financial experience would stand the Society in good stead [1630]. He took up his duties on 1 January 1951 [1631], and although he claimed not to know anything about his ancestry he is chiefly remembered for the growth in the Society's membership during his four-year reign, for successfully moving the Society to new premises and for a highly successful series of annual luncheons. Colonel Percy-Smith, who probably had a hand in his appointment, referred to Church (in his article in The Amateur Historian) as ‘an outstanding organiser … an ardent and indefatigable worker’. Why he left after such a short but successful period remains something of a mystery, though he was then almost sixty-five.
In September 1951 Major Church usefully persuaded the Library Association to allow the Society's members to use the Association's Luncheon Room on the ground floor of Chaucer House [1632]. The provision of lunches and teas for visiting members of the Association and its permanent staff made a small loss each year throughout the 1950s and was mildly controversial but it is said that it was considered no small honour to be invited to the ‘top table’ for lunch, where P. S. J. Welsford (1893-1968) the Secretary presided, ‘and the frequent companionship of senior librarians and visitors from overseas, made such occasions pleasures to be savoured and long remembered’ [1633].
Also long-remembered were the annual luncheons that Church initiated for the Society and which took place in the Venetian Rooms at the Holborn Restaurant, a large and well-known establishment at 218 High Holborn, always costing 17s 6d exclusive of wine. Lord Mersey, the Society's President, was personally responsible for inviting the Guests of Honour and always presided.
The first of these popular luncheons, attended by seventy members and guests, was held on Thursday, 14 June 1951 to celebrate the Society's fortieth anniversary when Lord Mersey relayed a message from the Patron, Queen Mary, expressing her great interest in the work of the Society [1634], and the speaker was Sir Hilary Jenkinson, a Deputy Keeper of the Public Records [1635]. Cregoe Nicholson described it as a brilliant success and it was agreed that it should be an annual event. The second luncheon therefore took place on 8 May 1952 when Leopold Amery, PC, CH, Secretary of State for India and Burma in Churchill's war cabinet, spoke on the genealogy of today's ideologies, tracing the origins of communism [1636], and at the third, held on 7 May 1953, the guest of honour Sir Ronald Storrs, KCMG, gave some personal reminiscences of his time in the Middle East [1637].
At the fourth and final luncheon on 16 July 1954, Lord Hastings spoke about his family as an illustration of the interest taken in genealogy in this country [1638] and among those present were Sir Walter Peacock, former Keeper of the Records of the Duchy of Cornwall, the Deputy High Commissioner for Canada, and Dr Arthur Adams (1881-1960) [1639], the distinguished editor of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register and a Fellow since 1925 [1640]. Major Church resigned at the end of 1954 and no more luncheons were held, the Holborn Restaurant being demolished the following year.
However, to mark the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 the Society's lecture programme contained four talks by major authorities that had a direct bearing on the event and were ‘brilliantly successful’ the rooms being crowded on most occasions [1641]. On 21 January, Geoffrey White spoke on 'The Great Officers of State', on 18 February, Lawrence Tanner spoke on 'The Coronation Ceremonial', on 11 April, Anthony Wagner spoke on 'The Ceremonial Duties of the Heralds', and on 20 May, Hugh Stanford London (1884-1959), Norfolk Herald Extraordinary [1642], spoke on 'The Royal Arms' [1643]. Notification of those attending was required in advance because of the catering difficulties, tea being served after the talks.
In the winter of 1953-4 the programme of lectures was discontinued owing to the Society's preparations for its removal to new premises but in November highly popular visits were made to the Guildhall Library and the College of Arms, the former having to be repeated the following week [1644]. There were then visits to the City of London Record Office in 1954 [1645], two to Westminster Abbey Library in 1956 [1646], to the House of Lords’ Record Office and to the muniments at Hatfield House in 1957 [1647], to the County Record Office at Maidstone and Knowle in 1958 [1648], to the Bodleian Library in 1959 [1649], to Friends’ House, Euston Road in 1960 [1650], to Penshurst Place in 1963 [1651], to the National Army Museum at Sandhurst in 1965 [1652], to Boughton Monchelsea Place in 1967 [1653], to Waddesdon Manor in 1968 [1654], to Greenwich Palace and the National Maritime Museum in 1969 [1655], to The Vyne at Sherborne St John in 1970 [1656], and to Chartwell in 1972 [1657], but the following year the number of applicants for a projected visit to Petworth was less than the required forty and no more visits were organised for a number of years.
Major Church, who immediately saw the Society’s need for publicity, wrote in the Annual Report for 1950 that ‘much greater use would be made of the services available from the Society if they were more widely known’ [1658], and was responsible in 1951 for the publication of a little sheet that set out the Society's facilities and which was widely distributed together with a membership application form and details of a new edition of The Genealogists' Handbook which he had organised and published that year (for 1s 9d). He also printed a sheet showing the Society's research charges, then ten shillings a day and pro rata (specific searches being made for a shilling), the non-members paying double these rates [1659]. The charges for research for non-members (limited to work before 1837) were shortly after increased to 7s 6d an hour or two and a half guineas a day. Those doing their own work, now greatly increased in number (many coming to London for the Festival of Britain in 1951), were charged 7s 6d for three and a half hours [1660]. In December 1951, following what had been a difficult year for many, not least because of the rise in the cost of living, a bonus of one month’s salary was paid to all the staff, this appreciative gesture costing the Society £1,118-6-8 [1661].
As a result, the membership, which had fallen by six in Mrs Blomfield’s last year, now steadily increased and at the end of 1951, as Lord Mersey proudly announced to the AGM in May 1952, it had for the first time passed the 1,000 mark and was 1,009 [1662]. Church’s hard work and enthusiasm paid off and the numbers continued to increase, to 1,062 in 1952 (when he got some good publicity in the Daily Express) [1663] to 1,247 in 1953 and to 1,423 in 1954. It was, as the Annual Report for 1953 acknowledges, this steady increase in memberships, entrance fees and subscriptions that encouraged the Society to agree to take on the purchase of 37 Harrington Gardens that year with its likely total cost of £8,100 [1664], something that would have been quite inconceivable only a few years earlier.
An article on civil and parish registration in Scotland by Gerald Hamilton-Edwards appeared in the Magazine in March 1951 [1665] and later that year Brigadier Henry Alain Joly de Lotbiniere (1891-1974) completed his initial sorting into 279 folios of a large collection on Scottish families purchased in 1949, which Hamilton-Edwards had brought to the attention of the Society [1666]. The collection consisted of the working papers and notes of the Revd Walter Macleod (born in Edinburgh in 1832, the son of a joiner), who was originally a teacher but after marriage in 1867 developed a name as a record agent and editor for the Scottish Historical Society, particularly in the 1890s when Minister of the Original Secession Church in Edinburgh and where his unmarried daughters acted as his amanuenses. He and his son John (born in 1873) had done research for the great Alexander Graham Bell (died 1922) and John continued to practise in Edinburgh until the outbreak of the Second World War.
Large parts of this Collection were in great disorder and when in 1959 the Genealogical Society of Utah gave the Society, at that time very short of money for binding, £200, this was used to start the binding of the collection, a further £100 being added by Mr Earl Douglas (died 1989), of London, Ontario, in 1960 [1667]. Cregoe Nicholson took on the difficult task of attempting to put the papers into better order before they were bound, but he delayed dreadfully over it and in 1966 an appeal was made for someone else to complete the work [1668]. That appeal was renewed in 1969 and again in 1972, and in 1973 the Committee agreed that token sums might be paid from the fund if a sorter could be found [1669]. At the end of 1974 it was reported that twenty volumes of the papers had been bound and the fund exhausted though the bulk of the Collection remained unbound [1670].
An interesting article on 'The Genealogy of the Poor' by the economic historian Muriel Florence Lloyd Prichard in the Magazine in 1951 reverted to Charles Bernau's Some special studies in genealogy (1908) in which Bernau had suggested that the tracing of a family in the lower strata of society might be easier than tracing one in the upper middle classes. Lloyd Prichard taught at University College, London but in 1959 emigrated to New Zealand and was subsequently Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Auckland. She thought Bernau's book inaccurate in its account of the Poor Law and coy in its examples. She showed, perhaps in some cases for the first time, the great value of the records of apprenticeship, bastardy, and settlement and removal [1671].
In September 1951 Cregoe Nicholson wrote to the Magazine suggesting that the Committee on Monumental Inscriptions which had functioned in the early days of the Society should be revived, the Suffolk genealogist and antiquary Charles Partridge (died 1955), who had copied 36,000 inscriptions in some 300 Suffolk churchyards [1672], having once more brought the urgent need for their transcription to the notice of the Executive Committee [1673]. Nicholson thought that a new committee should be entrusted with the task of awakening interest amongst the members and charged with compiling a record of the whereabouts of all known copies of inscriptions [1674].
The Annual Report for 1951 indicates that thought had again been given to increasing the subscriptions but because of the inability to alter the subscriptions of existing members, the suggestion had been shelved, it being thought that the best hope of improving the finances was an increase in membership. It was then suggested that interest ‘could be aroused by the formation, particularly in villages, of study groups or of groups to copy parish registers and monumental inscriptions’. It was said that lectures by experienced genealogists could be arranged on application to the Secretary [1675]. I am not aware, however, that any applications were made at this time.
However, at the Annual Meeting in May 1952 it was reported that two committees had been formed to encourage the copying of monumental inscriptions and to investigate the possibilities of co-ordinating work on the compilation of school registers and generally creating a clearing house for information on schools [1676]. The first one flourished but the second sadly died an almost immediate death and surprisingly has never been revived. In 1952 Peter G. Summers appealed for assistance with the great survey of armorial funeral hatchments that he had just commenced for the Bath Heraldic Society at Kingswood School [1677] and in 1955 John Stone (1910-1956), a housemaster at Brentwood School, outlined the work that his boys were doing in copying local churchyards and suggested that a comprehensive plan was needed [1678].
The increased level of interest in matters of local history was further displayed in 1952 by the publication of the first issue of The Amateur Historian produced as a speculative venture and edited by Terrick V. H. FitzHugh (1907-1990), of Shepperton, a maker of film documentaries whose father had introduced him to the family pedigree in the 1920s and who joined the Society of Genealogists in 1943. Towards the end of the war when stationed in his ancestral county at Henlow he had visited the Record Office at Bedford. The archivist, Miss Joyce Godber, offered to recommend him for the job of her assistant as soon as he was demobbed, but as he later wrote her mention of the salary brought that project to an end! [1679]. For two and a half years FitzHugh published in The Amateur Historian articles by a remarkable group of young archivists and local historians as well as established academics, and aimed at active members of the local community. A Standing Conference for Local History had been founded under the aegis of the National Council for Social Service to promote the interests of local historians at national level in 1948 and it took over his journal in 1961, changing its name to The Local Historian. The Standing Conference, as described below, was itself transformed into the British Association for Local History in 1982.
As already mentioned a Parish Register Sub-Committee had been newly created in July 1951 and some progress was made with the transcription of parish registers, the Annual Report for 1952 drawing special attention to the useful additions that were finding their way onto the shelves as a result of the activities of that Committee, though the heavy cost of binding remained a major problem [1680]. In December 1952 Herbert Willis, the member of the Executive committee above-mentioned and himself a transcriber, appealed for further volunteers and began to list those registers where permission to transcribe had been obtained [1681]. As a result the receipt of 87 parish register transcripts was noted in 1953, including 28 Suffolk copies in manuscript [1682]. A review of Archibald Bennett's A guide for genealogical research (1951) in the Magazine in 1953 expressed astonishment that the Genealogical Society in Salt Lake City possessed no less than 34,610 rolls, each 100 feet long, of microfilm records, including 3,400 rolls of records from Great Britain and Ireland, and asked 'How long will it be before our own Society follows suit?' [1683].
The opposition of many clergy to transcription and to access to their registers by the Mormons was, however, still considerable. A ‘Country Priest’ who wrote to the Church Times in 1954 had entertained an American searcher for much of a day and gone to the trouble of obtaining registers from two other churches for which he was responsible, as well as giving her lunch. He had not been offered a fee and concluded that ‘this business is fast becoming a “racket”, and the sooner we stop it the better’. The Vicar of Alfreton, Derbyshire, wrote that ‘a further hazard’ were requests from the Genealogical Department of the British Mission which was collecting information for the purpose of ‘baptizing the dead’. His practice was to ask the enquirer to provide a certificate, countersigned by the vicar of his or her parish, that the information was not required for any Mormon ceremony. He felt ‘the whole business of searching registers for genealogical purposes to be a monumental waste of time’ [1684].
In December 1951 the Magazine printed an early article by Cecil ‘Harold’ Ridge (1890-1957) on the importance of genetics to genealogy [1685] which was commented upon at some length by Dr H. Lesley White in March 1952 [1686] but the subject received little attention and some years later in 1968 the then Editor, Lornie Leete-Hodge, asked for the views of members on this new field in which genealogy could, she thought, become 'of immense importance' [1687]. Francis Leeson responded about finger deformations that had helped to prove relationships and appealed for genealogists to record the physical aspects and blood groups of the families in which they were interested [1688].
John Beach Whitmore's A genealogical guide, the second standard list of printed pedigrees, which had been published in four parts by the Harleian Society between 1947 and 1953 was published as a single volume in 1953. Whitmore gave copies to many of his friends, as he had generously done with the separate parts, and Cregoe Nicholson nicely wrote that, ‘to people like myself, who always live in terror that some client will discover a printed pedigree which has been overlooked, it will mean that we can sleep in peace in future’ [1689]. George Sherwood, who of course remembered the appearance of Marshall’s Guide fifty years earlier, thought it ‘a fine piece of work’ [1690]. The pedantic Guy Harrison wrote that ‘nothing so generally useful to those engaged upon biographical research has been issued by the Harleian Society since it issued Musgrave’s ‘Obituary’, some 40 years ago!’ [1691].
Two years later Arthur Willis produced the first of the modern series of guides to ancestry tracing, Genealogy for Beginners (1955), which was warmly welcomed by Whitmore as 'written by a man who has learned and learned successfully from actual experience' [1692].
A second edition of Bethell Bouwens' Wills and their whereabouts was published, this time by the Society itself in 1951, at 12s 6d. It consisted of a reprint of the original edition with six pages of notes by Helen Thacker (1892-1977) which gave details of the movements of probate records since the War [1693]. In view of later developments I might mention here that the Society believed that Bouwens's executors had given it the copyright of the book, and the Society advertised that fact in the December 1953 issue of the Magazine, but no formal assignment of copyright had actually been made and it seems that the Society was actually only given the reprinting and distribution rights.
Other major steps forward came with the publication of the second edition of W. E. Tate's The Parish Chest (1951), much enlarged from the 1946 first edition, and with the publication of the Blue Paper, Abstracts of arrangements respecting registration of births, marriages and deaths in the United Kingdom, and the other countries of the British Commonwealth of Nations and in the Irish Republic (1952) which remained the standard work for many years.
In the United States the year 1950 saw the publication of the first edition of Frederick Lewis Weis', Ancestral Roots of Sixty Colonists who came to New England between 1623 and 1650 (1950) which was reviewed by Anthony Wagner as a concise and useful key to the remarkable extent of the material then available. Wagner thought that more intensive and skilful effort had perhaps been given to the study of the English origins of these early New England settlers than to any other single class of genealogical problem [1694]. In England the first article about the nineteenth-century passenger lists of ships going to America, by the historian Dr Philip A. M. Taylor (1920-2003) of the University of Birmingham, appeared in the Magazine in 1956 [1695]. In 1965 when at Hull University he produced Expectations Westward: the Mormons and the emigration of their British converts.
In 1951, at the suggestion of the professional genealogist Cecil Warburton Brand (1886-1982), the Society re-started the old card index of 'Migrations' to include stray references to 'persons abroad, or in distant parts of the country' [1696], and to this Reginald Arthur Proctor Hare (died 1963) in South Africa contributed much material [1697].
In a different sphere, although the Business Archives Council had been set up in 1934, very few competent business histories had been published in England before the 1950s, but an important article on 'London Business House Histories' by the librarian Donovan Dawe (1915-1996) appeared in the Magazine in 1952, the second part drawing attention, I think for the first time, to the value of insurance records to genealogists [1698]. Also important was the publication by Burke's Peerage of Anthony Wagner's definitive The records and collections of the College of Arms (1952).
In 1953 Edgar Samuel (1912-1984), a bookseller in Finchley, wrote the first major article about Jewish sources in England [1699] and in March 1955 Susan Minet (1884-1976), the President of the Huguenot Society, gave perhaps one of the first talks specifically about 'Huguenot Records' [1700]. In another specialist field the major Commissioned Sea Officers of the Royal Navy 1660-1815 was produced by the National Maritime Museum in 1955 [1701].
A strain of more critical genealogy was also now raising its head. The year 1951 had seen the publication of the important Origins of some Anglo-Norman Families by Lewis C. Loyd (1875-1947), formerly of the Treasury Solicitor’s Department (as Harleian Society, vol. 103), and this had been followed by L. G. Pine's widespread excision of myths from the 1949 edition of Burke's Peerage. Although widely welcomed it, of course, caused great offence to the fifty or so families that saw several hundred years sliced off their pedigrees [1702]. The controversial Leslie Gordon Pine (1907-1987) had been appointed editor in 1946 [1703]. A few fables survived but further excisions in the 1953 edition wisely removed Lord St Davids claim to be ‘of the same tribe as Vortigern, King of Britain, paternally descended from Maximus, King of Britain and Emperor of Rome’, though his six generations of pedigree without dates still remains. However, the Wake family’s claim to descend from Hereward the Wake, rightly excised as nonsense in 1949, now re-appeared in a footnote as a mere matter of ‘controversy’. In 1953 an absurd prefatory article in the Peerage argued that it was open to the Queen ‘to bestow the titular dignity of King upon her consort, who would then become Philip II’ [1704].
On 9 April 1952, Pine as editor of Burke's Landed Gentry, gave a talk at the Society on 'The decline of the Landed Gentry' in which he blamed taxation and changing social conditions [1705]. More than half the families included in the 2,800 pages of the new 1952 edition, he said, were no longer 'landed' and he could not see new entrants as the products of the nationalized industries. However, there was great interest in the book, the first since 1939, and four thousand copies at eight guineas each had been ordered prior to publication. At the talk there was a display of book-plates by the two great collectors Charles Hall Crouch (died 1962) [1706] and Horace Edward Jones (died 1978).
Pine's little book Trace your ancestors was published at 8s 6d in 1953 and did much to popularise the subject. Cecil Brand, reviewing it in the Magazine, said 'For the production of a work calculated to lure the reader into that state of mind, known to us all, in which he will become a menace to his elderly relations and an object of suspicion to his friends, the Author is to be congratulated' [1707].
However, of Pine’s next book, They came with the Conqueror (1954), the Society commented that 'It is doubtful whether any genealogical work published in recent years has caused more controversy' [1708]. Anthony Wagner had reviewed it in the Times Literary Supplement in May and was answered by Pine saying that some of his statements were not true and that others were a perversion of the truth and appeared to be written in ignorance of the facts. Wagner replied in turn with some very acidic and damaging comments [1709]. It was unfortunate for Pine that this public dispute with Wagner partly revolved around a pedigree of the Marris family that Pine had included in the Landed Gentry and about which he had given interviews to the press [1710], but which was based on one registered at the Ulster Office which was demonstrably false [1711]. Pine’s journalism was no match for Wagner’s scholarship.
In 1955, somewhat late in the day, John Brooke-Little reviewed Pine's The Story of Heraldry (1952) for the Society, saying that many of his premises were untenable [1712] and thus once more drawing Pine’s considerable wrath [1713]. The bickering continued for some years. Every time a volume of Pine’s appeared, as with the 1956 edition of Burke's Peerage, Pine rose indignantly to rebut the slightest criticism [1714]. Many of his books, as Peter Spufford wrote of his Teach Yourself Heraldry and Genealogy (1957), unfortunately suffered from a haste-betraying carelessness [1715] and, I would add, a curious lack of sympathy with their subjects.
A surprising development of interest to genealogists and local historians in 1954, not envisaged when copyhold tenure in England was abolished in 1924, was the first sale in what later developed into a lucrative trade in the lordships of manors. Some sales have included extensive records and rights over manorial commons and wastes, but most have been little more than legal fictions evidenced by a fancy sale-catalogue, a typed conveyance and a banker’s receipt.
It all started with the sale of the ‘Beaumont Collection’ of lordships of manors formed by Joseph Beaumont (1827-1889) [1716] who, during an active life as a solicitor at Coggeshall in Essex, had acted as steward for many landowners and had begun to buy manors on his own account. At the time of his death he was the owner or steward of upwards of fifty, mostly in East Anglia. His son and partner, George Frederick Beaumont, F.S.A. (1856-1928) [1717], added to this collection until there were nearly a hundred. On 3 November 1954 the latter’s sons and executors offered twenty-seven lordships for sale by auction through Strutt & Parker Lofts & Warner in London and twenty-nine others by private treaty.
The sale of these ancient manors, their records and their owners ability to style themselves ‘Lord of the Manor of Blank’ (but not ‘Lord Blank’), gained considerable publicity, particularly in America, but the interest of many in the televised sale-room waned when it was announced to cheers and ‘not a few trans-Atlantic moans’ that the Master of the Rolls, who under the 1924 Act had the ‘charge and superintendence’ of the records, would not consent to any of them leaving the country [1718]. The archivists for Essex and East Suffolk urged their deposit in the appropriate record offices. However, the twenty-seven lots, relating to fourteen manors in Essex, eight in Suffolk and five in Norfolk, sold for a total of £9,760, the highest price paid being £525 for the manor of Beaumonds in Lindsey, Suffolk, the first to have been bought by Joseph Beaumont and now bought by a descendant who lived in Australia. The Times reported that most manors had been bought by interested local people but some were bought by agents acting for unknown persons. William Alfred Foyle (1885-1963), the Charing Cross Road bookseller, had bought five in Essex ‘to add to his collection of documents’ [1719].
A second sale of some twenty-nine manors mostly in the same counties took place on 7 December 1955 and included seven previously offered for sale by private treaty. Of the remainder all but two came from the Beaumont collection [1720]. An introduction to the sale catalogue said that the vendors were not aware of any ill results of the previous sale; it had stimulated public interest in old records and there had been some benefit to the communities involved as in one manor the greens had been tidied, in another a pavilion had been erected for the cricket club, and in another a village history had been written from the records. Only one manor had been sold by private treaty to an American.
There was a further sale of ten manors at Colchester by C. M. Stanford & Son in 1964, some again from the Beaumont collection, when the highest price paid (by the farmer of neighbouring land) was £1,275 for the Manor of Westhorpe Hall, Suffolk. The average price gained at the two earlier sales had been about £360, but on this occasion it was £1,042 10s. A single sale, that of the Manor of Lambourn in Berkshire, took place at Farringdon in July 1966 and achieved a record price of £1,400 [1721].
In 1964 the auctioneer had again to emphasise that these were not titles of honour or nobility and that they did not carry with them the right to a seat in the House of Lords [1722] but in March 1977 a Bill was introduced in the House of Lords by the 15th Earl of Kinnoull, the Vice-President of the National Association of Parish Councils, to protect village greens and ‘to put an end to the somewhat degrading spectacle of certain dealings in lordships’. One lordship, he said, that of Great Snoring had been offered as a raffle in Chicago. Lord Sandford agreed, saying that their transfer to absentees and outsiders ’was an affront to the dignity and pride of local communities’. The Bill was amended and had its Second Reading in May but was never introduced in the Commons [1723].
It was well known during the last years of Kathleen Blomfield's period as Secretary that the lease of the room on the first floor at Chaucer House, taken in 1933, would expire in March 1954 and that the rapidly expanding Library Association which occupied the rest of the building had decided that it needed the space. In any case, as the Association’s official history says, the building, ‘after twenty years of heavy wear and tear, accentuated by war strain and damage, was not only being outgrown; it was beginning to show its age” [1724]. As mentioned above the growth in the Society’s collections was similarly demanding that something be done.
At the Society a re-housing committee was formed early in 1948 and worries for the future began in earnest. Unlike those of the Association (for which the University of London provided alternative premises in 1965), the Society's finances were in a deplorable and desperate state. Investments held since before the War totalled £524 and to these had been added £200 in 1943 (when the printed Balance Sheet was incorrectly totalled), £100 in 1944 and £300 in 1947, so that they now totalled £1,117 [1725]. Any increase in the subscriptions of existing members was precluded by paragraph 22 of the Companies Act 1948 when it was found that of the members 525 were paying old rates: ten Fellows were paying one guinea, fifteen Fellows were paying two guineas, 144 Town Members (including Cregoe Nicholson) were paying two guineas and 356 Country Members were paying one guinea.
A Special Reserve Fund, instituted in late 1948 to meet the cost of acquiring and equipping new premises [1726], in May 1949 totalled only £88 [1727] and £103 in September [1728], but it was thought that ‘several thousand pounds’ would be needed just for the removal and installation of the library in any new quarters [1729]. The possibility of issuing debentures was debated at the Annual Meeting in 1948 but Lord Mersey was opposed to the idea, believing that this was 'really inviting members to make a present of any money that was so subscribed', and suggesting that the income from covenanted subscriptions (£376 in 1948, but including £96 unclaimed in 1946/7) [1730] be set aside to form the basis of a fund [1731].
However, it was optimistically reported in September 1949 that a possible building had been found and that a draft lease was being prepared, it being hoped that a move might take place in November or December [1732]. The proposed new premises were described as 'not far distant from the British Museum and the Public Record Office' but discussions dragged on into December when the property was further described as situated 'northwards from our present rooms, two miles by road from Euston Station' but very well served by road and underground transport [1733]. The name of the building was not given in the Magazine but it was later revealed in the Annual Report as, perhaps surprisingly, the picturesque Canonbury Tower with its adjoining King Edward's Hall [1734], described as Islington’s most famous historic building and dating largely from the sixteenth century [1735].
During the course of the protracted negotiations the Secretary had received 'many expressions of regret that premises lying north of our present rooms were in contemplation' [1736] but in any case it had become increasingly clear that the maintenance of the building and its unsuitable layout, which would have required increased staffing, were more than the Society could afford and early in 1950 negotiations were broken off [1737]. George Sherwood wrote dispiritedly to Beach Whitmore, ‘Why can’t the Minister of Education see the immense value of our work and relieve our distress?’ [1738]. Two years later the restored Canonbury Tower was leased to the Tavistock Repertory Company [1739].
At the end of 1949 the Special Reserve Fund stood at £466. Sherwood’s letter to Whitmore said that he was struggling with the manuscript accessions ‘as they threaten to swamp us’ and the lack of shelf space was now causing the Executive Committee dismally to discuss placing into storage the ‘less useful books and of those containing information which is duplicated elsewhere in the library’ [1740]. Although the Annual Meeting in 1950 was overshadowed by the impending departure of Mrs Blomfield, the Honorary Treasurer, Sherwood, again stressed that 'additional funds must be forthcoming if the Society was to go ahead' [1741]. It was an ominous comment and early the following year Sherwood, who must in any case have been embarrassed by the repercussions of the Committee for Microfilming’s separate account, resigned and was replaced by able Sir William Elderton. In March 1951 the search for new premises continued and it was reported that the Special Reserve Fund stood at £538-15-6 but, in anticipation of a possible increase in the cost of steel, thirty steel chairs with canvas seats at £1-7-2 each and twenty with upholstered seats at £2-6-3 had been purchased for use at lectures and it was hoped that the members would care to donate a chair each [1742]. Only £17-10-11 was received for this latter purpose! [1743 ].
At the Annual Meeting on 14 June 1951 the President, Lord Mersey, said that there were no reserves - or practically nothing, and that the Society did not have the resources to pay a good or increased rent, 'it was no good not speaking the truth' [1744]. The annual rent at Chaucer House was then £350. However, Major Church’s Annual Report played down the problems, saying that as the lease did not expire until 1954 and as there had lately been an increase in the number of properties for sale and on lease, ‘the question of acquiring new premises is not at present one of supreme urgency’ [1745]. In 1952, in spite of its cramped conditions, Lord Mersey reported that he had even asked if there was any possibility of an extension of the present lease and that a member, who it later transpired was Thomas William Catesby (died 1960) [1746], had offered to loan £2,000 at four per cent interest towards the cost of new premises against the security of the Society's assets, though at the previous Annual Meeting Lord Mersey, himself a book collector, had doubted that the books were the type of security acceptable to a bank [1747].
In order that there should be no doubt as to the security for loans from members the Committee had in fact meanwhile decided to obtain an expert valuation of the books, manuscripts and typescripts and George A. Warne of the booksellers Walford Brothers at 69 Southampton Row, WC1, had kindly undertaken the task [1748]. The figures that he came up with, £4,195 for the printed books and a 'safe figure' of £4,000 for the manuscripts and typescripts, together form the basis of the Society's present-day valuation for its Balance Sheet, additions since then being included at cost, though the valuation for insurance purposes is, of course, much higher. The latter was in 1952, £4,370 for the books and £16,380 for the manuscripts and typescripts [1749].
With the improval in the Society’s financial situation under Major Church, the search for alternative premises continued, some thinking that a freehold might be found of which part might be let to produce income, but which might later be taken over as the Society expanded. With that in mind Colonel Somerset Hopkinson, a member of the re-housing committee, drew attention to a large Victorian house with vacant flats on its upper floors at 37 Harrington Gardens, near Gloucester Road Station in South Kensington, which had been unoccupied for a year [1750], during which time the original glass door handles had all been stolen. The initial omens were not good. The area was zoned for residential purposes, the house was only available on a 16-year lease (to 24 June 1970) and its situation, relatively far from the British Library and the Public Record Office, was thought by some to be a great disadvantage. Some twenty-two months of negotiation followed, the initial talks being conducted by the Chairman, William Cotton [1751].
By the time of the Annual Meeting on 7 May 1953 the membership had further increased and the finances were consequently in a somewhat better shape. A Defence Regulation that prohibited possession of the house had been repealed and a refusal to allow occupation under the Town and Country Planning Act had been successfully appealed to the Minister of Housing. Two weeks later Sherwood wrote to Whitmore that he looked forward to the move to new premises and that it would be to Harrington Gardens, quite near to Whitmore in Coleherne Court, saying that it would mean a ‘big increase in membership and a great improvement in the amenities’. ‘Praise is due’, he wrote, ‘to our excellent Secretary’ [1752]. At the Annual Meeting, Dr T. Hare had said that he thought the proposed move 'retrograde and regrettable' as he considered South Kensington 'difficult of access'. Lord Mersey replied that if they stayed on a yearly tenancy at Chaucer House the rent would probably be £1,000 p.a. [1753] That was out of the question.
By the end of 1953 it was reckoned that in addition to the purchase price of £3,000 there would be the cost of converting the three upper floors into a flat and maisonette and the strengthening of a floor, improvements, repairs and repointing of brickwork totalling £4,300, as well as legal fees and the costs of removal, another £800, making a total of £8,100. At that time, if the loans promised by members were included, the Society had about £7,318 available [1754]. The ground rent would be £47-10-0 p.a. and the landlords had given an undertaking that they would renew the lease for sixty or seventy years in eight years' time.
In December 1953 the President (Lord Mersey), Cregoe Nicholson as Chairman of the Executive Committee and Sir William Elderton as Honorary Treasurer jointly signed a letter to the members saying that it had been agreed to buy a short lease on the house and setting out the Society’s requirements and the terms and servicing of the suggested loans. Perhaps to emphasise the urgency, the appeal letter was, surprisingly, sent from the Society’s new home.
To finance the move the Society issued 5% debentures to members in units of £50, repayable over sixteen years. By March 1954, £4,350 had been subscribed, though it was reckoned that another £1,500 to £2,000 was probably needed. The flats upstairs were an important part of the equation, they being let through local agents, that on the second floor on a repairing lease at £400 p.a. exclusive, and the maisonette with its many rooms in the high pitched roof similarly at £350 p.a. [1755]. The Society was paying £350 p.a. rent at Chaucer House but there would now be the extra cost of a ‘porter’, estimated at £320 p.a. The financial arrangements backing the move fell mainly on the Honorary Treasurer, Sir William Elderton (1877-1962), an actuary and statistician of world repute who had just retired from the Presidency of Equitable Life. He resigned once they were completed and was elected a Vice-President the following year [1756]. Cregoe Nicholson thought him 'the best Treasurer we have ever had' [1757].
The energetic and competent Major Church now found himself organising the move. The offices at Chaucer House closed at 5 p.m. on Saturday, 20 March (the day the lease ended) and opened at Harrington Gardens at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 23 March, but the library took a while to sort out and closed from 5 p.m. on Wednesday, 17 March, until 10 a.m. on Saturday, 27 March [1758]. The move and the genealogical value of the collections were the subject of a most useful report in The Times [1759] (inspired by Nicholson). The move itself, in fact, cost less (£125) than the dilapidations (£185) at Chaucer House, but an anonymous donor gave a welcome £500 to the Special Reserve Fund [1760] and the removal vans were provided by Marc Fitch’s firm. The members helped greatly in the packing and unpacking of 370 chests of books in 'Operation Backbend' and in their arrangement on the new shelves [1761]. Cregoe Nicholson, then Chairman of the Executive, who had planned the position and erection of the library shelving, used to say that he had himself carried the whole of the Great Card Index in its 800 trays on many trips from the vans to the first floor of the building. Colonel Percy-Smith, who had been unwell for some weeks, sent a telegram on 20 March, ‘Wishing secretary, staff and members success and happiness in new premises’. The library re-opened in its new home at 10 am on Saturday, 27 March; the office had only been closed for one day on Monday, 22 March.
Colonel Somerset Hopkinson (1899-1988) and his wife Josephine (nee Addison; 1902-1989) took the keenest interest in the building's furnishing and care. He had been a member since 1919 (when he and his mother Mabel both joined the Society) and was on the Executive Committee for many years. His wife, a keen genealogist and with administrative experience in the War, had been elected the first woman member of the Executive 'to represent the lady members', as proposed by Colonel Percy-Smith, in 1948 [1762], and they regularly drove to meetings in London from Llanvihangel Court in Monmouthshire. Other members of the House Committee were also greatly involved. The highly practical Air Chief Marshal Sir Christopher Courtney (1890-1976) [1763], a member since 1933, showed a surprising knowledge of soft furnishings. Marc Fitch's wife Ismini (died 1999, aged 93) chose a carpet for the Members' Room that lasted fifty years. Helen Thacker (1892-1977), a former searcher specialising in Sussex wills [1764] and now working at the Principal Probate Registry, also represented the lady members, and John Stone (1910-1956) [1765] the House Master at Brentwood School mentioned above, was also active.
Cregoe Nicholson, as Chairman of the Executive, had issued a separate appeal for money with which to furnish the members’ room in February 1954, suggesting that each member contribute ten shillings [1766]. It was an appeal noteworthy for a most dismal picture of the house, but by June 1954 it had raised £704-8-5 and the Society was buying Ismini’s carpet and the curtains, chairs and tables used for many years here and at Charterhouse Buildings [1767]. Another member, Captain Horace Charles Couldrick (1904-1956), FRIBA, of Sutton, acted as honorary architect in connection with the alterations and repairs to the house [1768], and although William Cotton had told the Annual Meeting in 1953 that it was sufficiently strong to take the weight of the library [1769], in fact the frame of the back section had to be strengthened by driving steel girders through the ornate plaster strapwork of the drawing room ceiling which was re-cast around them. London County Council insisted on a fire escape to the neighbouring building and, remembering the heating problems at Chaucer House, a new central-heating boiler was installed [1770], the old one, I was told, doing little more than heat the pavement in front of the house.
Number 37 Harrington Gardens had been part of the Alexander Estate, some twenty acres of market gardens developed between 1870 and 1883, which passed from James Brace Alexander to his only child, Sybil, the wife of Lord George Campbell (1850-1915), the fourth son of the 8th Duke of Argyll, and thence to their two daughters, both of whom had been sympathetic to the Society's needs: Joan (1887-1960) who was unmarried and Enid (1892-1964) who became Mrs Anstruther and later Mrs Holland. This particular house is one of a very handsome and picturesque pair, now Nos. 35 and 37 Harrington Gardens, which with others in the area, all separately designed, are said to 'represent the extreme point of late-Victorian architectural individualism'. They had been designed by Ernest George and Peto in a seventeenth-century Dutch or German style and built in 1880-3 for Walter Richard Cassels, a literary gentleman, art collector and sceptical theologian, formerly in the East India trade, at a cost of £13,272. No 37 passed in the 1890s to the Vaughan Morgan family, the occupiers until 1953. The neighbouring house, No 39, with 'a hearty flamboyance unexampled in previous town houses' was built for the dramatist W. S. Gilbert with money made, it is said, from Patience [1771]. The ship on the uppermost gable was not HMS Pinafore as many supposed but an allusion to the supposed descent of the family from Sir Humphrey Gilbert.
There was a forecourt behind handsome iron railings with parking, about which there was frequent argument, for two or three cars. Between the two wings of the red-brick building with its terracotta panels, high hipped roof, tall gables and rows of tall leaded casements, was a paved forecourt designed to hold myrtles and other plants in tubs (as it does today but did not in the Society's time), the entrance to No 37 being through an outer porch with heavy pillars, a mosaic floor and a long sgraffito panel depicting scenes of life in 'Merry England'. A small dark inner porch lit by a lantern led through double doors with painted glass panels into the oak-panelled hall, with a red, green and gold lincrusta paper above, with the receptionist's desk, a brass-bound mahogany telephone apparatus being to one side on the deep windowsill. A specially constructed display unit on which to show the very few books for sale, was given by Professor R. C. Gale in 1955, and filled a recess which matched the recessed door to the drawing room, it having space for the storage of books behind the display. Behind the reception desk was a ladies cloakroom, panelled in dark mahogany. An impressive staircase with richly carved wooden panels, the newel posts decorated with mythical beasts, occupied much of the central space of the house and was divided from the back stairs by an internal window from which the painted glass had been removed in the War and replaced with bombproof glass.
The long drawing room at the back of the house, overlooking the garden and panelled in grey-green with mauve silk above, we filled with high bookcases, library tables being positioned in the window bays. At one end the library catalogue stood in the hooded stone fireplace with the librarian's desk nearby; at the other end there was a small conservatory with a door into the garden. As mentioned above the lively strapwork ornament to the ceiling here was re-cast around strengthening girders. The main rooms of the house were now named after former Presidents of the Society and this became Room Raglan.
The only other room on the ground floor was the large dining room at the front, fully panelled in dark oak, with a gold panelled ceiling and a low gallery over the outer and inner porch. Here and elsewhere in the building the radiators were hidden behind ornamental copper repousse reliefs. This room, in which had hung Cassels' fine collection of paintings, initially became the Members' Room and the usual series of six winter lectures was held here, the green steel stacking chairs mentioned above (and not at all comfortable!) being brought out from under the stairs and the low arm chairs on each occasion being removed to the ends of the library bays. The first talk held in the room on 6 October 1954 was by Sir Hilary Jenkinson (1882-1961) [1772], late Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, who spoke on Jamaican records [1773].
On the first floor a large landing over the hall contained more bookcases, a section being initially shielded off with a screen to make an office for a research assistant and typist. The long runs of peerages placed here resulted in it being called, by the staff at least, 'Snobs Corner'. At the front of the building over the Members' Room was the former billiard-room. This room, called Room Tweeddale, contained the Document Collection and the Card Indexes. At the back of the house, originally Cassels' library but later divided into two rooms, the smaller one became the Secretary’s Office and the larger one Room Farrer, again with bookcases and library tables, around which evening committee meetings were normally held.
Down in the vaulted basement, reached only by the back stairs, the original kitchen with the new boiler became Room Stamp and housed the family histories. A large white cupboard here contained all the unbound parish register transcripts. The former housekeeper's room with its leaded sink and baize-lined safe became the Staff Room, the safe receiving the growing microfilm collection. Nearby a little bedroom with green and white wallpaper, perhaps by William Morris, became the Overseas Room and housed the microfilm reader. A central passageway had the Gentleman's Magazine and Notes and Queries on shelving given, after his death in 1957, in memory of John Beach Whitmore. The scullery was converted into a gentleman's lavatory and the former servants' hall and butler's room into a small flat for a resident housekeeper, Florence Moss, and her husband George, who acted as caretaker. There were various damp cellars under the forecourt and two large wine-bins.
The house had a decidedly club atmosphere, tea being served in the members' room every day at 4 pm when a bell was rung in the hall. Following a decision of the Executive Committee in February 1955, however, smoking was only allowed in the members’ and staff rooms. The tenants of the flats had access via the main staircase but the rooms were locked at night and the keys taken to the housekeeper. Apart from problems with the right to park cars in the forecourt, there were also squabbles about the keys to the garden behind the house (access to which was through the library), the garden to which the Society paid a rate being on the opposite side of the road. There was a post box outside the house, a post office a block away, and several banks and shops in nearby Gloucester Road.
Some eight months after the Society settled into its new home, in November 1954, the energetic Secretary, Major Church, unexpectedly resigned. He became a Member the following year and died at Stewkley, Buckinghamshire, in 1973. During his four-year tenure the membership had expanded considerably and his organisational skills in the move and with the popular luncheons had been much appreciated [1774]. In the difficult period immediately after Church's resignation Mr H. Hindley (I believe at the suggestion of Sir Christopher Courtney) was appointed Acting Secretary pending the appointment of a new person and was credited with overhauling the office administration. He continued to assist until the end of April 1955 [1775], the Annual Report saying that ‘his services were of great value to the Society’ [1776]. For two years the Society was in deficit and sadly short of staff and Sir Christopher Courtney worked many hours in the office helping to sort out the subscriptions and deeds of covenant [1777]. A gift of books following the death of Percival Boyd in 1955 and a further large consignment from Day Kimball accounted for the unusually large number - 847 - received that year [1778].
With a paid librarian the Society was now able to borrow books for its members through the National Central Library and some thirty books were borrowed in this way in 1956 in addition to the 721 other books borrowed that year [1779] though the wrapping of parcels was never a popular library task. In 1957 in addition to those books received through the NCL there were thirty more to be sent to other libraries, a quid pro quo that the deprived members did not always appreciate [1780]. In 1958 963 volumes were borrowed, of which 162 were sent by post [1781], those numbers being 1,002 and 107 in 1959 [1782]. It was fortunate that the Post Office was just at the end of the road. At Harrington Gardens the outgoing post was stamped by the receptionist but the parcels were always taken to the Post Office by the Librarian or his or her assistant.
The generous Professor R. C. Gale in 1955 had also presented a foolscap Contoura Portable Photocopier costing £20 10s, our first, for use in the Society's rooms. A battery-operated Contoura was being advertised at that time as 'admirable for taking extracts from parish registers' and could be had for £5 (including batteries) [1783]. The machine could, however, only be used in indirect or subdued light, the exposures took fourteen seconds each and the pages had to be developed later. It was consequently not often used and two years later, as I well remember, we were instead regularly taking books needing to be photocopied across London to the old firm of R. B. Fleming & Co Ltd, Technical Photographers, in the basement of Africa House, Kingsway, where Photostats cost three shillings each.
Major Church's successor was Major Gerald Hamilton-Edwards, TD, MA, FLA (1906-1987) [1784], a benign slightly portly figure, who took up the post of Secretary on 10 January 1955, giving up that of South-West Regional Librarian for Devon [1785]. He had been a member since 1942, having, as he once wrote, been 'caught upon the intriguing web of genealogy' by overhearing a chance remark of a student at the School of Librarianship at London University who was telling another student that one could trace one's ancestors through the wills at Somerset House [1786]. He had been born Gerald Kenneth Savery Edwards, the son of an officer in the Royal Marines, and assumed the surname Hamilton-Edwards in 1944 as a descendant of the Hamiltons of Muirhouse and Bardannoch. Educated at Brighton College and Keble College, Oxford, where he had taken a Diploma in Librarianship, he had travelled extensively as tutor to two American families and he had combined teaching and library work with free-lance journalism. He was a likeable man with a quiet sense of humour, interested in genealogical research, but unfortunately not at all business-like in the office. Decisive he was not. Indeed an obituary in the Daily Telegraph described him as a 'mild-mannered, rather bumbling bespectacled bachelor, very much in the mould of the old-fashioned schoolmaster'. As his later life showed he was much more at home in the congenial social atmosphere of clubs and colleges.
Hamilton-Edwards had, only in 1954, lectured at the Society on ‘Naval records and naval pedigree’. It was a subject that interested Nicholson who had also had West Country connections and together this probably accounts for Hamilton-Edwards’s appointment but the Annual Report said, ‘It is expected also that … greater concentration on research will result in increased income from that source’ [1787]. That expectation, perhaps unwise in the first place, was far from fulfilled.
Hamilton-Edwards had written two books about families in Plymouth and had already done some radio work when on 18 January 1955 the Society first featured in a television programme, 'Tracing your Pedigree', featuring the heraldic artist Claire Evans [1788] and Michael E. B. Leader (1915-1998) an actor who was also an authority on Irish genealogy. Gerald Hamilton-Edwards and Miss Evans then represented the Society in a further television programme on 1 February [1789]. Spending time on such things so soon after his appointment did not go down at all well with some at the Society! In April the Executive Committee decided that henceforth he should attend all sub-committee meetings. The publicity resulting from the television programmes unfortunately generated correspondence with which the staff were unable to cope and in May the Executive Committee agreed that the Secretary should not again appear on television. An edict then went out that no member of staff should communicate with the press unless they had the permission of the Chairman of the Executive Committee!
During the War George Sherwood had described himself on his letterhead as 'Record Searcher and Archivist (Family History): undertakes the testing, "vetting" and straightening out of the pedigrees of the middle class' and after the War he advertised 'Ancestors traced: descent and kinship proved', 'Shots at "Seize Quartiers", two guineas' [1790]. He was elected a Vice President at the Annual Meeting in 1947 [1791]. He resigned as Honorary Treasurer at the Annual Meeting in June 1951 when many tributes were paid to him. Cregoe Nicholson said that 'if anyone could claim to have made the Society' it was Sherwood, but he answered with great humility saying that genealogy had been his hobby and life interest and, therefore, there was no special credit due to him [1792]. He had, in 1949, printed a pamphlet, This is Genealogy, in which he had set out his ancestry in a long whimsical poem [1793] and earlier he had written of his Oxford relative the coach proprietor Richard Costar and 'the pleasure it is to recall old coaching days, ways and associations and the delights of the countryside before the days of steam and motor cars' [1794]. A certain whimsicality was always apparent in his letters and speech. He encouraged an enquirer during the First World War by saying, ‘Pursue a vigorous policy; waiting for something to turn up is no more successful in this than in any other spheres of human activity’, and to another about Town Depositions, ‘There’s fun in many of them, too. We must get our fun where we can’ [1795].
Sherwood had continued throughout to tend the Document Collection, latterly coming from his home at Brockley three days a week [1796]. He had his usual deep armchair in Room Tweeddale at Harrington Gardens in which he snoozed in the afternoons. His advertisement in March 1954 said that he was 'Informative, educative, sincere' [1797]. However, with increasing age after 1955 he rarely visited the Society and Mrs Sherwood took over all the work of sorting collections and filing documents in 1956 [1798] and she represented him when Lord Mountbatten was elected President the following year [1799]. I remember well how she would relay difficult questions to 'Mr Sherwood' as she always called him, sometimes to be answered with his well-known deep-voiced exclamation, 'Fools!' He celebrated his 90th birthday on 22 December 1957 when Cregoe Nicholson visited him and conveyed the congratulations of the Executive Committee [1800]. He died on 22 February 1958 in his 91st year [1801].
The years immediately following the move to Harrington Gardens in 1954 were very unsettled ones for various reasons and not always because of the shortage of money. Cregoe Nicholson was Chairman of the Executive Committee throughout the years 1953-56 and continued to have great influence well into the 1960s. He was a highly energetic man whom many outsiders considered the very embodiment of selfless interest in the Society, but following the removal of the strong personalities of Kathleen Blomfield and Major Church, personal vendettas and intrigue became his second nature. His influence, together with that of an inner circle of friends on the committees, was unfortunately paramount and there were consequently several changes of staff.
Cregoe Donaldson Percy Nicholson (1885-1968) [1802], the son of a Devon parson latterly 'without cure', had joined the Society in 1920 and, as has been noted, soon became active in many of its affairs, particularly with the Magazine, being elected a member of the Executive Committee and a Fellow in 1924. He had begun a career in life insurance but had become interested in its history and development. Making use of early newspapers, he was fascinated by their possible use for genealogy. In 1928 he spoke to the Society on 'The genealogical value of the early English newspaper' and in 1934 he expanded the talk and published it separately in a booklet with that name, leaving his profession and setting up as a private searcher specializing in newspaper research at 11 Lincoln's Inn Fields and maintaining a 'Newspaper Continuous Research List' [1803]. His usual reply to any genealogical question was, 'Have you looked at the newspapers?' and then more practically (having wasted much time which could not be charged to the client) echoing Horace Round, ‘Have you looked at the map?’.
Nicholson was also a spare time amateur archaeologist and had worked with Sir Mortimer Wheeler at St Albans in the 1930s. He had made a name for himself following the discovery of the important Roman villa at Lullingstone in Kent when in 1949 thousands of fragments of painted plaster were found in a basement room there, having fallen from the walls of the room above during a fire which had destroyed the building in the late fourth or early fifth century (and which incidentally sometimes changed the colour of the frescoes), and it was Nicholson who for many years worked part-time on this gigantic discoloured jigsaw puzzle and discovered its Christian significance [1804].
Now in his early seventies and with signs of Parkinson's disease, Cregoe Nicholson involved himself in everything at the Society. Nothing was done without his knowledge or consent. He would 'see to' all things but, in reality, was no longer able to do so. The wall-plaster was neglected. Staff came and went at his personal whim, letters remained unanswered, research was delayed, and the Magazine, of which he had taken on the editorship in June 1954, became long overdue. He came to the Society and was 'there nearly every day until quite late' [1805] having a share of the large office table and being a continual irritation and obstacle to those who tried to work around him.
However, for some years after the move Nicholson’s friends who regularly used the British Museum Library continued to meet fairly regularly for tea on Saturdays at a café in Museum Street which any chronicle of this period must mention. At this ‘tea club’, which I seem to remember was active until about 1960, Charles Hall Crouch and Horace Jones swapped and discussed book-plates. The generous Beach Whitmore with his ex-army satchel for his papers came regularly until his sudden death in 1957, Cregoe Nicholson and his friend Jack Bird were usually there and so was the eminent book-binder Bernard Middleton who had been appointed advisor to the Society in February 1957 and was responsible for the binding of the Society’s distinguished visitors’ book. He had earlier specially bound for presentation to the Duchess of Gloucester the Magazine articles on her ancestry [1806]. John Blight and others occasionally came. Later, of course, the cafes in Gloucester Road began to take precedence and several of us became particularly fond of Casa Cura or ‘Mary’s’ in Lenthall Mews next to the Station.
Unfortunately Hamilton-Edwards collected a good deal of research for which the fees were paid in advance but he seemed incapable of finalising any report, being, of course, it was said, far too busy with the press! The Annual Report for 1955 noted that there had been an intake of about 300 new cases but that the profit had been less than £200 [1807]. The profit improved to about £300 in 1956 [1808] but the large backlog that had been created was still being worked off two years later. The Honorary Treasurer who had taken the place of Sir William Elderton was Reginald Gaston Swann (1906-1995), Assistant Staff Manager of Lloyd's Bank, who was co-opted to the Executive in September 1954 [1809] and formally elected Treasurer on 19 October 1954 [1810]. By June 1955 he was extremely unhappy at the financial position and, not being able to give greater time to the Society's problems, was anxious to resign [1811], recommending that the research be put on a proper basis, that subscription rates be revised (to this Nicholson was much opposed), and that salary and magazine costs be cut and economy in small things enforced [1812]. There were some unpleasant scenes in the committees. In July 1955, after only six months, Hamilton-Edwards gave notice and left early in October [1813] and in September the Honorary Treasurer, Swann, resigned from everything, the Annual Report attributing his resignation to ‘pressure of business’ [1814]. The final straw with Hamilton-Edwards seems to have been that he had allowed members to become Life Members by paying ten times their annual subscriptions [1815], a figure that was considered far too low. The young Colin R. R. Bowden, BSc(Econ), born in 1931 and involved with the Institute of Historical Research, who started as a part time bookkeeper in the evenings at ten shillings an hour [1816], was appointed Secretary pro tem in October 1955 [1817] but after helping with the research he left early the following year.
The Executive Committee had given Nicholson 'full powers as Managing Director' and he set about cutting waste in the office [1818]. The situation for everyone else was intolerable. Not surprisingly he paid no tribute to Hamilton-Edwards in the December 1955 Magazine which merely noted that the Secretary had resigned and the Annual Report, whilst praising Mr Hindley for his assistance earlier in the year, merely said without comment that Hamilton-Edwards had left [1819]. The latter’s intervention at the AGM the following year to say that 'the late Secretary' (i.e. himself) had in fact given three months’ notice was given short shrift, though a very warm tribute was paid to Nicholson for working 'seven days a week' [1820]. The arguments as to whether genealogists can under any circumstances make good administrators or are always un-business-like that this period and the following six years epitomised continue to resound in my ears.
After Hamilton-Edwards, one of those who suffered most from the interference of Cregoe Nicholson was Francis ('Frank') Walter Bennett (1906-1970), the Secretary who succeeded him at the end of November 1955 [1821]. Bennett had a war record and only one arm. He had no pretence to be a genealogist but was a highly competent bookkeeper and the nicest of men. The Annual Report for 1956 credits him with having introduced considerable improvements in the management of the Society [1822] and he continued his careful work quietly in the background, latterly assisted by John Phillips, until 1959. The Executive Committee in January 1957 agreed that he was not obliged to attend all sub-committee meetings.
Sir William Elderton had quickly found a successor to Swann as Treasurer in the respected Victor George Charles Callaway (1905-1980), a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and Secretary to the University Life Assurance Company, who was co-opted to the Executive Committee on 20 September 1955 [1823]. By November 1955 he had compiled a memorandum and an urgent draft letter which he proposed be sent immediately to the members. These went before the Executive Committee in December but were opposed by the Chairman, Cregoe Nicholson, and not agreed. The memorandum had noted that the subscriptions had not been increased since 1945 and were currently three guineas for Fellows and Town Members, two guineas for Country Members and a guinea for Overseas Members. No Associate or Corresponding Associate Members had been elected since September 1928, but five survived from before that date. Callaway calculated that, allowing for deaths and resignations since the survey made in 1948, if the 'veteran' members could be persuaded to increase their payments to the current rates, the Society would receive about £500 a year in additional income. He also noted that of the current members only 250 had signed Deeds of Covenant and that if a further 250 with an average subscription of two guineas could be persuaded to do so, that would allow the Society to reclaim tax of about £400 a year. As mentioned an appeal for members to enter into seven-year covenants had been made by Lord Mersey at the Annual General Meeting in 1946 and it had been repeated by circulating the whole membership with the appropriate Deed of Covenant and Banker’s Order forms in November 1953 but with little result, by 1955 only 250 members had covenanted their subscriptions.
The Executive Committee took no action, though in April 1956 it agreed to set up a reserve fund. However, on 16 August 1956 there was a considerable argument about the Society’s financial position at the Annual Meeting, chaired by Russell Muirhead. Cregoe Nicholas told the meeting that three years before they had been 'within an ace of winding up the Society', its resources having been strained to breaking point, but they had come through and were now on the road to success [1824]. However, William C. Blackburn (1885-1973), of Staines, an insurance manager, said that the Society was not paying its way and he was supported by Sir Stanley Wyatt. Both emphasised the immediate need for a reserve fund to meet the likely costs when the lease came to an end in sixteen years. It was a point that Sir Christopher Courtney, elected to the Executive Committee in 1953, would return to again and again. The move had been ambitious and imaginative but there were difficult times ahead. Blackburn said that a fund to pay off the debentures and for the maintenance of the building was required and that about £500 a year would be needed, suggesting that the subscriptions be increased. Sir Stanley Wyatt agreed and so did Gerald Hamilton-Edwards but Peter Spufford said that the younger members would not be able to afford an increase and that the charges for research for non-members should be increased. He thought that it was not a proper function of the Society to do research for non-members [1825], a valid point but odd coming from one employed in the research department!
Again no action was taken but in October it was agreed [1826] that the search fees for those non-members who came to do their own work, strangely little publicised and not mentioned in the Magazine, should be increased to 10s 6d for half a day or 17s 6d for a full day, and that the Entrance Fee for new members should be increased from one to one and a half guineas, both as from 1 January 1957 [1827]. One hundred and ninety-four new members were elected in 1956, a net increase of 77, bringing the total to 1,638, and the salaries of the administrative staff were increased by £300 [1828].
However, partly because of the financial position Nicholson gave up the Chairmanship of the Executive Committee in 1956 and persuaded the wealthy businessman Marc Fitch (1908-1994), who had been co-opted to the Executive in 1954, to take on the task in his stead. Fitch had established the Marc Fitch Fund in 1956. He had a passionate interest in genealogy and had been a member of various committees, being a long-standing friend of Anthony Wagner. However, Fitch told me that he had been put forward by Nicholson merely to keep some other candidate out and knowing those involved this may have been Cotton. The letter which Callaway had drafted and which he intended should be sent to the ‘veteran’ members was now further considered. It said that the Committee 'did not think it wise' to increase the existing rates of subscription but it emphasised the great improvement in the facilities since the last increase. Fitch greatly altered the letter, emphasising instead the Committee's 'Three Big Worries', the need for money for the upkeep of the library, the importance of increasing the reserve fund (which then stood at £1,600) for the renewal of the lease in 1970, and the rising cost of salaries, printing and other expenses.
In the event the letter, topped and tailed by Fitch and approved in November 1956, lacked the urgency of Callaway's draft. It went to only 141 members, mostly country members who paid one guinea and had not signed a deed of covenant. The result of all this prevarication was dismal failure. Only 54 members replied. Five resigned. There were a few donations, but the net annual gain was £24-3-5. The tackling of the underlying problem was, however, thus put off for several years. The membership reached 1,561 at the end of 1955 but after a small increase in 1956 fell back to 1,540 in 1957 and 1958.
In December 1954 it was announced that arrangements had been made to keep the Society's rooms open on Monday evenings until 7 pm [1829] without staff present and at the Annual Meeting in May 1955 Nicholson said that he and other committee members were keeping the rooms open and that about a dozen members were taking advantage of the longer hours. Nicholson gave up supervising the scheme in 1959 [1830] when two members, George Frederick Eglesfield (1898-1975) and Herbert Shipman (1904-1971) [1831], took joint responsibility for locking up, continuing to do so for some years.
The Society had since 1911 been the only one of its kind in the British Isles but in 1947 the Heraldry Society, then pompously called the Society of Heraldic Antiquaries, was inaugurated at East Knoyle in Wiltshire 'to instruct and interest the young in Heraldry and Genealogy'. This was done without reference to the Society of Genealogists though its founder John Brooke-Little (1927-2006) had been a member since 1945. Its early work was first mentioned in The Genealogists’ Magazine in 1948 [1832].
In 1954, although there was already a Cambridge University Heraldic and Genealogical Society, some interested students formed a Cambridge University Society of Genealogists, the leading lights being its Chairman, Donald Steel (1935-2008) at Peterhouse, and its Secretary, Malcolm Pinhorn (1932-2018) at Fitzwilliam, both members of the Society of Genealogists. The former had joined the latter society when a schoolboy at Mitcham in 1948 and the latter in 1952. Lord Mountbatten agreed to be President of the Cambridge society and Cregoe Nicholson and the historian, Professor Denis Brogan (1900-1974), Vice-Presidents. That first year it had about thirty members and in 1955 they visited the library, having become the first organisation to be affiliated to the Society the previous year [1833]. Not to be outdone the Oxford University Heraldry Society also applied to affiliate itself and elected Cregoe-Nicholson a Vice-President [1834]. What, if anything, such an affiliation implied in a practical sense was not determined.
In the summer of 1955 with the Society in financial difficulties and Hamilton-Edwards thinking of resigning, Nicholson recruited two students from the Cambridge Society to help with research at the Society during their long vacations. They were each paid ten shillings a day. They were Donald Steel, already known as a member, and Peter Spufford (1934-2017) who came in June and joined the Society that year, returning also to assist in the summer of 1956 [1835].
Donald Steel, Peter Spufford and Malcolm Pinhorn all came down from Cambridge in 1956. Along with the young Jeremy Sumner Wycherley Gibson (born 1934), a member since 1953, and Nicholas Hugh MacMichael (1933-1985) who joined in 1957, these energetic young people, began then to take a lively interest in the Society. They were impatient with its slow development, its small membership, the consequent lack of money, the many staff changes and the inward-looking nature of the organisation. They blamed the older generation who monopolised the committees and who, it seemed to them, had been there for ever.
The first International Congress of Heraldry and Genealogy had taken place at Barcelona in 1928 during the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, but it had received no attention by genealogists in the United Kingdom. The second, in Rome and Naples in 1953, established an international institute at Madrid and decided to hold the third congress at Madrid in October 1955. Amongst the 300 who attended were L. G. Pine, the editor of Burke's Peerage, who wrote an enthusiastic account in the March 1956 Magazine and John Brooke-Little, chairman of the Heraldry Society and editor of its journal The Coat of Arms. The President of the Congress was the Marques de Desio, Spanish Ambassador in Rome, and the proceedings had much to do with questions of nobiliary status and orders of chivalry. Pine characteristically contributed a paper on the reform of the House of Lords, the only paper in English printed in the Congress's 720-page Comunicaciones y Conclusiones. Russell Muirhead, who as editor of the Blue Guides travelled about Europe a good deal, considered these interesting but 'of little practical value' [1836].
By 1955 the number of Fellows had fallen to thirty-six. After the War their original privileges of borrowing two books from the Library at one time and of having ten ‘interests’ reported from the Great Card Index were largely obsolete as no new slips were being added to the index. However, at the instigation of Cregoe Nicholson, who was running everything, a batch of fifty new Fellows, including several overseas and many old friends who had been recently active, was elected in February that year bringing their number to 86 [1837]. After this the Fellows did not meet for another eight years. Election to Fellowship (by show of hands and without prior detail) still entailed a higher subscription though I doubt that the resulting increase in income was one of Nicholson's objects. A standard letter was sent to new Fellows which merely said, 'I have pleasure in telling you that you were elected a Fellow at a meeting of Fellows held here this afternoon. As you know, this does carry with it a higher subscription but in any event it will not be operative until next year' [1838].
Marc Fitch was Chairman for only a year and did not find it congenial. He was succeeded from June 1957 until the summer of 1960 by the scholarly Lawrence Edward Tanner (1890-1979), a member since 1913 who for thirty years had been the Keeper of the Muniments at Westminster Abbey. Late in life he had married a niece of the great Lord Curzon [1839]. Unlike Fitch, Lawrence Tanner rarely came to the Society, but both left practically everything to their Vice-Chairman, Cregoe Nicholson, and the staff and financial situation did not greatly improve.
Nicholson used to say that the Chairman's appeal for funds with which to furnish the Members' Room had produced a surplus and that the balance was used to purchase the Society's first microfilm reader but a notice in the June 1956 issue of the Magazine makes it clear that the Executive Committee opened a fund specifically for that purpose that year, hoping to raise £200 for the machine and the nucleus of a film library, and that Sidney Cramer (1911-1996), the founder of the Scottish Genealogy Society and an eccentric genealogist who advertised research 'anywhere in Great Britain, Egypt, Illinois, and the World' [1840], had donated the first £2. A few spools of film had already been donated [1841]. The Genealogical Society of Utah having given £100 [1842], the required sum was subscribed in six months and a Recordak machine purchased in January 1957 [1843] and installed in the little Overseas Room in the basement. However, in June that year it was stated that the Society's few films were not available to searchers though members could bring their own films for use on the reader [1844]. It was a strange rule, quickly forgotten and a list of all the microfilms available, mostly of bishops' transcripts in the Diocese of Oxford, was published in the Magazine in 1960 [1845].
In 1956 the first volume of David E. Gardner and Frank Smith's important and influential Genealogical Research in England and Wales was published in Salt Lake City and reviewed by Patrick Montague-Smith as 'a very lucid and comprehensive guide to what records exist and how they should be interpreted'. He mentioned that the Genealogical Society of Utah was then filming the 1851 Census and that Wales and about half of England had been done [1846]. On the Isle of Man a copy of the returns was retained at Ramsay and was later the subject of project work by the local family history society but it was not until 1997 that it was found that it surprisingly differed in many respects from the official return sent to London and also filmed by the GSU [1847].
Meanwhile the GSU operators under the direction of George Cunningham had also been extremely busy microfilming the vast collection of early probate records at Somerset House and there had been some discussion about the future of the duplicate films which were normally presented to the custodians of the records that had been filmed. Cunningham explained that these films should be regarded as the master copies; an additional working copy would need to be made for day-to-day use and replaced as it wore out. He reckoned that the life of the working copy would be from ten to forty years according to use. Cregoe Nicholson, Marc Fitch and Anthony Wagner had attended exploratory talks about these master copies with Mr Newton at the Principal Probate Registry in February 1957 and the following month George Cunningham was present with them, when the possibility of the films being housed by the British Library, represented by Mr Nixon, was discussed but the latter did not want to take all the films and nothing was done, nobody being willing to face the likely expense involved [1848].
It may be noted here that since the War there had been a number of movements of probate records amongst the local registries and to the newly formed county record offices. In 1942 the Exeter registry was destroyed by bombing along with all the probate records of the dioceses of Exeter and Bath and Wells. By the end of 1950 the Welsh records formerly dispersed at Bangor, Carmarthen, Chester, Llandaff and Shrewsbury, had been centralised at the National Library of Wales. Those for Bedfordshire had been brought from Birmingham to Bedford. The Chichester records at Winchester were moved to Chichester and the Kentish records were brought together at Maidstone. All these transfers, it may also be noted, were made without the legislation that had been said, on so many previous occasions, to be required.
The situation at Somerset House had become serious, the great growth in modern records causing intense congestion. The south wing of the building had itself been damaged by bombing and some of the rooms along the Embankment, where the windows had been blown in, were in an appalling state, thick with grime, with unsorted documents piled in vast heaps on the floor or in sacks, some apparently untouched since the 1870s and with one room, I was told [1849], unable to be opened because the bookcases had collapsed inside against the door. The unsorted inventories in their rolls, Ida Darlington wrote, looked 'like half-smoked cigars' [1850]. The original wills of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury were no longer in any condition to be produced to the public and all the subsidiary records were in disarray, only the register copy wills and act books being available.
The county record offices, having created possible alternative places of deposit for these documents and the local interest in them having grown considerably, there commenced in 1955 a movement to have the records of the local courts sent back to the counties to which they related. That movement met with a considerable amount of opposition from some quarters in London. However, by a series of orders of the President of the Probate Division and with the approval of the Lord Chancellor the records, largely having been microfilmed by the GSU, were slowly sent away. The first distribution was made in 1956 and continued for some years until only the Surrey courts and the records of the Prerogative Court were, until 1970 (when I shall take up the story), left at Somerset House. In Surrey no agreement could be obtained as to whether the records of the Surrey courts should go to Kingston or to Guilford, and in London there was an unhelpful distribution of records amongst several competing record offices. However, in these local record offices throughout England and Wales the records were to receive the special care and attention that the officials of the registries with all their other duties had neither the opportunity nor the training to give.
Queen Mary, the Society's Patron since 1919, had died in 1953 and the usual wreath and message of sympathy [1851] had been sent by the President, Viscount Mersey, who himself was frail and elderly and unable to take the chair at the AGM that August and died at Bignor Park, Sussex, on 20 November 1956, aged 84 [1852]. The Society then began to consider who might agree to be its President. Malcolm Pinhorn, who had joined the Executive Committee that year, knew of the involvement of the First Sea Lord and former Viceroy of India, Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1900-1979), in the Cambridge University Society of Genealogists and suggested that he be approached. Anthony Wagner, a member of the Executive Committee for many years and then Richmond Herald, made the initial overtures. He had got to know Lord Mountbatten through Sir Iain Moncreiffe, the author of Blood Royal, when Mountbatten asked them for advice on the family history that he was writing and Wagner had quickly realised the depth of Mountbatten's 'passion for his own ancestry in particular, and genealogy in general' [1853]. There was an initial obstacle in that the prospective President was not, as required by the Articles, a member of the Society [1854] and an Extraordinary General Meeting had to be held on Wednesday, 22 May, to give someone elected President 'the privileges of Fellows'.
Wagner, like many others, myself included, found Mountbatten 'easier to admire than to like', but it was a brilliant idea from which the Society was to benefit enormously. Mountbatten jumped at the chance and, proposed by the Vice-President, Lord Wright (1869-1964) [1855], a former Master of the Rolls, he was elected President at a Meeting held in the large drawing room of W. S. Gilbert's old house, next door to the Society, on Thursday afternoon, 23 May 1957. He then gave to the hundred or more members present an account of how his interest in genealogy had arisen and the relaxation it had afforded over the years particularly when as Viceroy of India he had managed to snatch an hour or so late at night or on a Sunday afternoon to work on his family tables, ‘a web of relationships over several centuries, which every day grew more intricate as he sought for that comprehensiveness which is the genealogist’s dream’ [1856]. He now placed on loan with the Society a copy of the resulting Relationship Tables (1947) printed on the Viceroy's Press at New Delhi [1857]. The talk was quickly reported in the Sunday Express [1858].
Tea was served and Mountbatten was taken on a tour of the building. They took him down to the basement and showed him the Overseas Room, where Colonel Percy-Smith was presented and spoke about the work that he was doing to assist many former servants of the Raj and their descendants to retain British Nationality after the passage of the 1947 India Act [1859]. They went into the Family History Room, the old kitchen, not the most photogenic of places, where Mountbatten leant against one of the bookcases and asked may questions about the Society. They found it difficult to get him away. He told the meeting that he felt amongst friends and he had clearly greatly enjoyed himself.
Mountbatten had taken as his text at the Meeting Lord Raglan's book The Hero which he had read twenty years before and recently re-read and which had obviously had an effect on him, not realising, I think, that Raglan had also been President of the Society. He spoke about the usual problems with early Saxon and Norman descents, saying that he was working on an account of his own line which did not have these problems but went back to the eighth century. Mountbatten had been sending to Anthony Wagner (by special messenger from the Admiralty) fortnightly instalments of the drafts of this book, The Mountbatten Lineage (1958), for him to look over. Now in the latter stages of the work, Mountbatten began to send the extensive supplementary tables to the Society for checking and it was my pleasure to deal with them, though someone told Ephraim Hardcastle of the Sunday Express that ‘as president of the Genealogical Society, he prefers to carry on without the services of a professional genealogical consultant’ [1860]. However, he kindly expressed his indebtedness for the help that he had received at the AGM in 1959 [1861].
It was during this work that I noticed that the long accepted matrilineal descent ascribed to Lord Mountbatten (and, of course, to the Duke of Edinburgh, the Kaiser, and Queen Victoria amongst many others including Charles II, the Young Pretender and Catherine II of Russia), which had given him a descent entirely in the female line from a Mongolian Princess of the Kumans, was incorrect, a fact that, with some annoyance, he noted in a footnote to his book and about which, after further correspondence with him, I published an article in 1960 [1862], thus provoking letters that expressed gratitude and, foregoing the usual formalities, were addressed 'My dear Camp'!
No visitor had been allowed to attend the AGM at which Mountbatten was elected but free tea tickets were sent to members who applied in advance. The library was closed all day. Prior to the Meeting Cregoe Nicholson was in a nervous state about one of our more eccentric members, Princess Madeleine Gabrielle von Dembinska (died 1966, aged 57) [1863], who was threatening to disrupt the proceedings because, for some long forgotten reason, she did not approve of Lord Mountbatten. Her mother, a penniless lady calling herself the Princess Carmen de Tresca-Bates von Dembinska (who also died in 1966, aged 81), had spent years in legal battles about a vast inheritance that she believed had been kept from her [1864]. The police had to be informed but in the event Princess Madeleine did not show up. Her request to see the Relationship Tables was subsequently declined. She lived with her litigious mother and was the level-crossing keeper at Rodbridge in Suffolk where she had a little rent-free cottage and occasionally changed the points on the branch line for £3-15-0 a week! [1865].
Lord Mountbatten eventually settled into a pattern of coming every second year to chair the Society's annual meetings, but until he resigned to become Patron in 1978 he took a very considerable and active interest in its affairs. However, he came to the next annual meeting on 18 June 1958, a memorable one, held in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster Abbey, approached through the Cloisters in Dean’s Yard. At these meetings Lord Mountbatten loved to get his teeth into some problem or other and early saw the importance of the tax refunds on covenanted subscriptions to the Society's income and frequently stressed their importance. In 1957 a ruling by the Inland Revenue affecting many learned societies had deprived us of about £300 a year [1866] and the Society of Antiquaries was leading a fight to get the order reversed. This fortunately succeeded in 1958 [1867] and the arrears were credited to the General Fund in 1959 [1868].
In 1958 Lord Mountbatten also mentioned with evident concern and interest the controversial ruling of the Archbishop and Bishops (discussed below) that the clergy were to make no entry in their parish registers to indicate that an adopted child was not the actual child of its foster-parents. He then went on to say something about his work on The Mountbatten Lineage and talked about his time in India when he had found the change of mental occupation from Service work to genealogical research very restful. He had worked on the Relationship Tables sometimes at one or two o'clock in the morning. It was 'a great relaxation' and he recommended such research to all who were over-worked in their ordinary everyday jobs. In proposing a vote of thanks at the end of the meeting Lawrence Tanner gave a short history of the Jerusalem Chamber and the historic events that had taken place there [1869].
There were various assistants in the office after the move in 1954 but none of them remained for very long. However, John Whitfield Mackenzie Phillips (1927-2003),whom Nicholson had met at the excavations of the Roman villa at Lullingstone, came to help in the office in the evenings late in 1956 and full-time in January 1957. Nicholson had taken him to the Public Record Office and showed him the basic genealogical ropes and he spent time trying to reduce the backlogs which Gerald Hamilton-Edwards had created. He developed into a most careful and meticulous searcher, at the same time labouring hard to bring much needed order to the neglected membership system and the office filing.
The office equipment had fallen somewhat behind the times, but a duplicator had been placed 'on permanent loan' with the Society by Herbert Willis in 1951 [1870]. By the late 1950s we had about 1,500 members and the Society had at some stage acquired an Addressograph system for addressing envelopes which I often operated and remember well. The instruction manual was dated July 1929. The metal address plates for each member, which had to be specially made, were passed through this machine, its head being slammed down to make an impression of the plate through a carbon tape onto the envelope placed inside it. The regular updating of changes of address, the removal of lapsed members and the addition of plates for new members, with the annual checking of the plates against the cards on which the members' subscriptions were entered, needed care and attention. When the membership grew into several thousands, it was a backbreaking task that would be spread over several days, the steady thud, thud, thud of the machine reverberating throughout the building, a sure indication that the quarterly Magazine was about to be sent to members. Although an electric machine was often discussed the cost was thought too high and it was not until the computerisation of the whole system by Sue Spurgeon in the 1980s that the machine and its many thousand plates were eventually consigned to history.
My letter to the Society on 23 August 1957, mentioned in the Prologue, received a reply from Frank Bennett on 27 August asking me to come to see Cregoe Nicholson three days later. I was not to know that another research assistant, John Matthew, had left in May [1871], and that yet another protégé of Cregoe Nicholson would not necessarily be greeted with enthusiasm. I was a little nervous but kindly Florence Moss, the housekeeper, who served tea, apparently said that with a voice like that I should be in broadcasting or on the stage! [1872]. Nicholson put the possibility of temporary employment to the Executive Committee on 17 September and I had an interview at the College of Arms with Anthony Wagner, whom I had known and been in correspondence with for three years, that same day. The upshot was that with Wagner's support I started work at the Society on 24 September it being understood that if I went to university later that I might afterwards find employment with him at the College of Arms.
I was, of course, immensely lucky, but the pay was tiny. The Research Department then charged 7s 6d an hour and I received half that amount for the hours actually charged to clients, this being increased on new cases only, to 10s 6d in January 1958. National Insurance was deducted and I thus received about £3 or £4 a week, the situation improving to about £5 or £6 in 1958 when, in April, it was agreed that I should be paid a minimum of £7 a week. However at the end of 1957 we had made good progress in overtaking the research arrears and the staff as a whole were complimented for their willing co-operation in reducing expenditure and increasing the efficiency of the work of the Society [1873], something that was repeated in 1958 [1874] and again in 1959 [1875].
On that first day I remember meeting John Horace Blight (1918-2007) who, although often a critic of the way in which the Society expanded and changed its character over coming years and thus lost much of its former club-like atmosphere, remained a firm friend and supporter through many ups and downs. Quiet and scholarly he was a very shrewd observer of the foibles of his fellow committee-members and of the new breed of genealogists which was beginning to find its way to the Society.
When I appeared on the scene that September John Phillips and Nicholson both took trouble to take me around to the library at Somerset House for the nonconformist registers and the Public Record Office, mainly, at that time, for the 1841 and 1851 Census Returns, and to show me the ropes. This was a time when anyone wishing to inspect public records free of charge (fees remaining for specified classes of legal records until 1962) had to make prior written application for a Student’s Ticket and this had to be supported by the recommendation of a ‘person of recognised position’ with personal knowledge of the applicant. There was no provision for any day ticket or other temporary admission. The birth, marriage and death indexes at Somerset House I had used on day trips from Walkern.
Helen Thacker, who had been Superintendent of the Department for Literary Inquiry at the Principal Probate Registry, introduced me to her successor in Room 9, Geoffrey Moore Kirkwood (1906-1976), a former palaeographer at the PRO, and to the probate records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, sitting me down and dictating a letter to Lord Merriman, President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, to apply for a Reader's Ticket, before drafting out a sample will abstract for my future guidance [1876]. In a similar way Cregoe Nicholson introduced me to the Reading Room at the British Library. Here, being under 21, I had to make a special application supported by two references [1877]. I remember Nicholson remarking that he had been introduced there by his elder half-brother Henry Tinklar Nicholson, born in 1861, who in turn had been introduced by their relative the architect Thomas Leverton Donaldson (1795-1885) who designed the classical library at University College and the building which is now Dr Williams's Library. It was the sort of link that appealed to me greatly.
Most of our work was within the library, at the General Register Office, in census returns, parish registers and wills. In order to reduce the research backlog, cases were occasionally taken by members of the Executive Committee, in particular by Sir Christopher Courtney and Robert Garrett, the latter working on some major problems of early research and developing an expertise in early Chancery records. The business-like and ever-helpful Mrs Margaret A. J. Langford, JP (died 1965) [1878] had also been doing research for the Society for some years when I arrived, usually for three days a week and outside the Society's library, and continued so doing until 1959 when she moved to Brighton. At the AGM in 1958 it was said that 'the research position has greatly improved and that the overtaking of arrears has made considerable progress' [1879].
We did nearly all our own typing (on an old portable typewriter in the office and an Underwood – the ‘electric typewriting machine’ mentioned in 1935 was no longer in evidence) but a typist, Mrs Jefferson, came one day a week to assist Frank Bennett. May Sherwood worked on the document collection, there was a receptionist in the hall and a librarian, but that was all. The number of visitors could indeed on some days be very small. There were little signs hanging on the ornate light switches saying 'Please switch off when not in use', and the receptionist Mrs Rosalind Mallet (1904-1971), I remember in 1958, in black dress and a long string of pearls, could sometimes be seen doing a little embroidery on a frame. Mrs Sherwood or one of us relieved the receptionist at lunchtimes and the receptionist provided tea on the housekeeper's day off. As already noted the housekeeper then was Florence Moss, a kindly lady who provided tea in the Members Room and used to come up to polish the uncarpeted library floors in the evening, chiding me for staying late and frequently saying, 'This is no place for you, amongst all these old fogies. There's no future for you here'.
Miss Valerie S. Lawrence had followed Miss Cohen (of the carpet slippers) as Librarian in late 1956. Vivacious and industrious, she made the library a very happy place but sadly left in 1959 to marry and go to Canada. She had done much to foster relations with the members but, I believe, felt generally unappreciated for all her efforts, the pay being abysmal. The staff made their own tea and coffee in a room in the basement and some brought sandwiches to eat there at lunchtime. It was a haven to which Valerie Lawrence, John Phillips and I, all relatively new to the subject, would flee at these times from the vast variety of questions posed by the members.
In August 1958 the three of us were amongst the 76,000 who toured the new London Temple of the Latter-day Saints at Lingfield in Surrey, the first in the United Kingdom, prior to its dedication by the Church’s President David O. McKay on 7-9 September 1958. Three years later, on 26 February 1961, it was President McKay who also dedicated the Hyde Park stake chapel in Exhibition Road, specifically designed to serve a proselytising function in London itself, which I first visited with Archibald Colliard (1913-1966). Thirty-four years later, on 6 October 1992, I revisited Lingfield and was privileged to attend a tour and dinner given by the Genealogical Society of Utah prior to the re-dedication of the London Temple [1880] after considerable alterations and refurbishment. Six years after that, in May 1998, I visited Lancashire to see the beautifully appointed new Preston Temple prior to its dedication in June.
During Valerie's time as Librarian a frequent visitor, the Hon. Guy Strutt (1921-2008), seeing the same questions repeatedly asked of the staff, sketched out a draft for a beginner's guide to the Library which he called Using the Library of the Society of Genealogists. To this John Phillips and I made some additions and it was duplicated and henceforward usually given to new members and day searchers, steadily growing in size and developing into something of a best seller. The number of overseas visitors to the library was also steadily increasing and in 1957 the British Travel Association in New York published an eight-page booklet Tracing your ancestors in Britain which eventually went through many editions and had a wide circulation and in the revision of which the Society was always involved. It contained a list of twelve professional record searchers. It is interesting now to note that the words ‘county record office’ did not feature in that first year’s booklet. An advertisement for it in the National Geographic Magazine, which also mentioned the Society, helpfully said ‘the British adore old records and never throw them out’, adding ‘If you don’t have a British ancestor, why not invent one?’ After the Association produced a poster ‘Grand vacation project: how to find your great-great-great-great-great-grandfather in Britain’ showing an unlikely-looking ‘oldest inhabitant’, the popular magazine Everybody’s gave us a very nice write-up that even Cregoe Nicholson could not find fault with [1881].
I had been curious to find out what other professional genealogists were charging at this time and wrote privately to three that I had seen advertising, saying that I had done some work on my family but had found problems in the eighteenth century. The firm Deeny & Sword in Shaftesbury Avenue, run by J. C. Dennistoun-Sword (1916-1977), said that it would be prepared to do the equivalent of a week’s work on the problem for thirty guineas. Another firm, Ottley & Ottley in Fleet Street, run by Vivian Ottley-Ward-Jackson (1914-1992), said that it would devote one week continuously to it for twenty guineas which would include out-of-pocket disbursements. In 1967 it was reported that he was charging Americans ‘a not unusual fee for comprehensive research in his profession’ of $875 per case [1882] Alexander W. D. Mitton (1895-1977) at ‘The Dungeon’ in Earls Court Road told me that he was for some years Rouge Dragon Pursuivant of Arms at the College of Arms (he had, in fact, as a bankrupt been obliged to resign and had gone to Australia in 1922) but that he was ‘now working as a private genealogist, in conjunction with the College of Arms’, and as he only undertook work from the present day backwards, for which he required an initial fee of two hundred guineas, he was presumably unable to help. I was surprised to hear later that Mitton had subsequently telephoned the Rector of my home parish to know something about me. He would have been unpleasantly surprised to know how much I had already been told about him! [1883].
In 1959-60 Vivian Ottley-Ward-Jackson, by then in Lower Sloane Street, advertised in the ‘Businesses and Partnerships’ column of The Lady, ‘We will teach you Genealogy and Heraldry in three months and you will have an interesting and lucrative profession as a Genealogist. We will also include your pedigree researched for the inclusive training fee of £200’ [1884]. In reply to an interested lady he referred to ‘people we have already trained during the past years’ and wrote that genealogy is ‘a most interesting and lucrative profession which fortunately is not overcrowded … we are not restricted by any governing body concerning our fees’. I remember too that about this time Alexander Mitton similarly advertised for an apprentice. At Christmas 1960 it was noted that one genealogist, Rosemary Pinches (died 2014, aged 85), the proprietor of the bookshop ‘Heraldry Today’ in Knightsbridge and the wife of John Pinches the medallist, was even selling gift tokens with a family tree on the front: three guineas to see if the family had a coat of arms, ten guineas to start an investigation of the pedigree, and £400 to have the results ‘embossed, bound, or covered in gold-leaf’ [1885].
Forms and 'Family Group Sheets' were at this time becoming known in England and in 1957 the ingenious Family Tree Record designed by a member, John Stanley Gordon Clark (1903-1985), and Horace C. V. Jones was first produced and sold at the Society (as a successor to William H. Whitmore’s old Ancestral Tablets first published in America in 1885) and became a very popular way of recording in book form all the lines of one's ancestry for seven generations (for 30 shillings) [1886]. A few years later John Gordon Clark produced another most ingenious work which showed on drop-line pedigrees all the descendants of Samuel Pepys's father, and in which, by cutting away progressive amounts of the upper parts of its 85 pages and using a spiral ring-back binding, he was able to reveal at any opening the descent from the first ancestor of all those on the same generation of the family [1887].
Also in 1957 an indefatigable transcriber of parish registers on the Society's behalf, Harry Norman Peyton (1901-1968), produced the first of three volumes of a typescript Index of Stray Registrations taken from some 186 parish registers of baptisms, marriages and burials in which the person concerned was of another parish [1888]. A court clerk, Harry Peyton hand copied innumerable registers during court business and whilst waiting to record verdicts. His work became the forerunner of many 'indexes of strays' or 'out-of-area' persons later to be compiled by local family history societies and coordinated by the Federation of Family History Societies.
Developments in the study of etymology since the end of the nineteenth century had had little effect on works purporting to give the origin of surnames and a full advantage of recent developments in knowledge was not taken until 1958 when Percy Hide Reaney (1890-1968) produced his monumental A dictionary of British surnames (1958, 1961), undoubtedly the greatest step forward since Bardsley, its value lying principally in 'its careful listing of all the likely variants (or nearly all) of the British surnames that are included'. Commenting on some of the names omitted a review by Russell Muirhead recalled a little story of the marriage of a Mr Gotobed (a Cambridgeshire name) to a Miss Twisaday (a Lancashire name) only one of those surnames being explained! [1889]. Reaney later produced a general work, The origin of English surnames (1967) but died the following year, his dictionary being revised by R. M. Wilson as A dictionary of English surnames in 1991.
The 1959 review in the Magazine appeared alongside two other important works: L. C. Hector's The handwriting of English documents (1958) discussed by Miss O'Farrell and the new Burke's genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry of Ireland (1958) reviewed by Guy Strutt’s friend the frequent visitor Brian de Breffny (1931-1989).
A matter of great importance to genealogists arose in Janauary 1958 when the Dr Geoffrey Fisher, the Archbishop of Canterbury, used his final presidential address to the Convocation of Canterbury to call for urgent legislation on the ‘deliberate deception’ of artificial insemination by donor (A.I.D.). A week earlier the Court of Session in Edinburgh had decided that A.I.D. was not adultery though, in the case then under consideration, the couple had parted in March 1954 and a child conceived with the assistance of a third-party donor, had not been born until sixteen months later. The judge involved had, however, said that a married woman who by this means had a child ‘who would not be the child of her marriage had committed a grave and heinous offence’ against the contract of marriage. The archbishop referred to the report of a commission published in 1948 which said that A.I.D. was wrong in principle, contrary to Christian standards and should be made a criminal offence. The commission had believed that the husband would always be a consenting party, but in this case the husband knew nothing until the child was born. Dr Fisher said that an honest and moving case could be made for A.I.D., but it was not a private matter, it was an offence against the social and legal implications of marriage, done in secrecy. He said that ‘the institution of marriage is meant, among other things to give to children the security of knowing who their parents are, and to give to society the same security’. He said that A.I.D. destroyed that security at its roots and the child was the lifelong victim of deception. The law, he thought, ‘should not allow the standing and integrity of the family and the parentage of children to rest upon a deliberate deception, deliberately concealed’. If A.I.D. was not a criminal offence then every instance should be registered, the name of the donor should be recorded and the register should be available for inspection under safeguards. The donor’s share in this business was, he said, the most secret, the most responsible, and the most hard to justify [1890].
In spite of the Archbishop’s plea for urgent legislation it was not until July 1982 that the Warnock Committee was established to consider the implications of recent and potential developments in this field. That Committee’s report, proposing the establishment of a regulator, was published on 18 July 1984 and an Interim (Voluntary) Licensing Authority was established in 1985 but it was not until 1991 that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority came fully into force with, from 1 August 1991, its centralised record of all births resulting from assisted conception treatments in fertility clinics licensed in the UK. The story of the Society’s further involvement in this matter is taken up below.
On another but related question the Archbishop recalled that in January 1956 the bishops had agreed to recommend that the names of adoptive parents should, with certain specified exceptions, be entered in a church’s register of baptisms, without qualification, as though they were the natural parents of the child baptised. This recommendation had led to considerable correspondence with the College of Arms, which argued that this would destroy the evidential value of the baptismal register. The Canon Law Steering Committee now agreed that if an entry was to be made in the baptismal register it should be factually correct and if those named as the parents were not the natural parents of the child the register should give some indication of that fact. Garter King of Arms had written to The Times, not knowing that there was a division of opinion which had yet to be discussed by the bishops [1891].
Garter King of Arms Sir George Bellew’s letter had appeared in November 1957 saying that there was reason to believe that some clergy had entered the names of the adoptive parents in their registers in the place where they were required by law to enter the names of the true parents. This the Chapter of the College considered ‘deplorable’ and he drew attention to the Hurst Committee’s recommendaton that ‘a duty be laid on the court to satisfy itself before making an adoption order that the adopters have told or intend to tell the child of his adoption’ [1892]. A subsequent letter to The Times from Elizabeth Hirst, of Clacton-on-Sea, argued that Bellew’s points were anti-social and against the basic principle of adoption that once adoption had taken place the child became, for all legal intents and purposes, the child of the adoptive parents. She believed that the true facts should not be publicised but known to the parents and the child alone [1893]. E.A.F. Fenwick, of Belford, countered by saying that ‘omissions or insertions likely to or intended to deceive, mislead, or obscure are inexcusably wrong in any event, as well as being absolutely contrary to public policy’ [1894].
The matter was discussed by the Executive Committee of the Society of Genealogists at its meeting in February 1958 and the Chairman, Lawrence Tanner, wrote to The Times expressing the committee’s relief at the archbishop’s change of mind but asking that the bishops’ recommendation now be withdrawn as wholly anomalous since it appeared that compliance with the bishops’ recommendation ‘would not only be illegal but also disapproved by the Archbishop’ [1895]. I am not aware that any formal action was taken along those lines. The Society’s later objective, until the law was changed in 1975, as discussed below, was to allow adoptive children to see their original birth certificates, and then later for that right to be extended to the adopted child’s descendants.
The Society’s difficult financial position continued and on 15 October 1957 the Honorary Treasurer, Callaway, frustrated at every turn by the Executive Committee, resigned. An overdraft of £8,000 was negotiated with the Bank and it was agreed to discontinue binding copies of parish registers for incumbents. Only then was it decided that in the new year the members should for the first time pay an extra £1 a year for the Magazine, the high cost of which was a particular burden, and that from the March issue a charge of a shilling a line would be made for the insertion of Readers' Queries, the minimum fee being five shillings [1896]. The Chairman, Lawrence Tanner, wrote to all the members on 11 December saying that the possibility of restricting the number of issues of the Magazine or of suspending publication altogether had been discussed and that 'for the present' this extra charge must apply to all who took the Magazine.
It was not a wise decision and quite a number of members decided not to take the Magazine (or to tell the Society of their decision) and for two years the Secretary had to write to many members to whom the Magazine was still being sent because they had not altered their banker's orders for the extra £1 and their intentions were not clear [1897]. Life Members were now denied the Magazine unless they also paid the extra £1 and that also caused friction. From now on the subscription a member paid depended not only on where he or she lived but on the year in which they had joined (unless they had voluntarily increased it at some stage) and whether they took the Magazine (the price of which could, of course, be increased). From the point of view of the office administration it was all highly unsatisfactory.
Non-members who subscribed to the Magazine saw the cost increased from fifteen shillings to £2 and subscribing libraries from 12s 6d to fifteen shillings a year, the latter small increase being made in the hope that libraries would continue to subscribe [1898]. All were told in a circular from Nicholson that it was assumed that they would wish to continue to subscribe at the increased rates and, just to complicate matters a little further, copies of the Magazine continued to be sent.
As Editor of the Magazine since 1954 Cregoe Nicholson had continued on traditional lines, attempting to provide news of current genealogical developments and relying greatly on reviews. Back in March 1955 he had begun publishing there 'Some Early Emigrants to America' containing his abstracts of 758 indentures (then in Middlesex Guildhall) of persons willing to serve in the plantations in 1683 and 1684 [1899]. As only about eight abstracts could be printed to a page, everyone, including Nicholson himself, became very bored with the project long before publication concluded in the December 1960 issue. He used to make his abstracts at the last minute before publication and latterly I was drafted in to assist in the abstracting process. Some years later, in 1976, the Magazine printed a further 70 additional indentures from that same series which had been found by John Wareing at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington (having been bought from a London dealer in 1957) and in the West Indies Reference Library at Kingston, Jamaica [1900].
In the summer of 1959 there was a prolonged printing dispute, lasting nearly two months [1901], and, of course, the Magazine was dreadfully delayed, and events that had taken place in January and February 1960 were commented upon in the December 1959 issue [1902]. Writing to members about the extra £1 owing for the Magazine in February 1960, the Secretary, John Phillips, unfortunately had to say that the previous September's Magazine was still not available [1903]. Of course this was not altogether Nicholson's fault but the complaints about his editorship continued to grow and at the end of 1960, having completed his 'Emigrants to America', he decided to resign and Peter Spufford, by now a member of the Executive Committee, was appointed editor in his place.
Unfortunately at this time, the Secretary, Frank Bennett, unhappy at home and, with Nicholson always in the background, unhappy at work also, began to spend too much time in the bars of the neighbouring Hotel Eden and on Gloucester Road Station. We were all very fond of him, but he resigned without notice in April 1959, and after he had gone we were deeply upset when a major irregularity with regard to the income from one of the flats upstairs was found in the accounts and the possibility of legal action had to be discussed [1904].
In February 1960, we were told that Bennett had died but it seems now that the story of Bennett's death was designed to draw a quick veil over the matter, for he did not actually die until 1970. Much later, when I was Director, I bought back for the Society the uneasy correspondence that the Chairman, Lawrence Tanner, had had with our relatively new President, Lord Mountbatten, attempting to explain this unfortunate and embarrassing incident, and which, after Tanner's death in 1979, had found its way into the hands of a dealer in autographs.
The diligent John Phillips had been appointed Assistant Secretary on 17 September 1957 [1905] and worked well alongside Frank Bennett who did the book keeping. Following the latter's flight, John was himself appointed Secretary in May 1959, the position being confirmed in September, but Nicholson's continual interference and criticism was a perpetual trial. John Phillips always referred to Nicholson as 'Nikolaievich' and that name, with its aura of habitual intrigue, suited him well.
When Valerie Lawrence left early in 1959 I asked to be made Librarian and as I was taking the examinations of the Library Association that was agreed and I served in that capacity for about six months until going to University College London in late September. I remember in particular the work of catching up on the cataloguing, of dealing with the many periodicals that had been received since the move, and of sorting out some of the collections that had been received at that time and hurriedly placed in cupboards in the old kitchen. In the evenings I spent some time with Cregoe Nicholson going along the shelves and making notes of his comments about the main manuscript collections. One large collection received that year under the will of Percy Charles Dryden Mundy (1879-1959), related to the Lincolnshire families of Massingberd and Mundy and included many original documents and the personal correspondence of the Massingberds of Ormsby in the 18th and early 19th centuries. These were sorted and catalogued by Lawrence Tanner’s wife Joan (died 1971) and subsequently, whilst I was Director, passed to a more appropriate home at the Lincolnshire Archives Office.
The amount of research undertaken by the Society had now to be curtailed to some extent and a form letter, the first of many similar, was devised saying that the Research Department was at present fully booked up and could not undertake any fresh work. Sent with the letter were details of the Society and its few publications, together with a list of recommended professional searchers and a note that their charges were about three and a half guineas a day plus out-of-pocket expenses.
When I left the Society in September 1959 I had no idea, of course, that I would be returning to work there three years later. On 18 October 1959 I wrote a long, difficult and perhaps overly frank letter to the Chairman, Lawrence Tanner, which must have given him considerable cause for thought [1906]. I think one would call it excoriating where Cregoe Nicholson was concerned! I said how impossible the situation had become with his 'pestering presence', he causing 'so much unpleasantness and the resulting frequent changes of staff'. His unreasoning antagonism, I wrote, was now directed against John Phillips and I paid tributes to his work and to that of Valerie Lawrence and May Sherwood who had both been so kind to me. I wrote about the staffing of the library, the members' willingness to help, but the generally negative attitude to new ideas, the lack of open discussion in the committees and the Society's 'lack of cooperation with bodies having similar aims to our own'. Tanner responded at some length in an open and friendly manner [1907], but in the long run little if anything changed, and many of the points that I had mentioned were at the root of the criticisms brought up again in the upheavals following Philip Blake's dismissal as Director of Research in 1962.
Of course I could not keep away from the Society and although supposed to be at University continually came there, particularly in the first two years of my course. In December 1959 the Society gave me a quite unexpected honorarium on this account and the Annual Report said that I had been ‘giving valuable help’ during my vacations [1908]. I was glad, however, to see the outside of the building painted in 1960 and a slight increase in salaries that year. Consideration was then being given to acquiring an extension of the Society’s lease which was due to expire in 1970, but as a first step an extension of the user permit (which expired at the same time) had first to be obtained [1909]
I had been succeeded as Librarian late in 1959 by Miss Margaret E. Goodliffe who suffered my many intrusions with calm good humour. One of the most exciting things that happened almost immediately was the opening of parcels from Salt Lake City and the finding of the first ten volumes of the new Second Miscellaneous Series of Boyd's Marriage Index, 1626-1725, which had been typed from Boyd's remaining slips and which we decided to have bound in blue [1910]. The main volumes had been bound in green and the First Miscellaneous Series in red. Also received from Salt Lake City in 1960 was the most valuable typescript of the Gloucestershire Marriage Index which had been typed from slips written by Eric Archer Roe (1906-1977) [1911]. These were also bound in green and arranged with Boyd’s Index, the final 21 volumes appearing on the shelves in 1963 [1912].
Another marriage index which was being compiled in the background was that by Thomas Frederick Allen, of Hertford, a member since 1951 and an industrious typist, which eventually covered all the marriages in Hertfordshire before 1837. His first transcripts of 33 parishes were received in 1960 [1913]. He would make searches amongst his slips for any given marriage in return for small fees and this service to members was conducted through me at the Society. I remember his justified indignation at a lady member interested in the surname Hailey who only wanted those spelt with an ‘H’.
A bequest of £25 from Edward Albert Bytham who died in April 1959 and other gifts totalling £35 enabled us to have some books bound, in particular the parish register transcripts which had waited for some years [1914]. A bequest of £100 from Major F. E. H. Bostock (a member since 1919), received in June 1955 specifically to assist with the work of parish register transcription, was also important and was slowly being used [1915]. At this time a young member, Charles William Southcombe (1932-1999), who was a binder at the British Library, volunteered his able assistance and for several years until 1967 repaired and rebound a very considerable number of books on the Society’s behalf [1916]. The binding of the first volumes of the Macleod collection is mentioned above.
The Society’s limited programme of lectures at this time continued the practice of having just three in the autumn and three after Christmas. The lecturers in 1959 included Sir Gyles Isham, Sir John Summerson, Maurice Bond from the House of Lords’ Record Office and George Squibb, Norfolk Herald Extraordinary, all with a large attendance [1917]. On Saturday, 6 February 1960, I spoke in an overflowing Members' Room on the 'Special Collections in the Library of the Society of Genealogists'. Like other lectures at that time it had been advertised in the personal column of The Times two days’ earlier. My talk formed the basis for my article in the special Jubilee issue of the Magazine in June 1961 and then for the central section of the revised Genealogists' Handbook published that year.
Way back in 1935 Thomas Blagg had nominated Cregoe Nicholson a Director of Phillimore & Co, the old publishing and research firm, and together with Harold Ridge he had sustained the business into the War years, Nicholson being eternally optimistic whilst Ridge was equally pessimistic about the future of the company [1918]. However, Nicholson resigned in 1941 and Ridge continued his involvement until 1951 when the solicitor-genealogist Beach Whitmore became chairman with the active genealogist William Cotton as managing director. The latter did his best, but he was also chairman of the Society's Executive Committee at the difficult time of Kathleen Blomfield's resignation and he was obliged to resign in 1953 to look after a devoted wife who had become unwell. The over-burdened Kendall Percy-Smith, who had become ‘Director and Secretary’ of Phillimore in 1951 and had been joined on the board by Kathleen Blomfield, now became chairman of Phillimore and a period of stagnation followed.
Ridge, living at Penzance and rarely coming to London, had continued to keep in touch with developments and wrote uneasily to Whitmore in May 1953 that he was sorry to find that Percy-Smith was now alone at 120 Chancery Lane [1919]. The office was still the registered office of the British Record Society and housed its set of the Index Library of which Harold Ridge (who died in 1957) was the General Editor.
The Phillimore business now became extremely poor (the profit in 1955 was £6!) and there was much talk of liquidation. In 1957 Nicholson had discussed a possible purchase of shares in the company with Whitmore, a man of considerable means, and he subsequently represented Whitmore's interests when the latter died later that year. Nicholson thus had fingers in many pies. The Phillimore board met at the Society in December 1958 and Nicholson wanted me to be involved but that was a clear impossibility from a financial point of view and early in 1960 the interested parties agreed to sell out to Marc Fitch (then Chairman of Council of the British Record Society and, in essence, Ridge’s successor as general editor), Malcolm Pinhorn becoming the firm's Director.
The offices at 119-120 Chancery Lane, just across the road from the Public Record Office, consisted of three rooms on the second floor but they had hardly been used for seven years and everything was covered with black dust. Peter Spufford, who visited them in Cotton's day, recalls that he was 'appalled at the grime and chaos' [1920]. Harold Ridge had been a Director of Mead Makers Limited and under the main desk there were still several stone jars for mead! In the long vacation between July and September 1960 I worked for Malcolm Pinhorn and after opening the windows and giving the filthy rooms a spring clean, I enjoyed going through and listing the books and papers and dealing with the mail that still arrived in surprising quantities. There were even occasional callers (and telephone calls from breweries about the mead!). At the same time I did some paid research and went at least one day a week to the Society.
Phillimore’s lease in Chancery Lane came to an end that year and Malcolm Pinhorn moved the company to East Street, Farnham in December 1960 [1921] and then to Bridge Place, Canterbury, in January 1962 [1922]. I continued to do occasional research for Malcolm and remember work on the Protestation Oath Rolls in the House of Lords Library in September 1962, following searches in the Association Oath Rolls at the Public Record Office that August. William Cotton's wife had meanwhile died, leaving him in a most depressed state and he sadly took his own life at home in April 1961. He had, I am told, always been a most difficult man to work with on the Society’s committees but he had been a great servant of the Society since long before 'the Move' and was a frequent visitor and a kindly and solid supporter of the staff through a most difficult period and his death was a great blow to us all.
The last volume of The Complete Peerage, described by Anthony Wagner as 'the greatest genealogical work of our generation' [1923], was published in 1959 [1924], providing a history of the House of Lords and all its members from the earliest times to 1938. The first volume in the series had appeared as long ago as 1910 and the series editor, Geoffrey White, had been elected a Vice-President of the SoG in 1958 [1925]. George D. Squibb appointed Norfolk Herald of Arms Extraordinary in 1959, wrote an important article evaluating 'Visitation Pedigrees and the Genealogist' for the Magazine in 1960 [1926].
An interesting suggestion by Kenneth Rutherford Davis in the March 1961 Magazine that there was a desperate need for a reference-book giving skeleton pedigrees for say 200-300 of the foremost mediaeval families [1927], sadly went without comment, and no such work has since been compiled.
Following the publication of the National Index of Parish Registers in 1937 a card index of corrections and additions had been maintained at the Society and in 1944 Kathleen Blomfield had foreseen a time after the War in which a new National Index of Parish Registers would be published giving 'all the known information of the registers of each ancient parish, the dates of the original registers still extant, particulars of copies, notes of destruction or loss of originals, together with space to register additional information' [1928].
Similarly Jeremy Gibson, coming on the scene in 1956, wanted to publish a new edition in one volume arranged by county which might incorporate all the information from the two previous volumes and bring them up to date. However, he found that the card index contained material from only about six libraries and he therefore appealed for additional information [1929]' In 1958 he began to make a name for himself by producing a little volume, Monumental Inscriptions in Sixty Hampshire Churches [1930], before moving to Oxfordshire and publishing the 54-page Marriage Register of Chelsea, Middlesex, 1704-1760, in which he broke new ground by producing 65 copies for six shillings each by using multilitho from typed duplimats [1931].
The number of register transcripts coming into the library was now again steadily increasing and in 1958 some 82 were added to the collection [1932]. In 1959 there were letters in the Daily Telegraph from Stanley Holloway of Hounslow and Ian S. Wordsworth of St John’s College, Cambridge, both urging the transcription of parish registers and the creation of county-wide indexes of their entries and another letter from B. Gledhill of Mickleover saying ‘away with the drudgery of copying out lists of burials’ and urging instead a study of the civil records of a parish. As a result Jeremy Gibson as Chairman of the Parish Registers Committee wrote about the work that Percival Boyd had done and which was on-going in Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire and Sussex. He feared that unless massive financial support could be found the more ambitious schemes would remain impractical and he urged the copying of complete local registers and, in particular, of the marriage registers, at the same time as asking for details of recent copying for the new edition of the National Index of Parish Registers which he was preparing [1933].
Helped by the Hon. Guy Strutt (1921-2008), Gibson began to revise the entries in the card index and in August 1959 he raised the matter at the AGM again appealing for the help of members in the checking of the transcripts in the Society's library and in other London repositories. Encouraged at the meeting by Lord Mountbatten, nine members came forward. Jeremy Gibson then made a similar appeal, linking it to the need for further register transcription generally, in the September Magazine [1934]. Already by July 1959 cards had been written for all the English parishes and the known copies entered and drafts of the finished texts for seven counties had been completed [1935]. Gibson also got some basic Recommendations for copying parish registers printed at the London School of Printing and Graphic Arts and this urged that everything be copied up to 1840 if possible. Unfortunately for any intending transcribers in Somerset the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Dr Harold Bradfield, decided that this was the time to order all the clergy in his diocese not to allow church documents out of their possession for any reason and in particular not to allow their microfilming by the Mormons. His Prebendary Hugh Parnell was quoted as saying that anyone with complete microfilms of the church registers could ‘start up in business and make very big profits indeed’ and that the Mormons were using these films ‘in the revival of a rather primitive and not very desirable practice – the baptism of the dead’ [1936].
The Church of England’s disapproval seems to have been more financial than theological. The legal committee of the Church Assembly had advised the clergy to charge a search fee for each entry that was photographed and in December 1960 it was widely reported that the ‘eager’ LDS missionaries seemed willing to pay. As a result the Association of (Anglican) Bishops’ Legal Secretaries and Registrars warned its members to be on their guard against the Mormons, Robert Money the diocesan registrar at Truro in Cornwall, where more than half the registers had been filmed, proclaimed that photographing the registers was ‘undesirable’, but Mr H. L. Douch, the curator of the county museum at Truro, said that this was ‘pig-headed and unkind’ and that the Anglicans were for some reason afraid of the Mormons and tried to suggest that they were evil which was a lot of eyewash [1937]. Mr Money was quoted as saying that the suggested charges were designed to discourage the missionaries [1938] but The Times reported that Mr T. Bowring-Woodbury, the LDS British Mission President, said that there was a gross misunderstanding of the work done by the Mormon Church which was intended ‘to preserve the genealogical records of the world’. He said that his Church had not met with any opposition when attempting to carry out that work, permission had always been readily granted and it was accustomed to paying the normal fees [1939]. A few days later Cyril Aynsley, writing in the Daily Express, protested against Mr Money’s niggling intolerance and wrote that the Mormons were men of zeal and burning faith, not mischievous, nor ignoble, ‘How monstrous that their work should be impeded by petty officialdom, prompted by misunderstanding and plain uncharitableness!’ [1940]. One of Aynsley’s main points was that many registers were mouldering in damp cupboards in dank vestries in remote villages and would, by microfilming, be preserved before they were irretrievably lost.
At this juncture Jeremy Gibson, who had become active in Oxfordshire, passed over the work to Colin Walter Field (1927-2016), a great transcriber of registers in Sussex who had been helping since May 1960, and Donald Steel (1935-2008) became involved. In September 1960 Steel sent out a questionnaire with the Magazine (in connection with his projected 1961 Register of Members) which had resulted in a great increase in the number of volunteers indexing parish registers [1941] and in 1961 the Parish Register and Monumental Inscriptions Sub-Committee appointed him, Field and Gibson as joint editors of the Index [1942], Steel being the chairman. Colin Field circulated all the libraries in the country and entered up the additional information on the cards, typing from them provisional county lists. The idea was to limit the publication of the proposed National Index of Parish Registers and Parish Register Copies to registers before 1812. The intention was to complete the work in late 1961 or early 1962 with publication following in late 1962 or early 1963 [1943]. In March 1962 it was again said that it was hoped that the National Index 'will be completed by the end of the year' [1944] and I was unwillingly co-opted to the Editorial Committee, the Annual Report saying that our task would be completed ‘early in 1964’ [1945].
Unfortunately, the obsessive and impractical Donald Steel, who never knew how to draw a line under any project, decided that he would include details of bishops' transcripts in the proposed National Index and passed the work of organising the transcription of registers to Malcolm Pinhorn so that he could concentrate on a survey of these transcripts. Although the Society had a basic county listing of the whereabouts of bishops transcripts made in 1952 and a slightly more detailed one had appeared in the second volume of Smith and Gardner's Genealogical Research in England and Wales (1959), bishops transcripts were still not widely used by genealogists and were in many cases only now being made available and catalogued in detail.
The likely size of the resulting National Index volume thus grew apace and Steel began to think in terms, not of one volume, but of a series of volumes arranged in groupings of counties [1946]. Sadly, although many volunteers worked on various counties, no group of counties achieved completion at the same time and publication was continually delayed. Francis Maxwell Barrell (1892-1972) [1947] had responded to Steel's 'urgent' appeal in 1961 [1948] and he made a notable contribution by checking all the copies at the Society. Colin Field himself extended the listings to include the Welsh parishes and Donald's mother, Alice Steel, worked full time on the project but, as will be seen, the first regional volume did not appear until 1966 and the whole project became a major irritation to those at the Society who had to explain the delays to members whose need for a basic list of copied registers remained unsatisfied.
At the Annual Meeting in July 1960 Cecil Humphery-Smith asked if the Society intended sending a representative to the Fifth International Congress to be held at Stockholm in August and it was noted that Peter Spufford, a member of the Executive Committee, would be attending [1949]. He gave a report on it in the September Magazine, describing not only the formal dinners and receptions but also the talks on the theme 'Genealogical problems posed by emigration' and an exhibition 'The Ancestors' put on by the two Swedish genealogical societies. The talks included Dr Nils William Olsson from Washington on 'Source materials on emigration in the US Federal Archives', Gerard de Villeneuve on the microfilming taking place in France, and the noted Rosalie Fellows Bailey (1908-1991) from New York Public Library on the problems of 17th century immigration into New York, noting that one major movement was frequently preceded by a shorter one, either from one European country to another or from the country to a city. Invitations had been extended to hold the next congress in the United Kingdom, either in London or in Edinburgh [1950].
The same Magazine included a report from R. S. Kirk, a medical student, who had spent time in America in 1959, describing his month-long experiences of societies, archives, libraries and court houses and his visit to Salt Lake City where David Gardner showed him the amazing library with its seats for 400 people, a staff of 250 and a research department dealing with inquiries in sixteen different languages. He found 'an enthusiasm for genealogy throughout America' and was envious of the amount of money available, he not being charged for searches anywhere [1951].
In July 1960 one of the group of younger members, Malcolm Pinhorn, a little older than the others, was elected Chairman of the Executive Committee, a post he held only for eighteen months, but the period coincided with the Society's fiftieth anniversary in 1961. Unfortunately, the keen and conscientious John Phillips, fearing that nothing would change for the good and receiving a wretchedly low salary, resigned as Secretary on 27 May 1961 to work at Middlesex County Hall [1952], and, as described later, the impossibly difficult Philip Blake was appointed in his place, commencing work on 12 June 1961.
Whilst Miss Goodliffe was librarian the library was closed for cleaning, 16-28 January 1961, and an opportunity taken to make a much-needed check of a large part of the library stock, several members assisting in the process [1953].
John Phillips had had as his Assistant at the Society from 25 January 1960, the dapper and quietly amused Commander Edward Fleetwood McNeil-Smith, R.N. (1898-1987), a remarkable character. He had passed into the Royal Naval College, Osborne, from the Grange preparatory school at Stevenage (later part of Alleyne's School where I was educated) in 1911 and was Paymaster on HMS Hermes when the Japanese sank it in 1942. Although quite badly burned he had had various jobs as a cashier at the BBC Television Studios and with BUPA since leaving the Navy in 1947. Hardworking in the office he was quite terrified of being asked difficult genealogical questions by the members and avoided contact with them as far as possible! A few days after Blake's appointment in June 1961 he gave up his 'year of struggle', as some twenty years later he described his time at the Society, and went to work for three years at the Business Archives Council where his work was described as ‘invaluable’ [1954]. There important new initiatives in education and training in the care and conservation of business archives were taking place [1955].
Both Phillips and McNeil-Smith had been mentioned in the 1960 Annual Report for their hard and conscientious work [1956] and it is almost shocking now to look back and see that none of the subsequent staff changes in 1961, including their resignations, were mentioned in the Reports. Indeed, no further mention of any member of staff, coming or going, was made in the Reports until 1965. Nicholson, then Vice-Chairman, had turned against Phillips but at least Malcolm Pinhorn was able to express his regret at Phillips’s resignation after four years as Secretary at the AGM in May [1957].
As already noted the Honorary Treasurer Callaway had resigned in 15 October 1957 and he was eventually replaced in January 1958 by the well-connected chartered accountant, Archibald Robert Cecil Fleming (1899-1969) [1958], but he too resigned in July 1960 [1959] and was succeeded by the highly practical and realistic Sir Christopher Courtney who only served for a year but was instrumental in tackling the subscription problem.
Early in 1961 the Executive Committee at last agreed that as from April 1961 the subscriptions of new applicants for membership should be increased from three to four guineas for Town Members and from two to three guineas for Country (and Overseas) Members, these amounts once more including the Magazine for which since 1958 there had been a separate subscription of £1 [1960]. That extra £1 some did not wish to pay and it was causing problems to administer. Existing members were once again invited to increase their subscriptions in line with these changes and to covenant for the increased amounts.
The membership stood at 1,658 at the end of 1960 [1961] and there was a vigorous campaign to obtain new members throughout the Jubilee Year, the September and December issues of the Magazine together listing some 250 applicants [1962]. It was hoped that the total membership might reach 2,000 by the end of 1962 [1963] but it did not quite do so [1964], only reaching that number the following year.
At this time the Executive Committee had eight sub-committees: Finance, Library, Lecture, House, Parish Register & Monumental Inscriptions, Documents, Jubilee, and Magazine & Publications [1965]. Nicholson was on five of them but at the start of the year he gave up the editorship of the Magazine and Peter Spufford took over and hoped, as he wrote, for a 'vigorous looking forward' in the Jubilee Year.
In his first editorial Spufford said that for the first time since before the war a Register of Members that included details of their interests would be published in May, a special number of the Magazine and a new edition of the Genealogists' Handbook in June, a new edition of Wills and their Whereabouts later in the year, and that there would be a Jubilee Meeting which would include a talk on the history of the Society with a Jubilee Exhibition at Westminster Abbey in July [1966]. Not all these happy prognostications actually came about! There was no Jubilee Meeting as such, the Exhibition took place at the Society, the Register of Members like everything that Steel touched was considerably delayed, [1967] and Wills and their Whereabouts, for reasons that were never explained (to the compiler, at least!), did not appear until 1963.
However, in June 1961, Spufford edited a special number of the Magazine containing a note from the President, details of the Jubilee Appeal, listings of former Presidents, Chairmen, Honorary Treasurers and Secretaries of the Society, a poor essay by L. G. Pine on 'Genealogy since Horace Round' limited entirely to the peerage and landed gentry, my long article on the 'Collections and Indexes of the Society of Genealogists', notes on 'Work in Progress' and an article by T. D. Tremlett (1905-1972) on the long awaited 'New Dictionary of British Arms'. There were photographs of the Society's former homes in the centre fold [1968]. Henry Wilfrid Gray, of Hatfield, a distinguished artist at the College of Arms and a friend of Pinhorn's, designed a special cover for this issue which incorporated the arms of the Society's six Presidents and this was used for the next ten years [1969].
In September Spufford announced that in 1962 an 'Official Section' of the Magazine, with the names and addresses of new members and accessions to the library, would be published separately 'once, or perhaps twice, each year' [1970]. Spufford wrote in March 1962 that he regarded the Magazine as firstly a magazine for genealogists 'concentrating on the interests of genealogy at large' and secondly the house journal of the Society and his intention was to divide the journal along those lines [1971]. I never cared for that distinction, believing that the Society should embody and represent the 'interests of genealogy' in every respect and I have several times criticised the present editor for frequently describing the Magazine as merely the 'house journal' of the Society. In the event a cheaply printed 'Official Section' was inserted in each quarterly issue of the Magazine but abandoned after two years. The idea was partly revived again by my successors in March 2001 and again abandoned in March 2003.
Peter Spufford was also very keen to improve the appearance of the Magazine and went to some trouble in 1962 to get proofs for a possible new cover design which would have featured an outline of the Disney scroll pedigree at Essex Record Office in pale blue or pink on a white or grey paper, overprinted in black. The committees were lukewarm and the Treasurer was firmly opposed to the idea and in February 1963 the Executive Committee put an end to the discussions by declaring that the March issue should revert to the pre-1961 cover [1972]. Sensibly, however, the new editor continued with the Jubilee design.
In December 1961 the Magazine had published a particularly unfortunate review by Cecil Humphery-Smith in which he said with regard to the Great Migration to America in the 1630s that 'the greater numbers of settlers were made up from the outcasts of British society sent from these shores for their offences against society to help boost the man-power of the English settlement' [1973]. The remarks caused no little offence and drew considerable correspondence, starting with Sir Anthony Wagner and Rodney Armstrong in New Hampshire, both rejecting the view and stating that there was no evidence to support it [1974]. Earlier that year I had contributed a note to the New England Register about the very few transported from Hertfordshire and I now drew attention to that [1975]. As our poor editor, desperately trying to pour oil on troubled waters, wrote of Humphery-Smith's reply [1976], 'This is not enough to hang the ancestors of a whole nation!' [1977].
Peter Spufford had only intended to be the editor of the Magazine for three years and in December 1962 he announced that the Executive Committee had agreed that John Sims, the Society's Librarian since February, would succeed him in the post [1978], which he did in September 1963, meanwhile assisting with the editorship of the Official Section [1979]. The Hon. Guy Strutt had also helped by editing the reviews. In his first editorial John Sims said that, 'The emphasis of the Magazine, as hitherto, will be on general genealogical techniques and sources rather than individual families, except in so far as these illustrate a particular aspect of the broad subject', and he hoped to publish as many as possible of the lectures given to the Society which were inevitably only heard by a small number of members [1980].
One aspect of the Magazine that frequently caused problems was the compilation and printing of its index. From 1938 to 1950 the indexes had formed integral parts of the Magazine, being printed instead of the last issue in each volume, though that for December 1946 did not appear until 1948 [1981]. In 1939 Mrs Blomfield had said that the printing of the index as the last part of a volume ‘has met with universal approval as it eliminates waiting in order to bind a volume’ [1982].
The index for volume 10 thus came out on time in December 1950 but this entailed preparation in advance and the writing of index slips as each issue appeared. In the chaos of the early 1950s no slips were written and the December 1954 issue contained no index. Libraries and members who wished to bind their sets complained loudly and the problem dragged on into the 1960s, no indexes being compiled. Through the generosity of the Marc Fitch Fund an index to volume 11 (1951-54) was produced in 1962 [1983] for ten shillings including postage, but in two years, of the 1,200 copies printed only 52 were sold [1984]. The Fund also paid for the separate publication of indexes to volumes 12-14 (1955-64) [1985] but that for volume 15 (1965-67), compiled by Isobel Mordy [1986], was published as part of the December issue in 1968 [1987] and from then on we made sure that the last issue in each volume was devoted to the index (even if new members complained that they did not want it!) and for several years they were compiled most efficiently by that painstaking lady [1988]. A name and place index, 1998-2000, compiled by Neville Taylor, was published in 2001 and a main subject index, 1925-2000, compiled by F. L. Leeson and C.R. Webb, in 2002, but no later volume indexes were published, our Founder Fellows turning in their graves until late in 2016 when digitised versions of the Magazine from 1925 to 2006 were published on DVD and partially recovered the situation.
In celebration of the Society's Jubilee the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Malcolm Pinhorn, hosted a reception at Harrington Gardens on 8 May 1961. The President, Lord Mountbatten, and over a hundred members attended (at 7s 6d each) and the guests included the Registrar General, the Deputy Keeper of Public Records, the Secretary of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, and representatives of the College of Arms, Guildhall Library, and the Essex, Hertfordshire, London, and Middlesex Record Offices [1989].
I remember that it was at this reception that I first met the chirpy Kenneth ‘Peter’ Townend (1921-2001), who had just succeeded L. G. Pine as Editor of Burke's Peerage and who with his remarkable memory materialised at every conceivable party or function [1990]. The strange Pine who, as he admitted, did not really approve of peers, had failed in an attempt to get into Parliament and was now editing The Shooting Times though, as he said, not approving of hunting, shooting and fishing either! [1991]. However, I was called out of the Society’s crowded Members' Room to speak to Lord Mountbatten in the hall. To our amusement he turned me in the direction of Sir Anthony Wagner whom I knew already and in view of my recent rather unsympathetic review of his great book English Genealogy (1960, £3) [1992] was not particularly anxious to see, Mountbatten cheerfully saying tp me, 'Here's someone you should know'.
In his book Wagner had seen humanity and the past as one single growing entity in which every individual was connected to every other and he had shown how extraordinarily close the classes are together [1993], but I had protested at the omission from his book of 'a good, solid, well-documented, but thoroughly labouring-class pedigree', something that Hartley Thwaite, FSA (1903-1978) [1994] who welcomed my comments, thought (in his article 'Simple Annals') not easily attainable as the documentation would be 'relatively scanty' [1995]. However, Philip N. Dawe (1910-2005) in 'Memorabilia' in Notes & Queries wrote that my criticism seemed a fair one and that one had only to peruse Hoskins's and Finberg's Devonshire Studies to see what I had in mind [1996]. I had unkindly written that such things had no meaning for Wagner who 'would rather a gateway ancestor through fifteen women to Edward III than a seize-quartiers of humble farm-workers'.
I was, however, much influenced throughout my later campaigning career by Wagner's stress that his first 'Desiderata Genealogica' was the institution of 'a form of registration of births, deaths and marriages, which would lead from one to another'. He wrote that, 'If entries which link marriage entries with the parties' baptisms or births, baptismal or birth entries with the parents' marriage, and death or burial entries with the deceased's birth and parentage have been feasible in France and Germany for three centuries or more and in Australia for one, they should by now be possible in England' [1997]. It was a simple point to which he and I returned again and again.
In the Long Vacation that year and prior to an extended trip to visit archaeological sites in Greece and Italy, I organised in connection with the Jubilee a special exhibition in the Members' Room from Monday, 17 July, to Saturday, 29 July, to illustrate some of the means by which any person could trace a pedigree, and especially the particular value of the collections of the Society [1998]. Lord Mountbatten gave it a nice puff at the AGM in May [1999]. I was responsible for the selection of items and the layout, exhibition cases being borrowed (courtesy of the County Archivist, William Le Hardy) from the Record Office at Hertford and tables from the Victory Club (courtesy of its Chairman, Sir Christopher Courtney) and I decorated the high panelled room with illuminated pedigrees and Grants of Arms and Title from the Society's collections. Admission was by a catalogue (price 2s 6d), which I also wrote and which was nicely designed by Malcolm Pinhorn. The exhibition was advertised in What’s on in London [2000] and opened by the comedian and broadcaster Gillie Potter (1887-1975), well known for this eccentric radio monologues commencing, ‘Good Evening, England’. As mentioned above he had joined the Society during the First World War when known as Lieutenant Hugh William Peel and had been on the Library Committee for a short period. The exhibition attracted nearly 400 people.
It also attracted some valuable press publicity, Philip Blake having composed a useful ‘Note to Editors’. Henry Fielding writing in the Daily Herald, and generously describing me as 'a remarkably learned young man', highlighted the fact that the base pedigree shown was that of a 60-year-old farm labourer at Walkern in Hertfordshire which had been taken back nine generations [2001]. His article was copied in the Johannesburg Star [2002]. Elsewhere the writer E. S. Turner contributed the amusing 'A convict for every man' to Punch [2003] and Donald Gomery said in the Daily Express that 'in half an hour yesterday I learned more about my family than I have known all my life'. He reported Gillie Potter's opening talk that had stressed that this was not a Society of snobs and quoted Sir Christopher Courtney saying about genealogy, 'its just a bug that bites you' [2004]. Gillie Potter's comment that genealogy could provide 'a great deal of good, clean family fun' was widely quoted [2005]. It helped, of course, that Gillie Potter had done a deal of work on the ancestry of Anthony Armstrong-Jones back to Cumberland in the thirteenth century and that Anthony Wagner had recently contributed an article to The Genealogists’ Magazine tracing Armstrong-Jones back to King Edward I [2006].
The Jubilee Lecture by the now Sir Anthony Wagner, Garter King of Arms [2007], Genealogy and the Common Man, was given in the Meeting Room of the Society of Antiquaries at Burlington House after tea on Friday, 15 December 1961, and subsequently printed [2008]. I had been at Somerset House all afternoon (it being the last day of term) and, unusually for me, I went after the lecture for drinks with Malcolm Pinhorn, Philip Blake, Don Steel and Nicholas MacMichael, the problems at the Society being high on our agenda! Wagner's talk outlined a projected 'Survey of English Surnames' to be funded by the Marc Fitch Fund and based on transcripts of the returns of the Subsidy of 1327-32, the Poll Tax of 1377-81, the Subsidy of 1524-25, the Protestation Returns of 1642, and perhaps the Hearth Tax of 1662-74 and the Census of 1851 or 1861. Sir Anthony wrote about his project in the Sunday Times saying, 'The simple fact is that the possession of ancestors is the universal birthright of mankind, while the possibility of knowing who they were is the special privilege of a large proportion of all Englishmen' [2009]. The Guardian, however, said that some would regard the whole idea 'with feelings ranging from amusement to outright distaste' [2010].
Wagner's idea was not a new one, a similar suggestion having been made by Oswald Greenwaye Knapp (1859-1947) in an article, critical of Guppy's Homes of family names in Great Britain (1890), in 1930 [2011], but this time the idea was backed by the wealth of Marc Fitch. In spite of what was said to be an overwhelming response from the public [2012] the ambitious project was slow to get off the ground. In June 1962 it was reported that Dr W. G. Hoskins and Dr P. H. Reaney were helping and that a start had been made with a grant of £50 from Essex County Council with which to photograph and transcribe the Essex Subsidy Rolls, Francis Steer, the Secretary to the Marc Fitch Fund, acting as provisional co-ordinator [2013]. In January 1963 I was interested to see that they were offering £1,000 a year for someone aged between 25 and 35, experienced in archive work, to start the initial listings in London [2014].
It was not, however, until 1965 that the scheme was established within the Department of English Local History at Leicester University. Since then a fair amount of transcription and indexing of the early returns has slowly taken place. In 1969 the first monograph, on Norfolk surnames in the sixteenth century, appeared, and in 1973 the first volume, on West Riding surnames by George Redmonds, followed by Norfolk and Suffolk surnames in the Middle Ages by Richard McKinley (1975), the surnames of Oxfordshire (1977), Lancashire (1981) [2015], Sussex (1988), Devon (1995), and Leicestershire and Rutland (1998) [2016]. This important work has not generally involved the Society though I later took a direct interest in it whilst a member of the Council of the Marc Fitch Fund.
Also in 1961 Peter Spufford and I produced a revised edition of The Genealogists' Handbook (1961) which had last appeared in 1951, doubling its size. It was so warmly received that I issued a Corrigenda of changes in 1963 [2017] and it sold out following a mention on the BBC [2018]. We produced revised and enlarged editions in 1967 and 1969, the first of these being described by Gerald Hamilton-Edwards as 'probably the best concise guide to genealogical information' available [2019]. For the September 1961 Magazine I compiled a list of the Society's collection of Poll Books showing in bold type those that were additional to the previously published list of March 1939 [2020].
In the autumn of 1961 Donald Steel produced for the first time since 1936 a Register of Members that contained a 'List of families in which members are interested' (June 1961) which had been compiled as a result of his circular in November 1960. Such an index, in card index form, had in fact been suggested to the Executive Committee by Gerald Hamilton-Edwards in February 1956 but Frank Bennett, the Secretary, no doubt prompted by Cregoe Nicholson, had then said that there had been one but it was found impracticable and could not be restarted [2021]. Indeed, the vast remains of the pre-1936 Index continued to take up valuable space in the Card Index Room and caused much fruitless inquiry for people long dead until I took a firm decision, about this time, to dispose of it.
Only a month before his death on 28 December 1961 Charles Bernau had made arrangements for the transfer of his vast index of Chancery and other proceedings to the Society [2022]. For a nominal sum the Society then sold the index to the Genealogical Society of Utah on condition that it receive a positive microfilm of the slips within twelve months [2023]. The original slips, Bernau’s notebooks and the ‘correspondence’ volumes were subsequently purchased by Malcolm Pinhorn [2024].
The Society's Annual Report said that the index contained over a million slips [2025] but in reality there were about four and a half million references to Chancery material in the Public Record Office, mainly Chancery and Exchequer Court proceedings, including every litigant in Chancery in the years 1714-58. The slips, alphabetical by surname only, were contained in 1,356 cardboard boxes, each 15" long, and there were also 426 notebooks containing extracts of the suits in the C.11 series, 1714-58. The Library already possessed the valuable A Topographical Index to Chancery Depositions taken by Commission 1714-44 compiled from Bernau's notebooks by the Norwich Record Society.
The microfilms did not begin to appear in the Library until 1966 when most of those to letter 'H' were received [2026]. They were, however, not greatly used until after the publication of a useful descriptive article by Mark Hughes in 1975 [2027]. The remaining five boxes of miscellaneous notes arising from Bernau's genealogical correspondence, the majority of which was destroyed at Bernau's request, were given to the Society by Malcolm Pinhorn in November 1992. They were sorted and indexed by Isabelle Charlton (1920-2016) in 1995 and are not to be confused with Bernau's 'Correspondence' (microfilms 578-593 at the Society and indexed in his main index) described in Hilary Sharp's excellent guide, How to use the Bernau Index, which we published in 1996 [2028].
The Chairman, Malcolm Pinhorn, had launched a Golden Jubilee Appeal Fund by letter dated 11 April and through the Magazine in June 1961, aiming to produce £20,000 of which £10,000 might be used to purchase a long extension of the lease on 37 Harrington Gardens and the remainder on the library, the acceleration of parish register copying, and the building up of a fund for publications [2029]. In the event the sum received was very disappointing and had reached only £1,200 by the end of the year when, together with £500 from the year's surplus, it was transferred to the Leasehold Reserve Fund created in 1959 [2030], which then stood at £3,200 [2031].
In 1961 the owners of the house offered reasonable terms for an extension of the lease to 2030, but before accepting the offer it was necessary to secure an extension of the user permit (already held until June 1970) for the same period. The London County Council refused to grant this extension, but an appeal to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, followed by a public enquiry, was successful. The appeal was heard at Kensington Town Hall on 28 June 1961, the Society being represented by counsel, assisted by Sir Christopher Courtney and the Society's solicitor, Douglas B. G. Gabriel (1915-1988) [2032]. As he mentioned at the AGM in May, Lord Mountbatten had written a letter in support of the Society [2033].
Unfortunately, whilst all this was going on the ownership of the house changed hands and the offer of a new lease was withdrawn pending the settlement of difficult estate duty matters [2034]. For some time the situation remained quite unclear. In the years 1962-64 the whole of the Campbell Estate in South Kensington, apart from W. S. Gilbert's former house next door to the Society, was sold to cover death duties, many of the original 90-year leases being then about to expire [2035]. With the growth in membership and other factors, including research, however, the Leasehold Reserve Fund had increased to £6,000 by the end of 1963 [2036] and to £10,000 by the end of 1965 [2037].
The stock of Helen Thacker's additions to Bethell Bouwens' Wills and their whereabouts sold out whilst I was working at the Society and when at University in 1960 I began to collect material for a completely new edition which would reflect the many movements of probate records since the War, provide up-to-date details of the records and their published indexes and abstracts, and extend the book's coverage to include Scotland, Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. In this major task I managed to obtain the cooperation of the majority of archivists in the British Isles and of a wide variety of persons with specialised knowledge, corresponding with some seventy-four individuals, but the work involved was very considerable, all the published volumes and articles mentioned being carefully scanned for possible additional information. I remember the Irish genealogist Michael Leader saying that he was surprised that some of the archivists in his native country could write!
There was at that time no clear idea as to who would publish the book but I was much encouraged in the project by Russell Muirhead, the editor of the Blue Guides and a director of Ernest Benn Limited which was about to publish a new edition of Arthur Willis's Genealogy for Beginners under the title Introducing Genealogy (1961). However, Muirhead was unable to persuade his co-directors to take the book and members of the Publications Committee at the Society involving themselves we drifted into a loose arrangement with Malcolm Pinhorn at Phillimore & Co that the firm would publish it on behalf of the Society. I was told that I would receive a royalty of 6d and the Society of 1s on a book of unspecified price [2038].
I took the proofs to Blandford for a week in September 1961 to check them through with John Phillips and they were returned in November. It was then said that the book would be ready early in 1962 [2039] but the page proofs did not come until July and the book itself did not appear until the autumn of 1963 [2040]. I was sent a copy whilst unwell for two months at home. It was nicely produced and extremely well received, selling at twenty-one shillings.
In view of the later allegations by Phillimore & Co it is worth saying here that Peter Spufford wrote about my book, 'In fact it is an entirely new book. The work is now conveniently arranged by counties ... Mr Camp has made a fresh survey of all the testamentary records of the country. It is invaluable' [2041]. Gerald Hamilton-Edwards described it as 'an invaluable guide' [2041]. Cecil Humphery-Smith wrote, 'This well produced and systematically ordered work must be immediately to hand to all genealogists and record searchers ... the concise and readable introductory text, the very complete index and county sections leave little to be desired in this most useful work' [2042] and Peter Walne, County Archivist for Hertfordshire, wrote, 'This book can confidently be recommended as indispensable' [2043]. William Filby later described it as, 'The best book of its kind' [2044].
However, no agreement had been reached about a discount for the Society when it sold copies through its bookshop, a point several times raised by me, and it took the forceful intervention of the Honorary Treasurer and of the Chairman, countering some unpleasant letters from Phillimore's solicitors, to obtain a 20% discount on 'home' sales. The Society then generously agreed to pay me half its royalty, so that I eventually received a little money (about £80) from the book, some 2,000 copies having been printed. They had all sold by October 1968 [2046].
I learned then that this was not a way in which to earn a living! I also learned that the future enthusiasm of any volunteer author is greatly diminished by unexplained delay and that the Society should, if at all possible, keep control of any future such publishing ventures itself. Unfortunately the committees did not learn those lessons.
Apart from Wagner's idea for a 'Survey of English Surnames' another grandiose scheme was announced in 1961 with the foundation that year at Canterbury by Cecil Humphery-Smith of an 'Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies', its stated aim, according to a note in the June Magazine, being 'to index by surnames and chronologically every original and transcribed entry from the parish and non-parochial registers in this country ... beginning by decanal units in various parts of the country', that might, when the work gained momentum, be extended to archdeaconries or counties, though 'much financial and practical organisation has yet to be made' [2047]. The cost of microfilming the English registers alone, for this 'British Vital Records Index', was said to be going to be £15,000,000 [2048]. In spite of the claims made for this ambitious plan over the years and the impact it is said to have had on other schemes [2049], I am not aware that a single 'decanal unit' was actually completed. The mere mention of such a sum was a considerable deterrent to any prospective donor though frequent appeals for money were made.
The parish maps devised by Reginald Glencross had long been a valuable aid in our library when the Institute first advertised its Parish Maps of the Counties of England and Wales in the Magazine in 1966 [2050], extensively revising them and publishing them in a useful composite volume in 1978 (£7.50)[2051], the forerunner of the Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers, first published in 1984 (£25) [2052].
As mentioned above the organisation of the Society's parish register transcription work had been taken over from Donald Steel by Malcolm Pinhorn in 1962 and late that year a long list of the registers being transcribed was published in the Magazine [2053]. Other incumbents then came forward with suggestions that their registers be copied though not all would allow them to leave their parishes for the purpose [2054]. However, the number of persons willing and able to transcribe early registers was always small. It was generally a labour of love and any suggestion that people be paid for the work was always resisted by the Society, as was the reimbursement of expenses to any volunteer except in very exceptional circumstances, though paper (and very occasionally a battered typewriter) was provided. Thus many eyebrows were raised when Malcolm Pinhorn was allowed to take on the task of Honorary Secretary to the Parish Register Sub-Committee but on the condition that Phillimore & Co, of which he was Executive Director (1961-66), could publish any of the Society's transcripts, provided the permission of the incumbent was obtained [2055]. Although this arrangement had the approval of the Executive Committee it was bound to cause difficulties with the transcribers and Archibald Colliard, a Latter-day Saint who was particularly active in the field, borrowing and copying registers, was completely opposed to the idea. Colliard had been adept at persuading incumbents to part with their parish registers for transcription and brought many to the Society for that purpose, members of the staff helping to get them copied and returned as soon as possible. Colliard made it clear that he would not give permission for the publication of the registers with which he was involved and he believed, quite rightly in view of past experience, that no incumbent would agree to his registers being copied if publication were envisaged and the search fees lost. In October 1962 he arranged to borrow the large registers of Frome Selwood in Somerset but on condition that they were not re-copied without his and the incumbent's permission [2056]. Ledbury in Herefordshire was another parish whose registers he obtained in this way.
The arrangement with Malcolm Pinhorn was further discussed by the Executive Committee in November and it was agreed that although the Society welcomed the possible publication of parish registers, in cases where authority was denied by the incumbent or transcriber, the Director of Research, i.e. me, would make the arrangements and not Malcolm Pinhorn and that I would keep the Sub-Committee informed [2057]. Colliard sensibly did not bother to ask the incumbents involved, knowing full well that the mere mention of publication would be a deterrent [2058]. Sometime earlier Colliard had asked Eleanor Cottrill (1903-1992), the County Archivist for Hampshire, about the possible loan of a microfilm of the calendars of the Archdeaconry of Winchester and Hampshire Peculiar wills and administrations, and five reels of microfilm were sent up in April 1963 for volunteers to transcribe [2059].
With my interest in Hertfordshire I had naturally given the Society's assistance to Thomas Frederick Allen [2060] in his great scheme to transcribe all the marriage registers in Hertfordshire before 1837. He volunteered to keep an eye out for particular entries for members, charging them very small fees to the benefit of the Society, and I conducted the correspondence involved. In June 1963 it was announced that he had completed his objective, a remarkable achievement in so short a time, and that there were typed copies at the Society and a card index at the County Record Office at Hertford [2061].
The death in 1963 of Kenneth Vaughan Elphinstone (1878-1963) [2062] deprived the Society of one of its great transcribers of registers. Before the War he had been a volunteer in the Muniment Room at Westminster Abbey and was an expert palaeographer. I remember taking registers to his flat at Artillery Mansions in Westminster where he took enormous pains over his work, a notable example being the registers of Isleworth, Middlesex, which had been damaged by fire in 1942. Another indefatigable transcriber and a typist of other people's transcripts and indexes who died this year and who I also remember with affection was Allan Joseph Winsbury (1889-1963) [2063]. In 1964 the Catholic Record Society placed on loan with the Society its collection of unpublished manuscript copies of registers [2064].
Malcolm Pinhorn gave up the post of Hon-Secretary to the Committee in 1963 and Cecil Humphery-Smith at Canterbury then, in theory, took over the organisation of the transcription work [2065], nominally continuing until March 1966 [2066]. However, Mrs Doreen Sybil Grant Briscoe (nee Dallas; died 1972)[2067], a volunteer who had helped with the boxing of documents in the Library since 1961 [2068] (as she had done previously in the archives of the Hudson's Bay Company), joined the staff in 1962 and, working one day a week, soon took over the organisation of the transcribers, much of which, in any case, was being done by the librarian in order to speed things along. It was a much more satisfactory arrangement. She set to with energy and enthusiasm and served the Committee with devotion, giving help and encouragement to all her volunteers, but died quite suddenly on 7 April 1972 [2069], having been at work less than a fortnight before her death. Mrs Margaret Duggan helpfully took over the parish register work until August that year and subsequently assisted in the office (November 1973 – January 1974) when her young son Christopher and his school friend Jonathan Flint most kindly wrote index slips for my Wills and their whereabouts (1974).
Following the resignation of John Phillips as Secretary in May 1961, Philip Haslewood Blake (1907-1994) who was known to some members of the Society as a member of the Council of the British Record Society and for his interest in Kentish gentry families, was appointed Secretary. This was on the warm recommendation of the level-headed committee member Litellus 'Russell' Muirhead (died 1976 aged 79)[2070], formerly editor of The Blue Guides. Philip Blake, who had some private means and sometimes drove up to the Society from his home near Canterbury in his Bentley, was the son of an analytical chemist in Belfast. He had previously had a varied career which surprisingly, in view of his inability to type, included, or so he claimed, work for the British Information Services in New York, 1939-43 [2071], for the Encyclopaedia Britannica and for ENSA, and being 'in charge of visual publicity at the Ministry of Town and Country Planning' [2072]. He had latterly been press officer to the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors, 1954-60 [2073].
Philip Blake was a hugely controversial and disruptive figure. He started work at the Society on 12 June 1961. Five days later I heard that Commander McNeil-Smith had given notice. Three days after that I noted in my diary, 'Blake in a mess', and that Margaret Goodliffe, the efficient Librarian, was looking for another job. She left on 12 August. Miss Goodliffe's successor, a pleasant young lady who could not stand up to Blake was reduced to tears on several occasions and left after only a few weeks.
Everything Blake did had to be handwritten or dictated but he treated his typists so badly that the Society was blacklisted by the local employment agency and it refused to send more. One day, as a volunteer, I found myself taking dictation from him direct onto a typewriter. It was said that Blake rarely opened his mail at home. At the Society each day's group of letters was placed in a separate pile around the office floor. Cregoe Nicholson, elected a Vice-President at the Annual Meeting in May 1961, who had known Blake for some years and disliked him intensely, found that his papers too had been removed from the office table and placed on the floor, making it very clear that he was no longer welcome in the office! There was a particularly unpleasant scene when Blake accused a lady of perjury because of what she had said on her illegitimate child’s birth certificate. Blake shook up the whole Society and I don't doubt that it was to some extent in need of it, but with the wretched salaries that were paid it was difficult enough to attract staff without all this. Long term the Society was never quite the same again.
It was at this time that some new tenants in one of the Society’s flats, Nicholas and Nina Shoumatoff, just arrived from America, suggested that the wallpaper on the stairs, which some believed was a William Morris design, be painted over or replaced, Mrs Shoumatoff offering to pay for the work involved. Nicholson and others on the Committee were appalled, but Philip Blake involved the poet and writer on architecture John Betjeman (1906-1984) who visited the Society on 10 October 1961. Betjeman wrote enthusiastically about the possibility of restoring the hall to something of its original splendour and of obtaining a grant to do so. He suggested that an interior stained window between the staircase and the first floor former billiard room which had been plastered over be opened up and that the gloomy shatter-proof glass inserted in the Second World War which concealed the back stairs be replaced with leaded lights, lit from behind [2074]. Unfortunately the Society’s relationship with Mrs Shoumatoff was not good and deteriorated further when water from her bathroom several times overflowed, coming through the ceiling into the room which housed the Document Collection (as some stained boxes still bear witness!). Her son, the writer Alex Shoumatoff, who was fourteen at the time with no interest in genealogy and it seems the main culprit, wrote later that the Society’s staff were ‘a brusque, desiccated lot, conscious of their roles as the ultimate arbiters, the keeper of the lineages’ and ‘particularly long-suffering towards the Americans who provided much of their business’. As he confused me with Anthony Wagner he may have been confusing the Society with the College of Arms and he was himself to become fascinated by his family history and mixed Russian and Jewish ancestry. Somewhere or other he was told the unlikely story that, ‘One afternoon a man who had come from Ohio expressly to find out which duke he was descended from – his family had a story about a ducal forebear centuries back – collapsed and died in front of the building after discovering that his people had actually been the village chimney sweeps’ [2075].
The matter was not then taken further and towards the end of 1961 Blake forgot about the staircase and began to look for alternative premises, engaging a firm in Kennington Lane to look for possible suitable buildings in that area [2076]. Nothing could have been calculated to annoy Nicholson more!
Philip Blake's initial appointment had been by ballot of the Executive Committee and was for a three-month trial period, but his confirmation in the post was postponed until January 1962. On 16 January Cregoe Nicholson telephoned me to say that Blake had been given the sack. That was not quite correct but in February it was agreed that he should be demoted to be Director of Research and a new Secretary appointed. This was Mrs Cecil Mackay who was immediately thus placed in a most difficult position.
Philip Blake, now working as Director of Research alongside the new Secretary, continued on his disruptive path and there were rumours of frequent violent quarrels in the polarised committees about his activities. In March 1962 the editor of the Magazine, Peter Spufford, wrote asking Blake, 'Has any division of duties been worked out between Mrs Mackay and yourself as yet? On what occasions do I correspond with you and on what occasions with her, or do I always correspond with you and will you pass on the relevant parts of my letters to her?' [2077]. These were very obvious questions but the rather basic paper that was supposed to set out the division of duties between the two made no mention at all of the Society’s publishing activities other than to say that the Secretary handled advertisements for the Magazine. The Director of Research was to be responsible for any enquiries involving genealogical matters, the direction and control of research (part of which he was to do himself), contact with other learned societies, record offices and the like, the furtherance of the Society’s genealogical interests, and any correspondence relating to the above. Borderline matters were to be referred to the Chairman and the two were to share a shorthand-typist. The Secretary was in charge of the Librarian and the Documents Assistant. Both officers were to attend Executive Committee meetings but not both were to be away from the rooms during working hours, the Secretary working on alternate Saturdays with the Librarian and the Director of Research with the Receptionist [2078]. I was not there at the time but I have the impression that very few thought that the arrangement would last long. At an Executive Committee in April 1962 the Treasurer, Arthur Noble, openly called Blake a liar and, as Cregoe Nicholson wrote to me, things were undoubtedly 'warming up' [2079].
This turbulent period was, however, not altogether unproductive. Since the release of the 1841 and 1851 census returns immediately after the foundation of the Society no further returns had been released. With preparations for the 1961 census questions began to be asked about the 1861 returns for England and Wales which were housed by the Registrar General who would undertake searches in them in limited circumstances for fees. The returns were held to be of a 'confidential' nature and there was pressure for them to be destroyed, particularly in view of the space now needed for the 1961 returns.
Philip Blake on behalf of the Society urged that the 1861 Returns be preserved and made available at the Public Record Office. He persuaded Christopher Chataway (1931-2014), his local MP at Lewisham North, to raise the matter in the House of Commons on 12 February 1962, Chataway asked by what criteria the Registrar General granted or refused permission for historians and genealogists to consult the 1861 Returns. He pointed out that many researchers had assumed that as soon as a hundred years had passed that the Returns would be opened to them. The question provoked a further review and on 16 March 1962, Edith Pitt, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health was able to tell Chataway, 'you will be glad to know that it has been decided that for 1861 the returns can be transferred to the Public Record Office' [2080]. They were made available there in November 1962. The returns for Scotland from 1861 to 1891 had already been accessible in Edinburgh for some years.
Philip Blake was keen to wage other wars on the Society's behalf and in November 1961 he had again raised with the Principal Probate Registry the question of the master films of probate records made by the GSU which had been the subject of discussions in 1957. He was told that the British Library did not want them and that the PRO was still debating the matter but his request that the films be handed to the Society or made available for public inspection elsewhere, met with a stern response. The Senior Registrar's view, Blake was told, was that 'the film is a very valuable piece of public property, and he proposes to have it preserved in official custody and not, for the present, made available for public inspection' [2081]. And so it remained though, of course, copies were available in Salt Lake City.
Although it was not a new idea, sometime earlier in November 1959, the Congregational Historical Society had formally written to the British Records Association enquiring how it would view an application from the Congregational and other nonconformist historical societies that the non-parochial registers in the care of the Registrar General at Somerset House be transferred to county record offices. A small committee had looked at the registers and noted the difficulties involved [2082] but negotiations were already in progress with the Public Record Office and on 9 June 1961 the Non-Parochial Registers were moved from Somerset House to the Public Record Office and there made freely available to searchers [2083]. No legislation was amended in order to make the transfer and it seemed to me a sensible precedent for the removal of other material from the Registrar General’s uncaring and mostly uninterested office.
In 1962 Faber and Faber published Nancie Burns’ Family Tree: an adventure in genealogy which I reviewed and thought a very good book to interest and inform the beginner though she regarded the subject as the pastime of cranks and advised her readers not to write up their findings, a sentiment with which no serious genealogist (except, of course, Michael Gandy!) could agree [2084]. She was an established author of short stories and the curious thing is that in an advertisement in the Magazine in June 1958 she had offered to 'compile and write family histories'.
At a meeting of the Executive Committee on 17 April 1962 it was agreed that since the majority of overseas visitors can visit this country but rarely, they should be allowed to nominate proxy searchers to undertake work for them, these searchers being permitted to enjoy all the facilities provided by the Society during the time of their searches. The member had to write to the Society giving details of the nominee and the latter had to provide identification when visiting the Society [2085]. It was not clear from the notice which appeared in the June Magazine, however, that the nominee had also to be a visitor from overseas and those who thought that a simple letter from someone overseas would give them unrestricted access to the collections had then to be disappointed.
The announcement that Mrs Mackay had been appointed Secretary in succession to Blake was made in June 1962, the entry in the Magazine saying that she 'has had wide administrative experience in Government service and privately, both in this country and elsewhere in Europe, and recently taught in Spain' [2086 ]. Cecil Margaret Mackay (1910-1998), who held the post for fourteen years, was the eldest daughter of Francis Wentworth Bere, of Tavistock [2087]. After attending a secretarial college in London she had worked at the Advertising Association, in the building and decorating trade and as an assistant to the theatrical designer Oliver Messel. Knowing French she had joined the French Military Mission in 1939, moved to Military Intelligence, rising to be head of section, and then joined the Counter Intelligence Bureau for Germany. She had married firstly in 1932, Robert Henry Thomson (a paint manufacturer, of whom nothing was ever said!) and secondly in 1947, Stephen Mackay. They lived at 20 Nevern Square in Kensington and from 1955 she ran a girls' hostel at 34 Harrington Gardens, just across the road from the Society, but he died in 1958 and she gave up the hostel two years later to teach English in Spain.
One of her first tasks was to prepare the papers for the Society’s Annual Meeting, chaired by Lord Mountbatten on 27 June, and that she did by setting out in detail exactly what would happen, and obtaining in advance the names of all the proposers and seconders of the various motions that needed to be passed. Duplicated copies of this aide memoire were given to everyone present and greatly expedited the meeting, much to Mountbatten’s appreciation, his aim being to get through the formal business as quickly as possible. It was a plan that I copied and developed over later years, the President always being given a copy in advance so that he knew exactly what to expect, unless, of course, a member fell asleep at the appropriate moment as sometimes happened!
Meanwhile, with my final examinations approaching, I had been going to the Society much less frequently, but I continued with my weekly visits on Wednesdays as far as I could. There were almost six months in which the Society had no librarian, but an active new man, John Merriman Sims, with an Honours Degree in Modern History from Hertford College, Oxford, had started work on 5 February 1962 and soon gave every indication that the Library was in good hands. I took my finals early in June and in spite of my neglect was greatly relieved to hear on 28 July that I had an Honours Degree in Ancient and Medieval History. Meanwhile I had been doing some private research for Sir Stanley Wyatt and Malcolm Pinhorn.
My correspondence with Anthony Wagner had continued and we had talked about my working for him during the vacations. In April 1960 he had offered me ‘five shillings an hour, plus such expenses I might put you to, if you were working for me in London, while if you went away on searches in the country with one of my staff, I should simply pay your expenses’ [2088]. However, I was then given to understand from my meetings with his assistant Thomas Woodard (1904-1995), on whom Wagner relied for most of his research, that the greater part of the work would entail searches outside London and I was obliged on financial grounds (and with some annoyance as my position was well known to him) regretfully to decline the offer [2089].
Even before I had my final results I had been asked through Cregoe Nicholson if I would go to see Air Chief Marshal Sir Christopher Courtney (1890-1976), a member of the Society’s Executive Committee, at his flat in Bryanston Court near Marble Arch. Sir Christopher had entered HMS Britannia as a Naval Cadet in 1905, joined the Royal Naval Air Service in 1912, and had a distinguished career (including service in Kurdistan and Iraq) ending as Air Member for Supply and Organisation on the Air Council, 1940-45 [2090]. Having talked about the situation at the Society he asked, in confidence, whether, if Blake were to leave, I would accept his position and, of course, I had little hesitation in saying that I would. The situation seems to have been known to others and in August I had a private letter from Malcolm Pinhorn urging me to take the post but only 'if the salary is a good one' [2091].
However, most of August was spent on a tour of archaeological sites in Italy and in September I was employed by the executors of John Beach Whitmore, who had died in 1957, to go through and itemise his large collection of papers and indexes which Nicholson had lodged at the Society [2092]. It was not until Wednesday, 19 September 1962, the day after the monthly Executive Committee had agreed its strategy, that I went to see the Chairman, Robert Garrett, at his office near Bond Street Station, and was formally offered the post of Director of Research. I had a few lingering doubts as to what I was taking on and it was not until 3 pm on Thursday that I telephoned to say that I would accept. On Friday Philip Blake was told that he was no longer needed and resigned [2093], being given three months’ salary in lieu of notice [2094]. An upbeat interview that he had just given to The Guardian, a newspaper with little time for genealogists, was published a month later. The article said that ‘what genealogists have had to say in the past about genealogy has often met with the scepticism, if not downright disbelief, usually reserved for astrologers or weather forecasters’, but it recognised that there was undoubtedly an increase in the demand for professional genealogists and the genealogical bug bit hard, those bitten being driven by curiosity to continue the search. Blake mentioned attempts by a group of members to get the subject accepted as a course at one of the new universities and said that the Society, heartened by its success in obtaining the release of the 1861 census returns, was now pressing for parentage to be added to death certificates. On the latter point he was ‘confident of victory’ [2095].
I started work as Director of Research immediately on Monday, 24 September 1962, having tea that day, not in the basement staff room, but in the Members' Room with Sir Stanley Wyatt (1887-1968) who lived nearby and was an almost daily visitor [2096]. Philip Blake later teased me a little but surprisingly bore no grudge against me personally, though in 1963, as we shall see, was instrumental in fomenting considerable criticism of the Executive Committee, for some members of which he had, perhaps not surprisingly, developed an almost obsessive dislike. The elderly Sir Stanley Wyatt, I might add, amused me in that he was still winding up the debts of the Ottoman Empire! At Addis Ababa in 1907 when working for the National Bank of Egypt he had seen the Emperor Menelek II being taken for his first ride in a motor car and in 1914 he was present when the Tsar read the declaration of war to a kneeling crowd at St Petersburg. Three years later, he heard Lenin speak there [2097].
I was twenty-five and the Magazine said, 'already well known to many members' [2098]. The dutiful Douglas Gabriel drew up a formal service contract (the first time that that had ever been done) for three years by which I was to receive £700 a year, rising to £750 at the end of six months and £800 after a year if the profit from research justified an increase. It was expected that I would devote half my time to actual fee earning research [2099]. I expressed surprise that such a formality was deemed necessary and got Gabriel to agree to an opt-out, providing I gave a month's notice, if the research income did not increase in the manner suggested [2100].
The Annual Report for 1962, without mentioning any names, merely said, ‘During the year staff was increased by the appointment of a Director of Research; his salary is now included in the Expenditure of the Research Department’. The Annual Accounts show that the research income was £1,471 and the expenditure £1,682, thus making a loss of £211 as against a profit of £242 in 1961. I was fortunately able to turn that into a profit of £458 again in 1963. On Saturday, 8 December 1962, I provided an all-day exhibition of pedigrees and a lecture at 2.30 pm on ‘Pedigree Layout’ at the Society [2101]. I do not remember if I used it then but one of the Society’s nicest pedigrees, that of Hawtrey, was received from Brigadier H. C. Hawtrey that same year [2102] and often used in subsequent exhibitions.
Anthony Wagner wrote in April 1963 congratulating me on my appointment as Director of Research but I replied saying that although I had signed a contract for three years I had doubts that the Society would survive that long as we were working ‘on the top of a volcano’ [2103]. As a result he encouraged me to have further talks with Woodard, but after meeting Wagner again on 25 September I had to say that I was not willing to give up my present role for one ‘without immediate prospects and little freedom of action’ [2104]. Nicholson and others had warned me that Wagner often employed persons who, unlike myself, had private means and who hoped and believed that they might later obtain official positions but who had eventually gone away disillusioned. Wagner denied this, saying ‘the bias at the present time is very much in favour of appointing people who have already worked here’ [2105] but I was far from convinced. However, as described below, Wagner now most unpleasantly tried, in correspondence with the Society’s Chairman (which was eventually referred to the Honorary Solicitor), to prevent the Society from undertaking research. In June 1967, when he wrote asking if I could recommend anyone for the two vacant Pursuivants’ places at the College, I did not feel able to reply. It is interesting that he then reckoned that someone should ‘after a few years, be able to earn something between £1,500 and £5,000 a year’ and might later improve substantially on the latter figure [2106]. At the Society my salary did not reach even £3,000 until 1975.
For some time there had been a growing dissatisfaction with the Society's original Articles of Association and a perception that some modernisation was needed. In February 1962 a sub-committee was set up to consider their overall re-drafting and the vexed question of the composition fee for life-membership. The original Articles allowed the Society to charge incoming new members higher rates of subscription than the existing members, these new rates being determined by resolution of the Executive Committee (under Article 10), but Company law held that once they had been elected at a certain rate their future subscriptions could not be increased. By some further oversight there was also no provision for any increase in the composition fee for life membership which was fixed in 1911 at seven times the original annual subscription, i.e. seven guineas, an absurdly low figure by 1962.
The sub-committee found that as long ago as May 1920 the Executive Committee had approved a draft revision of some of the Articles (as is mentioned above; in 1962 its exact wording could not be located) and in November 1920 had agreed, without making the necessary amendment to the Articles, that the life membership fee be increased to twenty guineas. The Committee at that time had clearly believed that it was entitled henceforth to vary the Life Membership fee and from then until 1962 it was the practice for the fee to be ten times the annual subscription.
Realising the irregularity of the situation the Executive Committee then began to make plans to amend the Articles at a future Annual Meeting. However, one member, becoming aware of the weakness, insisted on his right to compound for life membership at seven guineas, which, under threat of a writ expressed in a most uncompromising manner, the Committee was obliged to grant. Another member who had also applied withdrew, and the Committee refused to grant life membership to seven other existing members who tendered ten guineas, something it technically had no right to do. By yet another curious oversight in the original Articles those members who took out life membership were actually still liable to an annual subscription of one guinea, and although this had never been sought, these seven members were now offered life membership for ten guineas provided they continued to pay this additional guinea annually, they also being invited to make a donation to the Society if they felt that they were gaining an advantage over their fellow members.
At the same time the rejected Philip Blake, who was not a member and resided some sixty miles from London, applied to become an Associate Member and was asked to pay a guinea a year. He, however, tendered half a guinea, claiming he was entitled to pay this reduced fee under the Articles. There were further threats of writs which the Committee this time decided to ignore, it being fully entitled to fix the subscriptions of new Associates in the same way as it did those of new Members and believing that, as Country Members paid two guineas, that one guinea was a fair rate.
There was now a rush by the Committee to close the loophole as regards Life Membership. Not waiting for a revision of the Articles as a whole it called an Extraordinary General Meeting on 4 April 1963. The Society's Solicitor, Douglas Gabriel, went to town with notes of what was required and Counsel devised a highly complicated Special Resolution to put to the Meeting. Its purpose was to give the Executive Committee powers (a) to fix the cost of life membership providing it was not less than ten times the annual subscription, and (b) to remove the rule that asked life members to continue to pay the original yearly subscription of one guinea. It was stressed in an accompanying explanatory letter written by Mrs Mackay that the Resolution would not affect the annual subscriptions of existing members. However, after a lengthy and acrimonious discussion, although this composite Resolution obtained a majority of votes (48 to 21), it did not obtain the support of 75% of those voting as was required by the Companies Act, and therefore did not pass.
The arguments had meanwhile come to an unpleasant head on 25 March 1963 when a group of six members, concerned about the Society's future at 37 Harrington Gardens and its administration in recent years, circulated a highly critical memorandum to many members saying that the Society's 'direction is wanting in a true sense of its responsibilities and the administration shows serious deficiencies'. The six members included the recent chairman of the Executive Committee, Malcolm Pinhorn, the former Secretary and Director of Research, Philip Blake (whose prolix style is recognisable in much of the wording), an eccentric regular visitor Peter Reid (died 2004, aged 70) who later made a name for himself as an architectural historian [2107], and Nicholas MacMichael who had been on the Lectures Committee since 1958 and was elected to the Executive Committee this year.
The group had much to say in this wide ranging document about the Library, the lack of a proper classification, the gaps in the collections, its small annual grant (said to be £100 when in 1962 it was actually £262), the neglect of the document collection (little attempt being made to obtain new material and the Sherwood Collection having been turned away), the self-perpetuating Executive Committee, the problems with Life Membership and Associate Membership outlined above, the lack of a long-term financial policy, the manner in which the accounts were kept, the need to raise the subscriptions of long standing members who paid very low rates, and the need for larger accommodation, claiming that an excellent alternative building had been dismissed out of hand. The Memorandum ended by saying that 'since 1950, the Society has had no less than six Secretaries. Of these four felt compelled to resign because of the circumstances under which they worked which made the proper execution of their duties towards the Society impossible' and concluded that in the opinion of its sponsors it constituted a serious indictment of the Society's affairs. On hearing that the Executive Committee intended to reply to the charges in the paper the group wrote to the individual members of the Committee on 23 April 1963 deploring the possibility.
The task of replying to the Memorandum fell to the Chairman of the Executive Committee, the conscientious Robert Garrett, who, although (as he wrote to me) the Committee was accused by Philip Blake 'of a hundred villainies' [2108], was anxious to avoid mud-slinging and put together a reasoned reply which, after a further meeting of the Executive, was eventually distilled down by the new Secretary, Cecil Mackay, and sent to the members on 21 May 1963. Robert Edmund Francis Garrett (1910-1982) was the modest but highly competent Chairman of the Film Finances Company and lived conveniently nearby in Gilston Road [2109]. He was a relative newcomer to the Society, having become a member in 1955 and joined the Executive Committee in 1959. An able genealogist, he developed a considerable one-name study for the surname Garrett and its variants and was Chairman of the Executive, following the resignation of Malcolm Pinhorn in January 1962, until the summer of 1964.
Although tempers had become frayed there were, of course, some underlying truths in the Memorandum with which those closely involved in the Society were perfectly well acquainted. For twenty years the finances had been in a precarious state. Deficiencies in the Library were mainly attributable to lack of money. Of the library allocation of £200 in 1962 about half had been spent on binding, the rest on new books and subscriptions to periodicals [2110]. In its reply the Committee said that the task of re-classifying 27,000 volumes was 'quite beyond the power of one librarian'. It was a point with which I could not agree [2111], a basic classification already existing, and John Sims was in the process of proving the point having introduced a simple shelf-numbering system linked to the catalogue which already covered the county shelves. Nicholson's close friend Jack Bird (1920-1988), the Chairman of the Library Committee, and his committee of professionals, had been arguing about it in a desultory manner for years [2112]. In the reply the refusal of the Sherwood Collection was glossed over, the Society being 'compelled to have regard for the limited accommodation available however regrettable that may be'. In later years I generally took what was offered in the way of collections and worried about where to put them afterwards.
That the Executive Committee was 'almost self-perpetuating' was said (in the reply) to be 'quite untrue', thirty-nine of its members having retired or died and been replaced in the last twenty years, but it was agreed that 'a larger turnover would be desirable' and that reform along those lines had been agreed in principle before the Memorandum appeared. The history of the unpleasant correspondence about life membership was recited and the reasons for calling an Extraordinary Meeting on 4 April explained. As regards associate membership the Committee did not intend to be deterred by the threat of a writ. The Committee believed that 'the present satisfactory rate of increase in membership would be likely to decline if subscriptions were again to be raised' and pointed out that under the Companies Acts it was not possible to raise the subscriptions of existing members which 'must remain inviolate'. It was noted that because of the turnover in membership only 66 of the 523 Town Members and 98 of the 840 Country Members, or about 12% in all, paid less than the current rates of subscriptions. That the system was thought by many to be grossly unfair and a nightmare to administer was, of course, not mentioned.
The Committee explained that its financial policy had been governed by the fact that the lease of 37 Harrington Gardens was due to expire in 1970 and that no alternative accommodation had been found which was suitable and affordable. 'Whether we stay or move', the reply said, 'it is quite certain that a very substantial premium will be required. It is precisely for that reason that the strictest economy has been exercised with a view to the accumulation of reserve funds'. The reply was particularly scathing about the 'excellent alternative building' that the five complainants had seen. The five had written: "New accommodation was sought a year ago. It was found near the Imperial War Museum in a scheduled building offering twice the floor area and enabling the Society's entire collections to be arranged on the ground floor. Although the premises were available at an extremely low rent, the Executive Committee turned them down because of their poor state of repair, quite ignoring the fact that what the landlords were prepared to spend combined with the proceeds from the sale of the Society's present lease, would have been adequate to put them in first-class order ... The value of this improvident act can be measured in thousands of pounds".
In reply the Committee wrote: "The Committee, besides viewing this property, which is in Southwark [it was in Kennington Road], themselves, also took the advice of the managing director of a well-known firm of Surveyors and Estate Agents who estimated that it would be necessary to spend at least £10,000 to put it in order. The so-called ground floor which it was suggested might have housed the Society's collections, consisted of a temporary shed with a corrugated iron roof which would have required complete reconstruction. The whole project involved a highly undesirable risk and our surveyors advised us to have nothing to do with it. Nevertheless an enquiry was addressed to the landlords' agents asking among other things to what extent they would be prepared to undertake reconditioning work and what rent they would require. No answer was received".
Stories about the desirability of this building continued to circulate for some years and were dredged up by Donald Steel in an attack on the Society in 1974, when he said that it was 'never seriously considered' [2114] and was challenged by Robert Garrett who then described the building as 'a sort of hut ... of the most flimsy construction, already falling to pieces and extremely damp' [2115]. I regret not having seen the building, described by Cecil Mackay as ‘a large Nissen hut in the backyard which was falling apart at every corner and had large holes in the roof’ [2116], but I immediately thought of this 'shed with a corrugated iron roof' when many years later Philip Blake remarked, after I had expressed surprise that he was buying a castle in Ireland which had no roof, that a roof was of no consequence, but 'you've gotta have walls', he repeating, 'You've gotta have walls'!
In the conclusion of its reply the Committee wrote about the previous Secretaries when it had been hoped to combine the administration and research in one person, saying that this did not work out and it was found that one or the other, or both, suffered. For this reason, it concluded, 'it was decided last year to employ an Administrative Secretary and a Director of Research, each with clearly defined responsibilities'. This system, the reply said, was working well 'and we now have an efficient and contented staff which gives members greatly improved service' [2117]. It interested me some fifty years after these events to see a letter that the novelist Anthony Powell, a member since 1926, had written to Peter Reid on receipt of the memorandum, saying that although he was ‘substantially in agreement with most of what is said’ he considered that the Society’s difficulties ‘appear to be largely this question of money’, but adding, ‘I am prepared to remain on as a member at a low subscription, and do not take up any room there’ [2118]. It was a view that many shared! He was later, however, a most generous donor to the Society’s funds.
Not a word about this unpleasant episode or about the abortive Extraordinary Annual Meeting appears in the Society's Annual Report for 1963. Another Extraordinary Annual Meeting (also not mentioned in the Report) was rapidly called for 20 July 1963 and chaired by the solicitor Douglas Gabriel at the School of Our Lady of Victories off Kensington High Street. At this it was agreed, this time unanimously, to accept Life Members for a fee of not less than ten times the current annual subscription. A further resolution, limiting the Executive Committee to sixteen members elected for four years and forcing them to retire for a year after two terms (or eight years), was the subject of considerable argument but in the end, after Nicholas MacMichael said that he thought it a fair compromise, was passed by a majority of 86 per cent [2119]. This new system was on the whole a fair success and worked well for many years.
At the ordinary AGM that followed this meeting there was a secret ballot for members of the Executive Committee and seven were elected, including several newcomers who were to become prominent in Society affairs. These were Charles Kingsley Adams (1899-1971) [2120] the Director of the National Portrait Gallery, who had been proposed by Kathleen Blomfield and Colonel Percy-Smith, Nicholas MacMichael the Assistant Keeper of the Muniments at Westminster Abbey and Secretary of the Harleian Society, David Bedford Groom a Chartered Accountant, Hugh Pocock a member since 1924, Gwynneth Priddle the former Librarian and Major Ynyr Probert an active transcriber of parish registers [2121].
As mentioned a sub-committee had been working on a complete revision of the Articles and on 20 May 1964 the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Robert Garrett, circulated the members saying that a draft had been prepared but, because of the cost, copies would not be sent to every member but were available in the office and would be sent on application to any interested member. He explained that apart from a general updating the main alterations proposed were that prospective members would no longer need to be proposed and seconded by existing members, that the subscriptions of future (but not existing) members would be liable to increase, that members might borrow books (long the practice, but a privilege limited to Fellows by the old articles), that the Vice-Presidents need not be members of the Society, and that membership certificates be dispensed with.
The approval of the Board of Trade having been obtained to these proposals, Cecil Mackay on 12 November 1964 convened yet another Extraordinary General Meeting for 8 December to confirm their adoption. The Meeting, at which Douglas Gabriel again took the Chair, this time at the Society itself, was extremely badly attended with only 26 members present. Gabriel again stressed that under Article 22 of the Companies Act (1948) the subscriptions of existing members could not be raised. Gerald Hamilton-Edwards and John Blight criticised many of the proposed minor changes. John Blight was concerned at a perceived reduction in the privileges of Fellows, though in reality the Fellows by now had no privileges at all other than the election of other Fellows. Josephine Fletcher (died 1967) [2122] thought the suggested abolition of proposers and seconders for new members quite wrong. As a result the proposed Articles were rejected by fifteen votes to eleven [2123].
Douglas Gabriel had to go away and have a further hard look at the problem, taking into account the various points raised. And so yet another Meeting was called and held after the Annual Meeting in the Council Room of ASLIB in Belgrave Square on 15 July 1965 when 42 members were present. This time the more forceful and decisive Sir Christopher Courtney was in the Chair and by Special Resolution the new Articles were at last adopted by 38 votes to four. The legal costs had been £466 [2124].
These new Articles transferred the power to fix the subscriptions of new members from the Executive Committee to future Annual Meetings. The relevant Article was so worded that (for the first time since 1911) any future new member might from this date forward have his or her subscription increased. Until any such future increase the rate would be four guineas for town and three guineas for country members. Members might now become life members by compounding at amounts that ranged from £42 to £70 according to their age and as set out in the Articles. The old requirement that new members have proposers and seconders was retained, but the Board of Trade now insisted that they be members of the Society. The number of members needed to requisition an Extraordinary Meeting, a question that had taken up much time at the earlier meetings, was now reduced from the previously suggested ten per cent to ten [2125]. These Articles remained in force until the next major revision after I became Director in 1979. At the Ordinary Annual Meeting held earlier that day it had been announced that the Executive Committee had decided that the few life members who had compounded by paying ten times their annual subscriptions but had no right to the Magazine would be given it from 1966 onwards [2126].
Philip Blake, as we have seen, had been elected an Associate Member (the last elected) which meant that he could not speak at Annual Meetings. After leaving the Society he sought no further employment but later, as I shall mention, played an important role in the foundation of the Association of Genealogists and Record Agents. By then all knew that this impossible man might sometimes have excellent ideas but was always completely impractical. He died in 1994, aged 87.
I had not been long in post when in November 1963 Sir Anthony Wagner saw fit to again raise the question of the Society undertaking research, writing to the Chairman, Robert Garrett, and saying that there appeared to have been a substantial change of policy in recent years. He claimed that there had been a lengthy correspondence between his predecessor, the then Garter King of Arms, and the promoters of the Society at the time of its foundation. Garter and the College were, he said, unhappy about certain things then proposed and secured modifications to the proposed Articles of Association which enabled the College to support the Society. Wagner expressed himself as 'far from happy' on two fronts, saying that it was doubtful that 'this activity' was covered by the Society's Articles and might affect the Society's tax position, and secondly that, 'in a most undesirable way', it put the Society into competition with those of its members who were professional genealogists.
Robert Garrett had denied that there had been any substantial change of policy over at any rate the last ten years and wrote: "From 1946-53 the records would appear to indicate that research was probably limited to the Society's own library, either on behalf of members or non-members (the latter paying a higher fee than the former). From 1954 onwards, however, research was carried out both in the Society's collections and elsewhere. In practice however, outside research was usually limited to work that could be done at the Public Record Office, Somerset House and the various other repositories of records in the London area. When these were exhausted and the hunt led elsewhere, the enquirer was usually left to make further arrangements himself, although the Society was always ready to put him in touch with searchers on its lists or to supply the addresses of the local record offices, incumbents, etc. There was a break in these arrangements in 1960 when the Committee decided that temporarily no more research would be taken on for non-members. This was principally due to the lack of personnel to handle such matters and the need to use the limited resources we then had to mop up the backlog of cases still outstanding. In 1961 with the appointment of a new Secretary with genealogical experience, research on behalf of members and non-members was resumed and continues. If research now has to be done outside London it is farmed out to a local agent but the general guidance and control remains with the Director of Research".
Garrett explained the changes to the staffing arrangements in 1962, saying that the creation of the post of Director of Research did not imply that the Society could or would necessarily take on any more research than it had done in the past, although it was hoped that it would be carried out in a more efficient and business-like manner. He added that for the last year the Treasurer had been producing a separate financial statement dealing with the work of the Research Department, so that the Committee should always know if research was paying its way and, more important still, that output was keeping pace with enquiries coming in, and that no dangerous backlog was building up which could prove an embarrassment to the Society. He added that in addition to supplying a useful supplement to the Society's somewhat exiguous income, it was found that membership was encouraged by the Society undertaking investigations [2127]. There was more than enough genealogical work to go round and it was often difficult to get enquiries dealt with competently and promptly [2128].
I wrote to Garrett saying that his first letter was a perfectly frank and certainly correct statement, so far as I was aware, of the research position over the last ten years [2129]. Thinking of my own position I was anxious to get the matter cleared up [2130]. Wagner, however, was obviously concerned at the possibility of research money being deflected from the College of Arms and continued to press his points and the solicitor, Douglas Gabriel, had once more to be consulted about tax and the Articles. He, it seems, thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie. My personal friendship with Anthony Wagner was, however, as a result at a pretty low ebb.
Although I had an extremely cordial relationship with the new Secretary, Cecil Mackay, and the other members of staff, the stresses and strains of that first year, with Blake always in the background and so many things that needed doing, all took their toll. My keeping very irregular hours probably did not help. I was lodging at Golders Green during the week and returning to Walkern at the weekends. Anyhow from mid-June 1963 I was quite unwell for two months at Walkern. I had an amusing letter from Barbara Scrope, Cecil Mackay's assistant, to say that they were coping well and that at the most recent meeting of the Committee 'the Air Force' (i.e. my friend the Air Chief Marshal) had 'effectively squashed poor Mr Nicholson every time he started a new hare'. Nicholson was not that squashed, however, that he did not toil all the way out to Walkern by train and bus and return again later with Jack (‘Dicky’) Bird to see me ('Nicky and Dicky' as she described them); Cecil herself was in Munich buying a hausfrau hat with which, she said, to terrify the Annual Meeting [2131].
I had inherited from Philip Blake the research assistant George Eglesfield (1898-1975) and he looked after my mail whilst I was away. They sent down the cover of my new Wills and their whereabouts, published during my absence, and W. S. B. Buck's daughter, Pamela, and Erica MacFadyen came forward to help with the research, which was very necessary as my problems dragged on into August. I got back to find that as a result of some misunderstanding about the fees charged to day-searchers a short note had appeared in the magazine Woman's Own (in reply to someone asking ‘How do I go about finding out something about my family tree?’) saying that for a fee of two guineas the Society would make ‘a one-day search among its six million records, and give a preliminary report to help you decide whether it’s worth going on’! Many dozens of letters and cheques poured in and the money in most cases had to be refunded [2132] our charges at this time being £6 a day, though a little business did come our way as a result [2133].
For almost ten years until he retired early in 1969, George Eglesfield gave regular daily assistance in the Research Department. He had earlier worked in the Post Office and on retirement had been a volunteer in the Society's rooms, having joined the Society in 1954. He was recruited for research by Philip Blake and in his first years, when needed, had gone to the General Register Office and the Public Record Office and occasionally out to consult original registers 'in the field', but he developed an unrivalled expertise in the Society's collections [2134]. He was a patient, careful worker and his helpful presence throughout the period of Blake's 'troubles' did much to add stability to the Society. His place was never really filled and I found that I did many more of the internal searches than previously.
Another recruit of Philip Blake was Alan William Rolfe (1908-2005) who took on a limited number of London cases, at which he excelled, and who for the next thirty-six years came weekly on Mondays to discuss his findings or to bring his carefully typed reports and pedigrees. Alan Rolfe, who had joined the Society in 1960, was an established character actor with a solid office training. As a professional London guide he had an intimate knowledge of its streets and churches and this had been further developed by his own family research. An amusing raconteur and a splendid letter writer he waged an unceasing war with the Registrar General about the department’s inadequacies. Alan Rolfe was for all those years a mainstay of the research department and a delight to work with, reliable and painstaking in everything he did [2135].
We also had the occasional assistance of some members of the Executive Committee, in particular of Robert Garrett who liked to take on major early searches. In addition the former Secretary, John Phillips, towards the end of 1962 and for some years thereafter worked for me during his lunch hours and on Saturday mornings. Further assistance with searches at the General Register Office and in the Census came from a series of students working in their long vacations, initially recommended by Peter Spufford when at Cambridge University and then others when he went as a lecturer to the University of North Staffordshire. One of the latter, Stella Colwell, came first in 1965, and appeared to hate every minute of the work, continually complaining, but she surprisingly returned the following year and then became a searcher at the College of Arms, writing ‘eulogistically’ about me to Peter! [2136].
In 1965 it was reported that the Research Department had dealt with 410 cases including 115 for members of the Society. Of these, 169 came from enquirers in the British Isles, 140 from America, 41 from Australia, 25 from Canada, and the remainder from 17 other countries. That year apart from the usual straightforward work on pedigrees the work had ranged from the identification of American immigrants and Arms on furniture, and from work for the Medical Research Council to legal and biographical research [2137]. In 1966 the work of the Department ranged from the identification of arms on antique furniture and other objects and of subscribers to the 1742 edition of Chippendale’s Director for a local antique dealer and on the biographies of former members of the Port of Bristol Authority, to work on a Peerage Claim and, as the Annual Report said on the pedigrees of ‘a well-known group of Pop singers’ [2138]. For some time a member with many friends at the Society and an excellent typist (particularly of very large pedigrees), Bridget Lakin, had been helping in the Research Department, and her greatly appreciated assistance continued for some years.
The Peerage Claim involved the obtaining of certificates of events abroad (no charge being made for the time involved) to prove that Frederick Hobart-Hampden, a former corporation gardener, was rightfully 9th Earl of Buckinghamshire, he being a distant cousin of the previous Earl who had died unmarried in 1963. In this case the family of the intervening Admiral Augustus Hobart-Hampden (died 1886), known as ‘Hobart Pasha’, had to be proved extinct. The new Earl himself died without issue in 1983 and was succeeded by another distant cousin, a pension consultant in the City.
The reference to ‘a well-known group of Pop singers’ was to the Beatles and to the work which they had commissioned after hearing the fourteenth Earl of Hume’s jibe about the fourteenth Mr Wilson, and wondering if they were the fourteenth of their name. We shared out the work and Bridget Lakin, Alan Rolfe, John Phillips and I each took one family to work upon. The research was not easy, taking us from Lancashire into north Wales, the Isle of Man and Ireland, and the results were not particularly rewarding. Meanwhile Achievements Ltd at Canterbury had produced an attractive Up the Beatles’ Family Tree (1966) illustrated by John Bainbridge, but showing only the first few generations in each ancestral line. Some years earlier I had worked for a television company which had offered the prize of a pedigree to the winner of one of its competition, and had learned then that this was not always a good idea, the expectations aroused being quite unrealistic!
In 1967 we said that the research had been of a wide range and included some interesting work on the Romantic authors, Eleanor Sleath and Janetta Norwebb [2139]. In 1970 we mentioned work on the biographies of some eighteenth century painters (in the circle of Samuel Scott), the relations of Matthew Boulton and the descendants of the British participants in the Greek War of Independence [2140]. I particularly remember the research on Matthew Boulton for Eric Delieb, the author of The Great Silver Manufactory (1971), a lavishly and beautifully illustrated book in which the 'fine pedigrees' were mentioned in a review in our Magazine [2141]. In 1969 we set out a pedigree of the characters in a historical novel for the end-papers of a well known novelist’s latest work and in 1971 we claimed a small record when reuniting childhood friends who had last met in 1907 [2142]. There were infrequent trips out for research and I particularly remember those to Edinburgh in 1964 for work on a large family of coalminers and to Bath in 1970 in connection with the biography of Samuel Scott.
Something else that I inherited from Philip Blake was a large correspondence with officials in England and Africa in connection with a proposed Register of British Graves in Africa, the idea for which had been suggested in 1961 by Kenneth Vaughan Elphinstone, formerly Resident in Northern Nigeria, and which had been taken up with the Colonial Office. The suggestion had been seized upon by Blake with an eye to future publication [2143], but it unfortunately needed much more time than we were able to give to it. However, correspondence on it continued into 1965 [2144] and some useful material was collected from Basutoland, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Nyasaland, Sierra Leone and Uganda which was eventually sorted out by Lydia Collins, bound and passed to the Library in 1982 [2145].
On 2-4 July 1965 I lectured at one of the first weekend courses on genealogy to be sponsored by a local education committee in England, ‘Trace Your Ancestors’, held at the beautifully situated neo-Gothic Missenden Abbey in Buckinghamshire [2146]. Organised by the Warden, G. Talbot Griffith, J.P., the opening talk was by Cyril Hankinson of Debrett’s Peerage, the other speakers including the local County Archivist, E. J. Davis, Dr W. O. Hassall from the Bodleian Library, and K. R. Hedderly from the General Register Office. On the Saturday afternoon a coach brought us to Harrington Gardens for a tour of the Society’s library and tea hosted by Cecil Mackay.
Between March and June 1969 I had the very able assistance in the research department of Alan Roger Dickins, of Horsham, then training to be a Solicitor (he was from 1986 a Research Assistant at the College of Arms and appointed Arundel Herald Extraordinary in 1998) and then later that year I agreed with the professional genealogist Brian Brooks (whom I had got to know through the work of AGRA) to jointly employ a young man known to him, Raymond Vincent Foster, of Ruislip, to undertake searches at the General Register Office and Public Record Office. Raymond first came to the Society for a batch of cases on 10 October and then came regularly about every two weeks to report progress. He proved a very careful and painstaking worker and remained with the Society for fifteen years.
A volunteer who knew the library well was the Australian member Joan Mary Masters who in 1967 did a search through the whole of the Apprentice Registers at the PRO 1774-1810 for five surnames making extensive notes from the 26 volumes involved. She then helped in the research department for very small payments until May 1973 and her particular dedication to the great PCC Wills project described below, on which she spent many patient hours, was greatly missed. Less research was then done and qualified assistance was difficult to obtain, but the number of searches made at reduced rates for members then increased [2148].
One great help in these years was the Accountant, Herbert F. C. Chadband (1908-1984), who came to work at the Society in September 1961 and remained with us until he retired in 1976, a painstaking and pleasant man who never seemed to take time to eat, but who worked extremely well with the Honorary Treasurers, Arthur Noble and Arnold Hawker. As mentioned elsewhere Herbert Chadband played a major part in the acquisition of the freehold of the building and Arthur Noble, when retiring as Treasurer in 1971, paid warm tribute to him at the Annual Meeting. Arthur Noble had himself served as Honorary Treasurer for ten years since 1961, a period in which the income had never failed to exceed expenditure and he had overseen the acquisition of the freehold with all its related problems and uncertainties [2149]. He was never seen without his pipe and at the Annual Meeting he was presented with a bunch of flowers and a pound of pipe tobacco [2150]. Arnold Hawker, who succeeded Noble in 1971 and served until 1980, was another highly conscientious and competent businessman who, like Noble, visited us every week and took great interest in the welfare of the staff and, as mentioned, introduced the pension scheme in 1974.
A visitor who came first in 1967 and then regularly until his death in 1994 and whom I remember with particular affection was the extraordinary Devendra P. Varma (1923-1994), Professor of English and Gothic Romance Literature at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He had made a name for himself with his book The Gothic Flame: being a history of the Gothic novel in England (1957) and he spent the remainder of his active life in discovering and re-editing these long-forgotten and excessively rare works. In 1967 he was editing the seven ‘horrid novels’ recommended by Isabella Thorpe to Catherine Morland in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and I helped to try to identify the author of one of them, Eleanor Sleath who had written The orphan of the Rhine (1798). The seven were published as a set by the Folio Press and Dr Varma, a great Anglophyle, dedicated a specially bound first set to the Queen as ‘Most Gracious Sovereign of The Blessed Land of Exquisite Jane Austen’. His first book had been dedicated to Prime Minister Nehru in India and he now asked me to give a set to Lord Mountbatten, hoping that he might obtain permission to dedicate his next book to him, but Lord Mountbatten who, as he admitted, was ‘not a great reader of the classics’, passed the set to his son-in-law Lord Brabourne who was related to Jane Austen. The number of Varma’s publications grew apace. In 1972 he published a major work on circulating libraries, The evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge. The following year he was particularly pleased when I managed to get him two interviews with Lord Clark (1903-1983) the author of The Gothic Revival (1928). In 1976 he gave his ‘Gothic friend in England’, as he called me, his beautiful edition of Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and then in 1987 a set of Mrs Ann Radcliffe’s novels which he had dedicated to Princess Diana, followed in 1988 by his Voices from the vaults: authentic tales of vampires and ghosts, and in 1991 a collection of William Beckford’s poetry, The transient gleam. Widely travelled, his command of gothic English made him a most popular speaker but he sadly died suddenly at the end of a lecture tour in America in October 1994.
One day in December 1969 I opened, with some curiosity, a letter addressed to a former owner of 37 Harrington Gardens, Gwyn Vaughan-Morgan, who had died in 1945, and was amused to find that it was from three college students in De Land, Florida, who were in the process of restoring a Rolls-Royce Saloon which Vaughan-Morgan had bought in 1936. They were intent on finding something of the car's story. I sent them the history of the house which I had compiled for the appeal the previous year and later, with the chassis number and the help of Rolls Royce and Hooper Motor Services, was able to tell them that the car had been exhibited by Hooper's at the Motor Show at Olympia in 1936 and bought by Glyn Vaughan-Morgan for £1,827-3-6.
The publication in three volumes over seven years (1965, 1969 and 1972) of the new eighteenth edition of Burke's Landed Gentry, the first since that edited by Pine in 1952, did much to inspire prospective entrants to brush-up their pedigrees and the Society helped some to this end. Two thousand families were covered, including a good number of new entrants [2151], the basic criterion now being ‘an authentic, full and reasonably antique genealogy that would be of genuine interest to those outside the family itself,’ past or present ownership of land being of ‘considerable importance’ and registered arms ‘an advantage’ [2152]. Peter Townend, who edited the first two volumes, paid tribute to the assistance of David Williamson (1927-2003), who had helped with the 1952 edition [2153], and to Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd (1946-2007), his assistant since 1968. However, just prior to the appearance of the third volume in 1972, Townend was replaced as Editor by the latter, then aged twenty-six [2154]. The two had not worked well together, Townend’s gushing manner and his obsession with ‘titled-folk’ contrasting with the introverted and immature Montgomery-Massingberd’s hatred for the social scene and his obsession with the landed gentry. Montgomery-Massingberd had been to Harrow School, but was surprisingly unable to type. When his landlady in Chelsea invited the shy Sir Anthony Wagner to dinner and she asked, ‘are you going to give this clever young man a job?’, Wagner replied coldly, ‘He would need to be clever enough to have a good university degree’ [2155]. Montgomery-Massingberd’s bete noire Peter Townend, who had successfully produced three editions of the Peerage, concentrated then on his work as social editor of Tatler with which he had already been involved for three years.
Montgomery-Massingberd’s projected ‘New Genealogical Series’ optimistically envisaged triennially published Peerages and Baronetages, a Landed Gentry in regional volumes, revised Dormant and Extinct Peerages, a Guide to the Royal Family, a work on the Presidential Families of America and a Guide to Country Houses [2156]. Not all appeared and the New Extinct Peerage, surprisingly edited by Leslie Pine, was published, not by Burke’s but by the bookshop Heraldry Today, in December 1972 [2157].
Montgomery-Masssingberd was at that time reported as saying that he had ‘escaped from the prevalent amateur genealogist’s megalomania by becoming interested in other families beside his own’ [2158]. Such familes, as befitted the later ‘Massivesnob’ of Private Eye, came, of course, entirely from his own class. Interviewed after ten years editorial work with Burke’s in 1977, he named a few of the problems encountered with contributors as, ‘suppression of facts, overweening vanity, folie de grandeur, the obsession that one’s own family is the only pedigree of any significance among the 20,000 or so published’, ‘whitewash and eyewash’ being, as he put it, the staple diet that many families wished to see included. He admitted that the arbitrary selection of families for the Landed Gentry had caused most problems and he had found that ‘to accuse someone of not being armigerous is tantamount to questioning his virility’. He concluded that ‘Genealogy attracts more than its fair share of lunatics and I am always being pestered by those who have least to contribute and not hearing nearly enough from the people who have most’. Work on Presidential Families of the USA in 1975 had attracted innumerable false claims and that on the first volume of the Royal Families of the World in 1977 had been ‘constantly disturbed by sabre-rattling threats of legal action, excitable noises, obsessive ramblings and generally tiresome behaviour’ [2159]. Such, however, is the world of genealogy.
Those who owned or financed Burke’s at this time have been rightly criticised by Hugo Vickers as ‘seldom inspired by true love of the science of genealogy’, the staff being ill paid and the costs sometimes considerable. The author’s corrections to the proofs of the important Burke’s Irish Family Records (1976, reprinted 2007), which owed much to the labours of Charles Kidd, Mark Bence-Jones and David Williamson, amounted to £38,000 [2160]. Importantly, however, a revised edition of the peerage itself was delayed and in January 1980 its rights were sold to a separate company. The proprietors of that company, Burke’s Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, decided to issue a fourth reprint of Townend’s last 1970 edition, taking nearly £30,000 from potential advertisers therein (at £784 a page) who believed that this was a new edition whereas, as an advertisement in the Genealogists’ Magazine had said, the family histories had not been revised since 1969-70 though ‘the successions, extinctions and new creations’ were to be included up to July 1980 [2161]. The aggressive marketing and lack of clarity led to much unfavourable press publicity [2162] and a court action in 1982 [2163], but now following the fragmentation of the original company, Montgomery-Massingberd resigned from Burke in 1983. He was appointed obituaries editor to The Daily Telegraph three years later and there for the next eight years, as Hugh Massingberd, ‘he found the perfect fulfilment for his gifts’ [2164].
An extreme example of the problems that he had faced shows that little changes. Charles Spencer’s The Spencer Family (1999) suggested that his family, which first emerged from obscurity as wealthy graziers towards the end of the fifteenth century, actually descended from Robert Despencer, steward to William the Conqueror, a concoction that even as long ago as 1916 the worthy editors of the Complete Peerage had thought was ‘now incapable of deceiving the most credulous’.
Late in 1976 for the centenary of the St John Ambulance Association a lavish Grand Gala Cabaret was held at the Talk of the Town on 13 December and attended by a remarkable number of crowned heads and other royalty [2165]. The programme was televised and I was asked by the TV Times to draw out a pedigree which they published showing the photographs and relationships of the twenty-one living European heads and claimants who all descended from Frederick V the Elector Palatine and King of Bohemia who died in 1632.
At the other end of the social scale I did a little research in the Kingston, Surrey, Poor Law records for Ralph Atherton (who worked at the UK Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell) and his important article, 'Beyond the Workhouse: an Edwardian mystery', which appeared in 1973 and showed for the first time the problems that can sometimes be associated with the tracing of a modern family, he not then being able to trace his family beyond 1906 [2166]. The publicity that the article gave revealed further astonishing secrets and should have convinced everyone, as the editors wrote, that in genealogy nothing can ever be taken for granted [2167].
Bogus claimants to titles of every description were not uncommon but Margaret Dorothy Butler, born in 1899, claimed to have been switched over 'in the cradle' with the later King George VI (born in 1895), and, conveniently overlooking various points, was thus rightfully Queen of England [2168]. I am not sure if this was the same lady but a 'rightful Queen of England', wearing a faded light green coat with a white fur collar, was at this time to be seen in the Department of Literary Enquiry at Somerset House day after day reading the registered wills of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.
Perhaps as a result of an interview which appeared in the New York Times [2169] and was syndicated in a great number of American newspapers in January 1974, I appeared in four radio programmes, being interviewed by William Hardcastle in ‘PM’ on 23 January; answering questions for half-an-hour on a live phone-in hosted by Dennis Rookard, on 31 January; talking for fifty minutes with Donald Steel and Lawrence Taylor and a group of school-children about family history in schools on ‘Shindig’ on 9 February; and being interviewed by Jane Finnis in ‘You and Yours’ on 27 May, the latter in a feature ‘Back to the Apes’!
As the work of the Society became better known requests to speak on the subject became more frequent. With the creation of the local family history societies in the 1970s the number of talks became a major feature of my work. It meant that one had to keep up-to-date with the developments and practicalities of research in the major repositories but the practical experience of research in these places had an added value and was particularly useful when lobbying about them.
However, I had a growing unease about taking on some types of research, particularly that for the ancestry here of emigrants to America when their places of origin were not known, as was most frequently the case. That concern was, I hope, reflected in the form letters which were sent out in their thousands, but I have little doubt that other genealogists seized on such cases and cheerfully accepted funds from overseas clients. Whether the majority of these clients had any idea of the limitations of the surviving records it is difficult to say, but the lack of real possibilities became a regular theme of my articles and later of my talks in America. I doubt, however, that I made the slightest difference for I frequently heard complaints that the professional had merely duplicated work that had already been done (probably, I fear, because the client had given no proper account of it).
As mentioned below, it was some years until we put out a leaflet on this latter subject, but as already indicated the problems of Americans coming to the British Isles to do research without having done their ‘home work’ on their emigrant ancestor’s place of origin was something that the library staff had daily to deal with. I am not sure that this was the first but in 1969 the P & O Line advertised that the Oriana, sailing from San Francisco to England on 4 June, would have on board Mrs Nadine Shields, who, equipped with eighty-feet of genealogical reference books, was offering to provide such persons a head start before they began delving into British records [2170].
In the early days of the Society the regulations about election to Fellowship were minimal. There was no proposal form for new Fellows and the names of candidates were put forward and discussed at the meetings of current Fellows, but attendance was often, as now and always, very small indeed. Some members were elected Fellows when only three or four people were present.
With the growth of the Society and the involvement of new people (membership passed the two thousand mark in 1963) I became anxious that the Fellowship should reflect the best of their work and in March 1963 I wrote to Cregoe Nicholson, who had acted as Chairman at the last Fellows' Meeting, listing twenty-nine people whom I thought were worthy of Fellowship [2171]. At their meeting on 4 April they elected eleven Fellows [2172], eight of whom were on my list.
As the Fellows have no powers other than the election of further Fellows they have always spent a good deal of time arguing about their self-imposed rules, but as we have seen, because of the wording of the Articles, the rules adopted at one meeting might be dispensed with at the next. After involving myself in their meetings I began to take an interest in the Fellowship as a whole and attempted to make it more representative and to have candidates properly vetted by a steering committee, but of course that was quite unacceptable to those (like Donald Steel, one of my twenty-nine names!) who always knew better!
After 1963 the Fellows did not meet for a while and it was not until a meeting on 23 July 1968, when concern was expressed that their number had again dwindled to forty-nine, that we got them to adopt some basic rules and have annual meetings. These rules, drafted by Jack Bird, John Blight and Jeremy Gibson and giving useful guidance on the reasons for which Fellowship might be awarded (making it clear that it was not a certificate of professional competence), were adopted at another meeting on 8 January 1969. Only nine Fellows attended the meeting, with Mrs Mackay and me in attendance [2173]. Later that year on 2 July 1969 of the twenty-one new Fellows proposed, nineteen were elected, though Gerald Hamilton-Edwards again raised 'the functions' of the Fellows and, refusing to accept that they had none, said that he would write a memorandum on the subject, and, of course, 'some dissatisfaction was expressed' with 'the present system of election' [2174].
By force of habit the rules adopted were not always adhered to and the recommendations of the steering committee appointed in January 1969 were disputed. In 1970 Donald Steel proposed that the election be by proportional representation rather than the simple majority required by the Articles and Gerald Hamilton-Edwards raised the question of the eligibility of the staff for Fellowship [2175] which, in turn, raised the matter of their being members of the Society in the first place (with the right to speak at Annual Meetings), a long disputed matter. In 1971 it was agreed that any objections to the candidates should be forwarded to the steering committee who would take them up with the proposers and seconders (at this time the proposal forms were being circulated in advance and elections took place at the meetings) [2176] but this immediately brought some Fellows into conflict with the Steering Committee. In 1973 that Committee invited the members at large to put forward names for possible consideration though any formal proposals would still have to be made by the Fellows themselves [2177]. Later that year the veto of the steering committee on some nominations was challenged (by Donald Steel) and set aside and a further self-inflicted rule that nominations had to be made two months in advance of a formal meeting was questioned [2178]. At a meeting in November 1973 at which thirteen Fellows were present it was agreed that a quorum should be seven and that nominations could be received at any time except for the six weeks immediately preceding a Fellows’ meeting. It elected three of the four names about whom details had been circulated but rejected the fourth on the grounds of ‘insufficient evidence’ [2179]. In June 1974 it was reported that the steering committee had resigned and was now suspended [2180].
At the request of the Executive Committee the first full list of Fellows for some years, with the dates of their election, so that they might be better known, was printed in the Magazine in 1976. There were eighty-seven, the name of Thomas Woodard being accidentally omitted [2181]. The list was repeated in March 1978 when there were 90 names [2182].
At a meeting of the Fellows in January 1978 there was some discussion about the ways in which the Fellows 'could initiate and assist with genealogical projects' and the then Chairman, David Hawkings, with Alice Stanley and Robert Massey agreed to try to organise voluntary workers. They also noted that, as they were to meet on Saturday afternoons, they needed a Secretary [2183]. At further Meetings that year they agreed to award an annual prize for the best genealogical work compiled by a Member of the Society, Fellows and professionals being excluded, intending to present the first prize at the Annual Meeting in 1980, and they discussed the possibility of filling the gap in the PCC will indexes 1701-1749 and appealed for further volunteers [2184]. At the Meeting in September, Alan Reed agreed to act as their Secretary [2185]. In March 1979 the Fellows continued to discuss projects and a possible prize [2186] but three months later they agreed not to consider further the establishment of a prize fund (the raising of money was never their strong point), though there was support for a special prize for volunteers [2187]. As fellowship was itself 'a special prize for volunteers' and those Fellows who were inclined to volunteer were already volunteering, these meetings were to me little more than an annoying waste of time.
It was not until the complete re-drafting of the Articles later that year (1979) that the Fellows were forced to adopt Standing Orders which, in theory, they could not tinker with. However, they continued to invent rules and to look for roles for which they were never intended, usually driven at the whim of one forceful newly elected Fellow or another. Fellowship is an honour. The only role of the Fellows collectively is to elect other Fellows. In this they have failed and the fact that they have for years been quite unrepresentative of that which is best in the Society seems sadly to have escaped their notice.
Although Fellowship is not a certificate of professional competence, the membership and world at large generally assumes that it is. The 1979 Articles tried to clarify the position by saying that members of at least five years' standing could be elected to Fellowship 'having rendered distinguished services to the Society or to genealogy'. The total number was then limited to 100 or such other number as might be prescribed in newly introduced General Regulations. These new Articles also allowed for the election of up to ten Honorary Fellows 'for their very distinguished services to genealogy'. Honorary Fellows, who did not need to be Members of the Society, received all the privileges of life membership without liability. Nominations for both classes of Fellow were to be received by 1 May and signed by four existing Fellows. Election required a total of votes from not less than one quarter of those eligible to vote and not less than two thirds of those voting. Fellows were allowed to use the letters 'FSG.' or 'FSG(Hon)' after their names but no Member or Fellow, as the Articles said, 'shall use the fact of Membership or Fellowship to imply competence or proficiency in genealogical or associated skills nor to derive professional or financial advantage' [2188].
The latter restriction caused me much trouble. I took it to mean that a member could not say that he or she was 'FSG' in an advertisement and as a result - prompted by other professionals who were not Fellows - I was frequently obliged to write to professional genealogists pointing out the error of their ways. When they had gone to the expense of printing 'FSG' on their writing paper their reactions were not always pleasant. I took particular exception to professionals, however competent, who spelled out the words 'Fellow of the Society of Genealogists' in advertisements, considering this a blatant breach of the spirit of the rule but again I did not always win the day.
As Fellowship is merely a class of membership, another problem is caused by those Fellows who resign their membership but continue to use the letters 'FSG' after their names. Dr Thomson, a Fellow who allowed his membership to lapse in 1938, became a Life-Member in 1958, and was re-elected to Fellowship in 1974. One particular Fellow who lapsed and some years later re-joined, apparently so that he could mention his Fellowship in a forthcoming book, found that he had to be elected to Fellowship again and some of his fellow Fellows were not at all keen on that idea.
In March 1963 the famous bookshop W. & G. Foyle Ltd in Charing Cross Road asked me to write for their Foyle's Handbooks series a little book called Tracing Your Ancestors and I naturally jumped at the chance, mainly because there was a payment of £125, though that was for the world rights, something that I later rather regretted. There were over two hundred handbooks in the series, edited by Christina Foyle (1911-1999). I received my first copies on 12 May 1964 and the book sold at four shillings.
I never knew the exact number sold but the first two printings were each for three thousand copies and the book was generally considered a great success. In a review in the Magazine, Arthur Willis said that 'this book gives a clear indication of what to look for and is excellent value for money' [2189]. Cecil Humphery-Smith called it 'quite well written' but an 'unnecessary publication' [2190] whereas Peter Spufford thought it ‘beautifully written’ [2191] and Claire Evans, who wrote the pedigree which I used on the cover, wrote that the 'wording is so simple and friendly - it carries one on - and the content is so worthwhile. It's just the book for a beginner'. Cregoe Nicholson admonished me, saying 'you should not give all your knowledge away'. It was reprinted in 1966, revised in 1970, and reprinted in 1972 and 1979, selling thousands of copies. By then of course it was quite out of date, but I having sold the rights there was nothing that I could do about that.
The book did a great deal to publicise the Society and I was particularly interested in the comments of the Belgian genealogist and demographer, Joseph Jacquart (1892-1969), in a review in the newspaper Le Phare Dimanche. He wrote that modern genealogical manuals were rare in England, where the majority of genealogists were, he thought, in spite of Christina Foyle's statement in the preface of my book that "'ancestor hunting' is popular at all levels of society", still bogged down in 'pure' genealogy and medieval heraldry [2192]. That was not altogether true, as the 1961 exhibition had shown, but the 1960s certainly marked a considerable watershed in the development of the subject, though the demography that interested Joseph Jacquart, who had written La Genealogie Moderne [2193] was, in England at least, still some years away.
With the industrious John Sims as Librarian, between February 1962 and August 1965, a more active programme of publications was commenced. The practical Cecil Mackay greatly enjoyed the work involved: cutting stencils, duplicating and collating pages, designing covers, stapling them together with an enormous long-arm stapler, and finishing them off with coloured binding tape, all on the large office table.
Percival Boyd's old list of the parishes covered by his marriage index, A marriage index on a new plan, published in 1928 and with various supplementary pages, had for many years been far from complete, and with the addition of the Second Miscellaneous Series and the Gloucestershire volumes typed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, was now desperately in need of revision. I went over the various lists as far as they could be found and early in 1963 we published my second edition, revised and enlarged, called A Key to Boyd's Marriage Index. It was produced by Cecil Mackay from stencils, for 5s 6d post-paid, and had at my suggestion a cover design of emblematic intertwined serpents taken from the sixteenth century marriage register of Stevenage in Hertfordshire.
As further information came to light, particularly following the production from Boyd's notebooks by Frank Smith (1917-1990) in Salt Lake City, of a list of the parishes covered by the Second Miscellaneous Series, the book went through a surprising number of reprints, with new editions as A list of parishes in Boyd's Marriage Index in 1974, 1980, 1984 and 1987, the later ones owing much to the careful checking of Edith Pritchard. From the 1974 edition by Robert Wood Massey (1917-1985) they also contained details of the parishes covered by the marriage indexes of Eric Archer Roe (died 1977) for Gloucestershire, Reginald Churchill Couzens (1889-1974) for Oxfordshire, 1537-1837, and John Alan Readdie for Northumberland, 1813-1837 [2194].
In view of the dreadful delays with the National Index, John Sims produced in October 1963 a new edition of the Catalogue of Parish Register Copies in the possession of the Society of Genealogists (10s 6d post-paid) [2195] which was again the product of Cecil Mackay's typing, duplicating and binding skills. He saw it as filling the gap until the National Index, 'now nearing completion', was ready and we hoped that it would be the first step towards publishing a complete catalogue of the library [2196]. In fact it had a flourishing life of its own, going through many eagerly awaited new editions in 1968 (when it was duplicated for us by Mr D. C. Avondale Kimberley assisted by Kenneth Walker) [2197] in 1970 (with updated impressions in 1972 and 1975), 1978, 1980 (edited by Edith Pritchard and the first of the Society’s publications to be revised using the text of a previous edition composed on a memory typewriter), 1983, 1985, 1987 and 1991, but not since revised, the last two re-arranged by county for greater usefulness and ease of revision, its extraction in that form being one of the first products of my newly learned computer skills.
These new publications were warmly welcomed by the members and Richard H. G. Leveson-Gower (1894-1982), a member of 35 years' standing, mentioned them at the Annual Meeting in 1964, when Gerald Hamilton-Edwards said that he was glad to see such use made of the duplicator with 'two inexpensive and well-produced catalogues during the past year', he unrealistically suggesting that the index to PCC wills 1720-25 be produced in the same way [2198].
As noted elsewhere John Sims had also started a simple shelf-numbering system for the Library and he had completed the county shelves in 1963, going on to do the Schools, Irish, Welsh, Wills and Marriage Licences sections in 1964 [2199] and continuing in 1965 [2200]. Considerable amounts of binding and re-binding were also taking place, Charles Southcombe continuing to assist. Sims’s work on the county shelves enabled him to produce the basic A catalogue of Directories and Poll Books in the possession of the Society of Genealogists (1964) which sold for 4s 6d post-paid, and was again typed and duplicated by Cecil Mackay. This was revised by Lawson Edwards ten years later (1974) [2201] and again by him in 1979 (being typed by Christine Gerken) [2202], 1984 and 1989, and by Nicholas Newington-Irving in 1995.
My frustrations with the arrangement of the Document Collection came to a head in late 1963 [2203], when working over one Bank Holiday weekend, I commenced a scheme to integrate the various overflow files into the main series, having bought new boxes to take the place of the dusty webbing-strapped and string-tied parcels, the webbing straps having the added hazard of sharp rusting buckles. This re-organisation and re-classification of the whole series of files took much longer than I had expected but in April 1964 the kindly volunteer William Stucley Beresford Buck (1903-1966) [2204] came to my assistance. He had joined the Society in 1955 when an Administrative Officer in Sarawak and after his retirement in 1957 lived nearby in Coleherne Court, often helping about the library [2205]. He completed the re-arrangement of the Document Collection in January 1965 and as a bye-product compiled A list of names in the Document Collection of the Society of Genealogists, another duplicated text, which we published that year at 12s 6d post-paid. Although the files were in alphabetical order he had amused himself by starting many boxes with unusual and staff surnames and these labels remained unaltered for many years and always reminded me of this dear man and his labours.
Buck also undertook the transcription of the large first volume of the Frome Selwood parish registers, compiling and 'delineating' from it his Examples of English Handwriting 1550-1650, and giving the manuscript to the Society in 1965 [2206]. This we advertised as An alphabet of the sixteenth century but published in its original title in 1966 at 12s 6d [2207]. It was a bestseller that also went through several editions [2208]. Buck’s early death on 20 May 1966 was a great blow to his many friends at the Society for he was an extremely hard worker and had also commenced the daunting transcription from microfilm of the Winchester will calendars that Archibald Colliard had borrowed and which Florence Eva ‘May’ Toop (1907-1984), another volunteer who lived locally, eventually completed.
Buck also encouraged the idea of a members' necktie, something that Lord Mountbatten had suggested at the Annual Meeting in 1964, and in March 1965 Cecil Mackay produced a circular saying that it would have 'a discreet design of trees and shields on a navy blue background', the likely cost being 15s 6d in terylene or £1-1-0 in silk, a minimum order of 400 being required. That proved impossibly optimistic and a further sixteen years passed before a tie was actually produced.
Also in 1964 Cecil Mackay thankfully persuaded the Executive Committee that several modern typewriters should be purchased (one had a 28” carriage for pedigree work) and at the same time a useful and profitable photocopying machine was acquired together with an ultra-violet lamp for reading faded manuscripts. This was not all. In view of continual problems with the Society's boiler, night-storage heaters were installed throughout the offices and library [2209]. Although not pretty, they contributed greatly to the warmth of the building (except in the evening, that is). Things were certainly improving on many fronts!
In January 1963 the Revd Godfrey R. W. Beaumont (1908-1977), then Rector of Teston in Kent, who had joined the Society in 1959 and was active in the transcription of parish registers in his area, had spoken to the Society about ‘Parish Registers and the Clergy’ and there was considerable interest in the subject at the time.
Later that year James R. Cunningham spoke on 'The genealogical work of the Latter-Day Saints' and his talk was published in the Magazine, he outlining the growth of the library in Salt Lake City and describing the Church's microfilming work [2210], some fifteen of its forty-three cameras operating outside the United States being located in the United Kingdom [2211]. At that time and early in 1964 there were discussions with the Genealogical Society of Utah about the possibility of acquiring for the Society some of the source material that they had microfilmed and agreement was reached that the GSU would provide copies of its films to the Society in exchange for the right to microfilm such of the Society's records as might be approved by the Executive Committee. The permissions of those bodies where filming had taken place would need to be obtained and the exchange would be on a reel-for-reel basis. The Society exempted parish registers from the agreement and gave due regard to questions of copyright and the views of donors where known. It had been agreed that a copy of the material filmed at the Society would also be made available, if required for deposit elsewhere, as a precaution against loss [2212]. At the AGM in June 1964 it was noted that the first instalment of the microfilms of the Bernau collection had been received and that the Latter-Day Saints were offering to give the Society a part of the microfilming that they were carrying out in other parts of the country [2213].
This was, of course, in the midst of the arguments about the Society's constitution and some members were much concerned that the extent of the microfilming might well diminish the value of the Society's library in the view of prospective members and also affect the Society's relationship with the Church of England in connection with the transcription of parish registers. John Blight, supported by six other members, attempted to oblige the Executive Committee to hold a public discussion of the matter by requisitioning an Extraordinary General Meeting of the members (Blight and I operating the Addressograph machine one evening in the library) but the Executive Committee considered the interference unjustified and the Chairman, Kingsley Adams, wrote to all the members of the Society just five days before the meeting was due to be held (on Saturday, 28 November 1964) saying that because two of the signatories had been persuaded to withdraw, the notice of the intended meeting was invalid [2214]. He had set out the Society’s intentions in detail, something he might just as well have done at the proposed meeting if there had been less ill-will on both sides. In any event a number of people came to the Society for the proposed meeting and the matter was discussed at some length. There was considerable apprehension that our relationship with the Church of England would be adversely affected by the agreement and that the uniqueness of the Society's collections, and thus its ability to attract new members, would be much diminished.
In the event Cecil Mackay told The Times that the Society had decided, to avoid controversy, that if microfilming were permitted, only secular records would be made available [2215], and that was the line that henceforward was normally taken. At the AGM the following year (15 July 1965) Douglas Gabriel again questioned the validity of the requisitioned meeting and Kingsley Adams said that its minutes would be considered when received [2216] but I do not think that any were ever prepared.
Meanwhile I had taken on the task of organising this microfilm exchange, theoretically with the assistance of a small sub-committee but in practice aided only by Robert Garrett. The Society allowed the filming of specific sections of the library, commencing with the Trinity House Petitions, in exchange, in the first place, for microfilms of the pre-1858 calendars of wills and administrations from some local courts, starting with those farthest from London. We were, of course, looking for things that would have a wide geographical coverage and interest. The positive copies of films taken at the Society were placed in the bank for safekeeping [2217]. Cecil Mackay, perhaps anxious to keep the members informed, put out a note about the exchange at the same time as appealing for transcribers of the most used films, particularly the will indexes which were proving very popular [2218], but this had little result, though May Toop, another volunteer who lived locally, was continuing Buck’s major plan to transcribe the calendars of the Winchester Court Wills [2219].
The first list of the films received, some 99 reels, appeared in the September 1965 Magazine, together with two further lists of the many films of Yorkshire parish registers received at that time, and of the films of early Virginia records given by Lewis Kirby (through Noel Currer-Briggs) [2220]. In 1968 we appealed for members with specialised knowledge of the Society's county holdings to go through the Library Catalogue from Salt Lake City, which had been given to us on microfilm, in order to suggest items that might form part of the exchange [2221]. Little came of that but Garrett and I continued to select items and in 1970 we received further local will calendars and the calendars of marriage licences issued by the Vicar General 1706-1839 and Faculty Office 1707-1845 of the Archbishop of Canterbury [2222] and in 1971 some useful mid-nineteenth century directories [2223]. In 1972, having received the highly important indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths in Scotland, 1855-1920, on 153 reels of microfilm in June [2224], we obtained 154 more containing the actual entries for the year 1855, unique and especially valuable for the amount of information then registered [2225]. Also in June we had received films of Sir William Betham's abstracts of the Prerogative Wills for Ireland and of some other Irish material. The loan of microfilms as well as books by the Society now became frequent. In 1973 we obtained, under the exchange, films of Gerish's copies of Hertfordshire monumental inscriptions (filmed in the British Library), Thorpe's Collection of Church Notes for Rochester diocese and a collection of Kentish pedigrees (from the Society of Antiquaries). A microfilm of the important Oxfordshire Marriage Index 1537-1837, initiated by Jeremy Gibson and slipped by Reginald Churchill Couzens (died 1974) [2226], was also received at this time and much used as a supplement to Boyd's Marriage Index [2227]. The slips had been sorted, typed and microfilmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah.
The availability of all this material was an enormous asset to the Society and undoubtedly helped to attract more members. In the event it had no adverse effect on our relationship with the Church of England, the exclusion of parish registers from the agreement having ensured that result.
Work on the National Index of Parish Registers had meanwhile been 'nearing completion'. The Annual Report for 1963 said that work had continued and it was hoped that it would be completed by the end of 1964 [2228]. The Report for 1964 said that the work 'has now been completed with the exception of the non-parochial registers, and the drafts of two counties are already with the printers awaiting estimates', tributes again being paid to Don Steel and his mother 'for their tremendous work' [2229].
However, in 1965 Donald Steel in yet another escalation of the initial idea of a National Index of Parish Registers began to circulate nonconformist chapels and other bodies and then to collect yet more information on marriage licences, regimental registers, pre-1837 newspapers, publishing societies, other local societies and bibliographies, for the introductions to each county. In April that year all Roman Catholic parishes were circulated for the first time, it being said that work on the Anglican registers was complete [2230]. Work on the marriage licences continued into 1966 when Steel was thinking in terms of a change of book title and I and others on the staff at the Society were driven to helping him to bring the thing to a conclusion [2231].
Only in January 1967, after the most unpleasant series of arguments within the Society, was the first group of six counties, 'South Midlands and the Welsh Border', completed and published in what was called volume five [2232]. Steel made the arrangements with the printers and saw it through the press, a cheap unjustified typeface being used which was copied in subsequent volumes. The Chairman of the Executive Committee, Charles Kingsley Adams, had applied to the Pilgrim Trust for funds with which to publish the series and the Trust had put an interest free loan of £4,000 at the Society's disposal in 1965 to cover the costs of typesetting, printing and binding. The material for the first two volumes was 'almost complete' and it was estimated that there would be ten volumes in all [2233]. I wrote a short article welcoming the arrival of this 'landmark' volume for the Magazine [2234].
Unfortunately, the situation was now further complicated by the unsatisfactory appointment of Phillimore & Co Ltd as the Society's publishers. That firm, after Malcolm Pinhorn sold out in 1966, was mainly in the ownership of Marc Fitch and had moved from Bridge Place, Canterbury, to Shopwyke Hall at Chichester in 1969, where it became much more active under the direction of Philip Harris (1930-2005) [2235] a forceful career publisher [2236] who had formerly worked for the Pergamon Press and the arrogant media tycoon Robert Maxwell (1923-1991). Later in 1969 Harris recruited the genealogist Charles Tucker to develop Phillimore’s moribund research department and the firm was appointed Publisher to the Society of Genealogists and took over the printing and distribution of the Magazine and of the Society's other publications [2237]. As is described below a period of almost total chaos ensued. Where the National Index was concerned Phillimore was unwilling to provide the capital and accept the risks of publication and the Pilgrim Trust money was made available to them through the Marc Fitch Fund which accepted the risk of Phillimore defaulting. The intention was that the loan would be repaid when sufficient revenue was available from sales. However, after a few years it became clear that in practice it represented an addition to Phillimore's capital assets for other purposes [2238]. That £4,000 loan was carried forward on the Society's books for many years but, with the heavy costs of the move to Charterhouse Buildings looming, the decision was taken in 1983 to clear the decks a little and to repay it, though the National Index was, even then, far from complete [2239].
Donald Steel had meanwhile turned his attention to the production of what the Society's committees had been persuaded would be a single 'slim' introductory volume to the whole series and late in 1966 it advertised as 'ready shortly', Volume I, containing 'about 400 pages', at £1 12s 6d [2240]. Having received the go-ahead, however, Steel had other ideas and after even more protracted arguments and unpleasantness, in which I was involved in trying to find a compromise, he came to the Publications Committee in October 1967 with a proposal to print, not 400 pages but more than 600 pages, in not one but two volumes. About 500 pages had, in fact, already been set. He said that an index would form part of the second volume and, if this were agreed, that the first volume could appear by the end of the year. Subsequent volumes, he said, would need to be re-numbered. I argued unsuccessfully that one volume would suffice and that the material that he had proposed to include on Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the overseas countries be hived off and published later with the relevant lists of registers for those areas. Steel said that it was too late but subsequent developments showed that it was nothing of the kind [2241].
Having got a measure of agreement Steel then produced, not in 1967, but in 1968 the first part of his two-volume introduction [2242]. It was extremely well reviewed as 'in reality, an entirely new textbook on genealogy' [2243] but, as Mr J. Newland rightly said at the AGM in 1969, it was the county volumes that everyone wanted [2244]. Behind the scenes the Society's Secretary, Cecil Mackay, was literally having nightmares about Steel's antics and, as I wrote to Peter Spufford about the National Index in June 1969 when working on the revision of the fifth edition of the Genealogists' Handbook, I was 'heartily sick of telling people that it is expected at a certain date only to find that it comes out five years later'. Donald Steel, of course, had other ideas and went off at a tangent, seizing on my argument about the Scottish material, to produce a quite separate volume of introductory material for Scotland (1970) which did not contain a list of the Scottish registers [2245] but which allowed him, of course, to put more nonconformist material in the second introductory volume.
Early in 1970 this tireless but extremely tiresome man, in an article on 'Genealogy and Demography', had turned his attention to the want of accurate information about nonconformist congregations, and was urging family reconstitution (about which Dr E. A. Wrigley had lectured to the Society in April 1966), from Quaker and Catholic registers [2246]. For some time he had been involved with interesting projects to teach family history in schools, something that Josephine Fletcher had urged at our AGM in 1965. In 1968 he had produced a booklet on the subject with Lawrence Taylor and in September 1970 they contributed an article to the Magazine that developed their philosophy [2247] and organised a three-day conference, 'Family History in Schools' at the Berkshire College of Education [2248] which was attended by fifty primary and secondary school teachers. Some reservations were expressed about applying the difficult and time-consuming techniques of family reconstitution to school work, but there was a great enthusiasm for the idea that children found history more relevant if approached through a study of their own ancestors [2249]. He had meanwhile, in 1969, devised a popular genealogical simulation exercise called ‘The Trout Game’ which might be used in classes or groups of 12-30 to illustrate the main genealogical sources and the problems that players would encounter in their own researches [2250].
In April-May 1971 Steel organised a residential weekend conference on family history at the University of Bristol [2251], in theory to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Society, and followed it with others in January 1972 [2252] and June 1973 [2253]. His book Family history in schools, written in conjunction with Lawrence Taylor, was also advertised in June 1973 [2254] and provides a fascinating insight into the subject at the time and of the energy with which it was being promoted. The book was ecstatically reviewed by John Fines, the Head of the History Department at Bishop Otter College, but the revolution then foretold [2255] sadly never transpired.
Only then, in 1973, did Donald Steel produce the second introductory volume for the National Index, greatly extending the material on nonconformist sources [2256]. The two volumes together contained 800 pages and even this second one, again to everyone's dismay and after considerable argument, had to be further sub-divided, and a third volume covering Roman Catholic and Jewish sources appeared in 1974 [2257]. None of the 332 pages that I had suggested be omitted from the introductory volumes in 1967 actually appeared there and the 'slim' introductory volume had, eight years later, become three volumes, together containing 1,058 pages.
The publication of Volume 5 in 1966 had itself caused problems as people had naturally meanwhile asked for the previous four volumes. Donald Steel had said in 1968 that future volumes would follow at three monthly intervals, but the sad truth is that, although he was already talking about similar volumes for Ireland and was seeking volunteers there [2258], he had lost all interest in the county sections. He had in fact resigned as General Editor of the National Index even before the third volume of the Prefaces came out, and when he spoke at the AGM in June 1974 he was still saying that volume 11 'would be the next to appear' [2259]. In reality he was now far too preoccupied feuding with the Society and the Institute at Canterbury in connection with the creation of the Federation of Family History Societies and the 1976 International Congress.
Jeremy Gibson had nominally taken over as General Editor and in June 1974 was more realistic, stressing the problems of finding reliable local sub-editors but hoping for assistance from the newly formed family history societies [2260]. In March 1975 Patrick Palgrave-Moore, with a special interest in Norfolk, agreed to co-ordinate the East Anglian volume and in June 1975 he took over as General Editor. In December that year it was reported that the texts of Northumberland and Durham were proceeding apace and that Yorkshire was complete, all thanks to the work of Charles Philip Neat (1906-1976) [2261] who had taken the three counties in hand back in 1970 [2262].
Although the report in December 1975 spoke of negotiations to transfer the work on the remaining volumes to the various local groups that again proved highly optimistic and work on the county sections was further delayed. The changes to local government boundaries in 1974 did not help. When the work was re-commenced in 1979-80 further volunteers had to re-do most of the initial surveys, practically all the notes being by then out of date and needing revision [2263]. If the whole process had been designed to alienate volunteers it could hardly have achieved more. Charles Neat wrote sadly in 1974 that the National Index seemed to be 'the Cinderella of genealogy' [2264] and died in 1976 without seeing his work in print [2265]. Donald G. Mason (died 1997, aged 55) then took over Northumberland and Durham, he editing and I typing the drafts in London, but Yorkshire remained unfinished and we decided to publish the two counties as Volume 11: Part 1. This appeared in December 1979 and sold well and when it was revised in 1984 I re-typed the whole volume into a word-processor in the evenings just to make sure that it appeared quickly.
In June 1970 when reviewing the Concise Repertory of Dutch Parish Registers, Lawson Edwards wrote that a 'concise' list 'is something of which we would gladly see an English equivalent while awaiting our own National Index' [2266] and, because of the latter's annoying delays, towards the end of 1970 the Society produced a new edition of what we called Parish Register Copies: Part One: Society of Genealogists Collection (1970), the intention being to produce a Part Two which would be arranged by county and list copies in other libraries. Taking the lists compiled by Donald Steel and his helpers and typed by Colin Field for the National Index ten years earlier, I organised this interim publication called Parish Register Copies: Part Two: Other than the Society of Genealogists Collection (1971), the work of extraction from the old lists being done by Doreen Briscoe, Joan Masters, Meg Reeves, Lawson Edwards, Robert Massey and myself. Both volumes were published for the Society by Phillimore & Co Ltd [2267]. An updated revision of Part One was published in late 1972 [2268].
Volume 1 of the National Index was slightly amended in a reprint put out by Phillimore in 1976 (at £6), when for the first time all three of the introductory volumes were available in print together. Volume 5 was also reprinted that year (also at £6), details of the main record offices only being revised [2269]. However, the services of Phillimore as publishers to the Society had meanwhile been dispensed with and a predictable and lengthy dispute then arose as to the ownership of the printed volumes [2270].
Partly in frustration that no guide existed to the complicated situation in London the Society’s member Norman Henry Graham (died 1987, aged 76) compiled and published The genealogist's consolidated guide to parish registers in the Inner London area 1538-1837 (1976, £2), followed in 1977 by a similar guide for the Outer London area (1977). His guides covered original and copy registers in the Guildhall, Greater London Record Office and at the Society, but excluded the nonconformist registers at the Public Record Office unless copies existed. All the copies and indexes made by the Genealogical Society of Utah were initially omitted but detailed in a Supplement included in reprints of the first Guide made after December 1978 and were available separately [2271].
The parishes listed in Norman Graham's badly typed volumes were curiously divided into groups according to the starting dates of their registers and sub-divided by area but there were good composite indexes of parishes and the information was extremely useful. Donald Steel chided him for not allowing his details to be included in the National Index series [2272], but that was not his intention and Graham scorned Steel's delays. That Norman Graham, 'a kind, industrious, smiling man' [2273], was encouraged by Mildred Surry, Lawson Edwards and me, was not appreciated by Steel, but the London and Middlesex section of the National Index did not appear until almost twenty years later, in 1995.
In 1963 the Genealogical Society of Utah had launched a computer-based Pedigree Referral Service (PRS) aimed at promoting research and avoiding duplication. People were invited to register details of the families on which they were working and enquirers were charged a small fee. Details were published in the Magazine [2274] but the scheme received surprisingly little support, probably being ahead of its time, and was abandoned in 1969 [2275]. The need to coordinate research remained and was later addressed, in Utah at least, through the Family Registry and Ancestral File.
In 1962 the Publications Sub-Committee had discussed the possibility of publishing a new Register of Members later that year and Steel had typically suggested that it be extended to include members of the societies in Scotland and Ireland and their interests and be called a Register of British Genealogy [2276]. Nothing happened and in July 1965 he circulated the members saying that a new register would be printed 'within the next few weeks' [2277], but of course the advertised price had then to be increased. This new Register and Directory of Members (10s 6d) actually appeared in mid-1966 and, although the Annual Report called it ‘the outstanding publication of the year’ and it contained five sections classifying the members by localities and listing their special interests and skills [2278], it did not sell at all well and was quickly reduced in price to 7s 6d [2279]. Steel had expressed the hope that the section of 'Members arranged by Localities' ... 'will encourage the formation of informal local groups of members and make the practice of exchange searches more widespread'. After two years, as the March 1968 Magazine noted, this hope seemed largely unfulfilled, though a few members were finding the lists extremely useful [2280]. The next year the price was further reduced to five shillings [2281].
In the next (June 1968) Magazine, Derek John Sawyer, of St Albans, who had joined in 1965, wrote to say that as a comparatively new member he was 'extremely disappointed to find that the practice of Exchange Searches is so infrequent' as they ought to be 'one of the principal aims of the Society'. He thought that the Magazine should show a lead in this respect, publish fewer 'recondite articles' and give more space to Readers' Queries. He suggested 'that the Committee look into the possibility of forming local groups of the Society, after the manner of the National Trust' [2282]. The National Trust, of course, had nearly half a million members, the Society had less than three thousand.
However, the letter provoked considerable correspondence and support, in particular from Fred Vincent, of Findon, near Worthing, who thought 75% of the 'recondite' articles were of 'extremely little interest to the vast majority of the members'. He had visited the library of three occasions but 'there appeared to be no member of the staff who could or would give me any assistance', he was not asked for proof of his identity, and he thought the library 'of the greatest possible value to professional researchers but of little value to the average member' [2283]. Margaret Cairns in Cape Town, however, thought the articles 'meat and drink' and wrote that the staff went out of their way to be helpful, saying that if Mr Vincent had done a little more 'homework' before attacking the library he might have found it of more value [2284]. Dr M. H. Hughes, a 'fairly new member' paid tribute to the help that he had received from other members and John Rayment (1923-1991), of Ongar, Essex, who had joined as recently as February, welcomed the suggestion of local groups [2285]. In 1969, Ronald Leonard Denyer (1925-2005), who had joined early that year, invited members to hear Colin Rogers speak about medieval records at the Manchester Genealogical Society (founded in 1964), of which he was Chairman, in October [2286]. Four years later Ronald Denyer announced that he had completed a 35-minute film in colour and sound - probably the first of its kind - on his investigations into his Denyer ancestors in Surrey, showing the various sources that he had used. He called it 'Skeletons in the Cupboard' and was glad to screen it for selected audiences [2287]. It became quite popular with local groups and he showed it to the Society of Genealogists on 12 January 1974 [2288].
In June 1970 Jeremy Gibson made a plea that genealogists, instead of suggesting setting up independent local groups, join their local historical societies and work for the formation of genealogical sub-committees through them. He pointed out that such societies are what their members make them and that their officers would welcome offers of positive help. He hoped to see some initiative from genealogists but not yet more specialised splinter groups [2289]. Leslie Collins noted the comparative lack of interest in Wales and thought that the Magazine could be used as a forum for the exchange of information helpful to Welsh genealogists [2290] and Michael Faraday doubted that people living in the same area necessarily had genealogical and archival interests in common. He thought that their interests would be centred elsewhere and he doubted the wisdom in attempting to dissipate their energies, saying that what was really needed were groups of members who were interested in particular counties or districts rather than of those who lived in them [2291].
Donald Steel, however, wrote that as genealogists were not primarily interested in the areas in which they lived they were unlikely to join the local historical societies and what was needed were local groups of interested persons. He thought that the Society was in danger of degenerating into a subscription library and called for 'the development of strong local groups [within the Society], which will organize their own meetings, develop their own esprit de corps, give beginners the help they are so often crying out for, and sponsor local transcription and indexing work'. The real future of the Society, he wrote, lay in such groups as they would campaign locally for new members by arranging local classes in genealogy. Such groups were likely to be formed in any case, two already existed, and he would much prefer them to be the supports of a strong central society [2292]. That the two that existed had no formal relationship with the Society and would have rejected any such idea was not mentioned.
The Society had, in 1969, set up a sub-committee to examine the feasibility of forming local branches, the members of which were Denis Burton (the Chairman of the Executive), Jack Bird, Donald Steel and Derek Sawyer. A questionnaire was sent out with the Magazine in December 1969 as a result of which the group recommended and the Executive Committee approved the formation of experimental groups in Hampshire, Herefordshire and Sussex. Although opinion was divided on the desirability of such groups, the Members living in these three areas were invited to possible inaugural meetings to be held in September 1970 [2293]. The matter was, however, not mentioned in the Society's Annual Reports for 1969 or 1970. Societies were eventually founded in Hampshire and Sussex in 1973 and in Herefordshire in 1980. None had any formal connection with the Society of Genealogists.
In December 1970 Eunice Wilson (died 16 January 2021) asked if there were members interested in forming a Northern Group within the Society which would meet in the Library, suggesting that other similar county groups be formed for mutual help and the avoidance of duplication [2294], and the same Magazine contained a report of a meeting of nine members at St Albans in September when it was noted that all had joined the Society in order to benefit from the library and that all wanted more information about current members' interests and about the current state of provincial record offices. They also thought that I should 'compile some kind of standardized system for the recording and storage of information' that might be used when giving material to the Society's collections. This latter group, which also suggested that the Society would benefit from a Members' Bar, did not wish to set up a permanent branch organization but would meet perhaps in a year's time [2295]. Support for the Northern Group took off and it met monthly at the Society on late-opening Thursdays, progress being made in the first year with exchanges and the listing of interests [2296]. By 1975 this group, with Malcolm Howe as secretary, was meeting monthly in the Society’s rooms and had thirty-five members, each paying £1 annually [2297].
However, many at the Society's headquarters for quite valid reasons did not welcome the suggestion that it have local groups around the country. It had, after all, only just purchased the freehold of its building and there was a £12,000 overdraft. Some years would elapse before all the loans were paid and the Society was on a reasonably sound financial footing. The salaries of the library and office staff were shockingly low and they were under great pressure from the daily piles of letters received in the office. The thought of the correspondence, work and cost involved in setting up a network of local societies from such a relatively small membership, the modifications that would be needed to the Society's constitution, and the duplication of effort that would inevitably arise, all caused great unease whenever the idea was discussed. However, the Society consistently gave publicity to the new groups and the Chairman of the Publications Committee made it known that the Editor of the Magazine would welcome further news of 'the activities of other genealogical societies in the British Isles, especially those in provincial cities such as Birmingham and Manchester sponsored by Society members' [2298].
To those new members who knew little or nothing of the situation or of what had gone before, the foundation of local groups may have seemed an obvious development, but the sad truth is that the majority of genealogists then as now are basically interested in their own families and not in much else, and the bodies of individualists that came into being in the 1970s showed almost no inclination to work with other historical societies in their areas and even less inclination to work with other genealogical societies through the fragile Federation which was created in 1974. The history of the Federation for the next thirty years was one of appeasement to its members, no firm lead being given in anything for fear of offending someone somewhere. By then, however, the Society's initially lukewarm, and sometimes quite hostile, attitude resulted in the groups being formed independently and without any formal relationship to the Society, something that at the time, however much one regretted it, largely because of the personalities involved, was almost inevitable.
In September 1968 Charles J. L. Elwell wrote to the Magazine suggesting that someone should compile a volume of 'genealogies of genius' that would develop information about the descendants of famous people in the past [2200], and at the same time the Editor said that she hoped to publish a series of short genealogies of leading political and world figures and appealed for contributions [2201] but nothing was forthcoming.
However, in the 1970s it began to be said in America that the way to have your pedigree traced without charge was to 'run for office'; in the United Kingdom it had for some time been to marry into the Royal Family. Perhaps the pedigree of Antony Armstrong-Jones created most interest and various articles about his ancestry appeared in the press and elsewhere, several written by Patrick Montague-Smith, the assistant at Debrett’s Peerage, who sat up until 4 in the morning when the engagement to Princess Margaret was announced and worked for sixteen days on Armstrong-Jones’s ancestral links with the Queen Mother and his future wife, two articles making a feature in the Daily Mail [2301]. That the ancestry was not entirely Welsh was amply demonstrated by Gillie Potter, writing as ‘A genealogical correspondent’, on the Stagg family in the Daily Telegraph [2302].
The foundation of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure was noted in the Magazine in 1965. With a grant from the Gulbenkian Foundation, Dr Peter Laslett at Trinity College and Dr E. A. Wrigley at Peterhouse, who both joined the Society that year, were enabled to put in hand a ground-breaking study of the history of population and social structure in England from the mid-sixteenth century to the early nineteenth century [2303]. Their work, which made extensive use of parish registers, was of considerable interest to genealogists. They initially appealed for volunteers to analyse the numbers of entries in the registers and later to attempt family reconstitution from them. Many members of the Society were involved, a good example being Hartley Thwaite who for several years at the end of his life worked on the large parish of Birstall in Yorkshire, an important Dissenting stronghold with five chapelries and four townships. Having transcribed the 110,000 entries in the parish registers for publication, Thwaite set about a family reconstitution project for the period 1600-1800, producing some 8,000 family group sheets [2304].
Many questions about the size and structure of families in the past were posed in Laslett's most accessible The world we have lost (1965) which was immediately followed by Wrigley's An introduction to English historical demography (1966). Steel called the latter 'essential reading for all genealogists interested in the historical implications of their work' [2305]. One wonders what proportion that would have been then or, of course, today.
Members of the Cambridge Group were from the time of its foundation concerned not only with access to parish registers but with access to the closed records of civil registration, drawing attention to the ‘ridiculous situation that Cabinet and Foreign Office papers are opened to historians after 30 years, but births, marriages and deaths never’ and saying that Family Reconstitution was largely forced to come to a halt just about the time the urban Englishman out-numbered his rural forebears because of the intransigence of the Registrar General [2306]. Members of the Cambridge Group proved to be amongst the genealogists’ strongest allies in their campaign for access to his records.
The most important publication of the Group came later with E. A. Wrigley and Roger Schofield, The population history of England, 1541-1871: a reconstruction (1981) the conclusions of which were reflected and examined in Laslett's The world we have lost: further explored (1983). The results of the very considerable work of family reconstitution that had taken place were then summarised in E. A. Wrigley, R. S. Davies, J. E. Oeppen and R. S. Schofield’s English Population History from Family Reconstitution 1580-1837 (1997). Few genealogists will have read the latter work but the more committed may have been following developments through the quarterly journal Local Population Studies which had been founded in 1968.
As we have seen the Society began in 1966 to publish a revision of the National Index of Parish Registers in many volumes and the question whether the Executive Committee was doing everything possible to urge the deposit of parochial records in county record offices was raised by Alexander Sandison at the AGM in June that year [2307]. By now every English county but two had a proper record office [2308], the majority created in the last fifteen years.
In 1967 R. E. Vine described, probably for the first time in England, the possibilities of indexing and printing parish registers by computer, and looked forward to a time when a register might be read aloud into a computer thus 'reducing enormously the chance of error' [2309], a somewhat debateable statement! An impractical idea to transcribe parish registers by reading them into tape-recorders was put forward in the Magazine by N. H. Mackinder in 1971 and discussed by Steel, who thought that it might appeal to girls who were taught audio-typing at school, but it seems likely that neither had more than a superficial experience of such a scheme [2310]. Much work was fortunately being done using traditional methods and in 1969 the Society's Honorary Treasurer, Arthur Noble, an indefatigable indexer of registers using paper slips, had appealed for transcribers of registers to index their work as they went along [2311]. Looking back it is interesting that R. F. Hunnisett, then an Assistant Keeper at the Public Record Office and an expert on indexing, should in 1972 have taken the view that it was ‘not yet clear what part, if any, the computer can usefully play in this field’ but he thought that the ideals to aim for when indexing would remain the same [2312].
In 1969 Francis Leeson noticed that an original parish register from West Heslerton in Yorkshire for the years 1561-1701 was being offered for sale in the American quarterly, The Genealogical Helper, it having apparently been taken to America during the War. Leeson wrote to the incumbent who said that he already had a copy (!) but got more sense from Norah Gurney (died 1974, aged 52) the Archivist at the Borthwick Institute who took up the matter with the Archbishop of York and his Chancellor. The original register was eventually bought back at a cost of £165 but the story greatly helped to highlight the problem of the security and preservation of these ancient documents [2313].
Mrs Gurney, like other archivists at this time, was becoming increasingly concerned about the deterioration in the condition of the bishops’ transcripts in her care. In 1972 they formed the only class of document in the Borthwick Institute that was used over and over again, often by the same searchers, and she believed that this constant handling had to be reduced if the records were to survive for the future. Search fees had recently been introduced and the receipts used to pay for extra help in the flattening, sorting and boxing of the transcripts and for the parchment needed in their repair. She had approached the Genealogical Society of Utah which had agreed to microfilm the collection when sorted, but with 760 parishes and chapelries in the diocese of York, something approaching 150,000 documents was involved. Microfilms were easy to store and relatively cheap to make and to take copies from but she intended to experiment with Xerox copies of the transcripts for one parish, though concerned at the time and cost involved, in the hope that libraries and institutions might buy copies of all or some parishes [2314]. It was a problem that only the filming of the records was eventually to solve.
In October 1969 Donald Steel drafted a lengthy (eight pages foolscap) memorandum for the Parish Register Committee which was intended for circulation to county and diocesan archivists throughout the country urging the compulsory deposit of all pre-1837 parochial documents at the appropriate diocesan record office and free access for bona fide historical researchers [2315]. The reaction was generally quite unenthusiastic, the majority of archivists being against any form of compulsion. His draft letter had also mentioned the possible deposit in their offices of the pre-1900 Local Registrar’s copies of birth, marriage and death certificates and their accessibility without fee, something that Dr Emmison thought would be welcomed by some archivists [2316], but even Steel had begun to realise that this (and the number of genealogists that would descend on their offices) was unlikely to be welcomed by the majority of archivists and the Executive Committee wisely thought this highly sensitive point best not included.
In 1970 the Librarian, Lawson Edwards, drew attention to a transcript of all the Wesleyan, Primitive Methodist and Lady Huntingdon's Connection registers for Herefordshire which Michael Faraday had given to the Library, urging members to transcribe other nonconformist registers in the collection at the General Register Office. He himself was contemplating the transcription of the sixty-four for Cornwall [2317].
An interesting point was made in an editorial in the March 1973 Magazine that 'the thought must sometimes cross the minds of genealogists busy transcribing or indexing parish registers or other records that the work they are doing might well be done again in the future, many times as quickly and possibly even a lot more accurately, by a computer. A sense of futility may thus be engendered'. The editors went on to say that there was no need for any work done by hand to be discarded provided it was presented in a manner that facilitated computerisation in due course, and the Parish Register Committee had recently laid down standard formats, some of which were set out in the editorial [2318]. The Committee had not been quite so clear in its intentions and the editors were forced to quickly back-track and to say that 'insofar as any standard is recommended at present, members are referred to Appendix I, Chapter 6, of the National Index, volume 1' [2319].
The 1965 Magazine article 'Genealogy and Biography' which stressed the importance to biographers of knowledge of the sources used by genealogists, showed the interests of Gerald Hamilton-Edwards [2320] and the following year his major book, In search of ancestry (1966), was published by Michael Joseph and very well received in spite of Steel's lengthy but lukewarm review in the Magazine [2321]. However, his initial sales were disappointing [2322] and in 1968 the book was put in the National Book Sale but it eventually went through four editions with another, not altogether satisfactory, for the American market [2323].
In 1968 he produced in conjunction with the artist Joan Harris a most amusing and whimsical board game, 'Snakes and Ladders to Genealogical Success' [2324] and in 1972 he broke new ground with his In search of Scottish ancestry. This was warmly reviewed by Donald Whyte (1926-2010) as 'brim-full of information', organised with skill and grace [2325], and he subsequently produced In search of Army ancestry (1977) which was also the first book in that field. However, his In search of Welsh ancestry (1985) lacked the personal experience of his other books and was damned in Wales in what the Daily Telegraph later called 'the acrimoniously hypercritical world of genealogy'. His projected work on naval ancestry unfortunately never appeared. He had moved to Oxford in the early 1960s where he took a great interest in university life and where he died in 1987. His engagingly readable series of books had done much to popularise family history.
An article of some importance that appeared in 1965, based on a lecture given in February, was that by Robert Garrett on 'Chancery and other Proceedings' [2326], but it was too early to point out the value of the Bernau Index until revised and published separately in 1968 [2327]. In March 1969 Lieut.-Commander M. Godfrey contributed an important article on military records to the Magazine [2328]. Other standard articles about that time were two by Reedham Frederick Monger (1913-1971), an Assistant Keeper at the PRO, on the records of emigrants and immigrants in the Public Records [2329].
The March 1965 Magazine reported the receipt of the collections of Charles Hall Crouch with its extraordinary number of pages from Family Bibles bought over the years in the street market in Farringdon Road, together with copies of monumental inscriptions and other material which he had collected [2330]. Also reported in that Magazine was the receipt, via the professional Mrs Violet Heddon, of the manuscripts of William Arthur Caffall (1883-1964) who had worked for many years at the College of Arms. The following year the Society received a valuable collection of books on Cornwall bequeathed by John Percival Rogers (1897-1966) [2331], formerly the Town Clerk of Helston, together with his fine manuscript Cornish pedigrees in seven volumes which caused considerable interest [2332].
In 1967 we published details of the marriage index for Sussex which Francis Leeson had commenced to compile as a supplement to Boyd's Marriage Index [2333] and in 1969 did the same for Michael Burchall's projected Surrey Marriage Index [2334] and A. J. Farrington's projected index of births, marriages and deaths in India, 1698-1947 [2335], though the latter never really got off the ground.
John Sims, who was the first librarian to have an Assistant, sadly left the Library to take up a post as Humanities’ Bibliographer in the Library at Michigan State University in August 1965 taking with him his Assistant, Heather Pollard, whom he had married that month [2336]. As the Annual Report said his departure was ‘much to the regret of members and staff’ [2337]. He was succeeded by Wyn Kelson Ford (1927-1998), FRHistS, and at the same time Miss Beryl M. Marsh (1926-1989), who had come to the Society as a Receptionist in 1959 and who knew the library and many members very well, was appointed Assistant Librarian [2338]. Wyn Ford had a hard act to follow and although knowledgeable in local history matters, he was a very slow man and often out of his depth. As editor of the Magazine [2339] he introduced useful lists of the major articles seen in other periodicals [2340] but he and the Society parted company just a year later and we had not benefited from his stay. John Sims’s plan to produce a new Catalogue of Family Histories, for which he had prepared material as far as the initial ‘J’, unfortunately as a result made no further progress.
George Sherwood's widow, May, who had begun to work regularly at the Society in March 1958, continued to travel up from Brockley and to tend the Document Collection and be relief-receptionist until 1966, when she decided to retire and move to Woodsford Castle, Dorchester, to live with one of her sons [2341]. She died there after a short illness on 26 September 1975, aged 83. She was a very dear lady and had been absolutely devoted to 'the Society' and, as her obituary by Cecil Mackay says, took a warm and friendly interest in everyone with whom she came in contact, having a genuine desire to help others. Her lively nature and robust sense of humour had made her a most enjoyable companion at all times [2342].
May Sherwood had been particularly anxious that her late husband's collection of manuscripts and indexes should pass to the Society but she had been left with very few resources and Cregoe Nicholson advised her to attempt to sell the papers, the Society in any case not really having sufficient space to house them. She did not care for the idea but eventually was persuaded to sell them to the Genealogical Society of Utah. Nicholson also tried to thwart her attempt to present a large bookcase to the Society in George's memory by inventing a rule that the Society did not accept gifts from members of staff, so one of her sons gave it instead. The six and a half tons of George’s collection were shipped to Salt Lake City where in the years 1966-68 it was carefully catalogued as 'The Sherwood Research Collection' and microfilmed on some 500 reels. The index, on two-by-one inch slips (to save paper),was found to contain two million entries. His notebooks were written on the right-hand page first and then the left-hand page, backwards through the books [2343]. Just before leaving the Society in 1997 I heard that, after microfilming, the collection had been disposed of by the GSU. It had passed on the death of a member, Dr Louis Marks, to the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania in 1993 and now that Society, because of the collection's size, was seeking an alternative home [2344].
Another considerable break with the past came with the death of Cregoe Nicholson in the West Middlesex Hospital on 19 April 1968, aged 82. He had continued to visit the Society almost daily until a few months of his death, dying much 'in harness' as he would have wished [2345]. Jack Bird wrote a heartfelt obituary at the death of an old friend, outlining his many services to the Society and his involvement in other organisations, but saying that to him genealogy and the Society always came first. He spoke of his steadfastness, 'that looked like obstinacy' and his helpfulness and inspiration to others, particularly to new young members, qualities that no one could deny. Sadly, however, I remember him, not for his great assistance, generosity and kindly attachment to me, but as the scheming 'Nicolaeivitch' who had made life so difficult for so many others but who undoubtedly also had the best interests of the Society at heart.
At the AGM in the Great Hall of Westminster School on 14 June 1966 Lord Mountbatten mentioned the Mountbatten Library Fund which had been generously sponsored by John J. Bowater and had reached £270. Bowater had at the same time presented the Society with a large framed portrait of the President by Karsh of Ottawa which now replaced that of Queen Mary over the fireplace in the Members' Room. Lord Mountbatten had himself contributed to the Library Fund and it eventually raised £470. After the meeting Mountbatten gave a memorable talk about the Arms of Henry I of Hesse and of Conrad of Thuringia, reproductions of which he had brought with him, the originals of which in Marburg Museum dated from about 1220 and 1292 and were reputed to be the earliest surviving examples of actual shields [2346]. At the end of the talk the members crowded forward to see a reliquary containing a fragment of the wedding dress of his ancestress St Elisabeth of Hungary who had died in 1234 and was canonised for her charitable acts towards her husband’s harshly treated subjects. Lord Mountbatten told the story of how on one occasion in deepest winter, to save her from her husband’s wrath, on being ordered by him to reveal what she was carrying out of the castle in her apron, that God had answered her prayer and changed the bread to roses.
It was about this time that Mountbatten also encouraged the interest of his son-in-law, the well-known interior decorator and designer David Nightingale Hicks (1929-1998), in his pedigree and we carried out some work on his Nightingale ancestry the results of which I remember taking to his house in St Leonard’s Terrace. A few years later (in 1969) Mountbatten brought the Society to the notice of millions when he mentioned his Presidency and interest in genealogy in the peak time and immensely popular twelve-hour television series The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten which was, as Philip Ziegler later wrote, not only skilfully written and made, but contained ‘a rich harvest of fascinating historical photographs and film’, whilst also being consistently entertaining [2347].
Following May Sherwood's retirement, the Society had in September 1966 advertised the post of Documents Arranger or Archivist, suggesting that the applicant might work two or three days a week, 'hours and salary by arrangement', and Geoffrey Savile Yates, MA (1922-2000) [2348], formerly Assistant Government Archivist in Jamaica, was appointed in November. It is no coincidence that his friend Philip Wright's lecture on 'Materials for family history in Jamaica' had been given in February and was published in the same Magazine as the advertisement [2349] and that the Society published at that time, with the assistance of grants from the Marc Fitch Fund and the Jamaica National Trust, Philip Wright's important Monumental Inscriptions of Jamaica (1966) [2350], the stock of which was exhausted only late in 1982 [2351]. However, after only a year Geoffrey Yates resigned in the autumn of 1967 to take up professional genealogical work and the document collection then became for the next thirty years the responsibility of one of the Library Assistants [2352].
In October 1966 the enthusiastic Peter John Simmonds Trigwell (1938-2017) had been appointed Librarian in succession to Wyn Ford [2353]. Peter Trigwell was a trained librarian and had worked as a professional genealogist, having been a member for five years, and the Annual Report expressed the hope that his considerable experience ‘should render his services of exceptional value to all members and to others using the library’ [2354]. There was much to be done as the Society had been without a librarian for three months that year.
At the AGM in June 1967 the problem of finding suitable bookbinders was mentioned, there being an immense backlog [2355]. As a result the Mountbatten Library Fund containing £482 was transferred to Library expenditure [2356] and the following year Marc Fitch gave £500 to help with the binding costs [2357]. Together the two funds were quickly used to make considerable inroads into the backlog of unbound parish register transcripts [2358]. On 19 July, David Ensign Gardner visited the Library with sixty students from Brigham Young University in Utah and I spoke to them about the Society's collections and with the library staff put on a little exhibition, Alan Rolfe helping with their many questions [2359]. That year we were able to add sixty-seven feet of shelving to Room Farrer and to make space for 544 reels of microfilm in a cupboard, originally used for billiard cues, on the backstairs [2360].
However, Beryl Marsh, the Assistant Librarian since 1965, had unfortunately left in March 1967 [2361]. Her successor, Cherry Stephenson, who had earlier been the receptionist, succeeded Beryl as Assistant Librarian and was placed in charge of the document collection. She married Peter Trigwell in the spring of 1968 but he was plagued with ill-health and was frequently absent and his employment was sadly terminated in May 1968, she not surprisingly leaving at the same time. With all the changes of staff involved it had been a most difficult few years.
At the AGM in 1966 Alexander Sandison said that he wanted to bring to the attention of the Executive Committee the Registrar General's Department, the state of its records and the attitude of the staff, all of which contrasted most unfavourably with the similar department in Scotland. English records were woefully inadequate in comparison with those of Scotland, Australia and New Zealand, and the simplest questions could not be answered without the payment of a full certificate fee, despite the fact that many of the records were more than a hundred years old and should be available to the public without charge.
At the request of Lord Mountbatten I said then that the Society had been approached by the Registrar General and asked for its observations on the points raised by Mr Sandison, particularly in regard to a change in the form of certificate and the freeing of the earlier records. A long and detailed report had been submitted that also contained a plea for better working conditions in the search room and improvements to the dreadful indexes [2362]. Lord Mountbatten undertook to raise the matter at the highest level and asked that members send specific complaints to the Society for inclusion in the report [2363]. In September 1967, the Registrar General having said that it might be possible to put some of the Society's suggestions into effect a summary of my report was published in the Magazine. I proposed a linking system of birth, marriage and death registration, considered the major desiderata genealogica by Anthony Wagner [2364], improvements to the indexes, the release to the public of the records prior to 1866 (when the printed indexes commenced and ages first appeared in the death indexes), and urgent improvements to the overcrowded and badly ventilated search galleries at Somerset House [2365]. A letter from George Draffen in the next issue of the Magazine said that the article showed the quite striking contrast between the two Government Departments in Scotland and England [2366].
In November 1967 some further recommendations were made to the Registrar General's Committee reviewing the registration and marriage laws [2367] and in 1968 we were particularly glad to note that some of our recommendations on the registration of births, marriages and deaths, had been embodied in the Family Law Reform Bill and the Registration Regulations announced at the end of the year [2368]. The indexes were also now made available without charge but the cost of certified copies was greatly increased.
.Meanwhile Donald Steel had written to The Times pointing out the anomalies mentioned by the Cambridge Group that other classes of historians could consult the country’s most secret records up to 1938 but that demographers suffered under a hundred and thirty year rule inflexibly observed. He had recently applied to the Superintendent Registrar at Reading on behalf of one of his students engaged on a study of Victorian naming customs and the matter having been referred to the Registrar General, but the latter had ruled that ‘an exception cannot be made in this case’ [2369]. Steel took up the matter through his Member of Parliament, William van Straubenzee (1924-1999), who wrote to the Prime Minister and subsequently to Julian Snow, Minister of Health, the Minister responsible. The latter had replied on 3 April 1968 to say that the Registrar General ‘was not unsympathetic to the difficulties experienced by research workers and others who have an interest in these records and was considering what steps could be taken to allow public access to them on an extra-statutory basis’. Some registers having been deposited in county record offices, he was also considering how far that practice could be extended. He was about to start microfilming the registers and he was exploring alternative ways in which he might be able to provide facilities for researchers in conjunction with this programme. The deceitful insincerity of these hollow promises echoes down the decades [2370].
On 19 July 1971 I went with Denis Burton, Alan Rolfe and Alexander Sandison to see the Assistant Secretary to the Registrar General about the conditions in the public search room and discussed the overcrowding of the galleries, the poor ventilation and the deteriorating condition of the indexes. We also brought up the recent statement [2371] of the Secretary of State for Social Services, Sir Keith Joseph that information would no longer be provided from census returns less than one hundred years old because of the public concern expressed earlier in the year about the confidentiality of the information provided to the 1971 Census. Information would now only be given in cases of extreme hardship, such as the need to establish entitlement to a legacy [2372]. Sir Anthony Wagner took up the matter, suggesting that age and place of birth should be supplied to bona fide enquirers from censuses up to 1901 [2373].
The high cost of postal searches at the Public Record Office and the provision of copies from the older census entries (£5 per household per address) became the subject of a further protest in 1972 [2374] when Daphne Pipe wrote frankly on the Record Office's behalf to say that the charges were meant to be prohibitive and were in fact an uneasy compromise between doing no searching and providing some sort of service for people who could not get to London [2375]. Only a few local record offices and libraries had at that time bought microfilms of the censuses for their areas and the publication in 1973 by the West Midland Public Libraries of a list of the copies available locally was the first of its kind [2376]. At that time a name, street and occupation index for Birmingham was in progress but within a few years the newly created local family history societies with few exceptions would be vying with each other to index all their local returns, particularly those for 1851.
From 1 October 1972 the cost of certificates, increased only recently, was almost doubled from eight to fifteen shillings [2377] and when the increase was announced there was a rush by members, as an editorial in the Magazine put it, 'to fill the principal lacunae in their 19th century pedigrees by tracing and drawing certificates before the task became prohibitively expensive' [2378]. In November, following the representations made earlier, the Registrar General agreed to release from the 1881, 1891 and 1901 census returns, the age and place of birth of named persons, provided that their written consent or that of their direct descendants was produced [2379]. The fee would be based on the time involved, with £2 a minimum [2380].
Meanwhile the publication of Sir Henry Hardman’s Report, The Dispersal of Government Work from London (1972; Command 5322), accepted by the Government, had recommended that the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys be dispersed to Central Lancashire New Town, ‘reasonably near to Southport’, but that up to a hundred posts and the search room of the General Register Office should be retained in central London. Indeed, the professional record searcher, Lord Teviot, obtained an assurance from the Government Minister, Lord Sandford, on 13 September 1972 that London would be its permanent home. This was the first appearance of Charles (Kerr), 2nd Lord Teviot, who was destined to play an active part in genealogical matters for many years. Lord Teviot had succeeded his father in 1968 and had a varied career before embarking on genealogical research with his wife Mary (nee Harris) and working professionally from 1969. He was appointed to the Advisory Council on Public Records in 1974 and elected a Fellow of the Society in 1975.
There had for some time been a growing lobby to have the civil servants removed from Somerset House and in November 1971 Simon Jenkins and the Evening Standard launched a major campaign to have at least the Inland Revenue expelled, to grass over the courtyard and to use the building as a National Gallery of British Art [2381]. Many of the rooms, however, as The Times had already pointed out, were purpose built as offices and quite unsuitable for gallery use. The Registrar General indeed was making good use of the basement with its nine miles of shelving [2382].
Many years of uncertainty and much discussion followed as to the future use of the building [2383] but meanwhile late in 1973 it was announced that the General Register Office was to move across the Strand from Somerset House to a modern office building, St Catherine's House, at the junction of Kingsway and the Aldwych, and that the public search rooms for births, marriages and deaths would all be sited on the ground floor there, promising vastly improved conditions for users [2384]. The indexes of births, marriages and deaths from 1837 and of adoptions from 1926 were opened to the public here on 2 January 1974. Those to the Miscellaneous Returns remained for some time at Somerset House but were eventually also transferred, initially only being seen on application.
The new search rooms were open at the same hours as previously (i.e. from 9.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m., Mondays to Fridays, and from 9.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. on Saturdays), but the Saturday opening was discontinued from 1 July when the rooms opened at 8.30 a.m. instead of 9.30 a.m. during the week, a change that suited some professionals but was by no means universally popular [2385]. This Saturday closing was a serious inconvenience to many genealogists who were also concerned at the crowded and quite unventilated conditions found in the new search rooms. The latter were highlighted in a report under the heading ‘Concern over picnickers at new “Somerset House”’ in The Daily Telegraph on 8 July 1974 and followed the publication on 4 July of a letter from the authoress and playwright, Lady Clanmorris (died 1988), which was strengthened by another from John Barrett on 10 July.
In October the Society decided to take up various points with the Registrar General and after preliminary correspondence I went with Alan Rolfe, Alexander Sandison and Donald Steel to St Catharine’s House on 23 October, meeting the Deputy Registrar General, Frank A. Rooke-Matthews, with T. B. West and Mr Williams. Although Rooke-Matthews lectured on his records he had little knowledge of the practical needs of genealogists and had earlier told an enraged Alan Rolfe that the centralised indexes were unnecessary as everything could be done by correspondence with local registrars (though in retirement he was himself often seen searching the centralised indexes for which he had formerly been responsible). I wrote after the meeting to confirm our points about the ventilation and the use of sloping desks instead of tables, and at the same time emphasised that much more urgent attention needed to be given to the transfer of the older records to public repositories. We had been assured that they were working towards such a transference and that they would be discussing with us the cut-off date to be adopted. We were also assured that early consideration would be given to the transfer of the Miscellaneous Returns prior to 1837 and of the records of graves and tombstones and we noted the hopeful sign that some of the older records of District Registrars had already been transferred to county record offices [2386].
However, our deputation was told that the adoption records and postal enquiries for certificates prior to 1865 were already being dealt with at Southport and that, in spite of the Hardman Report, the Registrar General now considered that for the proper functioning of his office it was impossible for the public search room to be separated from the other offices and that consequently the indexes would eventually also be moved to Southport. In that event, we said, it was absolutely imperative that a duplicate set of the indexes, other than on microfilm, should be made available in London.
The intended closure of the search rooms met with a heated response not only from the Society and from professionals in the London area, but also from genealogists worldwide. In view of the assurances he had received in 1972, Lord Teviot wrote to The Times and on 28 November asked in the House of Lords about the Government’s intentions, and was told that the Registrar General was working out which sections of his office would be transferred. The Minister, Lord Wells-Pestell, also said that he was in discussion with the Society of Genealogists and the Law Society and that he intended to speak to other interested parties [2387]. Lord Teviot again raised the ‘essential need’ to keep the search room in London in a further question in the House on 16 December 1974 and was warmly supported by Lord Platt, Baroness Young and Lord Mowbray and Stourton [2388].
Regular users of the search room, however, believed that the decision to transfer everything to Southport had already been taken and as the discussions which were said to be taking place did not involve any organisation with which the Society was in contact, we invited representatives from some thirty-four likely bodies to a meeting at the Society on 13 January 1975. At the same time members of the Executive Committee wrote to Members of both Houses of Parliament to enlist their support and a note in the December 1974 Magazine requested members of the Society to take similar action [2389]. Miss Jan K. Reid had meanwhile provided information to Michael Moynihan for an article in the Sunday Times (8 December) and a letter from Erik Chitty was published in the Daily Telegraph (2 December).
Fourteen people came to the meeting which was chaired by Alexander Sandison. I gave a report and it was agreed to write a joint letter to The Times stressing the wide interests of the many users of the indexes. This I subsequently drafted [2390] and on the understanding that The Times would print an unspecified number of signatures I collected an extremely impressive list from nearly thirty organisations [2391]. Publication was, however, delayed until 1 February and then on the condition that the list of signatories be reduced to six. Those representing the Salvation Army, the Royal Historical Society, the Society of Antiquaries, the College of Arms, the Workers’ Educational Association and the Society of Genealogists were selected. However, the full list was sent to the Registrar General with a copy of the letter on 31 January 1975 and meanwhile I had handed it in at a deputation to the Ministry of Health and Social Security (the Minister responsible for the GRO) on 22 January.
The deputation had been organised by Lord Teviot who as early as 8 December had written to the Minister, Mrs Barbara Castle, asking her to receive representative users. In her reply on 11 January she said that her colleague Lord Wells-Pestell would be willing to receive a group but that it should be made clear that ‘the Registrar General and I accept that inconvenience, possibly serious inconvenience, will be caused to genealogists and similar regular users of the records … what we have to decide is whether the inconveniences and loss of efficiency which might be caused by the removal of this work is more or less acceptable than that which would be caused by removal of other parts of the work of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys’.
In view of these comments the delegation which I joined at Alexander Fleming House on 22 January was not hopeful but we made a good show, the other members being Rodney Dennys from the College of Arms (who stressed the numbers of overseas visitors who used the records; about half the 5,000 enquiries each year needing searches in the indexes), Anthony Johnson from the Holborn Law Society (with 900 solicitors in the Borough who acted as agents for country solicitors where exact facts were not known), Brigadier George Gretton from the Missing Persons Bureau of the Salvation Army (undertaking about 4,000 searches a year, about 75% of which needed access to the indexes) and Richard Wall from the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure (with a staff of ten engaged full-time on the work). Lord Teviot introduced the subject and we each spoke about our work and the ways in which the records interlocked with others in the Probate Registry and at the Land Registry building. Richard Wall stressed also the need for the transfer of the older records and I described the multifarious ways in which genealogists, both amateur and professional, aided other research, none of which could be done by correspondence. Lord Teviot described the importance of having the indexes in London from the point of view of the ordinary public, many of whom found it difficult to express their needs in letters and who very often had complicated and difficult problems to unravel. He also questioned the scope of the consultations which had taken place, the Metropolitan Police not having been approached. Lord Wells-Pestell, the Government spokesman in the Lords, was assisted by Rooke-Matthews from the GRO and Alec Jones, Joint Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State. A short report on the deputation appeared in The Times for 23 January. A few days later Cranley Onslow, MP, asked for a statement in the Commons but was told that the various representations were being considered.
On the day that this announcement was made (27 January 1975) a further meeting of representatives took place at the SoG when the need for additional press coverage was emphasised. As a result a long report, based on information from Anthony Johnson, appeared in the Daily Telegraph [2392] and another, based on my information, appeared under the headline ‘Row builds up to keep records in capital’, in early editions of the Evening Standard. Whilst word spread the Society was making approaches to numerous further bodies and individuals, several of which took active steps to support us, including the British Tourist Authority, the Cultural Attaché at the American Embassy, the Genealogical Society of Utah, the Law Society and the Company Search Department at Barclays Bank (which put us in touch with the Committee of London Clearing Bankers). Many individual members also made representations, including the officers of several local family history societies and of the Catholic Record Society and Huguenot Society. Garter King of Arms, Sir Anthony Wagner, and our President, Lord Mountbatten, both wrote forceful and detailed letters.
All this activity was rewarded on 18 February 1975 when Lord Wells-Pestell announced in the Lords that the Government had yielded to the many protests received and that the public search room would remain at St Catherine’s House. He added, ‘the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, deserves a great deal of credit for this situation because of his persistence which we have experienced over nearly the last twelve months. …we have been much assisted by him and his friends in reaching this decision’ [2393]. The Society’s appreciation of Teviot’s work was expressed in a resolution of the Executive Committee that evening and later conveyed to him by the Chairman. The Editor of the Magazine then expressed the hope that renewed efforts would be made at St Catherine’s House to provide more congenial working conditions, particularly with regard to the overcrowding in some parts of the rooms [2394].
The move to have the Registrar General’s older records transferred to public repositories had meanwhile received impetus by a further meeting at the General Register Office on 14 January when four of his staff met representatives of the British Records Association, the Society of Archivists, the Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Open University, the Cambridge Group and the Social Science Research Council. In a note of this meeting written by the Deputy Registrar General on 24 January he said that they had discussed ‘the possibility of depositing the older central records with the Public Record Office. The immediate hurdle is the provisions of the Public Records Act 1958 which at present specifically excludes the records of births, marriages and deaths from being classed as public records. I have now written to the Keeper of Public Records to see whether he is prepared to receive the older records and to propose amendment of the Public Records Act to make this possible. In our references to the older records we have in mind those more than 100 years old but the precise cut-off point will need further discussion’.
In my account of the campaign that appeared in the Magazine for June 1975 [2395] I was able to say that in reply to this letter the Record Keeper had indicated his willingness to consider accepting responsibility for the older registers and indexes when the new Record Office building at Kew was ready at the end of 1976. Transfer of the custody of the registers to the PRO and provision for them to be subject to normal PRO procedures would, he said, require amending legislation. He recognised that this would take time but both the GRO and the PRO were studying the issues involved and they hoped soon to have discussions with their legal advisers. The Society watched developments closely. Unfortunately, now more than forty years later, we can say that this was the first of several occasions on which the GRO seemed about to make history instead of hindering the writing of it, only later to do nothing.
At the AGM in June 1975 the Chairman, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, said that he felt the Society could congratulate itself on the part it had played in supporting Lord Teviot and paid me a warm tribute for having 'master-minded the campaign with tremendous zeal and skill’ [2396]. It was a generous comment in what had been a difficult period and I was particularly annoyed when a few years later an ill-informed Colin Rogers wrote that our campaign had been to 'prevent the Registrar-General moving the national indexes to the provinces' [2397]. There was never any suggestion that the indexes would be available to public search at Southport or anywhere else in the provinces and it was quite wrong of him to give that impression. As the Chairman said at that AGM the closer relations built up with other bodies during this campaign was by no means without importance for the future. Afterwards the small Ad Hoc Committee chaired by Alexander Sandison did excellent work in keeping that collaboration alive, the committee later developing into the Record Users Group.
In an article in the Magazine in September 1975 Eva Beech of Stoke-on-Trent once more argued for much longer opening hours at St Catherine's House and suggested that microfilms of the indexes be made available at all the District Register Offices and charged for at £3 for up to six hours, the rate charged to search the local indexes, and that, in addition, microfilms of the census returns should be available on loan to local libraries and record offices from the Public Record Office [2398]. However, as from 1 October 1975 the fee for full certificates of birth, marriage and death, which had been increased from 40p to 75p in 1972, was now increased to £2.50 to personal searchers or £4.50 by post. The fee for 'checking' entries against known details was restored at £1.25 a time. A note in the Magazine considered the increase punitive and probably designed to reduce the demand [2399]. In 1976 the Magazine published a letter from the Registrar General defending the general search fee of £3 at local offices and explaining how this had come about as a deterrent in 1968 [2400]. As from 1 January 1978 the fee for postal applications was increased from £4.50 to £6, the fee for personal applications remaining unchanged, though checks against known information were now to cost £1.50 each. Postal applications for certificates to the local Registrars remained at £2.50 [2401].
In September 1976 a member and frequent critic of the Society, Flt.-Lt. Ian R. Harrison, then living at Bideford and working in the Aircraft Control Branch of the RAF, as though these things had never been said, wrote to the Magazine provokingly asking, 'Is the Society pressing for improved search facilities at St Catherine's House? There is surely no legitimate excuse for failing to prohibit entry to children and babes in arms. Is there any good reason why indexes and microfilm copies of records more than one hundred years old could not be made separately, conveniently and freely available to authorised readers? A few days ago I overheard an American lady complaining, quite reasonably I thought, that she was being asked to pay £2.50 and wait for four days for a document which, because of the inadequacy of the indexes, was questionably the one she sought. For indigenous searchers conditions are merely frustrating, for visitors with limited time available they must be absolutely intolerable' [2402].
At New Register House in Scotland, owing to the great increase in persons wanting to see certificates with references from the birth, marriage and death indexes (often obtained from the microfilms at the Society), were restricted as from 9 June 1976, to a period of thirty minutes at a time, without guarantee of access at all. Access to the Old Parochial Registers and the census returns 1841-1891 was unaffected [2403].
A note in the Magazine in March 1977 drew attention to an article that had appeared in the spring 1976 edition of Local Population Studies which included a report by Wigan Record Office appearing to demonstrate that the Registrar General had himself powers to authorise the transfer of the older civil registers to the local archivists' custody. It also noted that every registrar must, by law, on payment of the proper fee, 'allow searches to be made in any register of live births or death and register of marriages in his keeping'. The article also noted the statement in Halsbury’s Laws of England that there is authority for saying that the right to search includes the right to make extracts as distinct from the right to obtain certified copies on payment of the appropriate fee. As our Magazine commented, all this was in striking contrast to the actual use of the registers as a source of income by keeping the public at arms-length from them [2404].
The Annual Report for 1976 noted that the problems connected with the transfer of the older records of the Registrar General (or of microfilms of them) continued to be the subject of much correspondence and discussion. The Advisory Council of Public Records showed sympathy with our aims and the Registrar General reiterated his intentions with regard to the transfer of the non-statutory miscellaneous records more than thirty years old. For the transfer of the other records it was said that complicated amending legislation was required. The Society took the view, however, that no legislation was required to transfer microfilms of the records and to make them available elsewhere. A detailed memorandum on the needs of historians with regard to the GRO records prepared by Dr Roger Schofield on behalf of the Record Users’ Group was submitted to the Advisory Council of Public Records in November 1977 [2405].
An interesting letter from Michael Faraday in the September 1978 Magazine drew attention to the high number of errors in the GRO's more recent indexes, there being no statutory power to compel church ministers and others to make their returns in capital letters for legibility. The root of the problem, he thought, was that the certified copies were not open to public inspection and that one had to rely on the unreliable indexes. He stressed also that the divorce indexes at Somerset House, in which general searches were tedious and expensive ought to be as accessible as the marriages themselves [2406]. The latter point had, in fact, been made by Charles Beddington in a letter to The Times as long ago as 1938, saying that the decrees of nullity should be registered in the same way as marriages and endorsed on the marriage certificates [2407].
Early in 1978 searches by GRO staff in the closed census returns 1881-1901 were suspended due to economy cuts and staff shortage but the service was, later that year, restored at a cost of £9.72. For this fee (and as previously had been the case) only the age and place of birth of named persons at a specified address would be given and even that was conditional upon the production of the written consent of the person sought or his/her direct descendant [2408].
Following the discussions in 1977 the Advisory Council on Public Records, of which Lord Teviot was a member, had set up a working party to look at a draft Bill to amend the Public Records Act 1958 so that the records of the births, marriages and deaths at the General Register Office more than one hundred years old might be made Public Records and transferred to the PRO, something that the GRO had agreed in principle following representations by the Society ten years earlier. On 2 June 1978 the Records Users Group, on which I represented the Society, met the Working Party to discuss the Bill and I then wrote to its Chairman stressing additional points of interest to genealogists.
At the SoG’s AGM on 19 June 1978 Lord Teviot announced to applause that he would be introducing a Bill in the House of Lords in the next Session of Parliament which would enable the older records of the Registrar General (including those of events at sea and the Foreign Returns) to be transferred to the Public Record Office [2409]. The Bill's intention was to make the records in the custody of the Registrar General into public records so that as they became a hundred years old they could be seen on microfilm in the PRO. A few days later, on 27 June 1978, acting as Honorary Genealogical Adviser to the Association to Combat Huntington’s Chorea (which I had been since 1974), I had met the All-Party Disablement Group at the House of Commons and explained the situation about the Bill, the Association being anxious to secure free access to the records of civil registration for those tracing their ancestors for medical purposes [2410].
The Bill’s unopposed Second Reading took place on Thursday, 23 November 1978, and Lord Teviot's speech was printed in the Magazine [2411]. Teviot was supported by Lord Lyell and Viscount Barrington. In the debate the Lord Chancellor, Lord Elwyn-Jones, cast considerable doubt on the future provision of funds to make the records available, saying that the Government could not support a Bill which it could not afford to implement [2412], but the Bill was not opposed at its Third Reading on 14 December when it went to the Commons. However, all this was unfortunately happening in the middle of the 'winter of discontent'. The Government was defeated by one vote in March 1979 and with the dissolution of Parliament the Bill lapsed. The Society had stressed to all the parties involved that if the records were to be transferred to the new Public Record Office building at Kew, duplicate indexes would need to be made available in central London [2413].
After the election on 3 May 1979 the Bill was re-introduced in the House of Lords and at the time of our AGM on 27 June was again approaching its Second Reading, the overly optimistic hope being then expressed that it would go through in the longer session of the new Parliament [2414]. However, at the Bill’s Second Reading on 3 July, it was withdrawn by Lord Teviot, the Lord Chancellor having again warned of the extra expenditure of public money needed to implement it [2415]. The Bill sadly went then into oblivion but a working party was set up to explore the further possibilities, it being always borne in mind that the Registrar General had in 1967 agreed in principle to the ultimate transfer of his records.
Some years earlier I had, when compiling the new edition of Wills and their whereabouts, noticed a statement in the Public Record Office Guide that, 'Extracts of Wills from every Court were under Statute of 42 George III, c.99 (1802) sent to the Legacy Duty Office'. These copy wills, arranged alphabetically in years from 1812 to 1852 in 7,678 parcels, were deposited at the Public Record Office but were not open to public inspection. In 1961 the Lord Chancellor had approved their destruction but as it was realised that they contained abstracts of many Cornwall, Devon and Somerset wills which had been destroyed by bombing at Exeter in 1942 these were sorted out and preserved, being eventually sent to the appropriate county record offices in the West Country.
At that time I had pointed out that these bundles of will copies, coming from 'every court', might well contain wills of which no other copies were then known, since the records of about fifteen peculiar courts, extant in 1832, are now missing. I was given permission to search the indexes of these wills for such abstracts, the Secretary of the Public Record Office having stated that if this could be shown to be the case, steps would be taken for their preservation. Unfortunately, as no calendars survive of the now destroyed peculiar wills, this proved an impossible task. In 1962 the Society offered to house the copy wills which were scheduled for destruction but this and a later request that we be allowed to microfilm the indexes, was refused.
The indexes struck me then as being particularly valuable for they formed a consolidated index to the majority of the wills proved in England and Wales between 1812 and 1858. Being in lexicographical order at least to the second or third letter of the surnames they were easy to search and they gave the names of the testators, their residences, the names of the executors, and the courts of probate. Some indexes for individual courts started in 1796. Further representations were made to the Board of Inland Revenue and in 1964 these valuable indexes were made available at the Public Record Office for the first time. Mr C. E. C. Townsend compiled a schedule of the indexes and this I published, with an explanatory note, in the Magazine in 1967 [2416].
It had not been fully realised at this time that extracts from the copy wills had also been entered into a long series of volumes and that the notations in these made by the taxation officials were particularly valuable for their additional information about ages and relationships, particularly when trusts had been created. For some time although the indexes in 429 volumes (1796-1863) were available at the Public Record Office, the registers remained with the Office of the Board of Inland Revenue [2417]. Our member David T. Hawkings gave further details of the surviving records and of these volumes of will abstracts, which at the time were only being released to the public as they became more than 150 years old, in the Magazine in 1970 [2418] and I described them in my new edition of Wills and Their Whereabouts in 1974. Following representations by Lord Teviot the delay of 150 years was reduced to 125 years in 1977 and the abstracts up to 1851 then became available, a very useful advance [2419].
Another change this year was that after the resignation of Wyn Ford the Society decided to pay fees to an external Editor of the Magazine and in April 1967 appointed Miss Lorna (‘Lornie’) Leete-Hodge (1927-2008) [2420], a freelance writer for several publishers with magazine experience, who took over in September 1967 [2421]. She immediately showed how useful it was to have someone slightly away from the Society and not directly involved in its politics and she published a good number of letters and comments about the Society, some far from favourable, which prompted much useful discussion. Her second number contained an interesting article by Peter Spufford about 'Genealogy and the Historian' and developed a criticism of Wagner's English Genealogy as not addressing the questions in which historians would be interested [2422].
A pioneer article by Francis Leeson on one-name studies, 'The study of single surnames and their distribution', had appeared in the Magazine in 1964 [2423] and produced many interesting comments about the value of such work [2424], leading to a much greater appreciation of one-name studies generally. One comment by Eric Urwin mentioned perhaps for the first time the value of telephone directories for surname distribution [2425]. Another important article contributed by Leeson, who was particularly interested in surnames generally, was that on 'Aliases' in 1968 [2426].
Taking advantage of the suggestion that many members wanted more information about their fellow members' interests Malcolm Pinhorn and Francis Leeson decided to produce a new version of Charles Bernau's International Genealogical Directory (IGD), giving it the same name, which they intended to publish in June 1971 and annually thereafter, for small fees listing people and the families in which they were interested [2427]. Denis Barber thought that this might more effectively be done by keeping a slip index to the names on the members' birth-briefs and of any additional names that they might care to submit [2428] an idea to which he reverted later when recommending that the Society sponsor a standard layout for such slips, a suggestion much discussed at the time [2429]. Hartley Thwaite, however, thought that many were not encouraged to extend their areas of co-operation because enquirers rarely enclosed stamped addressed envelopes and still more rarely bothered to acknowledge replies [2430]. However, a second edition of the International Genealogical Directory was published in 1972/3 [2431].
There was now pressure from the many new members of the Society to have a revised edition of the 1966 Register and Directory, but it was revealed in 1973 that although two thousand had been printed, less than a hundred had actually sold. An un-named writer in the Magazine said in explanation: "Although many do not like to recognise the fact the average genealogist is basically a lone wolf. He does not want to share the information he has so carefully collected and is not interested in corresponding with others on the subject. He regards with horror the writer of enquiring letters, most of which (when legible) will not be of the slightest interest and more often than not will want something for nothing, but he will take any details offered in such letters and use them to his own advantage without acknowledgment. He does not in any case have any faith in the ability or knowledge of any genealogist other than himself. He does not submit a birth-brief to the Society, and would not dream of copying his information, let alone an outline pedigree which would give his secrets away, for deposit there. In all this may probably be found some part of the reason for the Register's lack of success. Those who are willing to correspond and exchange information are certainly a minority in the Society" [2432]. Norman Crabtree agreed, writing that 'most people have learned from sad experience to steer clear of information exchange ... Second-hand genealogical information is usually of no value whatever' [2433].
However, since January 1968 the details of the 2,000 interests of about 700 newer members had been collected in the Society’s office and in 1972 these were put in order, indexed and duplicated for sale (at 50p) by Cecil Mackay as the Catalogue of Members' Interests, 1968-1971 [2434]. She sensibly circulated the membership to get an idea of the number of copies to duplicate [2435] and some members then complained that the whole of the membership had not been re-circulated and the 1966 list brought up to date [2436] but in view of the financial failure of the earlier list there was naturally a great reluctance to embark on another full-scale list with all the work which that would entail. The out-of-date 1966 list was still available for 5p in 1974 [2437]. It was reported in 1977 that a volunteer, Christopher Assheton-Stones (died 1999), was making a slip index of Members' Interests taken from the forms completed by Members when they joined [2438], but the Society's experience with the earlier list did not encourage its publication and the need for such an index was soon taken over by the national directories. The surnames on the members' birth-briefs were still, of course, being published in the Magazine and indexed there every three or four years.
A regular and active volunteer at this time was Leslie William Lawson Edwards (1927-2005) who had become a life member in 1958. He was helping in the Library by the end of 1967 [2439] and after Peter Trigwell’s departure he was appointed Librarian in August 1968 with Miss Doreen Thomas as his assistant [2440]. Educated at Greenock Academy, Lawson Edwards (as he preferred to be known) had read history at Glasgow University and had later taken parts of the examinations of the Library Association, but he never fully qualified. He had held various public library posts and was Deputy Librarian at Cannock, 1960-64.
At the Society he was librarian in a period of great growth and involved in many of its activities, helping to produce a number of the early printed catalogues of sections of the library. He had an excellent memory and an abiding interest in genealogy, heraldry and the peerage, being especially active in the development of the Society's collection of directories, poll books and parish registers, and his colour coding of new bindings became a noticeable feature of the county shelves. On his days off he transcribed all the Cornish nonconformist registers at the Public Record Office into six typescript volumes (16,500 baptisms and 500 burials, 1769-1857) [2441], privately publishing an index to them in 1976 [2442], and then commenced work on those for Devonshire, but fearing for his eyesight (he had suffered a detached retina in February 1974) [2443], was obliged to discontinue the work. He held the post of Librarian until taking early retirement because of poor health in 1990.
Lawson Edwards had an interesting ancestry in that his father Leslie William Henry Edwards, who was in the Royal Navy, had Devon ancestry but descended in the male line from Edward Donaldson, a fisherman born about 1752 at Unst in the Shetland Islands. Edward Donaldson's son was baptised Daniel Edwardson in 1781, but his son Robert, who began life in the surname Edwardson, joined the Royal Navy in 1838 in the surname Edwards and retained that name. Lawson's mother's family, which gave him a link to the Chief of Moffat, came from Denny in Stirlingshire and provided a perfect example of Scottish naming patterns which was used by Gerald Hamilton-Edwards in his In search of Scottish ancestry (1972).
I should perhaps mention that in 1968 also Mrs Mackay lost to America her office assistant the popular Andrea Waters who had been with her for four years, she being replaced by Janet Bailey, whilst Miss Valerie Scammell was appointed Receptionist [2444]. The volunteer Miss Marie (‘Meg’) Reeves (1905-1994), formerly a member of the Library Committee, was first mentioned in the Annual Report this year for her many voluntary services around the Library with her friend May Toop [2445]. The library was, of course, increasingly busy and we noted that in 1969 the number of non-members paying a search fee had increased to 1,536 in the year, some 35% more than in 1964, and three times the 1960 figure of 510 [2446]. The position of guests, of which there were a growing number, was therefore clarified, members being welcome to show their guests around the library, but if the guest wished to use the collections he or she had to pay a search fee or remain in the Members’ Room [2447].
Miss Scammell left in the autumn of 1969 and there was a period when we were without a receptionist, Janet Bailey from the office and Doreen Thomas from the library taking it in turns to man the desk, they being assisted by the young microfilm operator from the cellar. I wrote indignantly to the Chairman in October protesting that this young man’s salary was more than that of most of the staff (and only 5s 8d less than mine) and that my agreement with the Society, quite forgotten, had stipulated that I should share the Office Assistant’s time [2448].
However, it was not until the end of December that Mary Chapman was appointed Second Assistant to the Librarian and Receptionist [2449]. Work on the shelf-numbering and classification of the library now gained pace and Lawson Edwards revised the classification in September 1970 [2450], the letters and numbers now being marked on the books’ spines in a way that had previously been resisted. That year Max Adler in Zurich generously gave us a set of the valuable 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica [2451].
Both Doreen Thomas and Mary Chapman left the Library staff in 1970 and were replaced by Mrs Eileen Laffan and Anders Verner Larsen from Copenhagen. The Annual Report said with regard to these and earlier changes that ‘it cannot be denied that repeated changes have been detrimental to the work of the Library … the chief cause being the poor salaries offered, it is to be hoped that increases will improve matters in future’. That year in the office, Janet Bailey was unwell and left, being replaced by the welcoming Mrs Elizabeth Gibson and a friend of Mrs Mackay, the elderly Mrs Haidee Reid (nee Grass; 1895-1991), who was also an expert typist [2452] but seemed quite unable to remember my name! Michael Houghton joined the Library staff in 1971 [2453].
In 1971 the use of the Library by 1,836 non-members was an increase of 13% on the previous year and some 666 reels of microfilm were produced for use there as against 452 in 1970 [2454]. In 1972 the annual number of non-members using it passed the 2,000 mark for the first time [2455].
In June 1967 when the agents, Messrs Cluttons, communicated the owners' intention to sell the freehold of 37 Harrington Gardens, the situation was grave as it had become clear that alternative premises would be almost impossible to find. Charles Kingsley Adams, the Chairman, wrote to all the members on 31 July 1967 to say that negotiations had commenced and that they would be kept informed [2456]. The original asking price was £39,500 but the negotiations reduced this to £31,000, though £1,300 would be needed to meet the fees involved and a further £5,000 for the necessary work to make the best use of the building, particularly in the basement. With the aid of a bridging loan from the Midland Bank, the sale was completed on 25 March 1968. The agent's and legal fees and immediate repairs brought the cost to £33,392. To help cover this, investments worth £9,050 were sold, the remaining 5% debentures of the old issue being repaid at a cost of £943 [2457]. The Society had for some years previously had its account with the Westminster Bank but the Bank declined to provide us with a bridging loan and I remember the happy day when Herbert Chadband, our excellent accountant, went to see the Manager at the Midland Bank, also in Gloucester Road, and he agreed a loan provided that the Society transferred its account.
In the interim between the exchange of contract and the completion of the purchase, a Freehold Appeal Fund was launched, the Chairman again writing to every member [2458], and a discussion meeting was held at the Society on 24 April at which details of the negotiations which had taken place and an outline of the Society's plans for raising the £25,300 required were given [2459]. A fund-raising firm had been employed (costing £445) with no great success and to bring the appeal to the interest of members I wrote a short history of the building, its occupants and neighbours, which was published together with a photograph in the centre-fold of the March Magazine, and then made available separately. Remembering Nicholson's great interest in the house and his kindness to me, I made a contribution to the fund in his name, he having died on 19 April [2460]. At the Discussion Meeting Alan Rolfe suggested that an appeal be made to some of the satisfied clients for whom the Research Department had worked and this was also done though I did not myself care greatly for the idea. Questions were also raised about the possibilities of extending the library into the adjoining house No 35 and serious consideration was given to the idea in May and June 1971 when it was offered for sale by tender [2461], but it was in a poor condition (its warren of rooms had for ten years been let as bedsitting rooms [2462]), a central staircase occupied much of its floor space and, although designed as a pair, its floor levels were quite different from those in No 37.
By the end of the year the appeal had obtained £14,500 of which £5,000 was a 6% loan, later converted into a debenture [2463]. Lord Mountbatten had himself entered into a seven year covenant for £10 from which the Society would receive £120 and he wrote an encouraging letter which was used in the appeal. In September 1968, through the good offices of a member, Mr F. A. Davies, the offer of a mortgage (of £12,000 for fifteen years at 8% with no capital repayment in the first three years) was received and accepted from the Eagle Star Insurance Company so that the bridging loan from the Midland Bank with its heavy interest payments (initially at nine and a half per cent), might be discharged. We then reckoned that a further £9,000 would be required for repairs and improvements [2464]. At the Annual Meeting in 1969 a tribute was paid to the Society's Accountant, Herbert Chadband, who had been so instrumental in all these negotiations [2465].
Using her duplicator and some large yellow cards Cecil Mackay successfully produced an eye-catching poster to advertise the Society. It had been drawn by Margaret, Mrs Arthur Noble (died 1978) [2466] and based on some words of Oliver Wendell Holmes which I had quoted in Tracing Your Ancestors, 'We are all omnibuses in which our ancestors ride'. The poster was sent, a few at a time, to all the public libraries in England in the spring of 1967. Alexander Sandison, in a way associated with this difficult man, annoyingly asked at the AGM why it had not been sent to the record offices as well [2467]. However, it aroused much interest and in 1968 the membership passed the 3,000 mark and continued to rise.
At this time the library was open from 10 am to 5 pm, Monday to Saturday, but in August 1967 we began an experiment to see how many members would come if it remained open until 9 pm on two evenings a week and if this would relieve the cramped conditions which had become a problem on Saturdays [2468]. The results were so encouraging that it was decided to revise the opening hours completely from the beginning of 1968. The library was closed altogether on Mondays and to compensate for this it opened from 10 am to 6 pm on Tuesdays and Fridays, from 10 am to 9 pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and from 11 am to 5 pm on Saturdays. The later opening on Saturday mornings caused considerable annoyance and later that year the old opening hour of 10 am was reinstated. It was found also that few people stayed until 9 pm on the late evenings and early in 1971 it was decided to close at 8 pm instead. The Monday closure remained a bone of contention for many years, a stream of people coming to the door on that day and going sadly, and sometimes angrily, away.
Throughout the winter of 1967-68 we had been watching with some concern a slight crack which had opened up in one of the large brick piers in the outer lobby of the Society and we then noticed that other cracks had appeared in the wooden pillars in the gallery of the Members' Room which ran above the lobby. Although the pillars were ornamental and not load bearing, above them was the immense weight of the Document Collection and the Great Card Index and our surveyor thought that together they were probably weakening the structure of the building and that it would be prudent if they could be moved. The Executive Committee on 18 April 1968 was advised that the situation had become urgent and it was consequently agreed to take the Document Collection and Indexes downstairs and to house them in the Members' Room on the ground floor (which although smaller was above the vaulted kitchen and capable of supporting the weight) whilst Room Tweeddale above became the members’ room. It was done at short notice and was not a very satisfactory arrangement but it fortunately did not last long.
After some considerable thought by the House Sub-Committee, led by the Chairman John 'Denis' Burton (1902-1984), former Assistant Director of Supplies to the Greater London Council, a plan was put to the Executive Committee on 28 November 1968 [2469]. It was decided to utilise to the best advantage the whole of the basement, including the housekeeper's flat and the staff room, where the floors could carry an unlimited amount of weight. The large flat on the second floor with four main rooms and two bathrooms was at that time vacant and had previously been let for £450 p.a. exclusive of rates. It was thought that this flat could easily be divided into two self-contained flats. One of the rooms in the largest flat could be further divided into two bedrooms so that when let the income from that flat alone would be 'not much less than' that which had hitherto been obtained for the flat as a whole. The housekeeper might then have the smaller flat and her rooms in the basement be used for the major part of the document collection. All this was agreed, as was the plan that when the Members' Room had been restored to its original use, Room Tweeddale should be converted into a suite of offices for the Secretary and Director of Research, thus releasing their rooms (which could carry a substantial weight of books) for library use.
The cost of the conversion of the flat was estimated at £1,206-3-9 and the opportunity was taken to completely re-wire and install fluorescent lighting on the ground and first floors at £354-10-0. The work was to be done by Cecil Mackay's friend Mr A. J. Green and his firm Flatfurn Ltd which had offices at 32 Harrington Gardens. The Hon. Guy Strutt provided some of the fluorescent fittings [2470].
Much of the summer of 1969 was therefore taken up with the work and removals required by the proposed alterations [2471]. Florence Moss had retired to Eastbourne some years earlier and a resident housekeeper was now completely dispensed with, the cleaning being done by Mrs Norris who came in from Essex and later (from 1978) by contractors, and the second flat was let. The flat in the basement was re-decorated and converted in 1970 [2472], one room to house the heavy card indexes and the other, to be called Room Mersey, to house the overseas material from Room Raglan and the second microfilm reader. The microfilm reader there was replaced in January 1974 when it was still necessary to book its use in advance, particularly on Saturdays [2473].
The Members' Room on the ground floor had thus regained its original use and Room Tweeddale above was partitioned to form three offices (Membership and Accounts, Secretary, and Director of Research, each with desks for two workers) as well as a staff room with a little kitchen made from the gentleman's lavatory which had served the former billiard room, and an outer office (with that very large table) which could double as a meeting room.
The basement flat was not large enough for the Document Collection and this was moved across the landing to fill the large room formerly occupied by the Secretary which had girders underneath and the small room that had been partitioned off the landing for the Director of Research. It all worked fairly well except that there was almost no privacy in the low-level glass partitioned offices. The two flats on the second floor were let furnished by the autumn, providing a substantial addition to the Society's income [2474]. The Chairman, Denis Burton, greatly enjoyed all the work involved and was never happier than when donning a carpenter's apron to assist, converting a billiard-cue rack on the back landing into a convenient store for microfilms and turning the dumb-waiter into further cupboards. He retired from the Executive in 1977 after fourteen years of dedicated service [2475] though he was out of his depth in the convoluted arrangements which had been set up with Phillimore & Co.
The maintenance of the Society's premises included, in the autumn of 1973, the re-papering of the hall and staircase. The original 1880s lincrusta wallpaper had many years earlier been varnished and was now very dark as well as being badly chipped on the stairs. Back in 1961 John Betjeman had thought that the wallpaper might be cleaned but in 1973 we were unable to find anyone who thought that a possibility. I was determined that it should not just be painted over or replaced with something modern as was being suggested and with the support of Cecil Mackay and the active and expert help of an old friend, John Oliver, who specialised in hand printed wallpapers, I took considerable pains to re-create the rich pattern of red and green flowers on a gold background. With a rubbing that I had made of the old paper Ian Logan and Dennis York formulated a slightly simpler design which retained the richness and colouring of the original and was eventually printed specially for us (at £8.50 per roll) and put up in November 1973. It was, I thought, a great success.
Frank Leeson wrote that we had restored the entrance to something of its former glory [2476], though of course some members thought it a waste of money. Unfortunately the large internal window onto the back-stairs remained an eyesore and a suggestion by Barbara Batt that members might like to see the ugly panels replaced by stained glass displaying their arms unfortunately came to nothing. However, the smaller internal window between the stairs and the former billiard room was, as Betjeman had suggested, opened up again at this time.
In 1974 we cleaned and restored into use various cellars that reached out under the forecourt [2477] and in July the Surveyors succeeded in obtaining a reduction of £650 in the gross rateable value of the building, something we considered a ‘disappointing result’ [2478]. The following year we were able to redecorate one of the flats but there were problems with the roof and some urgent repairs had to be carried out [2479]. The hope of finding larger premises had not meanwhile been abandoned and in 1974 Cecil Mackay had discussions with a group of engineering societies about the possibility of sharing joint catering and lecture facilities in a larger house. With that in mind the House Committee visited a large former hostel at Nos 22 and 24 Harrington Gardens, opposite to No 37, but judged the warren of rooms unsuitable for our purposes [2480].
The overcrowding at lectures, normally held in the Members' Room, was mentioned by Mr R. F. Oakman at the Annual Meeting in June 1971 and Cecil Mackay said that she was actively seeking more spacious accommodation nearby [2481]. The autumn 1971 talks were conveniently held next-door at No 39 in the picturesque and spacious drawing room of W. S. Gilbert's old home, Iolanthe House, by kind permission of the Director of the Central Midwives' Board, and this added considerably to the pleasure of these occasions [2482]. The door to this room displays the curious motto, 'And those things do best please me, that befall preposterously'. Opposite, the dining room door is inscribed, 'All hope abandon, ye who enter here'.
We continued to meet here for the next two lecture seasons but for that beginning in October 1974 an arrangement was made to hold the talks in St John's Lutheran Church House at 8 Collingham Gardens, another fine Victorian house just at the end of Harrington Gardens, tea still being served afterwards in the Members' Room back at the Society. Many a time a blackboard had to be carried to the meeting, but fortunately there was no shortage of chairs. However, the number of members passed the 4,000 mark that year [2483] and continued to rise and eventually we had again to look for a larger room. In October 1982, when I spoke on sources for 'Farm Labourers', we went for the first time to the unusual meeting room of the Royal Entomological Society at 41 Queen's Gate, a fair step from our Society [2484], but we continued to meet there until the move to Charterhouse Buildings in 1984.
As a result of the steady increase in membership and day searchers, the finances recovered well with careful monitoring, though in 1969 a large batch of deeds of covenant worth about £700 went astray in the post. With staff changes in the office there had been problems with their regular administration and it did not look good at the Annual Meeting in June 1970, when Lord Mountbatten, a warm advocate of covenants, took the chair. Mountbatten had himself given £150 to the Building Fund in 1968 and he gave a further £50 that year. In reply to suggestions from the professional genealogist Brenda Perks (1910-1993) and the illustrator and glass artist Barbara Batt that further funds might be raised by an auction at the Society or the use of his garden for a garden party he said, amidst much laughter, that he had just given them £50 in order to avoid suggestions of that nature [2485].
At that 1970 meeting Lord Mountbatten had encouraged the idea that the annual subscriptions be raised and later in the year an Extraordinary General Meeting was held at Harrington Gardens on 3 November 1970 and the subscriptions were increased without difficulty and for the first time in more than ten years to £6 p.a. for Town Members and £4.50 for Country and Overseas Members as from 1 January 1971 [2486]. Herbert Shipman, who died just two months later, suggested, without support, that the area for Town Members be reduced from a twenty-five to a five-mile radius, but the Chairman agreed with a proposal by Mignonette Packman, who had joined in 1969, that the introduction of retired, family and student memberships be investigated [2487].
These proposals were brought to an Extraordinary General Meeting before the AGM held in Caxton Hall, Westminster, on 28 June 1972, when it was agreed by 31 votes to 3 that students aged 25 years or under engaged in full-time study at a recognised educational establishment should pay £3 p.a. as Town or £2.25 as Country Members and that retired Members over 65 years of age and no longer in full-time employment should pay £4.50 or £3.50. These concessionary rates were to include the magazine. However, a proposal that husbands and wives (who would pay two subscriptions but receive only one magazine) should pay £10 or £7.50 was defeated as not being sufficiently clear [2488]. The meeting, which as can be seen was not well attended, was told that the majority of members who had joined before the alteration of the Articles in 1965 had agreed voluntarily to the new rates and that students formed about 7.5% of the membership. Cecil Mackay, having received only four letters on the subject, thought it unlikely that a very great number of pensioners would apply for the reduced rates, though naturally in due course all without exception did. Some thought it would harm the Society's finances but others believed that it would lead to an increase in membership.
Due partly to the increase in subscriptions the previous year, the excess of income over expenditure in 1971 had been a record, amounting to £3,614, in spite of the higher salaries and additional staff [2489]. Perhaps with that in mind Cecil Mackay bought, in October 1972, a greatly cherished new Gestetner to aid her duplicating work. I was away at Walkern at the time and she wrote one day, after a ‘plushy’ lunch with the Chairman, to say that ‘the only positive result of today’s labours is the mending of the members’ teapot lid with a piece of cork and a nut and bolt. The ironmonger gave me the nut & bolt and I supplied the cork from my own private collection so the Society has done well, it will help to offset the cost of the new Gestetner (£400 odd) which has arrived and has already been used!’ [2490]. With new electrically cut stencils she produced a much better version of the leaflet about the Society and dozens of different notes, lists, agendas, minutes, and so forth on different coloured papers.
At the end of 1972 the excess of income over expenditure was more than £4,000, prompting a young Stella Colwell (minuted as 'Colwill') to ask, at the AGM in June 1973, how that £4,000 was to be spent, adding that the organisation of a genealogical conference should be one of the duties of the Society. The Chairman, Colonel Somerset Hopkinson, replied rather sharply that it might well be, but far more important was the repayment of the mortgage and the maintenance of the Society's premises [2491]. A heavy increase in rates had been appealed against but at least the members' subscriptions would not be liable for VAT. At that meeting Eric Whittleton (1912-1992) suggested that membership cards, not issued for many years, be re-introduced.
The saga of the Society's initial problems with photocopiers continued for some years and at the Annual Meeting in 1969 the Chairman, Denis Burton, explained that a good machine was too expensive to buy and the estimated number of copies did not make the hiring of a machine economically viable [2492]. However, later that year a 'Docustat' was installed in the reception hall on a six-months trial, reproducing white on black at a shilling a sheet [2493]. The Annual Report called it a 'somewhat mixed blessing'! [2494]. The growing and heavy use of a machine that needed to be coin-operated meant at that time, when technology was only beginning to develop, that our photocopying problems were many and continuous. In 1970 the ‘Docustat’ was replaced with a ‘Copycat 220’ which proved very popular with members and visitors [2495]. In 1973 the charge was still 5p per copy including VAT [2496].
Ever since my introduction to the records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury at Somerset House by Helen Thacker I had taken an interest in their indexing by the British Record Society and I joined its Council in 1967. Almost every week in the Research Department we needed to search the old Calendars of the Prerogative Court between 1700 and 1858 for some surname or other, going over the same ground again and again, for they were arranged only in chronological order by the initial letters of the surnames. A search in the larger letters, like letter 'S', might well take many hours if a date of death was not known or all the entries of a certain surname were required. It all seemed a shocking waste of time that a little joint effort in indexing might easily overcome.
Going regularly to the Probate Registry I had got to know well the Superintendent of the Department for Literary Inquiry in Room 9, Alice Stanley (1908-1993), and her assistant William Ernest Hathaway Cheape (1897-1973) [2497]. 'The Literary', as Alice Stanley always referred to it, was now depleted of all its local records except for those of Surrey, but was fundamentally unchanged from the room known to generations of previous students. Alice Stanley, however, although without previous experience of ancient documents, could not bear to see the original wills and the other documents that remained in the storerooms at Somerset House in such a terrible state. She asked for some boxes and heard an official say, 'Give her fifty or a hundred. She will make a fool of herself and shut up' [2498]. Over the next few years, however, going early before work and in all that dust and grime, she and William Cheape sorted the original wills, 1484-1858, into some 7,000 boxes [2499]. It was a quite remarkable achievement.
Professor Robert Halsband (1914-1989), the authority on eighteenth century English literature, paid Alice a fine tribute in The Times Literary Supplement in 1968, unknowingly illustrating how much things had changed, saying that when looking for the will of Lord Hervey in 1743 'the official transcript was put on my desk within ten minutes; I wanted to see the original document (for its alterations and corrections), and after I paid a fee of one shilling it was on my desk within ten minutes; I wanted it photocopied (cost: two shillings a page), and the copy was in my hands within ten minutes ... The lady in charge of the search room is the most gracious and cheerfully helpful person I have ever encountered in a long career of exploring archives' [2500].
Alice Stanley had joined the Society in 1964 and was awarded the MBE in June 1966 [2501], but in September 1969, for reasons that remain obscure (just as with Challenor Smith in 1893) she was removed from her position in the Literary. She was devastated. Quite by chance in November that year Lord Denning (1899-1999), the Master of the Rolls, mentioned her work at the British Records Association’s AGM, holding up an issue of Archives with her photograph and an account of her activities and saying what an excellent example it was of the outstanding things that archivists were doing. After the meeting I spoke to Lord Denning, a Vice-President of the Society of Genealogists, about Miss Stanley and a few well-chosen words were delivered behind the scenes, but it was too late. In May 1970 the Surrey records were sent to the Greater London Record Office (there being still no agreement as to where in Surrey they should go) [2502], the remaining records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury were transferred to the Public Record Office and the Department for Literary Inquiry closed its doors for ever on Friday, 22 May 1970 [2503]. Alice Stanley was found alternative employment within the Probate Department and in 1973 elected a Fellow of the Society.
I have said little in general about developments at the Public Record Office but one cannot leave its receipt of this vast accumulation of records without paying some tribute to Dr J. Conway Davies who oversaw their transfer and to Jane Cox who spent ten years 'armed with a vacuum cleaner and an industrial mask' sorting and cataloguing them so that they could eventually become available for public use [2504].
It was Alice Stanley who drew my attention to a series of rather worn parchment calendars of the wills and administrations of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury from which those in use in Room 9 had been copied in the nineteenth century. With the permission of the Senior Registrar I was allowed to borrow those for the years 1750-1800 with the idea of making index slips so that a fully alphabetical index might be compiled and in June 1968 I appealed through the Magazine for volunteers to take single volumes, each covering about half a year, and to write index slips or help with the slip sorting, they being allowed to work on the volumes at home [2505].
About thirty-five members came forward and by March 1969 ten volumes had been completed. Dr John Frost (died 1992), of New York University, made a most useful donation of £40 to help cover the cost of the thousands of slips which were needed and the shoe designer Eunice Wilson kindly provided a ready supply of shoe boxes in which to store them [2506]. By September a further seven volumes had been slipped and twenty-four were being worked on [2507]. In March 1970 it was reported that 25 years had been completed and that 19 were being worked on; Dr Frost had given a further $125 for slips [2508]. By September that year a further 34 years had been slipped and a further 14 were being worked upon [2509]. In March 1971 I reported that five further years were complete and that Dr Frost had again given $125 towards the costs of the slips [2510]. Finally in September 1972 I reported that all fifty years had been indexed onto slips and that the long task of sorting them had commenced.
The slips were, of course, already sorted into chronological order by the initial letters of their surnames and our old friend the genealogist Dr Joseph L. Druse (died 2004), from Michigan, who had been staying in one of the Society's flats and was the author of Through parish & probate to your English ancestry (1965), spent many hours making an initial sort to their third letters of the slips for surnames A-F [2511]. Dr Frost had made yet another donation of $125. I reckoned then that about a third of a million slips were involved [2512] but once the sort to the second or third letter of the surnames had been made the slips were usually much more manageable. Michael J. Wood, Joan Masters and I did most of the remaining sorting in the evenings and at weekends. Many thousands of entries which had been marked with paper clips as doubtful readings were checked against the duplicate calendars by Michael Wood and Joan Masters.
The sorting of the will slips having started, the Society agreed to commence their publication, and the first volume, covering only A-Bh, was published early in 1976 at £6, a ten per cent discount being offered to those who agreed to take the whole index, though at that time we reckoned it would take about fifteen or sixteen volumes of 400-450 pages each [2513]. In the Acknowledgements I paid tribute to the enormous energy and patience of Joan Masters who had written the index slips for ten of the years covered and had checked eight others where the slip writers had clearly had difficulties with the writing. George Squibb wrote that the published volume had 'minimum readability coupled with maximum genealogical value' [2514] but I was not at all happy with its production, in which a number of people had been involved.
Michael Wood had done an enormous amount of work with the sorting and checking and he subsequently went through the whole of the remaining slips (including the administrations) before they were typed and their accuracy owes a very great deal to his labours. The second printed volume, which covered surnames Bi-Ce, was typed by Deborah Jackson and published at £5 in 1977.
After the close of business in May 1970 the register copy wills and other ancillary records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury had meanwhile been transferred to the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane and they became available there on Monday, 8 June [2515]. A very steep rise in the cost of photocopies followed, from two shillings a page to ten shillings an opening together with a handling charge of five shillings. The usual representations were made but without result [2516]. The post-1858 records of the Principal Probate Registry remained at Somerset House.
My interest in probate records and the Society led to my lecture, given to the Society on Saturday, 20 January 1979, 'The Society of Genealogists and Probate Records', that sketched out the history of the subject and drew attention to the various little known manuscript collections of abstracts and indexes which had been gathered over the years. Extended and updated it was published in 1984 [2517].
Whilst working at the Society in the early 1960s Philip Blake had been in touch with a wide circle of local genealogists and record agents and he conceived the idea of forming an association which might represent their particular interests. His attempt to involve the Chairman, Malcolm Pinhorn in the creation of some formal body early in 1962 failed because the latter was newly involved in Phillimore & Co and too busy [2518], but Blake began to put together a list of practising people by area and subject of expertise which was further developed and refined when I took over the research department from him later that year, we gaining practical experience of their ability (or lack of it!) by employing many of the people mentioned.
The continued and growing interest in the subject, as a note in the Magazine said [2519], had encouraged many persons to put themselves forward as genealogists and to solicit work in all branches of genealogy and record searching. Although some were doing excellent work, others had little general ability and did not recognize their limitations or lacked the breadth of experience to cope with the enquiries received. Consequently complaints about the quality of their work and their charges were not uncommon. The Society received a fair number of these and it seemed imperative to me that some organisation be formed to provide a list of recommended persons.
Blake had not let the idea drop and involved me and a few others in a lengthy series of meetings which eventually led to the inaugural meeting of the Association of Genealogists and Record Agents (AGRA) at the Stationers' Hall on 24 June 1968, the initial members being recruited by invitation, mostly from the lists of persons of which I and the Society had practical experience. Its purposes were to protect the public, to promote and maintain professional standards of practice and to establish minimum scales of fees and charges. It was also intended that the Association should represent and promote the interests of professional genealogists and record agents and to give them a voice in questions concerning the use, preservation and availability of records, and related matters. Blake was particularly keen that the organisation should be quite separate from the Institute emerging at Canterbury. He kept up the pressure to promote the Association at every opportunity and never hesitated to write acerbic letters when necessary. Already in March 1969 he thought it dying of inertia and wrote complaining to me that it was 'really disgraceful the way in which this new venture is being piloted' [2520]. On 13 December 1969 I had much to say about it when I spoke to the Society about ‘The professional genealogist and his client’ [2521]. The support of local searchers in the provinces was critical and in that we were extremely fortunate, practically all the best searchers with whom we were in regular contact joining.
The first President was Sir Gyles Isham (died 1976), the Chairman of the Council was Brian G. C. Brooks of Brooks and Simpson Ltd, and the Secretary was G. B. Greenwood. I was a member of the Council until 1976, being Chairman from 1973 to 1976 [2522], and was elected a Vice-President in 1980. For the next twenty years the Council meetings took place in the Society's rooms and I gave the new organisation every possible support, providing regular reports of its activities in the Magazine, selling the List of Members in the bookshop and eventually only accepting Magazine advertisements for professional services from AGRA members, at the same time phasing out the Society's own list of recommended searchers. Peter Dewar was Secretary 1971-3 and succeeded by the active and diligent Isobel Mordy [2523]. In 1974 the Association had 63 members [2524], a figure which had risen to about 80 by 1978 when the number of enquiries had greatly increased and Miss Mordy gave up her post [2525], Mary Gandy being appointed in her stead [2526].
Meanwhile, on 5-8 August 1969, the Genealogical Society of Utah had celebrated its 75th anniversary with an enormous 'World Conference on Records' in Salt Lake City which was attended by some 7,000 people. There were talks on aspects of British genealogy by various professionals and archivists from this side of the Atlantic including Noel Currer-Briggs, F. G. Emmison, Felix Hull, Sir Iain Moncreiffe, Brian Redwood, Peter Spufford, Donald Steel, Peter Walne and Donald Whyte, and an exhibition stand was provided by Phillimore & Co [2527]. Lord Mountbatten, as President, had been invited to represent the Society but it being Cowes Week he could not go and suggested that somebody else be invited in his place [2528], eventually asking me to stand in for him, by which time, with the uncertainty as to who would pay, it was unfortunately too late for me to go.
In 1969 I made the long-standing problems with L. G. Pine much worse by savaging his perfectly dreadful so-called 'international guide', The Genealogist's Encyclopaedia (1969), a highly inaccurate, rambling and gossipy account of the subject in which the coverage of source material was negligible and from which the major Commonwealth countries had been omitted [2529]. He flew into a rage and involved Lord Mountbatten saying that my review was 'grossly unfair, cowardly and mendacious' and that he had nothing but contempt for the writer [2530]. We published his letter as he requested but, of course, it only drew further condemnation of the book. Thomas Gurney Stedman (1883-1975), a member since 1929, thought my review 'scholarly, truthful and impartial', calling Pine's book 'slovenly' and a 'miserable production', whilst the Hon Guy Strutt (1921-2008) wrote that my review was 'factual, justified and moderate', Pine's letter 'irrelevant and abusive' and his book 'deplorably slipshod' [2531].
I had first met the aggressive Philip Harris, newly appointed general manager of Phillimore & Co, at a meeting after lunch on 10 December 1968 when I was bombarded with questions for five hours. However much the Society might benefit from an association with a commercial publisher, as was at that time being discussed, I knew from the length of this interview alone that any relationship with this particular firm would never be an easy one. I found out some years later that Harris had already formed the opinion that the Society's committees were run by ‘elderly traditionalists’ and after the meeting he told the Phillimore Board that ‘the scene seems set for an effective take-over [of the SoG], to the benefit of genealogy and genealogists alike, not to mention Phillimore!’ [2532].
Philip Harris was appointed managing director of Phillimore in January 1969 and in spite of very considerable doubts as to the wisdom of what they were doing, but reassured to some extent by the names of Phillimore's team of editorial advisers, those at the Society entered into a formal agreement with him by an exchange of letters in October 1969 (Denis Burton being then Chairman of the Executive Committee) in which Phillimore was appointed publishers of The Genealogists’ Magazine and the Society's other publications for a trial period of two years [2533]. The Annual Report said that there was ‘every reason to hope that this revival of a former close connection [something of an exaggeration] will prove a fruitful one’ [2534] but although the agreement proved obscure and difficult to operate, with repeated discussions in the Publications and Executive Committees, the contract was renewed.
In January 1974 the Honorary Treasurer, Arnold Hawker, attempted to unravel the tangled correspondence which had taken place but crucial variations in practice had not been set out clearly in writing or had been left entirely verbal. There was considerable dissatisfaction at the Society with the delays in correspondence and payments. By 1975 the financial chaos had become quite impenetrable and negotiations were started for a new agreement by which Phillimore would be demoted from its role of 'publishers to the Society' to being merely the 'principal agents' for the distribution of its publications. Francis Leeson, the Magazine editor, wrote in October that 'only by by-passing Phillimore editorially has it been possible to achieve reasonable regularity of appearance' of the Magazine [2535] but there was a particularly annoying delay in the circulation of the December 1975 issue and there was great relief when the old agreement was terminated in March, the new one taking effect on 1 April 1976. The Society was then charged by Philip Harris in his usual high-flown style with 'despicable intrigues' and 'rather vague and contemptible charges of mendacity' [2536].
In all the circumstances it is not surprising that in June that year the Society decided to give notice to terminate the whole agreement. Donald Steel argued against it, being worried about his royalties from the National Index and typically writing of 'a completely new edition within a few years' [2537]. but Jeremy Gibson, former editor of the Magazine and of the National Index, dismayed by the 'interminable wrangles', expressed the opinion that Phillimore's involvement 'has caused much greater troubles than benefits' to the Society [2538]. Philip Harris appealed against the decision in a five-page letter [2539] described by Alexander Sandison, the Chairman of the Publications Committee, who had spent hours trying to sort the financial chaos, as 'typical in its assembly of misleading and inaccurate statements presented with an air of authority', and in October 1977 the Publications Committee unanimously recommended that the decision to terminate the agreement with Phillimore be confirmed. The recommendation was accepted by a special meeting of the Executive on 7 November 1977 [2540]. I breathed a considerable sigh of relief and wrote in my diary that there was 'a great feeling of anti-climax'.
Sandison wrote then that the Society's year of experience as publisher and distributor of the Magazine since the termination of the contract had given no cause to regret the decision. Experience with other publications, such as Leslie White's Monuments and their inscriptions and the first volume of the PCC Will Index had, he thought, shown that professional help might have improved standards but that both were usable and in print and it was very doubtful that higher standards would have increased their sales or justified the twenty per cent of net revenue that would have been charged by Phillimore [2541].
Meanwhile at the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane the quiet and unhurried rooms that I had known in the 1950s were witnessing considerable change. Back in June 1952, following the great increase in the number and size of the records being received, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Master of the Rolls had set up a committee on departmental records under the chairmanship of Sir James Grigg, a former Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the War Office. The conclusions of its final Report, published in May 1954, were largely accepted by the Government in July the following year, and led directly to the Public Records Act of 1958. This repealed the 1877 and other earlier Acts, transferred responsibility for public records from the Master of the Rolls to the Lord Chancellor (the Master of the Rolls becoming Chairman of a newly created Advisory Council on Public Records) and gave the public a legal right of access to the records after fifty years.
The Grigg Committee had found that the system for selecting records for preservation devised in 1877 and still in force was hopelessly inadequate, the application of historical or other academic criteria for preservation, which should have been the responsibility of the PRO, was almost entirely in the hands of the originating departments. Now, as a result of the 1958 Act although responsibility for the initial selection and sampling of records was delegated to the departments of origin, newly appointed Records Administration Officers and Inspecting Officers from the PRO were given a statutory duty to co-ordinate and supervise the work. Each department’s reviewing officer was to be ‘a senior officer of the Department’ and would firstly ask not later than five years after its creation whether a record’s active ‘use’, in its widest possible sense, had ceased. This review was expected to permit the early destruction of between 50 and 90 per cent of a department’s papers. It was thought that anything of lasting historical value would survive this process. After twenty-five years each department was to look again at the residue in conjunction with an Inspecting Officer from the PRO who would apply the historical criterion. After this second review the remaining files were to be sent to the PRO unless they were still needed for administrative purposes. The growing number of ‘particular instance papers’ (PIPs), each relating to a different person, body or place, some of which went back into the nineteenth century, was to be exempt from this process and a committee of the PRO was to decide to what extent such files should be retained and in what quantity. The Grigg Committee envisaged that most would be reduced to a statistical sample. They included the vast bulk of the service records of the First World War.
Unfortunately the consultations of the Grigg Committee with users had taken place at a time when the Society of Genealogists, with Major Church as Secretary, was busy with its many internal problems and the Grigg Committee came to the unpleasant conclusion that ‘no attempt should be made to keep in the Public Record Office records that would not otherwise be preserved, solely because they contain information which might be useful for genealogical or biographical purposes’. As for the service records, the Committee’s Report said, ‘The Society of Genealogists has informed us that it considers it would be unreasonable to ask for the retention of service records on genealogical grounds. The genealogist would find useful those service records which record dates of birth and parentage prior to the introduction of the compulsory registration of births in 1836 and also records of a later date relating to men in Scottish and Irish regiments. But, in general, the Society has told us, genealogists make little use of records in the Public Record Office, their main sources of information being the records in the General Register Office’ [2542]. Whoever wrote this on the Society’s behalf was seriously ill-informed and had much to answer for. Hamilton Edwards, the Society’s Secretary in 1955 and active in 1954 told me that he had been quite unaware of the work of the Grigg Committee or of any such statement [2543].
The PRO search rooms were now becoming much busier. Large numbers of students were brought in by the increased budgets for postgraduate research in the 1960s and there were growing numbers of genealogists following the release of the 1861 Census Returns. The small search rooms designed in the mid-nineteenth century were now quite inadequate for the numbers of visitors and long early-morning queues outside the building became a daily feature.
In January 1963 the Lord Chancellor, Lord Dilhorne, appointed a Committee consisting entirely of lawyers with the Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning, as Chairman, ‘to consider the classes of records existing or accruing in the various offices’ of the various central and local courts ‘and those transferred to the PRO and to advise which classes of those records should be permanently preserved and for what purposes and to recommend the periods for which the other classes of those records should be retained’ and furthermore ‘to advise whether, with a view to saving storage space, any arrangements should be made for the microfilming of any of the above-mentioned legal records’. The Denning Committee’s terms of reference were extended in May 1964 so that they covered, as its final Report says, ‘nearly all the legal records of the realm’. The Society of Genealogists received the Committee’s draft report for comment in September 1964 and I replied with the Society’s observations on 1 January 1965 [2544].
The draft Report proposed that a quite horrifying array of records, mostly of the ‘Particular Instance’ type, be destroyed (sometimes after sampling or the removal of cases considered to be of historical importance – ‘H’ cases). These included the General Chancery Affidavits and many other groups of Chancery records since 1875, the Depositions in the Queen’s Bench since 1875, the Registers of Wards of Court, the Original Wills and Act Books in the Principal and District Registries since 1858, the Companies (Winding Up) files, the County Court Summonses, the records of the Patents Appeal Tribunal, the Individual Case Files in Matrimonial Causes (including orders registered under Indian and Colonial Jurisdiction Acts) since 1858, the Admiralty Case Files, the Bankruptcy files and Companies ‘winding up’ files, the adoption case papers in the Official Solicitor’s Department, the records of the Court of Protection, the Bankruptcy Files and Adoption Files in the County Courts, the Acknowledgments of Deeds by Married Women 1848-1900, and much else.
The writers of the draft Report considered that there was a large and ever increasing flow of record which lessened the importance of legal records but the Society said in response that although that might be true for the political and economic historian it was not true for the biographer and genealogist. For the latter the non-‘H’ cases of the Report (which were scheduled for destruction) would be of value and not necessarily the ‘H’ ones (which were scheduled for preservation); for us everybody is or was or was likely to become ‘of inherent personal interest’. There was no provision for the preservation of ‘H’ cases amongst those files already created and we urged that all the records in which ‘H’ cases had been singled out, should be kept in their entirety. These, of course, included the Chancery Affidavits and the Original Wills (of which only those of ‘particular interest’, not defined, were to be retained) and we listed a considerable number of other classes of record including the case files in Matrimonial Causes which we believed should also be preserved. The Society had been asked in particular about the possible preservation of some records by transference into private hands (the Society’s member Philip Blake having himself offered to take and make available the Chancery Affidavits) and we said that preservation in any form was preferable to destruction, so long as the PRO did not think that the records should be kept at public expense. The Draft Report concluded, as the Grigg Report had done, that there was no advantage in microfilming anything, there being ‘no big demand, either for inspection or for copies’ for these records. We said that there must be many classes of record, including some of those we had listed, which could be safeguarded against possible future interest by microfilming. However, the lawyers only saw that under the 1958 Act the duty to preserve selected material was subject to the over-riding duty to destroy everything else. The Committee took the view that ‘either records were worth keeping … or they were not’, though as Philip Blake wrote, ‘that attributes to records an absolute value capable of determination, which is nonsense’ [2545].
Altogether some seven hundred different types of record had been considered and in spite of a statement in the Report itself that ‘representatives of the historical profession and others likely to be familiar with the value of these records as sources for research’ had been invited to comment, only the Institute of Historical Research (IHR) at the University of London and the SoG had seen the draft. The Institute had set up a sub-committee which not only submitted a memorandum but was interviewed by members of the Denning Committee. However, as the BRA’s Annual Report says, ‘hardly any of the points made were noticed in the final Report’. In the event Lord Denning’s Committee received written comments only from this group, from the University of Cambridge Institute of Criminology, from H. J. Hanham, Professor of Politics in the University of Edinburgh and from the Society of Genealogists.
We were, of course, wasting our time. The dreadfully superficial 55-page final Report of the Committee on Legal Records appeared in August 1966 and differed little from its first draft. It made clear, in its proposed orgy of destruction that it could not agree that modern legal records were of any interest to the historian or that they should be preserved for genealogists merely because they ‘might contain personal details of the lives of individuals’ [2546]. The Grigg Committee’s belief that ‘the making of adequate arrangements for the preservation of its records is an inescapable duty of the Government of a civilised state’ was now to be subject to considerations merely of space, bulk and weight. The Council of the BRA, as its Annual Report said, ‘immediately found itself deeply perturbed, not only by the Report’s sweeping proposals for the destruction of important classes of records … but also by the Committee’s apparent almost total rejection of the advice which it had sought from a limited range of historical bodies, and by … its inadequate regard for the needs of future historians’ [2547].
Philip Blake wrote a particularly scathing and powerful letter to Lord Denning about the superficiality of the Committee’s work, the lack of qualification of those involved and the absurd brevity in the lists of the records appended [2548]. I also received copies of concerned letters, particularly about the proposed destruction of the Original Wills, from Peter Spufford on behalf of the British Record Society (of which Denning was also President) repudiating the views originating in the Grigg Committee as ‘wholly wrong and opposed both to ancient and modern doctrines of historical value’ [2549], from Gerald Hamilton-Edwards with a lengthy plea for the genealogist and biographer [2550], and from Dr Leslie White questioning inter alia why usage was thought to be a guide to value and why microfilm could not be more widely used [2551]. However, only the proposed destruction of six miles of original wills at Somerset House obtained real publicity [2552].
On publication of the Report our then Chairman, Charles Kingsley Adams, who was also Director of the National Portrait Gallery and much interested in biography, wrote in some detail to the Lord Chancellor setting out the Society’s concerns about the proposed destruction of the Original Wills and querying the situation of the Act Books, Oaths and Bonds, about which we were also worried and the loss of which, he wrote, ‘would be a greater loss from many practical points of view than the destruction of the Original Wills’ (for which the Register Copies would survive) [2553]. In reply the Lord Chancellor said that in view of the many comments received in the Report he had decided to refer it to the Advisory Council [2554]. In November we were told that the Advisory Council would be discussing it at its March meeting and that it would welcome oral evidence from a SoG representative [2555] and in December, at the BRA’s AGM at the Guildhall, I was able to speak to Sir Robert Somerville (died 1992), BRA chairman and a member of the Advisory Council, who seemed quite hopeful of the outcome, mentioning the strength of all our representations.
The Institute of Historical Research, having been given such short shrift earlier, had meanwhile taken the initiative to call a ‘Conference’ of representatives of the historical world and three representatives each from the Institute, the British Records Association, the Royal Historical Society and the Historical Association, met on 16 January 1967 to comment on Lord Denning’s Report. The group’s lengthy and fierce Observations were handed to the Advisory Council in February 1967. It took issue on many fronts, particularly over the Report’s readiness to abandon the age-old principle that the main records of the Courts and of the cases tried in them should be preserved in perpetuity. The group believed that this was a well-founded right which it was the State’s duty to preserve. Moreover it profoundly disagreed with other of the Report’s basic assumptions: that the existing PRO accommodation should be made to suffice and the records pruned to fit it; that if records had been ill-kept and rarely used, the proper course was to destroy them; that records must ‘earn their keep’; and that the officers of the courts in which the records originated are proper persons to select those of historical value. The Conference entirely disagreed with the ‘H’ method for selecting documents, considering it a method which could only result in the retention of the exceptional or the curious. In many instances it found the Report’s description of documents inadequate and meaningless [2556].
The Advisory Council used parts of two ordinary meetings to discuss the matter and had the one special meeting on 15 March 1967. A comment by the Secretary to the Council that our concerns were ‘primarily about Wills’ did not bode well and was rejected by me [2557] but the Agenda for the two-hour meeting in March limited the discussion to four questions: (1) Should all original wills be kept? (2) Should the main legal records be kept in perpetuity? (3) Is the recommended system of selection correct in principle, and in particular in regard to Chancery matters? (4) How far should records be preserved for genealogical and biographical purposes? The meeting was frequently pushed along by the gently smiling Lord Denning with his disarming west-country brogue and assurances that everything would be taken into consideration, and it seemed wholly superficial. Sir Anthony Wagner came to give verbal evidence but there was only time for him to make a few acidic comments about the possible destruction of the First World War soldiers’ documents and for me to disown the evidence formerly given to the Grigg Committee by the Society of Genealogists.
A copy of the Report of the Advisory Council (dated 21 August 1967) was sent to the Society on 17 November 1967, the Lord Chancellor having announced his acceptance of its recommendations in the House of Lords on 14 November [2558]. It went only a limited way to modify some of the original proposals and began by saying that it was satisfied that they were ‘in the main in accordance with the principles laid down by the Grigg Report’. Although most witnesses had favoured a greater degree of preservation the Council thought that this was ‘symptomatic of discontent with (or misunderstanding of) the Grigg Report’ and that the critics presupposed ‘too great a rigidity’ in its application and took ‘insufficient account of the knowledge and experience of the officers of the Courts and of the PRO’, it being safe to leave ‘many of the minor points’ to their discretion. It had therefore concentrated on the wills after 1857, the Chancery Division records after 1875 and the records of the Criminal Courts and Coroners. The Original Wills in London would be preserved up to 1934 (and up to 1952 in the District Registries) when photostats were introduced but after that date would be destroyed when fifty years old. Dr Conway Davies had said that the post-1857 Probate and Administration Act Books contained ‘certain information not to be found elsewhere’ and the Council recommended that they be looked at again by the responsible officers of the Principal Probate Registry and the PRO. The Council thought it ‘difficult to defend the wholesale destruction’ of the post-1875 Chancery Affidavits and agreed that they should be retained out of London but might be ‘weeded’ at some future date. In future the Chancery Masters should mark for preservation any cases ‘of intrinsic and enduring interest’ and those ‘likely to continue for an unusually long time’ and recommended that these should be retained together with a random statistical sample of all cases. For the records of the Criminal Courts and of the Coroners more detailed guidance on those to be preserved would be provided. No attempt was made to answer the wider criticisms of the historians which, if taken at all seriously, would have meant the re-consideration of the whole of Denning’s Report.
We all felt greatly let down. The British Records Association noted that many of the changes urged by the historical societies had been completely ignored and in March its Council felt it necessary to place on record, in a letter to the Lord Chancellor (and in its Annual Report), its disappointment and regret. Destruction schedules implementing the proposals with regard to Quarter Sessions, Coroners’, and Petty Sessional Records had already been circulated by the Home Office, though assurances had been given that the original Report would be interpreted ‘in a generous spirit’ [2559]. I doubted it and had much sympathy with the anonymous reviewer who wrote of the public records in 1991 as a place where ‘in unholy alliance with parsimony, philistinism and institutionalised vandalism, the sources are weeded, plundered and destroyed’. That reviewer’s interests were not those of the family historian and the latter had to wait until 1981 and the Wilson Committee for some formal recognition of their interests and a statement that the implementation of the Grigg Committee’s Report had been ‘seriously defective’. The unease of many contemporary historians was shown by the late A. J. P. Taylor’s comment about weeding that it ‘meant pulling up the prize specimens and leaving the weeds’ [2560].
As mentioned the August 1967 Report of the Advisory Council had discussed the Probate and Administration Act Books at the Principal Probate Registry and Dr Conway Davies’ concern, but in October 1968 we were shocked to hear that all those over a hundred old were to be destroyed. I wrote immediately to the Lord Chancellor protesting at the decision [2561]. In the previous week I had spent several hours in the Registry comparing the first one hundred Administration Acts for letter ‘B’ in 1858 against the printed calendars and I had prepared a schedule showing that thirty per cent contained important additional information which would be lost if they were destroyed. This included renunciations by family members, ages of minors, details of next-of-kin, lack of issue, parentage, deaths of relatives since an intestacy and marital status; in one case an administration to a creditor was particularly informative. I sent copies to the Registry’s Records Officer, Mr W. I. Martyn, who seemed intent on destroying the records and to the Senior Registrar, Mr J. F. Compton Miller. I had been in touch with Sir Anthony Wagner and he also wrote to the Lord Chancellor with a copy of my list [2562]. The Lord Chancellor’s office replied that no decision had yet been taken but that the books had been removed from the Registry to enable it ‘to check the number of enquiries for them and to find out the reasons why people wish to examine them’. As the Registry clerks habitually told enquirers that they contained no additional information, this was a bizarre situation. Martyn had already told me that those who wanted records preserved should make sure that the family retained copies. I was therefore not surprised when on 19 December 1968 the Senior Registrar told me that a decision had been taken to destroy the books, but that the delay in doing so and ‘the reaction of various persons’ had resulted in ‘steps being taken to give further consideration to the matter’. I wrote again to the Lord Chancellor’s office which confirmed the latter point and the Senior Registrar assured me that the records ‘are safe for the time being’. Some authorities believed that legislation would, in any case, be needed to destroy the Original Wills and Act Books.
In March 1969 it was formally announced that only the Original Wills filed since 1934 would be destroyed as they became fifty years old. Hamilton Edwards asked about them at our AGM in June when I said that the news seemed more hopeful [2563], as indeed it proved to be, the Original Wills from 1858 to 1965 being moved to the PRO repository at Hayes that summer. There were 150,000 between 1858 and 1900 and there they could be stored relatively cheaply [2564]. However, in view of the general lack of sympathy with our concerns at the Principal Probate Registry I remained very apprehensive about the eventual fate of the Act Books and it was not until March 1971, following some confusing correspondence with a local District Registrar, that I obtained an assurance from the Lord Chancellor’s Office that the Act Books in the Principal Registry would be permanently retained (and the duplicates held locally destroyed) [2565]. The Will Oaths and Bonds were destroyed after fifty years [2566].
Some years later Jane Cox wrote, ‘With the advent of the quantitative approach to history, the counting of cases and the compilation of statistics, there has been a need for vast masses of evidence and an increasing demand for long runs of records to be preserved which might have no intrinsic value in themselves’ and the growth of interest in family history had exacerbated the problem [2567]. An excellent example had been provided in May 1966 when The Times reported that the county archivists of Devon and Cornwall were protesting that the full stories of the seafaring decline of their counties would never be told, if plans to destroy almost 95% of shipping records for the second half of the nineteenth century were approved. It had been compulsory since 1835 to draw up crew lists and agreements for every voyage made by ships, but there were nine million and the records took up 30,000 feet of shelf space. It was now proposed to keep everything before 1856 but only a 5% sample of the surviving records from 1857 to 1913, though ‘interested organizations and institutions’ might ask to have anything outside that five per cent. The sample was said to ‘amply provide for the needs of general research’. The County Archivist for Durham subsequently wrote that the way in which the matter had been handled was ‘open to serious criticism’, either the 5% sample was sufficient or it was not. Those who wished to receive the records from a medium-sized port within their area would be charged about £700 for their selection and transport [2568]. In the event the PRO retained a larger sample, some complete years of the records were taken by the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich and the balance went to the Maritime History Group in Newfoundland, a most unsatisfactory arrangement [2569].
There were many further pressures on the building when the Public Records Act 1967 reduced the period after which most public records were opened to public inspection from fifty to thirty years. The Act came into force on 1 January 1968. There was no initial rush, the ‘crunch’ being expected when the American visitors came in May, but Alan Bullock, then Master of St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, and a member of the Advisory Council on Public Records, took the opportunity to say that more accommodation was needed close to Chancery Lane, but that ultimately the Office would have to be divided into two sections. One, he opined, could cater for the older historical records and ‘would have to be in Chancery Lane’, the existing building being extended. The other, built elsewhere, could cater for records created since 1914 [2570]. At the time this was a widely held view and genealogists took some comfort in the belief that the records they used would mainly stay in central London. By 1969 some sixty per cent of all research in the PRO was in records of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The lack of pressure that January (1968) had been brought about by providing forty further seats at Chancery Lane in the summer of 1967 and by transferring the census records for the three years 1841, 1851 and 1861 to the ground floor of the Land Registry Building in Portugal Street where space for another fifty seats was available and where, as related below, the returns remained until 1991. The original census books were here no longer produced and the uncertain pleasures of census searches on microfilm were now first encountered by many searchers. Recalling that time Stella Colwell later wrote that the ‘Census overnight became remote, clinical, and curiously inaccessible. No longer could you flit from page to page, turn them backwards and forwards for more information, and thus the personal and intimate involvement with history was lost, at least to me’ [2571]. However, having learned to cope with the simple machines the great advantages of speedy self-service with the microfilms on open shelves soon became apparent.
In February 1968 an editorial in The Times recommended the building of an annexe to the Chancery Lane building on the vacant land that faced Fetter Lane [2572], a possibility which had been supported by the historian Geoffrey Elton and others [2573], but in 1969 the Lord Chancellor gave approval for the building of an Office for departmental records on a site owned by the Crown at Ruskin Avenue, Kew. It was thought that the first stage of the new building at Kew would be completed in the mid-1970s and in July and August 1970 a survey was consequently conducted on the likely needs of users at Kew and on the facilities that they would like to see. The Chairman of the Executive Committee, Denis Burton, made some general observations on the Society's behalf and in reply an outline of the proposed division of the records was provided. It was learned that those most used by genealogists would be retained at Chancery Lane where a 'microfilm search room' would be provided for the census returns 1841-1871, the returns in future being produced on microfilm because their physical condition was deteriorating. It was hoped to open the search rooms at Kew, where good refreshment and car-parking facilities would be available, on one or two evenings a week.
The Society had asked for the Chancery Lane building also to be kept open at least on one evening and all day on Saturdays, the Land Registry Building not even being open on Saturday mornings, and on 30 April 1971 it was announced that the Land Registry Building would open on Saturdays from 9.30 am to 1 pm for the production of the census returns and, if requisitioned in advance, the non-parochial registers [2574], something which we warmly welcomed [2575].
In a debate in the House of Lords in March 1972 the Lord Chancellor re-stated his decision to move the bulk of the modern records to Kew and was criticised by Professor L. S. Pressnell in The Times for ‘the obscure economic rationale underlying this desperate venture’ [2576], but as the historian John Sainty wrote, ‘in the absence of any satisfactory site in central London the implementation of this decision, however regrettable it may be in principle, must now be accepted as inevitable’. He regretted that a permanent division in the records would arise, the bulk going to Kew and the medieval records and state papers remaining at Chancery Lane, and he urged that everything be brought together at Kew [2577]. That view was opposed by Professor R. B. Pugh [2578] but supported by several other historians [2579]. The Annual Report of the PRO for 1971 (published in May 1972) noted that attendances had risen by nine per cent in the year to 85,000 and the number of documents produced increased by 6.4 pe cent to 306,000. Construction work on the new building began in 1973 and it was eventually opened in October 1977.
One of our better-known members in America was an Englishman, the likeable Percy 'William' Filby (1911-2002), a man of great energy who had worked at Bletchley Park and Berkeley Street during the War [2580]. He had joined the Society in 1961 when Librarian at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. Later, when Librarian and Assistant Director of the Maryland Historical Society, he was often asked to identify the best books in the Institute's extensive genealogical collection and somewhat in 'self-defence', as he later wrote, he prepared the first edition of American and British Genealogy and Heraldry: a selected list of books (1970).
Prior to publication and when I hardly knew him he had sent me a draft of the British section and I had the cheek to cut it into strips and to re-arrange it according to my own notions (but based on the Society's library catalogue), making many changes, but all this he accepted with great good humour and later wrote gratefully that without me 'the British section would have been a mess'. The book, published by the American Library Association, was a considerable success being the only one of its kind to attempt in a systematic manner to list and evaluate the best available books by subject. Jack Bird, librarian at the Association of Special Libraries and Information Bureaux (ASLIB), thought it 'on the whole happy in what it omits as well as what it selects' [2581]. The book went through three editions, Charles Evans called the much larger second edition 'an invaluable reference source' [2582], and it gained several awards, being selected by Library Journal as one of the best reference books of 1983, and bringing Bill Filby many invitations to lecture, to review and to consult.
Some years later I fed Filby lists of the Society's Fellows and of the officers of the local societies for his Who's Who in Genealogy and Heraldry (1981, 1990) and he then became world famous for his great series of books about immigrants, the Passenger and Immigration Lists Bibliography 1538-1900 (1981) and the Passenger and Immigration Lists Index (1981) with its many supplements listing millions of people who entered America prior to 1900.
Bill Filby, who was elected a Fellow in 1983, was a world-renowned calligrapher and a shrewd businessman. He had a heartfelt sympathy for the problems of administering the Society and its library (but, unfortunately, little time for the sometimes abrupt Lawson Edwards) and was a generous donor to our funds, frequently assisting with the costs of fiche readers and photocopiers.
At the Annual Meeting in June 1970, Miss Evelyn Gore-Symes (1919-1998), a regular visitor, had remarked that she found it exceptionally difficult to find her way around the library and Major E. H. C. Davies suggested that during the winter months we run a series of evening classes specifically related to its contents so that beginners could get a better idea of the resources available and where to look for them [2583]. He raised the matter again the following year and was told that the Lectures Committee had delayed a decision but that a note would be sent out in September 1971 [2584]. There were to be six general talks, the charge being £3, with numbers limited to twenty-five. I did the first three talks in January 1972, the librarian (taking a tour of the library), Clifford Webster and Alexander Sandison the other three, the classes being held at 6.30 pm on Tuesdays after the Library had closed. There was an overwhelming response and they had to be repeated the following month [2585]. I had found myself another task, organising one or two sets of classes and doing much of the talking every year for the next twenty years. A second series, at the same rate, followed in February 1973 and a third in February-March 1974. Another followed in April-May 1975. It was found that some variety in lecturers was desirable, but to have more than three lecturers in a short course was generally not a good idea without a clear syllabus. Even then some lecturers tended to go off at extraordinary tangents regardless of the time, particularly when the classes were put together as a day course, thus disrupting all one’s best plans!
I remember telling Oxford Heraldry Society in 1972 that I was the world's worst lecturer and that the torment of the audience was nothing compared to what I suffered [2586]. That excuse worked for a while, but I found myself increasingly doing talks here and there. I was assisted in 1974 in the Society’s classes for beginners by Brian Brooks, Dennis Burton, Stella Colwell, Malcolm Pinhorn and Alexander Sandison, but in 1978 we had reduced the lecturers for the two series that year to Lawson Edwards, Stella Colwell and me. The following year there were four series of classes including one that we gave in May and June, organised by Colonel S. N. Marker, at the American Women’s Club in London, and talks to visiting overseas groups were becoming much more frequent [2587].
In 1971 the Law Society's library disposed of a great number of local and professional directories by auction at Sotheby's and Lawson Edwards was consequently able to fill many gaps in the Society's runs, we aiming to get directories for about every five years [2588]. I attended one of the sales and was able to acquire complete sets of the Medical Register 1858-1965 and Dentist's Register 1888-1965 for £15 (about twice my weekly wage at that time, but still quite a bargain) but then had to decline the offer of a complete set of the Medical Directory for the same price because I could not afford it. I gave them to the library but Edwards would only take the years 1858-1921 and then every fifth year, offering the remainder at fifty pence each to anyone willing to take them away [2589].
At the AGM that year Mrs Brenda Perks raised the unpleasant subject of the 'constant disappearance of books and manuscripts from the shelves' saying that members should not be allowed to take briefcases into the library. The Chairman said that the matter had been discussed at length but that any restriction needed further staff to enforce it and to keep the deposited briefcases in safe custody. The 'bugging' of books had also been considered [2590]. However, in March 1974 the Executive Committee, greatly perturbed by the continued losses from the library and document collection, announced that it was urgently considering a ban on briefcases and bags in the library [2591]. They were further pressed by a series of members at the Annual Meeting in June when Lord Mountbatten laughingly said that all the books should be stamped "Stolen from the Society of Genealogists" [2592].
The publication of the Library Rules in June 1975 revealed that all bags and briefcases then had to be surrendered to the attendant in the hall who issued a receipt for them and that any person taking folders, papers or other belongings into the Library was to offer them for inspection on their leaving the premises [2593]. The bags were placed on the floor of the small ladies cloakroom behind the reception desk and two part-time attendants or hall-keepers were employed [2594] until 1978 when both retired and were not replaced [2595]. There was almost no space in which to install lockers except in the ladies cloakroom and only a few could be purchased until after the move to Charterhouse buildings in 1984.
Early in 1972 the Society had purchased some 57 feet of shelving and erected it at the ends of the bays on the ground floor in Room Farrer. On these shelves we placed the Phillimore Marriage Series and thus greatly relieved the pressure on the county shelves [2596]. That same year I encouraged Lawson Edwards and the Library Committee to come to a reciprocal arrangement with our former Librarian, John Sims, who now worked at the Institute of Historical Research, to exchange photocopies of poll books from their large collection and by this means we acquired another forty-seven [2597]. The Institute was able to fill some gaps in its holdings and some years later (although he had meanwhile moved to the India Office Library) John Sims edited the standard bibliography, A handlist of British Parliamentary poll books (1984).
The first guide to the genealogical resources of a particular region of the British Isles appeared in 1972 in the form of Alexander Sandison's Tracing ancestors in Shetland based on his forty-years of research in tracing his own Shetland ancestry [2598].
The problem of the overcrowding of the shelves was highlighted by the accession of so many Medical Directories in 1971 and two years later the Librarian announced that, where professional directories were concerned, he preferred to be offered only those that were at least fifty years old [2599]. I had advocated that they should be retained only for every fifth year (based on the census years) and so on to a current date.
In September 1973, again because of the overcrowding by readers in Room Farrer on the ground floor, it was announced that the books on half of the English counties, those from Bedfordshire to Gloucestershire, would be taken up to Room Raglan on the first floor and replaced in Room Farrer with less used material on Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and the Schools and Universities, from that floor. It was also decided that the bulkier original documents in the Document Collection would be sorted out and, after abstracts had been made, sent to the relevant county record offices. An estimate of £700 had been received for microfilming Boyd's Marriage Index, the bindings of which were in need of repair, and it was agreed that this should be carried out by degrees [2600]. We moved the books in December but the suggested replacement of the much-used Index by microfilm met with much opposition and I for one argued against the idea unless it became absolutely necessary, the varying arrangements of the county sections of the Index not lending themselves to ease of consultation on film.
In 1974 Sir Andrew Noble (1904-1987) gave £100 to spend on improving the Scottish section [2601] but in November the Parish Register Committee was shocked to hear that as a result of a full-scale check of the library's contents, 75 parish register transcripts, both manuscript and typescript, were missing. The efficient Mrs Patricia Riach (died 2010), who had taken over the work of Parish Register Secretary in September 1972 following the death of Doreen Briscoe, had reduced that number to about 65 by sending out many general letters of enquiry [2602] but there was criticism of the back-up library organisation and many of us doubted that the checks were as thorough as they might have been. However, it was agreed that a list of the missing volumes should be published and it appeared in the September 1975 Magazine, [2603] the very few recovered being listed the following September [2604]. In 1976 the library volunteer Miss May Toop who worked tirelessly covering books and doing minor repairs gave a welcome £75 for the rebinding of books [2605].
At this time the Society had an arrangement with the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland whereby photocopies of registers were sent to us for indexing, the Society keeping the copies and the Record Office receiving the indexes [2606]. In May 1976 the Parish Register Committee agreed that a special project should be initiated to encourage members to transcribe registers for the years 1813-1837, many of the library copies ending in 1812. The period did not require great handwriting expertise and was short enough not to require great commitment and Patricia Riach appealed through the Magazine for possible volunteers [2607]. By the end of the year some 35 parishes were being worked up and some volunteers who had started with the ‘easy’ period had gone on to complete their parishes or to tackle other registers. The volunteers that year produced about 90 register transcripts for the library [2608] that number increasing to 146 in 1977 in response to Mrs Riach’s organisational skills and warm encouragement.
Meanwhile I had, in 1976, negotiated an arrangement with the Public Record Office whereby a free microfilm of the non-parochial registers of any one county (not of individual parishes) would be provided to the Society if typed copies of the registers could be made in return within a reasonable period. Those for Sussex were quickly borrowed by Michael Burchall on behalf of the Sussex Family History Group but no other counties showed an interest [2609].
It was at this time in 1975 that Mrs Mary McClure, a volunteer from California [2610], typed from the large manuscript collections left to the Society by Arthur Bertram Campling (1871-1947), of Bexley, the dreadfully written and seldom consulted slips of Norfolk and Suffolk marriage licences (mostly from the Norwich Consistory Court) before 1800, completing her valuable but unenviable task in some five volumes [2611]. Campling, formerly an agent for a locomotive company, had worked for some years in the office of Alfred Trego Butler at the College of Arms and with A.W. Hughes Clarke in 1933-4 had edited the 1664 Visitation of Norfolk and then in 1939 he put together two volumes of East Anglian Pedigrees, the second appearing after his death [2612]. Anthony Wagner thought him ‘probably the best working genealogist of his day’ but much fault has since been found with his visitation pedigrees [2613]. Another volunteer who made himself useful in the library at this time was Ingram Ord Capper (1907-1986) [2614] who had been in the British shooting team at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952.
Lawson Edwards had taken much interest in the recent publication by Thomas Laity Stoate (died 1997) of an 'early form of census', the 1641 Protestation Returns for Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, and in 1975 he began to compile a bibliography of those which had been printed [2615]. This was published in the Magazine [2616] and as a separate leaflet (No 8) in 1977. Lawson Edwards also listed and indexed the 300 or more original Sun Fire Office Insurance Claims 1770-1788 which we had found during the library re-arrangements in 1969 [2617], publishing full details and an example in December 1975 [2617]. It was only following the publication of the article that we learned that these interesting documents had been collected and donated by a young member, Roland Gwyn (1911-1987) in 1938 [2618].
The Society was not involved when on Tuesday evening, 20 April 1971, Lord Teviot, prompted by the Institute at Canterbury, rose in the House of Lords to ask if the Government 'would consider introducing legislation for the better preservation of parish records and for the purpose of establishing a central indexed copy of all parish records at the General Registry Office or somewhere similar'. He said he was 'not getting over excited or thinking that much progress will be made' and he was right about that.
In the debate Lord Cranbrook spoke eloquently about the shocking conditions in which some records were kept and Lord Sudeley talked about the work of the Cambridge Group, of the Genealogical Society of Utah and of the National Index of Parish Registers. They were supported by Lord Davies of Leek and by Lord Sandys but the Bishop of Newcastle drew attention to the bishops' powers to compel deposit in serious cases of neglect. For the Government, Lord Aberdare said that the existing law was adequate and that powers to enforce deposit were given in the 1929 Parochial Registers and Records Measure. The cost of transcribing and indexing the registers would be enormous and he doubted that the work would be worthwhile, the potential benefit of a central copy not justifying the likely cost [2620].
Edward John Erith (1907-2004) [2621], who had joined the Society in 1935 and been much involved in the survey and deposit of parish registers in Essex, wrote of the debate that the complacency of our law-makers 'makes one despair', saying ‘to suggest that all is well because Bishops have power to order such records to be kept in safe custody, preferably in diocesan record offices, is naïve in the extreme’. Mr Leech of Liverpool thought that the Society should take the lead in the 'tireless pressure' that would be needed to obtain improvements in this field [2622]. It is interesting that Edward Erith who himself in later years carefully transcribed over eighty registers should have written that ‘usually the most prolific transcribers made the most mistakes’ something that I too had observed.
The Parochial Fees Order in 1972 more than doubled the charges which incumbents might make for personal inspections of their registers, the new rates being 30p for the first year and 15p for each subsequent year searched, with certificates at 50p each, but fortunately many incumbents did not seem aware of this new scale [2623].
That year also the Chairman of AGRA had met the Minister of State for the Department of Health and Social Security to discuss the custody of and access to parish registers, and as a result the Minister, Lord Aberdare, had written to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York asking them to urge their bishops to encourage the deposit of parish registers. AGRA had received a complaint about access to an early register of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, 1562-1650, which had found its way into the family archives at Berkeley Castle, and the Association was able by its representations to have the register restored to the incumbent [2624]. The register was subsequently made available to the Society of Genealogists to copy through the good offices of the incumbent, Canon Gethyn-Jones, the Society having already copied his later registers [2625] and that work was completed in 1979 [2626].
In spite of the increase in search fees set out in the Parochial Fees Order of 1972, in November that year the General Synod of the House of Clergy adopted a report of its Standing Committee, to which I had given evidence, requesting the Church Commissioners to frame scales of fees for the searching of parish registers based on the time involved rather than on the number of years searched. At the time this was considered a major advance in a difficult field [2627]. However, the situation created by the Fees Order and the recommendations of the House of Clergy continued to stimulate much discussion and in 1973, on the initiative of David Avery of the Business Archives Council, representatives of various interested bodies including the Society and some individuals, made a joint approach to the General Synod urging the deposit in diocesan record offices and free availability there of all parish registers no longer in use for pastoral purposes [2628].
A year later the first in a series of small volumes that provided county lists of the registers deposited in record repositories and their overall dates was published by Local Population Studies in association with the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure (CAMPOP), Original parish registers in record offices and libraries (1974) [2629] and formed, with the two lists of copies published by the Society, a very useful stop-gap whilst the county sections of the National Index of Parish Registers were awaited.
It was at this time that I became involved in the work of the Standing Conference for Local History [2630], from 1975 attending meetings of its Records Users’ Group (RUG) at Bedford Square under the active leadership of the secretary, Miss Bettie Miller, she providing the necessary administrative support. The Group consisted of representatives of about twenty national organisations (I particularly remember Ralph Pugh, editor of the Victoria County History, and the industrious Irene Scouloudi from the Huguenot Society) and a brilliant and inspiring group of academics which included David Avery, Christopher Charlton, Lionel Munby, Alan Rogers, Roger Schofield and Richard Wall.
The meetings of this Record Users' Group owed much to those from the Cambridge Group in their aim to influence the deliberations of the Working Party of the General Synod with regard to the deposit and free availability of all parish registers no longer in use for pastoral purposes. That interest had become significant when in 1975 highly important proposals came before the General Synod which within a few years would completely revolutionise access to church registers in England. In June a letter that I wrote to the Church Commissioners summarising these proposals and giving the Society's views upon them was published in the Magazine: "We warmly welcome and heartily endorse the proposed new Parochial Registers and Records Measure which will relieve record offices from the obligation to charge fees for searches in deposited registers, require diocesan bishops to designate or establish diocesan record offices if they had not already done so, provide for the inspection every five years of those registers which remain in parochial keeping, and give the bishops power to require the temporary deposit of records for extended historical research. The importance of church registers to historians is now widely known. We do not need to stress their value for the study and analysis of population, of trades and crafts, of the rise and decline of communities, of family history, of genealogy and the related science of eugenics, of disease and mortality, of religious practice and dissent, all of which require wide and constant reference to church registers. These registers are essentially public records created by the church at the will of the central government mainly for administrative, not pastoral or liturgical, reasons, and held in trust by the church. They should not, however, be regarded as the peculiar concern of a particular church; they relate only partly to church affairs and form an extremely important body of material for the history of England as a whole. We also consider that objections can be raised to the use of historic documents as a means of raising money. For these reasons and because the parish church is frequently a damp and insecure place we believe that every effort should be made short of compulsion to persuade incumbents to deposit all their registers and records not in current use for pastoral purposes in the appropriate diocesan record office on permanent loan. Here they will be cleaned and repaired when necessary, the searchers will be properly supervised, reference works and ultra-violet lamps will be at hand, and, above all, they will be in safe custody. We agree that searches in those registers which remain in the care of the incumbents as being needed for current pastoral purposes, and are thus probably not more than about thirty years old, should be subject to some scale of fees similar to that suggested in the Report GS 114/C (i.e. calculated on the time taken for a search rather than on the number of years searched), but only in cases where the incumbent conducts the search himself or employs someone to invigilate the searcher and where certificates are required. In all other cases no fees should be payable. In cases where churches are made redundant we believe that all the records of that church should immediately be transferred to the appropriate record office, and not to the parish church with which the parish is united as now frequently happens. The subsidiary records are particularly at risk at those times. Finally we would stress once more that the skills of a small but dedicated group of members of this Society are at the disposal of incumbents wishing to have their Parish Registers transcribed and indexed so that when they deposit their original registers in a record office some convenient copy is retained in the parish for the use and interest of themselves and their parishioners. In any case incumbents should be encouraged to secure photocopies of their deposited records as an additional safeguard, especially where a transcript does not in itself form an adequate substitute for the original" [2631].
The recommendation regarding fees for searches, last altered in 1972, was that in future there should be a minimum charge of fifty pence for any search not exceeding three years, £1 for longer searches that did not take more than an hour, and fifty pence an hour for more extended searches. As noted above, the Society's views had been made known to the House of Clergy through its Standing Committee and our comments had been acknowledged in its Report (GS/114/C).
In April 1975, as if to illustrate our real concerns, a new Vicar of Lymington in Hampshire, Canon Eugene Haselden (died 1999), asked his local dustman to take a van-load of documents dating from 1700 to a local pit where they were soon buried under tons of garbage and eight feet of soil [2632]. It will be noted that in 1975 the Society had expressed its belief 'that every effort should be made short of compulsion to persuade incumbents to deposit' those registers and records not in current use, compulsion being opposed by many in the church and the county archivists. In November 1975 the General Synod gave general approval to the proposed Measure [2633].
However, whilst the Measure was still at its revision stage, Lord Teviot introduced a simple Bill in the House of Lords that had its Second Reading on 19 February 1976 with the intention of amending the 1812 Act to require parish registers to be kept either in the church in a modern thermostatically controlled safe or to be transferred to the appropriate diocesan record office. In the debate on the Bill it was made clear that although it had Government support, the Church's proposed Measure went further in several important areas, requiring inspections of the records every five years and giving bishops powers to insist on their deposit for research purposes or if the conditions in which they were kept were not satisfactory (details of the required safes being set out in separate Regulations),as well as making arrangements for the records of redundant churches [2634]. Lord Teviot therefore did not attempt to take his Bill further but the prospect of the State legislating for the Church had its effect and the Measure proceeded successfully through the General Synod where it was much assisted by the work of the lay-member Dr Alan Rogers. In July the General Synod had accepted an amendment that all records more than a hundred years old should be deposited in diocesan record offices except where parishes provided facilities similar to those which would have been required by the Bill. The Measure received its Second Reading in the Synod on 9 November 1976 [2635].
At the July 1976 group of sessions the General Synod had decided that fees for searches in parish registers should be retained but, as we had proposed, assessed on a time basis. It was then feared that when the new Fees Order was issued the fees would be considerably increased but the new Order issued in the autumn made no mention of fees. A letter on the subject, signed by eleven representatives of historical societies of which I was one, appeared in The Times on 7 October and resulted in considerable correspondence [2636], a reply from the Secretary General of the Synod and a Times Leader on 26 October. I also took part in a delegation to the Church Commissioners led by Philip Whitehead, MP, on 19 November, when an undertaking was given that no decisions had been reached and that further consultation would take place [2637]. I submitted the Society's revised views the following April [2638].
In February 1977 the Parochial Registers and Records Measure was amended to allow the 'private' institutions serving as Diocesan Record Offices to levy unspecified fees for the consultation of baptismal and burial registers. This raised considerable concern and I then represented the Society at meetings with the Chairman of the Steering Committee which had initiated the Measure, with the Assistant General Secretary to the General Synod and with members of both Houses of Parliament serving on committees responsible for examining the Measure [2639].
At the Society's AGM in June 1977 the possible effects of the Measure were raised and the threat of search fees being imposed in record offices mentioned. I reported then that the Society had made the above representations and that Lord Mountbatten had written on our behalf to the Archbishop of Canterbury setting out the unacceptable consequences of the amendment. The Measure itself could not now be amended and a great deal would be lost if it were rejected [2640] but as a result it passed through the Synod and then through both houses of Parliament on the understanding that it would be amended in a Miscellaneous Provisions Measure.
The Parochial Registers and Records Measure was finally approved by the House of Common on 9 January 1978. The new Measure was introduced in the House by Terry Walker, MP for Kingswood, and, as he said, in effect repealed the 1812 Act and the 1929 Measure but re-enacted their key provisions, requiring each diocese to appoint a record office in which its parish records might be deposited, setting high technical standards for the safes that were to contain any records more than one hundred years old that remained at the churches, introducing periodic inspections of the latter once every six years, and requiring the deposit of records more than a hundred years old that were not kept in the prescribed conditions, it being recognised that few parishes would be willing to undergo the expense involved. However, Clause 20 of the Measure allowed for the charging of fees for the consultation of the records and Terry Walker mentioned the concern that there was no limit to the fees that could be charged by the three private or 'independent' diocesan record offices: Canterbury Cathedral Library, the Bodleian Library at Oxford (which had never charged fees) and the Borthwick Institute at York. It was on this point that Lord Mountbatten had approached the Archbishop of Canterbury [2641]. As a result action had been taken in the Synod to include in a Miscellaneous Provisions Measure an amendment to Clause 20 to make it clear that the right to charge fees in local authority record offices was governed by the Local Government (Records) Act 1962 and that the Synod would limit the fees in the three 'private' offices to those specified in any order made under the Ecclesiastical Fees Measure. Mr Walker paid tribute to the Synod for devoting so much of its time and resources to the preparation of the Measure and said that the Synod itself wished to place on record its appreciation of the help that it had received from MPs and Lords and from the 'representatives of professional and other expert bodies'. Welcoming the Measure, Stanley Newens, MP for Harlow, stressed the fact that the question of fees would not disappear, the cost of General Register Office certificates had become exorbitant and it was vital that any fee should be kept as low as possible and that, if convenient, the records should be made available free of charge to genuine students [2642].
The General Synod had charged the Parochial Fees Commission with reviewing the whole gamut of fees for pastoral offices and other duties performed by the clergy and I went with other members of the Record Users' Group to meet its members on 19 April 1978 to talk about search and certificate fees. The Group was horrified at the Commission's most unsatisfactory Report published in October which recommended the strengthening and extension of the fee structure to all church documents. I immediately drafted a memorandum which formed the basis for one sent by RUG to all 547 members of the Synod, a longer note being sent to the Chairman of the Fees Commission. Following these and other representations debate on the Report was postponed, RUG having indicated that any attempt to extend fees to other church documents would be strongly resisted and the passage of any Measure incorporating them opposed [2643]. I was present at further discussions at Church House on 8 February 1979 and the debate on the Report was delayed until the November meetings of the Synod when we were pleased and relieved to see the Report completely rejected [2644].
The Parochial Registers and Records Measure came into force on 1 January 1979. At the Society's Annual Meeting in June 1978 Lord Teviot had said that he had been in touch with the Church in Wales about possible legislation about the registers there but that the Board of Welsh Bishops would watch the results of the Measure in England before taking any action [2645]. A free Guide to the Parochial Registers and Records Measure was issued by the Standing Conference for Local History on behalf of the Record Users' Group in 1979 [2646] and when Roger Barltrop asked about the results of the Measure at the Society's AGM I was able to say that the latest figures showed that throughout England and Wales about sixty per cent of records had been deposited, but that figures varied from county to county, from 90% to about 40% [2647]. The slow speed of inspections and deposits in some areas initially caused concern, particularly as a few parishes which had retained registers were (with the sudden upsurge in interest) deriving ‘a not insignificant income’ from search fees [2648]. Fortunately with the passage of time such parishes became a tiny minority and the overall situation greatly improved. Of course registers still occasionally turned up in strange places and late in 1979 I noticed that a register of burials in woollen, 1678-84, from Severn Stoke in Worcestershire, which had formerly been in the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps, was being offered for sale at £85 by a Cambridge bookseller [2649].
Lornie Leete-Hodge remained Editor of the Magazine for nearly five years until the issue for March 1972. From late 1969 it had been a period of increasing problems with the publishers, Phillimore & Co, and the Chairman paid a well-deserved tribute to the 'unflagging zeal and enthusiasm' that she had put into her task [2650]. Phillimore's involvement with the Magazine meant that the firm had taken over its distribution, but the complicated arrangements for up-dating the continually changing Addressograph plates caused many difficulties in the Society's office which had no means of recording temporary addresses or of sending any particular issue by airmail [2651]. Lornie Leete-Hodge had a most pleasant disposition. She was the daughter of a former Town Clerk at Devizes and had also, as her nephew later said an extremely sharp mind. Although after her 'retirement' she wrote to me in 1974 that it had been a bad year 'freelancing' she soon became a most successful writer, authoring a long series of children's books, thrillers, romances, royal biographies and local history, including the Story of Devizes (1983) and the very popular Country Life Book of Diana, Princess of Wales [2652].
Lornie Leete-Hodge's work was taken over by Francis Leo Leeson (1921-2009), Chairman of the Publications Committee, and Jeremy Gibson, one of its members, they working jointly to prepare the Magazine for publication. The new volume which had started in March 1972 had a different cover and a new name, it being henceforth entitled 'Gealogists’ Magazine' without 'The'. It had been decided to keep the 'golden-orange' of the cover as both 'traditional and eye-catching' and the simple cover design had just the Society's Seal, in a new design by Henry Gray with a list of the journal's principle contents [2653]. The Librarian, Lawson Edwards, was appointed Reviews Editor in November [2654].
The joint-editors set out their ideas in the June 1972 issue, hoping to have articles of 'instruction and advice regarding sources and techniques' rather than those giving the descent of any one family or group of families. They wanted articles 'on records and methods' as well as on topography, demography, statistics and genetics where they concerned genealogists [2655]. In the following issue they provided for the first time a basic 'house-style' for articles and reviews, the latter being solicited by the Librarian [2656]. A well-known American member, George McCracken, the editor of The American Genealogist or 'TAG' as it is familiarly known, was not so sure about excluding accounts of individual families and wrote that the most valuable articles in his journal were the studies of individual families by those who might be called experts [2657]. It is such examples of good practice that genealogical journals in England sadly lack.
One article that produced considerable interest in the speed with which it had been compiled was that on 'The ancestry of Captain Mark Phillips' by Patrick Montague-Smith in the December 1973 issue, the marriage of Mark Phillips and Princess Anne having only taken place on 14 November. The article included 16 'quartiers' and extensive further details of some maternal lines [2658].
In 1973-74 Dr Peter Spufford contributed two major articles to the Magazine about 'Population mobility in pre-industrial England' showing perhaps for the first time how very mobile Englishmen were in that period [2659]. Another important article was Melanie Barber's 'Records of genealogical interest in Lambeth Palace Library' with its many valuable comments on the marriage licences held there [2660]. However, an appeal which I made through the Magazine in June 1974 for members to slip index the calendars of marriage licences, working from a microfilm loaned to the Society for the purpose [2661], produced only one volunteer, the busy Arthur Howard (1921-1987), and the idea had to be shelved, though, of course, we renewed it later with complete success and a valuable series of indexes was then published by the Society.
An editorial in 1974 said that the time was perhaps ripe for the Society to extend its publishing role and suggested that the library must contain collections which with suitable editing would make useful publications [2662], for Phillimore, of course! Suggestions were called for, together with offers of editorial assistance, but met with very little response, Donald Mason calling it a ‘negative attitude’ when ‘a more positive view in encouraging the transcription of material not already held by the Society is required’ [2663]. The membership at large did not care for the Phillimore take over. The staff generally edited those things that were published and after the arrangements with Phillimore were discontinued in 1977 it usually fell to me to push them forward and to make the printing arrangements. The Publications Committee I had come to regard as rarely constructive or supportive, particularly after the war over Wills and their whereabouts which was being waged at this time.
The publication of the Magazine by Phillimore was, as mentioned, terminated after the March 1976 issue and resumed by the Society. Phillimore were reluctant to accept the situation and the firm's advertisement on the back cover continued to state for a further year that it was the official publisher and distributor to the Society though it was in reality only the principal agent for the distribution of the Society's publications.
Anthony Wagner thought that the brief revival of the Court of Chivalry in 1954 (when the Corporation of Manchester took successful action against Manchester Palace of Varieties Ltd for using its arms on the pelmet above the stage and on its seal) and the great increase in the number of Grants of Arms made about that time, were encouraging signs and wrote of 'the disappearance of the private Heraldic Offices' [2664], but, in fact, there was a great resurgence of them in the late 1960s and since then the purveyors of arms have not ceased to proliferate worldwide. There was a time when their presence at a self-respecting family history fair would have been questioned, but not today.
In 1968 the Heraldry Society had noted that within the last few months ‘almost every newspaper, national and provincial, has printed an article on firms who produce arms for everyone’. That Society had been flooded with letters of complaint and it thought that the public, generally ignorant of heraldic law and practice, should be protected from their activities. One firm claimed to have carried out research but the arms were usually taken from the unreliable Burke’s General Armory and the chances that they were genuine arms were, the Society thought, about one in five; the chances that the arms sold were those of the purchaser were roughly one in a hundred [2665]. According to The Times a shop of this type near Marble Arch run by Ronald Macaulay-Mowlam, of Croydon, had an average weekly sale of 700-1,000, three-quarters to Americans , and claimed that, ‘The arms we supply do not have any living claimants so far as our researches can tell’. They were ‘purely family arms and not in any way connected with individuals’. Whilst the reporter was there, an American called Bunker was given the arms of Goodhart, the surname Bunker being derived from Bon Coeur [2666]. The firm claimed to have arms for 225,000 names [2667]. Anthony Wagner had already pointed out to Macaulay-Mowlam that arms did not relate to names but to particular families and wrote to The Times to say that ‘there are … powers which could, I am advised, apply to improper traffic in armorial bearings or their commercial misuse’, but he did not choose to elaborate [2668]. In reply Macaulay-Mowlam wrote that the Arms dispensed by his firm ‘by virtue of their age’ did not ‘come within the protected categories of the College of Arms’ and that he was changing his literature to say that the ‘original Armiger … need not necessarily be related to the purchaser’.
A damning investigation into the trade by the Consumers' Association magazine Which? in April 1973 unsurprisingly came to the same conclusion as the Heraldry Society, saying that if you ordered Arms from one of the many commercial firms on the strength of your surname alone the resulting design 'is unlikely to be anything to do with you or your family'. In most of the cases investigated the arms depicted were for different surnames altogether [2669]. Of course the Arms provided by the firms did encourage some enquirers to investigate the matter further either themselves or by employing professional genealogists.
There was consequently considerable interest in May 1973 when a Bill sponsored by Lord Teviot, now working as a record agent and a member of the Society, came up for its Second Reading in the House of Lords, proposing that the College of Arms publish a table of its fees for granting or confirming arms, publish within twelve months a calendar of all its records and make them available to the public for reasonable fees and publish its accounts for Parliamentary scrutiny. After a debate lasting three and a half hours in which many peers spoke, the Bill was defeated by 49 votes to 28. Some peers were highly critical of the College's arcane practices but others, in particular Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, whilst agreeing that the College’s fees, like the Light Brigade, were ‘over-charged’, thought the Bill an ‘impertinence' and said that he would prefer to see a Bill to control ‘these freelance people … who advertise themselves as researchers and genealogists … some of whom are not above suspicion’ and to control the purveyors of false arms as exposed by Which? He quoted a man called Bibby who was given, for £5.50, the arms granted to John Bebb in 1801 and a man called Sandringham who was given the arms of Sander.
The former Lord Chancellor, Lord Gardiner, said that the impression was being created that each herald was asking for ‘what he thinks he can get’ and the debate revealed some interesting details of the salaries paid at the College but the Earl Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk, intervened to say that a table of fees would be produced (the fee for a grant of arms was at that time £250) but the debate also showed that the speedy production of a calendar to about a quarter of a million records was a quite impractical suggestion [2670]. However, Lord Teviot returned to the attack two months later when he asked in the Lords what public duties Garter King of Arms performed in return for the annual fee of £3,100 mentioned in the Supply Estimates. He was told that this was in recognition of the advice Garter gave on questions of heraldry, titles and precedence and for his duties at certain state ceremonies. On this occasion Lord Maybray-King was warmly supported when he commended the work of the 'very small and economically-run Department under Garter King of Arms' [2671]. There was, of course, some public support for the opening up of the records but the wider implications of such a move for the College as a whole were little understood.
The article in Which? did little if anything to stem the tide of bogus heraldry and the arrival of the firm Macaulay Mann Heraldry of London Ltd [2672] on Waterloo Station in 1975 was described by Francis Leeson in the Genealogists Magazine: ‘The latest development in assembly-line heraldry was witnessed at Waterloo Station, London, during the week ending 26 January when would-be armigers could be seen queuing at a kiosk for their achievements, sketched on the spot assuming a 30-minute search in the books and files of a well-known firm of heraldic manufacturers had proved successful. If not, the 70p fee was refunded in full to the disappointed applicant. Successful candidates, however, were sent on their way to City desks or suburban homes rejoicing in confirmed, or even new-found, gentility and their opportunity to purchase an ‘exquisite hand-painted shield’ at a substantial discount on ‘regularly advertised prices’’ [2673]. I have never forgiven the herald John Brooke-Little, the founder of the Heraldry Society, for being a director of this firm.
The Society's problems with Phillimore & Co were undoubtedly exacerbated by my three legal actions against the firm (the first also against its employee Jeremy Gibson) over the 1974 edition of my book Wills and their whereabouts. My 1963 edition had sold out within five years and in 1968 Phillimore came under new management and began to press for a new edition of the book. At the same time I began to collect revisions and additions for a major expansion of the text.
Although no copyright line had appeared in the 1963 edition, Phillimore took the view that the Society held the copyright, but I maintained that in view of my rewriting the Society probably held only the copyright of the introductory material in the first edition and that this was being completely rewritten or omitted. Although the book was not mentioned in Phillimore's October 1969 agreement with the Society, the firm apparently assumed that it would publish the book, though no specific terms had been arranged with the Society or me. The work on the book had, of course, mostly been done before that date, in my own time and at my own expense.
With the intention that Phillimore produce some sample page proofs and quotations which could be studied at the Society, the material that I had collected was taken by Phillimore in February 1971 and specimen proofs produced. These were of an extremely poor standard and quite unlike those of the 1963 edition, unjustified and lacking the indentations and changes of type that were necessary to make the book intelligible. I was astonished and appalled to find that the whole text had been hurriedly set in this way and looked at them in disbelief. Jeremy Gibson, who between April 1970 and September 1971 was employed by Phillimore as its Managing Editor (and had previously worked for the Pergamon Press and the Longman Group) but was also the joint-editor of the Society's Magazine and a member of its Publications and Executive Committees, then provided estimates of the likely costs. He was aware of my concerns and I made it clear to him in a letter written on 24 March 1971 that I was obtaining estimates from other publishers and that any work on the book done by Phillimore had been done without my authorisation [2674].
I then found a publisher willing to give a greater discount and royalty than that proposed by Phillimore who was also willing to produce the book in exactly the manner that I required. In these circumstances I had little hesitation in writing to Philip Harris, for Phillimore, 28 April 1971, that I would ask this other firm to print the book [2675]. Harris then said that with or without my approval Phillimore would go ahead and publish the book from the material I had submitted, and his solicitors wrote, 27 May 1971, to say that I would be breaking an implied contract by going elsewhere [2676]. After further discussion with Noel Osborne for Phillimore I re-iterated my decision to go ahead separately on 1 December 1971 [2677] and the firm's solicitors then wrote to the Society, 6 January 1972, saying that the book's copyright belonged to the Society, that it thus came under the terms of the 1969 agreement, and that Phillimore were proceeding with the publication and would be advertising to this effect in the trade papers that month [2678]. The Society, however, threw a spanner in their works by replying that although it had sponsored the previous edition of the book, it did not own the copyright [2679]. Gibson then wrote to the Chairman of the Executive Committee that he was 'heartily sick of the whole matter, which I fear have [sic] poisoned my relations with the staff and committee of the Society, when I know that I am only trying to do my best, at considerable financial sacrifice, for the Society' [2680]. The matter was raised again at the Executive Committee on 15 February but the Committee saw no reason to change its decision. The Chairman wrote consolingly to Gibson that he had unwittingly become 'caught in the cross-fire' [2681].
My solicitors, anxious to put the copyright question beyond any doubt, advised me to buy up the various rights in the book and in the course of 1972 I obtained a formal statement from Helen Thacker that she claimed no rights in her small additions to Bouwens's book [2682] and a formal Assignment of its Copyright from the Executors and Trustees of Bouwens's estate [2683]. Unfortunately, owing to the continual pressure of work and correspondence at the Society, my revision and expansion of the text of the new edition was intermittent and certainly not as speedy as I wished and then in July 1973 my mother died suddenly and I had the additional problem of putting my possessions into store and finding somewhere to live.
Phillimore & Co Ltd, as I subsequently learned, had meanwhile collected a large number of orders for a revision of my 1963 book and on 20 October 1973 Philip Harris asked Jeremy Gibson to work up a new book on the subject. Gibson (as became clear during the subsequent legal action), having prepared a draft either from my 1963 edition or from the galley proofs of the material which I had submitted in 1971, immediately began a whirlwind tour of some fifty record offices, starting only two days later and sometimes visiting two or three in a day, covering 3,000 miles in about ten weeks, and discussing with their staffs the drafts he had made from my work. These drafts he then amended and sent back to the archivists for approval and they formed the text of the book that Phillimore was now intent on publishing.
On 4 March 1974, getting wind from friends in the archive world of what Gibson was doing, I circulated to all the members of the Society a leaflet saying that my new edition of Wills and their Whereabouts would be published in May. It was a miracle that I had not delayed and in two weeks I had banked about £1,300 in orders and was circulating libraries in England and overseas. Jeremy Gibson, getting wind of what I was doing and being now ready to publish his version of my book, wrote to me on 8 March 1974 saying that I had probably heard on the grape-vine that he was preparing a new guide, saying 'Naturally I made a lot of use of your earlier edition' and telling me how impressed he was 'by its very high standard of accuracy' [2684]. He wrote similar letters to other officers of the Society. That to the Chairman, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, said that by circulating the leaflet I, Anthony Camp, had precipitated, 'a situation in which I regret there may be bad feeling (though not on my side)' [2685], but Arnold Hawker, the Honorary Treasurer, told him that he had himself created a difficult situation, saying 'What on earth lead you to step or dive into the already turbulent waters that lie between Anthony Camp and Phillimore? ... In your own interests should you not have advised AJC of your intentions?' [2686]. However, the Society's Executive Committee on 19 March avoided any mention of the matter. After it I had some sharp words with the Chairman, suggesting that Gibson be stopped from using the Magazine to circulate leaflets about his book, but Fitzgerald-Moore took the view that it was 'nothing to do with the Society' [2687]. I had already replied to Gibson saying that if he infringed my copyright, 'I will have to take such action as may be required to protect my interests' [2688].
An advertisement that Gibson then inserted in the March 1974 issue of the Genealogists’ Magazine referred to his 'completely new guide to testamentary records' and revealed that it was to be called Wills and where to find them, a title clearly chosen to cause confusion and 'rather sharp practice' as Mr Justice Brightman subsequently remarked. Gibson's book was published by Phillimore and available at £3.50 [3689]. The advertisement said that, 'All the information provided is fully up-to-date, having been collected by the compiler during visits to virtually every probate-record-holding office in England and Wales only weeks before actual publication'. Elsewhere in the same Magazine it was noted that my new edition of Wills and their whereabouts was due to be published in the spring at the same price and 'we must wait for reviews of the two books for a fair comparison' [2690]. My advertisement appeared in the June issue [2691].
Some aggressive marketing by Phillimore was meanwhile taking place. In response to enquiries for Wills and their whereabouts Phillimore were sending out a duplicated letter in which they stated that Gibson's book was necessary in the light of criticism of my 1963 edition and continued with the insulting statements, 'From the compiler's point of view it is far easier to list the material exactly as supplied by the relevant archivists, than to have to reorganise the facts in the interests of the user'. It had been necessary, the letter said, 'for a different editor to take on the far greater task of producing a completely new compilation which has been designed with the practical problems of the user in mind ... We are therefore supplying it against your recorded order for its predecessor which, of course, neither we nor the Society of Genealogists will now be publishing' [2692].
A similar nasty statement appeared in The Bookseller (where an advertisement for Gibson's book said that it was 'not based on any earlier work') [2693] under the heading 'Where there's a will', saying that Wills and where to find them was a replacement for Wills and their whereabouts and that the Society no longer wished to sponsor publication of my work or any revision of it [2694], a statement that the Chairman, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, was quick to deny as 'totally misleading' [2695], and which obliged me to advertise the true position in The Bookseller later that month [2696].
To cut a long story short, as soon as Gibson's book appeared my solicitors advised me that it was a blatant infringement of my copyright as well as a misuse of confidential information and informed Phillimore's solicitors in May 1974 that they intended to move the High Court ex parte in an interlocutory Injunction to restrain the further publication and distribution of Wills and where to find them. On 11 June separate writs were served on Gibson (at the Society just prior to a Publications Committee meeting) and on the firm and a Notice of Motion was served on their solicitors three days later together with a lengthy Affidavit which I had made on 13 June. The latter contained a schedule of similarities between my draft 1971 text and Gibson's book, listing examples of copied passages, of similar errors and peculiarities and of indexes omitted from both texts.
The Motion in the Chancery Division of the High Court commenced before Mr Justice Templeman on Friday, 21 June, and was adjourned to Friday, 28 June, before Mr Justice Brightman, on which day my printers delivered the eagerly awaited copies of my book which had been rushed through the press. This action was no casual affair. My solicitors, Rubinstein Nash & Co, were considered the foremost literary solicitors of the day, my Counsel, Andrew Pugh, had made a name for himself in copyright cases, and Counsel for Phillimore and Gibson, coincidentally called John Camp, had written the section on copyright in Halsbury's Laws of England. The daily costs were, of course, considerable. Arguments about the Motion continued for much of the following week but after an affidavit in which Jeremy Gibson set out his involvement in Phillimore's book he agreed that he had based his drafts on the galleys and previous edition of my book. In the course of the arguments the Judge said that Gibson had not acted dishonestly but that if he had made considerable use of my skill and labour, as was being argued on my behalf, Gibson had 'seriously misunderstood the nature of the law of copyright'. It was also, my Counsel said, 'a really shocking case of breach of confidence'.
On Thursday, 4 July, I was advised that Phillimore were willing to accept a settlement on terms very much in my favour. Gibson’s book, having already been circulated in the British Isles and in America, I was further advised not to proceed further but to agree to these terms. And so, in the corridor outside the High Court, me scribbling away on a large pad on my knees, Anthony Rubinstein dictated an agreement which was signed and exchanged by the various parties present.
The agreement required Phillimore to pay me within 14 days a royalty of 10% of the retail price on 750 copies of Wills and where to find them, 10% of the receipts from the copies sold to America, and 10% of all future sales, Phillimore limiting sales to the initial printing of 5,000 copies and (with Gibson) not publishing any further work with the same title or any other title using the word Will or Wills as its first word. Phillimore were also to attach a slip to face the contents pages of all future copies of Gibson's book sold acknowledging that Wills and their whereabouts was the definitive book in the field and that Gibson wished 'to record his indebtedness to Mr Camp's painstaking researches of which he has made considerable use in the present volume which is intended for less experienced genealogists'. Phillimore were also required to insert 'with reasonable prominence' into the next possible issues of The Bookseller, the Genealogists’ Magazine and the National Genealogical Society Quarterly a notice making it clear that Gibson's book was not a replacement for mine and that Gibson acknowledged his indebtedness to my work which he recognised as the definitive reference book on testamentary records. There were other minor points, and the libel action (1974 C4500) was to be settled by the making of an agreed statement in open court, Phillimore paying my costs. Phillimore (indemnified by Gibson) also agreed to make a substantial contribution to all my overall costs.
During the case I generally had lunch in the Strand with my solicitor and one day the waitress rushed up to say that a man had complained that his coffee was in fact soup! I was in such a nervous state that I had not noticed that I was drinking Marmite, to which I had added milk, merely thinking that it had a slightly unusual taste! How we laughed afterwards [2697]. The tension throughout had, of course, been considerable but I did not regret the action I had taken. Most of the staff at the Society thought that Gibson should resign from the committees and the genealogist Robert Wood Massey (1917-1985), also a member of the Executive Committee, wrote to me that the publication of Gibson's book had been 'utterly despicable' [2698] but Gibson took the view that my 'action was hardly in the Society's best interests' and that 'the Society should be run by its members and not by its staff [and] I intend to remain on its committees and doing my best for its future' [2699]. Gibson insisted on congratulating me publicly on my book and bounced up to me every now and then, in person or in correspondence [2700], to make some outrageous suggestion - such as co-editing the next edition or taking joint advertisements - that seemed calculated to annoy, though I was obliged to keep my peace.
As mentioned one of the terms of our agreement was that Phillimore would publish 'in a position of reasonable prominence' in the Magazine a statement that Gibson's book was not a replacement for my own and that Gibson acknowledged his indebtedness to my book which he recognised as the definitive one on testamentary records. I naturally attached some importance to such a statement. The wording appeared in the September 1974 issue but hidden in the text of an advertisement for Gibson's book [2701] and was hardly what we had in mind. The matter was raised at the Publications Committee in November but not even minuted and my attempt to get the statement printed in the manner intended was thwarted by Alexander Sandison, the chairman of the Committee, to whom I wrote formally about it in March 1975 [2702]. Desperate to avoid any prolongation of a bitter dispute he replied in May, 'If and when Phillimores and Mr Gibson seek a fresh insertion in the Magazine then of course facilities will be given for it to appear' [2703]. The Society's solicitor, Douglas Gabriel, when confirming his advice that the Society had no claim to any interest in the copyright of my book, had added 'I would have thought that the Society should give Mr Camp any assistance that he may require but this is, of course, a personal view' [2704], but the Society thus washed its hands of the matter.
In consequence of Phillimore's statement in The Bookseller and in their duplicated letter to applicants for my book, my solicitors had advised me that a separate action for libel should be commenced in the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court [1974 C4500] as a result of which Counsel for Phillimore & Co Ltd recognised that the statement in the letter, which Phillimore had already agreed not to distribute further, 'was completely untrue'. In a public statement read in Open Court before Mr Justice Shaw on 31 July 1975 they acknowledged that I 'had devoted several years of research to produce in the third and fourth editions of Wills and their whereabouts a guide which is accurate, convenient to use and in its fourth edition (published in June 1974) brought fully up to date in the light of recent research'. They said that they were happy to withdraw their allegations and to apologise 'for a wholly unjustifiable slur' on my reputation, adding that they recognised that the imputation referred to should never have been made. In view of this public correction and apology, and upon payment of my costs, I was happy to let the matter drop. The librarian, Lawson Edwards, and his former assistant, Anders Larsen, came with me early that morning to hear the statement read in Court 21. I had greatly appreciated their support and that of my Counsel, Andrew Pugh, throughout all these difficult months, not to mention that of my solicitor, the brilliant Anthony Rubinstein and his team (in particular Ruth Meyler), and the printer of my book, Irwin Van Colle. Malcolm McEachran amongst others at the Society had also been a warm supporter of my cause.
I had naturally hoped that this might be the end of the matter but the costs of the libel action were not paid until 1978 and the agreement to pay me ten per cent of the retail price of Gibson's book caused further problems. According to statements made during the court action in 1974 some 5,000 copies had been printed, of which 1,000 had gone to America. I received royalties on the copies sold until the end of 1974 but none thereafter and I therefore filed a claim against Phillimore in Westminster County Court on 4 July 1977 [Plaint 77/16365] and on 31 August 1977 obtained an Order that they provide statements for 1975 and 1976 and the costs of the action. I was then sent royalty statements and payments until June 1978 showing that in total 2,791 copies had been sold. What happened to the other 2,209 copies was never divulged. The costs of this last action remain unpaid.
My difficulty at the time was to obtain any publicity for the outcome of these actions. My book sold well and I did not need to send out review copies, though a few reviews appeared, usually in conjunction with Gibson's book, written by people who were obviously not aware of the outcome of the court action or who were mystified by the simultaneous appearance of two books on the same subject. Dr R. J. Hetherington in the Journal of the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry, in a lengthy article about both books concluded, 'There can be no doubt that Camp's is the one to buy' [2705]. My book had sold out by November 1975 and although I contemplated a revision then and on several subsequent occasions, the pressure of other things got in the way. In any case the whole experience of these two editions had been so unpleasant that I hardly wished to revisit it again.
Our President, Lord Mountbatten, was, it transpired, the most devious and manipulative of people, often sending out draft letters that his recipient friends were to write and send back to him that he might use them to promote some pet project of his own.
I realise now that I was expected to fall into this trap in July 1968 when after the AGM that year at No 3 Belgrave Square, he asked me what Supporters and Crest would be appropriate for Lady Mountbatten's Arms in a design which he was considering for Edwina Mountbatten House, a block of sheltered housing, which was to be built at Romsey in her memory. Edwina had died in 1960. Ladies, as I explained, with very few exceptions, are not entitled to either Supporters or Crests. He wrote the following day to provide the wording of a letter which he wanted me to write to him, suggesting that I said that ‘if it is proposed to place Supporters and Crest surrounding a clock ... the only proper solution would be to place your own Supporters and Crest as representing the Mountbatten family’ [2706]. I was not at all happy with this as Edwina's Arms would not then appear and although I did as I was asked, I sent a separate letter enclosing a design that incorporated her Arms, saying that if he used his Supporters and Crest around a clock face, some authorities would say that he had turned his Arms, in heraldic terms, into 'a clock face proper' [2707]. He called it a 'very helpful letter' [2708] but did exactly as he had intended, though Edwina’s personal monogram in wrought-iron is nicely used elsewhere in the building.
It was his own name that Lord Mountbatten wished to perpetuate and it was probably for the same reason that in 1972 he suggested to Sir Iain Moncreiffe that Sir Iain review his The Mountbatten Lineage (1958) for the Magazine [2709]. We now know that for the September Magazine that year, Lord Mountbatten asked Clare Forbes Turner, the daughter of his archivist at Broadlands, to type out and claim as her own an article which he had himself written about the use of the surname Mountbatten-Windsor by members of the royal family. Her father told her that she was to type the letter on her own machine and that there was 'little chance that you will be traced as my daughter' [2710].
Lord Mountbatten had for some years believed that his nephew the Duke of Edinburgh had been denied the right to found a new dynasty and had long been agitating for the royal family to take the surname Mountbatten-Windsor. In February 1960 when the Queen was pregnant with Prince Andrew she apparently told Mountbatten that the idea of the hyphenated name had been agreed by the Cabinet and would be announced when the baby was born. In fact the announcement made on 8 February was not at all clear in its intentions and when Princess Anne married in November 1973 Mountbatten pressurized the Prince of Wales to 'fix it', as he himself put it, so that her surname appeared in the marriage entry as 'Mountbatten-Windsor' [2711].
Sarah Bradford believed that this was 'in direct contravention' of the Queen's statement and so it appears to be, the declaration saying, 'while I and my children will continue to be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor my descendants, other than descendants enjoying the style, title or attributes of Royal Highness and the titular dignity of Prince or Princess, and female descendants who marry and their descendants, shall bear the name Mountbatten-Windsor'. This was generally interpreted to mean that only the third generation of her male line descendants would bear the hyphenated surname [2712].
However, the article that Lord Mountbatten had written for Clare Forbes Turner to sign, and which quoted as its authority 'our foremost constitutional lawyer, the late Edward F. Iwi' [2713], had unequivocally stated that as a result of the Queen's announcement the surname of her children was Mountbatten-Windsor. When the Turner article, which was considerably amended by Patrick Montague-Smith the Editor of Debrett [2714], appeared in our Magazine [2715], Mountbatten triumphantly sent copies to several sections of the royal household saying that it had been 'vetted by various constitutional experts' and 'amended by them to what they presume to be absolutely legally correct' [2716].
Unfortunately, Lord Mountbatten's Private Secretary, John Barratt, anxious to underline what had happened, then wrote to one of the joint-editors of our Magazine saying that 'Any ambiguity about the children of the Queen and Prince Philip legally possessing the surname Mountbatten-Windsor has now been resolved' [2717] but this backfired and our joint-editors innocently made the mistake of writing in the next Magazine that the earlier statement had now been confirmed 'by our President' [2718], a statement that his subterfuge had, of course, been designed to conceal. He was furious, saying that he had taken great care not to say anything of the kind and that the wording had placed him in a difficult position personally [2718]. The hyphened surname did not appear in the Prince of Wales's marriage entry in 1981, and although it appeared on Prince Edward's marriage in 1999, the latter's daughter uses the surname Windsor. In English law a surname is only acquired by use and repute and although one may have a Royal Licence saying that it is such-and-such, the reality is that one's surname is the name by which one is known. Lord Mountbatten's extraordinary machinations intended to associate his surname with that of the immediate royal family have not, therefore, been altogether successful.
At the EGM and AGM held at Caxton Hall, Westminster, in 1972 Lord Mountbatten explained his intended involvement in a forthcoming International Congress and during the interval between the two meetings called me and Mildred Surry into another room for a general discussion. At the second Meeting he proposed that the Society send a message of congratulations to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on their Silver Wedding which he (of course!) would sign [2710]. He then mentioned an old friend with whom he had corresponded for some years, Arnold McNaughton (1930-1979), of Hemmingford, Quebec, the compiler of The Book of Kings (1973) [2721] a book that traced all the descendants of King George I and was about to be published in three volumes with a great number of family photographs and an introduction by himself. He had not cared for the fact that I had criticised the book's arrangement in the draft which I had seen, though he did not say that in the formal meeting and he proposed to give the Society a copy, not, as he said, a copy of the signed, limited edition, but the cheaper one (costing £45) on which he could get the author's discount because he could sign that for nothing!
Mountbatten was lucky (or perhaps I was lucky) in that he never asked my opinion of his Relationship Tables (1947), a fascinating work that he had spent much time working on in India, for like many genealogists he had invented his own numbering system and it was quite appalling. The book was dedicated to H4B4A/V3A4A and H2A1D2/X5A3A43, the absurd numbers that he had given to his two daughters.
In 1971 the first report of the activities of the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry which had been founded some eight years earlier (in 1963) appeared in the Magazine. It had 96 members and an active new Secretary, Frederick Charles Markwell (died 1993), who had joined our Society in 1968. Its first President had been an eye surgeon Dr Kingsley Norris (died 1972) [2722] the Secretary Mr J. C. Sharp of the Birmingham Reference Library, and the organisation was affiliated to the Birmingham and Midland Institute. Members had done some transcription work of both registers and memorials and the Society intended to publish the results. A quarterly journal had recently taken the place of the former news' sheet [2723]. The following year the Society had published its first parish register transcript, Little Malvern, and the membership had risen to 185. On 1 June a group of 53, together with a reporter from the Birmingham Evening Post, enjoyed a crowded visited to our library [2724].
At the end of the AGM in June 1972 the President, Lord Mountbatten, said that he would like to make a personal statement. He had been awarded the Julian Bickersteth Memorial Medal and elected a Founder Fellow in Heraldry and Genealogy of the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies. There he had been told that at the 11th International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences held this year in Liege, the suggestion had been made that England should host the Congress in 1974 or 1976. He said that he had been invited to preside over the Congress but as he would then be 74 or 76 he had declined the honour, but that he would be prepared to give a brief opening address. He hoped that the Society would open its doors to all those attending and put on an exhibition for them. The suggestion was greeted with some enthusiasm [2725].
Lord Mountbatten did not know that some of the heralds at the College of Arms regarded the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies at Canterbury with suspicion and animosity as did many at the Society of Genealogists. Some remembered also that the Sixth International Congress, which had been held in Edinburgh (its only appearance in Britain) in September 1962 under the Presidency of the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, had been followed by much acrimony. Its Secretary-General, Lt. Col. Robert Gayre of Gayre and Nigg (1907-1996), claimed that a Government grant of £2,000, promised in 1958, had later been cancelled, too late for the congress organisers to withdraw, and that he had made a personal loss of £2,431 14s 6d [2726]. The racist overtones of his recently founded periodical Mankind Quarterly, coupled with his general unreliability, raised other concerns. The programme of the Congress, as reported in the Daily Telegraph, dealt only with ‘the relevance of genealogy to human genetics, the legal functions of heraldic offices and courts of justice, and the principles of classification and evolution of orders of knighthood’, all of which he happily sought to manipulate to his own advantage, inspiring little if any confidence in future such Congresses. Entirely at home in the promotion of false styles and titles (born merely ‘Gair’ he had changed his surname to ‘Gayre of Gayre and Nigg’ and invented a ‘Clan Gayre’ in 1957) his Congress announced that it would set up a supervisory body for such things. It would be, as Vincent Mulchrone jokingly wrote in the Daily Mail, a sort of Ilk Marketing Board [2727]. This International Commission on Orders of Chivalry was mired in controversy, much of Gayre’s making, for many years. Gayre died in 1996.
However, the suggestion that the International Congress should meet in England had been put to Lord Mountbatten by Cecil Humphery-Smith, the Director of the Institute at Canterbury, who for some time had been involved with the Académie Internationale d’Héraldique which sponsored these Congresses. Humphery-Smith's idea had been to form a very loose association of prestigious organisations to mount the congress and a working party had been formed of society representatives and interested individuals, the latter including Donald Steel. In September 1973 it was announced that the 1976 International Congress would take place at Canterbury and that the Chairman of the Society's Executive Committee, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, was attending preliminary meetings as an 'observer' [2728].
On 22 September 1973 Cecil Humphery-Smith had told the organising committee that ‘despite the fact that none of the Heralds were attending this meeting, relations with the College of Arms were good and that individual Heralds had indicated their support for the International Congress’ [2729]. However, on 13 November 1973, Sir Anthony Wagner, Garter King of Arms, wrote to Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, the President of the Institute, with whom he had been in contact on the subject since 26 April 1973, saying that he did not feel justified in nominating an Officer of Arms to act as liaison officer with the organisers of the Congress as Lord Monckton had requested, or indeed in agreeing to get Chapter’s approval of the Congress [2730].
As Donald Steel wrote later, 'When the College of Arms pulled out because Sir Anthony Wagner, then Garter King of Arms, objected to the Institute's involvement, and the Society of Genealogists followed suit, there were mass resignations from this steering committee until only a tiny handful of members were left' [2731]. The Society made it clear that it would not support the Congress because the College of Arms was unwilling to be involved.
In June 1973 the Magazine had noted that Donald Steel would be running two courses in Genealogy and Family History for London University Department of Extra-Mural Studies in the academic year 1973-74 at Adult Education Centres at Watford and at Camberley, following a similar pattern to the courses at these centres which he and Cecil Humphery-Smith had given in prevous years [2732]. The latter ran a similar course at Morley College, Westminster Bridge, commencing in the autumn of 1974 [2733], and in subsequent years. A note on the Society’s Lecture Programme for 1973-4 said that courses in family history, genealogy and heraldry were being run by the Extra-Mural Departments of the Universities of London and Oxford in London, Kent and Essex, as well as by several county Education Committees.
In September 1973 the Society published in the advertisement pages of the Magazine a notice headed 'Have you considered joining a genealogical society in the area in which your ancestors lived?' The advertisement had been organised by the Birmingham and Midland Society and listed nine groups, most of which produced a journal: Birmingham and Midland Society, Family History Society of Cheshire (Northern Region), Genealogical Society of the East Midlands, Irish Genealogical Research Society (with its headquarters in London), Manchester Genealogical Society, Northern Section of the Society of Genealogists, Rossendale Society for Genealogy and Heraldry, Sussex Family History Group and Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Family Studies Section [2734].
In response Mrs Elizabeth Simpson (1923-2007), then editor of the Family Historian the journal of the Family History Society of Cheshire's Northern Region, described how she had set up exchanges of journals with other societies and had thereby enriched her Society's library, but she complained that many societies would not exchange journals and that she had received some 'terrible rebuffs' from historical societies. She concluded that 'any society is only as good as the current member in charge of its affairs as its secretary, or its editor, or publicity officer, etc' [2735].The editors of the Magazine then made it clear that they were happy to devote a regular feature to conferences, courses and local groups and would welcome news of them, each limited to 100 words, the advertising pages being open to longer or routine announcements [2736].
At the time there was some considerable unease and apprehension at the Society that the Genealogical Society of Utah intended to establish a 'branch genealogical library' in their mission headquarters in London which would inevitably become a rival to the Society’s library, but in 1974 it confirmed that it had, at that time, no such intention [2737].
On 5-6 April 1974 a grandly named 'English Genealogical Congress', which copied the name of Stella Colwell's already advertised congress, took place at Eliot College, Canterbury, under the auspices of the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies. It was attended by only 34 people, including the Institute's staff and was opened by the Society's Chairman, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore. There were various discussion groups but the congress's main theme was co-operation in genealogy and Donald Steel wrote later that its 'highlight' was a talk by Fred Markwell on the new 'Provincial Revolution' that was fast transforming family history in England [2738]. Plans for the foundation of several provincial societies were mooted and hopes were expressed 'that closer ties could be established between the Society of Genealogists and such local groups'. The Society was also encouraged 'to give active support' to the forthcoming International Congress in 1976 [2739].
Three weeks later on 28 April 1974 Donald Steel had used the Society's Members' Room to found the West Surrey Borders Family History Society without any suggestion that it be affiliated to the Society [2740], and he then chose the June Magazine to make a virulent and typically blinkered attack on the Society which many thought should not have been published without official comment and which did little to advance his cause. He said that we were no longer a genuine Society as the members did not have contact with each other and there were no social functions. The organisation had, he said, in effect become a subscription library and with 3,000 members was too large to provide the 'genuine fellowship' found in the local societies, but that these had been ignored when they should have been part of the Society's 'parent body'. It had failed to mount or encourage conferences and the Annual Meetings were boring empty formalities. Little effort had been invested in encouraging courses through other organisations. He said that in his experience it was 'simply not true that genealogists are interested solely in their own families and do not want to associate with others'. He wanted 'a federal structure with an Executive Committee consisting of regional representatives' which would meet, perhaps quarterly, in different parts of the country. The library was daily becoming less comprehensive, the buying of family histories had stopped and members were not actively encouraged to deposit records. He agreed that the present staffing and accommodation were 'grossly inadequate' but said that whenever radical solutions were suggested the Society did 'too little too late, taking refuge in the entrenched conservatism of keeping things as they always have been' [2741]. As Patricia Riach wrote in the next issue Steel's letter had 'all the attraction of a party political broadcast' and he gave no trace of a suggestion as to how his dreams might be realised. The problems were lack of money, lack of staff and lack of space. The local societies had, in fact, been given much publicity through the Genealogists’ Magazine, journals were exchanged with all of them (in the British Isles and overseas), and many were being given the Society's duplicate copies of parish registers and monumental inscriptions [2742].
Mrs Riach might have added that Steel's idea for a federal structure was not one that he had previously advocated but which he now saw as a useful stick with which to beat the Society into supporting the International Congress. Whether the local societies that Steel was keen on founding would have agreed to an umbrella organisation formed by the SoG, with a subscription sufficient to cover the activities of both bodies, their journals and libraries (for history showed that only one in ten would subscribe to both), now seems highly unlikely. Donald Steel was on a crusade and the practicalities of these matters concerned him little. In fact, in spite of what he had written in June and as he admitted later, he was already thinking that a new federation of provincial societies should immediately be created from the handful of family history societies, most of them recently formed, 'independent of either the Society of Genealogists or the Institute', believing that this would form 'a solid base free of any influence from the prestigious bodies which had dominated the subject hitherto'. It would also support the International Congress. 'I discussed this concept with Fred Markwell', he wrote, 'and gained his wholehearted support' [2743]. He also proposed him for Fellowship of the Society.
In the absence of Humphery-Smith in Portugal, Donald Steel then called a meeting of all the British genealogical and heraldic societies and other fringe organisations, himself drafting a letter that was signed by Cedric Holyoake of the Heraldry Society, the secretary of the steering committee. This meeting was held at Newman College, Birmingham, on 8 June 1974, and took a decision to form a 'National Federation of Family Historical, Genealogical and Allied Societies'. Rodney Dennys and Sir Andrew Noble were observers on the Society's behalf [2744]. A second meeting at the Albion Hotel, Brighton, on 4 August (during the exhibition 'Heritage '74' mentioned below) wisely changed the name of the new organisation to 'Federation of Family History Societies'. Its objects were 'to bring together Societies who have a common interest in these subjects, to pool ideas and resources and generally to promote liaison between them'. Iain Swinnerton was confirmed as Chairman, Elizabeth Simpson as Secretary, and Royston Gambier (incorrectly called Gambia in Fred Markwell's report mentioned later) as Treasurer. The Federation immediately set up a committee to assist in the organisation of the International Congress in 1976. Fred Markwell thought it might be 'the most important development in British genealogy since the foundation of the Society of Genealogists' [2745].
The local societies, as young Martin J. D. Green from Sheffield pointed out, had many advantages over the Society of Genealogists (which he considered an insular and unfriendly place), relating as they did to a limited area, where people were likely to be following similar interests, with the added benefits of local knowledge and proximity to the local record office [2746]. His points were further elaborated by Fred Markwell in his article 'Co-operation in Family History Studies', presumably the text of the above mentioned talk, that appeared in the September 1974 Magazine, and which said that involvement in a local society 'can turn the genealogist into a family historian and thereby into a social historian'. He said that these societies, 'were widening their scope, launching major projects, undertaking valuable field work, recording, publishing, unearthing new sources of information and, above all, promoting stimulating comradeship and the sharing of experience'. A magazine was, he said, essential and should be 'as intimate and personal as possible'. He saw the national societies as 'rightly concentrating on collecting source material and providing for the more scholarly aspects of our study'. 'Their appeal', he said, 'is to the more experienced family historian'. He said that the regional societies 'have made a valuable contribution to genealogy by the promotion of W. E. A., extra-mural and local education authority evening institute courses'. He thought that some co-ordination in these would be useful and suggested a weekend training conference for their tutors [2747] The latter was a point echoed by Stella Colwell who thought that the increasing number of local societies 'points to an urgent need for proper organisation of teaching methods of research, palaeography, and the interpretation of material found'. She also called for a central registry of pedigrees through which professionals would lay their work open to scrutiny and prevent duplication of effort [2748].
Some ten days after the meeting in Birmingham, on 18 June 1974, the Society of Genealogists held its AGM in London. The crowded venue was the meeting room of the National Book League in Albemarle Street and Lord Mountbatten, who had a ‘fearful cold’, was in the chair. I remember standing at the back with the industrious transcriber of Oxfordshire parish registers Brigadier Frank R.L. Goadby (1899-1985) and many others and Goadby's acerbic comments on some of the speakers. Sir Anthony Wagner, who was not present, wrote later that Mountbatten handled the difficult meeting 'with great and necessary firmness' [2749].
At the end of the main business Donald Steel put forward a formal proposal, seconded by Gerald Hamilton-Edwards, that the Society welcomed the intention to hold the 13th International Congress in England and that the meeting requested the Executive Committee to appoint an official representative on the organising committee and to set up a sub-committee to make recommendations to the Executive on the ways and means by which the Society could assist. Mountbatten said that he had read the correspondence on the subject and had discussions with the Earl Marshal (the Duke of Norfolk) and Garter King of Arms (Sir Anthony Wagner) who had agreed that a worthwhile conference would need to have the full backing of the College of Arms. The Society, he said, had appointed Sir Andrew Noble to represent it in discussions with the College. He himself did not wish to be associated with a congress which did not have the active participation of the College of Arms as it would not be worthy of the Society.
Donald Steel said that in September 1973 he had joined the working party set up at Canterbury and that the British Council and other bodies had promised their co-operation, Imperial College having been chosen as the venue. Not having received the support of the Society and the College of Arms he and Hamilton-Edwards had worded the present proposal but he had since learned that both bodies would support a congress in 1978, believing that 1976 was too soon. However plans for 1976 were well advanced (something of an exaggeration!) and the local societies had agreed to federate and 'go forward together'. He did not think that the Permanent Bureau (the body that authorised the International Congresses) could be told that they were not wanted until 1978 or that the decision could be altered. Hamilton-Edwards, in supporting the proposal, said that the opportunity should not be allowed to slip by, but if another congress was desired perhaps it could be organised without the involvement of the Permanent Bureau. The Chairman of the Executive Committee, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, said that everyone wanted a congress, 'the difference lay in the time scale and perhaps the scope'. An International Congress without the College would be Hamlet without the Prince; no first class congress could be mounted without its support. The suggestion that there be two congresses was not a feasible one; one alone would be expensive enough. He urged the organisers of the 1976 congress to think of it as a national one that might pave the way for an international one two years later and he proposed an amendment to Steel's proposal to that effect. Denis Burton, seconding him, thought that an international congress on heraldry without the Heralds would be a disaster and that the participation of the College was essential. He had been told that the 13th Congress could be held in Madrid in which case the 14th could be in London in 1978. Fred Markwell, who had never been to any of the international congresses and would probably have had little sympathy with their programmes, said revealingly that very few local societies would want to support a congress organised by the College, they wanted 'a voluntary effort done for their own sakes and for that alone worthwhile'.
Lord Mountbatten said that 'whilst he greatly admired the achievements of Mr Markwell and his friends he felt they could best combine in an English congress. If they set up a rival organisation to the College there was bound to be trouble'. Cecil Humphery-Smith thought the proposals so far put forward by the College were too vague to risk abandoning existing plans, but Rodney Dennys, Somerset Herald, assured the meeting that the participation of the College could be relied upon though he regretted the delay. He felt that the College would adhere to its view that no congress could be mounted before 1978.
Others present proposed amendments to Fitzgerald-Moore's amendment, the difficult meeting dragged on until nearly nine o’clock when Lord Mountbatten eventually said that he would much prefer not to put the matter to the vote. He thought that the subject was full of dangers that many present did not understand and that the Society could easily be split and many people placed in impossible positions. Hoping that a compromise might be reached he therefore proposed that he contact Garter King of Arms and ask him to form with Sir Andrew Noble and Rodney Dennys a high-level working party. He would try to see Lord Monckton, President of the Institute, to ask him to see Garter, preferably with Colonel Swinnerton, the Chairman of the Federation. He put this motion to the meeting and it was carried and the meeting closed [2750]. Cecil Mackay, writing the day after this ‘perfectly frightful’ meeting, said that it was a ‘magnificent performance’ by Lord Mountbatten and got the Society ‘out of the most fearful jam’ [2751].
From Saturday to Tuesday, 3-6 August 1974, the Society sponsored an exhibition and conference at the Metropole Hotel, Brighton, called 'Heritage '74', organised by Exhibitions & Trade Fairs International Ltd, which was the forerunner of the family history fairs of later years and intended to include books, equipment and other materials associated with genealogy and its allied arts and crafts, such as heraldry, brass-rubbing and calligraphy [2752]. The Society was fortunately not involved financially but I publicised the event on the radio in 'The World this Weekend' the previous Sunday and went down to Brighton for the press reception on Thursday, attending throughout (staying at the Queen's Hotel) and spending part of a memorable Sunday parading Brighton seafront dressed as Henry VIII and handing out leaflets in an attempt to drum up interest in the poorly attended exhibition. I was later commended for the 'wonderful way' in which I joined in the spirit of Heritage '74 but it had been hard work [2753].
The exhibition was open from 10 am to 9 pm and a stand publicising the Society's activities was mounted in conjunction with AGRA, being manned for these long hours by one or two Society staff and AGRA volunteers, Gwynneth Martin from Hayling Island and Jo-Ann Buck from Colchester being stalwart helpers. A neighbouring stand publicised a number of the local societies and Fred Markwell of the Birmingham Society later paid tribute to Elizabeth Simpson, Michael Walcot (Secretary of the Hampshire Society) and Colonel Swinnerton, for 'this concerted effort' [2754]. Apart from these stands and a display of books published by Phillimore & Co there was little of direct interest to genealogists, the remaining exhibits, as the Magazine editors rather unkindly wrote, 'being a hotchpotch of costume displays, puppets, and antique dealers' wares'. A photograph of the Phillimore stand, showing four Fellows of the Society and the then Phillimore Editorial Director, appeared in the Magazine [2755]. but the caption did not say that Phillimore had abandoned the stand at the close of business on the first day and had not appeared again, the organisers subsequently taking legal action against them to recover unpaid booking fees [2756].
The manning of stands was certainly a challenge for the energetic organiser, Brenda Leech, but there were also four days of lectures. The first day, Saturday, was devoted to genealogy [2757], with Donald Steel, Cecil Humphery-Smith, Elizabeth Simpson and Dr W. O. Hassall as speakers, and attended by about a hundred people. The second day had talks on English ceramics, the third on English furniture and the fourth on coins, war medals and decorations.
Sir Andrew Noble and Rodney Dennys took the opportunity afforded by Heritage '74 at Brighton to meet Colonel Iain Swinnerton, the Chairman of the Federation, for exploratory talks and in December the Society's chairman reported that the Federation had produced a draft constitution and that it should not take long to find a convenient formula for associating the Society with the Federation. He emphasised then that the Federation was 'not brought into being, as many people suppose, solely to run the 1976 Congress, but is a coming together of many like-minded societies, with the intention of providing a permanent focus for genealogy and family history on a different geographical basis from that offered by the Society' [2758]. This was the diplomat speaking and many involved did not see it like that. Humphery-Smith saw the federation as ‘a national body as host to the Congress, divorcing it from any individual society or existing organisation’ and he intended that each organisation involved should guarantee £10 in the event of the congress making a loss [2759]. Donald Steel certainly did not see it like that. He had wanted, he wrote later, to 'create an organisation to host the 13th International Congress' and he had succeeded in forming 'a new organisation as a substitute for the Society of Genealogists and the College of Arms in hosting the International Congress when all seemed lost’ [2760].
It was to me a perfect recipe for duplication on all fronts and I was not alone in that view. Mervyn Medlycott wrote to the Magazine that although he believed strongly that those with a greater degree of knowledge and experience in the art of family history research should assist newcomers and that this was most successfully achieved by personal contact in discussions groups, he thought that such regional groups should confine their affairs to their regions and leave the national issues in the capable hands of the relevant committees at the Society of Genealogists and not in the yet-untried hands of the newly formed federation. He was particularly concerned that the efforts of genealogists be coordinated with those of other historical groups, saying that 'the local groups cannot hope to keep tabs on all national developments nor to have any idea of the overall effect' [2761].
It was a view that was not sufficiently heard, particularly as there were now two national bodies, both claiming the same 'geographical basis'. In the same Magazine, Hugh Peskett (1932-2020) pointed out that Devon and Cornwall already had 'some of the older, more active, and more progressive genealogical organizations in the country' although they did not have 'Genealogical' in their names [2762], to which Fred Markwell could only comment that they should join his Federation [2763]. Marion Lodey, a W. E. A. tutor in family history, to whom family history 'bridged the generation gap and enlivened history for all the family', agreed with Markwell's earlier suggestion that there should be a weekend training conference for potential family history tutors [2764]. The enthusiastic experiences of Eva Beech, the first W. E. A. tutor in family history in Staffordshire in 1973, were published in 1975 [2765].
The earlier comments by Martin Green, who had joined the SoG in 1972, about the unfriendliness of its members were attacked by Brenda Perks, an 'old member both in years of membership and age', as 'basically untrue' and an injustice to the members and especially to the staff who were always willing to help with problems when asked to do so. She wrote, 'I have overheard and marvelled at the infinite patience of Mr Lawson Edwards, the librarian, when he is approached about some elementary problem' [2766]. Harold Broadbent, of Huddersfield, also defended the Society, saying that members joined a national society to give their support to the general objectives of that society in the belief that at all times it would prosecute, with the greatest force, the general conditions and facilities required by its members for the more successful carrying on of their work [2767].
Meanwhile Sir Andrew Noble had been asked by the SoG to fly to Amsterdam to clarify with the Permanent Bureau some of the points raised at the AGM in June 1974 and as a result he recommended that the Society invite the Bureau to hold the 13th Congress in England in 1976. Rodney Dennys went to Munich in September and on behalf of the Society, the Federation and the Institute, formally extended that invitation which was accepted. The College of Arms had indicated that the holding of the Congress in England would enjoy its goodwill and the Heraldry Society promised its support, 'though unable to participate in the preparations'. The former provisional Organising Committee had been under the chairmanship of Dr Peter Spufford but he now resigned and was succeeded by Sir Andrew Noble. The Vice-Chairman was Donald Steel, the Secretary-General, Cecil Humphery-Smith, the Treasurer, Royston Gambier and the Congress Organiser, Major Robert (‘Bobby’) Collins (1924-2012) [2768]. Sir Andrew Noble, former ambassador to Poland, Mexico and the Netherlands, would need all his diplomatic skills in the months and years ahead.
At the AGM on 28 June 1975, in the absence of Sir Andrew, Donald Steel proposed a motion that 'the Society should in principle agree to join the Federation of Family History Societies provided that the Federation adopts a constitution substantially the same as the amended draft constitution which now lies before it’. He said that the Society had to ensure that its views were adequately represented to the Federation 'if only to avoid the undesirable duplication of effort which would otherwise ensue’. There would probably be two categories of membership with the Society having a permanent representative on the Federation's Executive Committee. A sliding scale subscription was intended based on the size of the organisation but with a relatively low ceiling.
There was some discussion and the balance of opinion was that the organisation of the Federation was not sufficiently advanced for a definite decision to be reached. The Revd Godfrey Beaumont (1908-1977) [2769] therefore proposed and John Blight (1918-2007) seconded that the meeting authorised the Executive Committee 'to continue discussions with a view to proceeding cautiously but hopefully with a definite end in mind' and, Donald Steel being satisfied with this, the motion was carried [2770].
The draft constitution of the Federation, which had been agreed between a sub-committee of the Federation and the Society of Genealogists, was formally approved at the Federation’s first Annual Meeting at Birmingham on 21 September 1975 when twenty-three societies were represented. There was some discussion on the fragmentation of societies within counties and it was optimistically agreed to be the general view ‘that a county society should form initially and cover the largest area it could manage, hoping that it could fragment later on and that if and when this happened, further societies could form under its umbrella’. A final attempt by Donald Steel to delete ‘heraldry’ from the Federation’s objectives was assailed by the Chairman, Colonel Swinnerton, and Cecil Humphery-Smith, and rejected. A similar fate, unfortunately in my view, befell the proposal to limit any personal representation on the Council to six years. It had been previously agreed that the member societies should pay subscriptions ranging from £5 to £25 per annum depending on their size but it was now agreed that these figures were ‘much too high’ and after argument it was agreed that the societies should all pay £5 but that the nominating ones should pay £25 [2771].
Following the approval of the constitution the Chairman proposed that a formal invitation be issued to the Society of Genealogists to accept nominating membership of the Federation by which it would pay an annual subscription similar to those of other member societies, but with the right to nominate a member directly to the Federation's Executive Committee. This and a similar invitation to the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies were carried unanimously. The Society's Executive Committee accepted the invitation on 21 October 1975 when Sir Andrew Noble was nominated to represent the Society [2772]. The Heraldry Society was elected a nominating member the following year [2773] but abdicated its rights after a few years.
Although the Society had made it clear in June 1974 that news from the emergent local societies would be welcomed for publication in the Magazine, the number of journals received by the joint-editors was not great, and the appeal was repeated in June 1975 [2774] after which the number increased. The Magazine noted that the first local society journal to publish its own index was that of the Hampshire Genealogical Society [2775]. In 1976 the membership of each local society was about 200-250 though that at York, established only in 1973, had jumped to 500 after publicity in our Magazine [2776].
In September 1975 the joint-editors of our Magazine noted that the rapidly expanding provincial scene was now being chronicled through the Federation of Family History Societies' own Federation News of which Elizabeth Simpson was the editor [2777]. They also noted that the upsurge in interest in the subject had encouraged the formation of 'Name' societies, similar to family associations in America, but devoted to all the bearers of a given surname-sound and that groups for the surnames Butler, Filby, Grubb, Hamley, Hamlin, Harrington, Higginbottom, Palgrave and Swinnerton, had already been formed. The activities and publications of these groups varied, our Magazine said, 'from the social to the scientific, with all shades between'. The Harrington Family Miscellany, for instance, included a critical article on the SoG's indexes to the Apprentices of Great Britain, suggesting that there had been considerable misreading of names, due principally to the ornate eighteenth century capital letters and the similarity in appearance of the small vowels.
The article noted that a register of 'Name' societies and of those working specifically on a particular surname had been started in July 1975 by a librarian Frank Higenbottam (1910-1982) [2778]. Derek Palgrave defined a one-name society as 'a formal association of those interested in the origin, history and development of the various branches bearing a specific [sur]name in all its known variants' and said that the majority of them had sought membership of the Federation, listing seventeen in 1976 [2779]. Publicity about the 'Register of One-Name Studies' having appeared in the popular American periodical The Genealogical Helper, Frank Higenbottam received a deluge of ill-informed letters and in 1977 handed the post of Registrar to Ian Swinnerton [2780] who published a Register of One Name Studies the following year [2781].
The use of our Society's journal for these reports of local and other activities was, however, not universally popular amongst the SoG’s membership and in 1976 Charles Elwell, 'a moderately senior member of the Society', felt impelled to protest at what the Magazine was becoming, writing 'It used to have pretensions to the status of a learned periodical containing articles that were instructive, entertaining and well written. It had an air both of authority and distinction. But now it is very different. The December (1975) number seemed to me to be inferior to an inferior school magazine, full of accounts of activities of amateur genealogists all over the country, the interest of which must surely be restricted and essentially parochial. In my view the character of the Magazine is being altered for the worse and I believe this will do the Society a grave disservice' [2782]. Elwell was not alone in this view and many older members came to my door complaining with distaste and alarm of the apparent take-over by the largely amateur local societies and their Federation. The following year Elwell wrote that he did not mean to disparage the efforts of amateurs and was 'as anxious as any of your readers to extend interest in an absorbing branch of learning. I did not think that reporting local genealogical activities did this' [2783].
In 1975 the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry published an 'algorithm' on how to find a record of a birth or baptism, reprinted from one developed at the Public Record Office that had so far received little publicity [2784]. The algorithm consisted of eighty-five questions or instructions, leading from one to another according to whether the answer was 'yes' or 'no', the final instructions being 'Consult Parish Registers held locally' and, if unsuccessful, 'Take expert advice: e.g. of the Society of Genealogists'. It produced enormous amounts of correspondence, usually from people who had not answered the previous 83 questions.
In December 1973 Stella Colwell, undeterred by her rebuff at the SoG's Annual Meeting, announced that the First English Genealogical Congress, sponsored by the Wrythe Heraldic Trust, would be held at St Catharine's College, Cambridge in 1975 [2785], and in June 1974 it was noted that it would run from Tuesday, 26 August, to Saturday, 30 August 1975, with Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls, as Patron and George Squibb, Q.C., as President. Stella Colwell had arranged a preliminary meeting at the College of Arms on 19 September 1973 which I attended with Rodney Dennys, Frederick Emmison, John Brooke-Little, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, Malcolm Pinhorn and Donald Steel, and we formed the organising committee with Malcolm Pinhorn as chairman. The Society of Genealogists and the Wrythe Heraldic Trust agreed to make loans to cover the initial expenses. The Congress Registration fee was £5 and full accommodation £32.50 [2786].
Over 180 people attended this first-ever full-scale residential congress. Everything went well, the weather was perfect, the accommodation and catering were excellent and the whole thing was considered (in the words of the joint-editors) a 'triumphant and most enjoyable' success [2787]. I represented the Society and it received considerable publicity when I was interviewed about the increase in interest in the subject for the BBC Television programme ‘Nationwide’ [2788]. As well as a wide range of lectures by academics and genealogists on the theme 'Family History and Demography - the contribution which genealogists can make to historical studies', there were several afternoon excursions, a civic reception at the Guildhall in Cambridge, a cocktail party hosted by the Federation of Family History Societies, and a banquet at which the main speaker was Michael Maclagan, Portcullis Pursuivant, with Colin Cole, Windsor Herald, as toast-master.
Ronald Blythe, the author of Akenfield, gave the opening address and in conclusion Donald Steel surveyed the genealogical field. My notes of his talk show his thoughts at this time. Following the ‘revolution’, as he described it, from genealogy to family history, the latter needed its own manual. There was a need to consolidate the Federation by organising societies in the counties where they did not yet exist. He thought that all the project work on monumental inscriptions and parish registers should be organised by sub-committees of the Federation (and not of the Society). He believed that the opening of local LDS Family History Centres would have an effect on the membership of the societies, but he thought that other organisations with similar interests should join the Federation which itself should forge closer ties with the historical societies. He looked to the future, mentioning the proposed opening of civil registration records, the promotion of interest through the media, a resulting growth in the membership of all societies and particularly of one-name societies, the teaching of family-history in schools, the subject’s growing respectability in universities and its universal acceptance as a discipline in the United Kingdom and abroad.
The Congress’s final debate passed resolutions that deplored the increase in fees at the General Register Office, advocated the formation of a users' committee, encouraged matrilineal genealogy and recommended the creation of a pedigree register. An exhibition of the genealogical sources used in six different pedigrees had been mounted in the Lower Marlay Gallery at the Fitzwilliam Museum and to this I had contributed a section on the vicissitudes of six related Walkern families, using parish chest and county legal records, the pedigrees being very nicely written by Aylwin Sampson. There was also a special bookshop in the congress office. Donald Steel organised a number of volunteer stewards 'to introduce members with similar interests to each other' [2789].
Stella Colwell's intention was to have an annual conference with published papers which would contribute 'substantially to genealogy as a science, and to its wider acceptance as an academic subject' but, although this highly successful congress was repeated in 1978 and 1984, all the usual difficulties of publishing papers arose, and, as described below, none appeared in print until 1986.
Sometime earlier, with the object of avoiding duplication of effort, Malcolm Pinhorn had tried to interest AGRA in a voluntary scheme to register the existence of pedigrees in private collections, a 'National Register of Pedigrees', members of the public paying a small fee to consult it, but AGRA had passed the idea to the Federation in the hope that it might consider a joint project to index manuscript and printed pedigrees and make it available in some public place [2790]. However, as noted above the creation of a 'Pedigree Register' was also recommended in a resolution passed at the English Genealogical Congress in August 1975 and after paying all its expenses and repaying the loans from the Wrythe Heraldic Trust and the Society of Genealogists the Congress found that it had made a modest profit and made a grant towards the establishment of a 'National Pedigree Index' at the Society, the balance of funds being placed on deposit to provide essential financial support for the next Congress [2791].
On 26 May 1976 an advisory committee was therefore formed (on which I served with Stella Colwell, Malcolm Pinhorn, Francis Leeson and John Brooke-Little) and it was agreed to collect information about British pedigrees of more than three generations in the male line that remained in private hands and to keep the index on standard printed slips at the Society where it would be tended and searches made by volunteers. A fee of £1 was to be charged per surname per county but would be refunded if no match were found, only 80p being refunded if no stamped and addressed envelope had been provided [2792]. Many people began to contribute slips about the pedigrees in their possession and a year later it was reported that about a thousand references had been filed and that the Institute at Canterbury had contributed an equal number [2793]. Mrs Rachel Mackie became the Index's Honorary Secretary in July 1977 with Anthony Attwood as Treasurer [2794]. The number of pedigrees recorded had passed 2,000 by September 1978 [2795].
Meanwhile a small group of tutors at a weekend course, 'Write Your Family History', held at the Cliff End Hotel, Bournemouth, 28 February - 2 March 1975, had formed themselves into an Association of Teachers of Family History with Cecil Humphery-Smith as Chairman and Donald Steel as organising Secretary. At the course the use of a simulation exercise had been introduced, which I assume to have been Steel’s The Trout Game, and agreed to be 'worth a whole course of lectures' [2796]. The Association's first formal meeting took place on the second day of the English Genealogical Congress (27 August) when a committee was elected, membership being open to anyone interested in the teaching of genealogy or family history.
The new Association hoped to publish a journal three times a year and to provide a variety of other services to members. The first Secretary was Lorna Rosbottom (died 1999) and the Services Secretary, Stella Colwell [2797]. At a further conference at Bournemouth in March 1976 they approved a constitution, Betty St George Brown (1918-1996) became Secretary and Elizabeth Simpson the Services Secretary, full membership being open only to those with recognised teaching qualifications or substantial experience of teaching family history. The conference themes included 'the need to develop family history at every level of education, with the problems of the recruitment of teachers and their training'. The first issue of a journal Teaching Family History was due for publication in the autumn [2798]. In January 1977 it had 46 members including four overseas but after Steel gave up as Secretary in 1978 it was far less active.
For seven years the Society's Annual Meetings had been held away from Harrington Gardens but in 1975 it was decided under the pressure of recent events to hold it in combination with a one-day conference in what became the first of a very successful series of bi-annual day conferences, though after the second day-conference in 1977, the Annual Meetings were again always held separately. The first conference, organised by Donald Steel (then BBC Education Officer for South-West England) and Michael Burchall (then on the staff of East Sussex Record Office) was on Saturday, 28 June 1975, at the Digby Stuart College of Education, Roehampton, and the conference fee, which included lunch, was £2.50, the Society's rooms being closed on that day [2799]. The Annual Report noted that it brought a small profit of £35 to the Society [2800].
The Conference was perhaps the largest genealogical gathering in this country so far, being attended by 190 members and 28 visitors, and a fairly detailed account of the eight discussion groups, four of which had to be repeated, was published in the Magazine. The pre-occupations of the members at that time are shown by the names of the eight groups: Parish Registers and Civil Registration, Monumental Inscriptions, Voluntary Work, Running a Large Society including Services to Members, The Role of Local Societies, Courses and Conferences, The Library, and Publications.
The group on running a large society interestingly thought that the Society was not yet large enough to consider computerisation of the membership records and it strongly condemned the practice of lending out printed books. The latter point was supported by all but one of those present at the plenary session. At the end of the day, in thanking the organisers, I said that although some had doubted the value of such a conference it had clearly been a great success. It was generally agreed, I said, that it had been an enjoyable and rewarding occasion which should be repeated in the future [2801].
The points raised in the discussions gave the committees plenty to think about, ideas such as name badges for staff and the production of Christmas cards becoming perennial, but several suggestions were considered by the Library Committee and its comments were also published in the Magazine. It agreed to post plans of the rooms in each room with a master plan in the Members' Room and that two more stepladders be bought, one of which was to be 'very tall', but Lawson Edwards resisted having a nametag though it was agreed that desk plates should show the names of the library staff. Some additional shelving might be added to the ends of bays and less used material placed in store. A trial rota of volunteer hosts and hostesses, as suggested by Brenda Perks, would be commenced in the library on late evenings in June but that idea failed due to lack of volunteers. It was also agreed that a suggestion that lists of the books on each county, other than parish registers, be duplicated and sold would be piloted, Meg Reeves having listed those for Essex, but that idea also failed for lack of further volunteers. The loan of printed material was considered highly important to country members on whom the Society was dependent for much of its income and the suggestion that book loans be stopped was rejected, it being thought that the vote at the Day Conference was not representative, the attendees being mainly town members [2802].
Meanwhile, of course, the arguments about the services provided by the Society vis-à-vis those of the local societies continued. Barbary Thorn of Portscatho near Truro suggested that the Society maintain a list of members who were willing to accommodate others on a non-profit making basis [2803] and in 1975 Marion Lodey proposed and offered to keep an 'Out-of-Area Index' if members would send her such stray entries that they came across in parish registers and census returns [2804]. This they did in encouraging numbers [2805]. She typed up the entries in groups and distributed copies of her typescripts, but by 1978 several local societies were undertaking similar indexes for their areas [2806].
On 20 February 1976 I went again to Missenden Abbey in Buckinghamshire, where I had lectured for the first time in 1965, to host another residential weekend meeting, 'Trace Your Own Ancestry', at which our former Secretary, Cecil Mackay, Hugh Hanley the Deputy County Archivist for Buckinghamshire, Thomas West from the General Register Office and Stella Colwell were also lecturers [2807]. I went again with Cecil Mackay for a similar weekend on 9 March 1979 [2808]. Our Magazine shows that courses of this kind were now being held in several places around the country. In May 1976, as the guest of the Belgian historian Dr Jan de Brouwere, I went to Brussels and attended the 11th National Congress of the Vlaamse Vereniging voor Familiekunde, speaking (in English) about the origins of Londoners at the end of a day devoted to the origins of the people of Brussels, 'Brusselaar, wie ben je?', with Senator Leo Vanackere in the Chair.
We had developed quite close connections with several societies in mainland Europe. Cecil Mackay had, on 14 April 1969, spoken to the Vlaamse Vereniging voor Familiekunde at Gent [2809] and on another occasion in French to the Service de Centralisation des Etudes Généalogiques et Démographiques de Belgique (SCGD), and our Research Department at the Society for some years acted as bankers of English cheques to the Dutch Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie in The Hague when it conducted research for anyone in the United Kingdom. In 1970 Emilia Adamczykova, the Secretary of the recently formed Czechoslovakian Genealogical and Heraldic Society which still flourishes in Prague, came to the Library and we kept in contact for some years. She charmingly wrote on one occasion about her visit, saying ‘I have been Alice in Wonderland’ [2810]. In October 1974 I had visited Hilda Prucher at the beautiful library of the Istituto Genealogico Italiano founded by Count Guelfi Camajani in the Palazzo Gondi in Florence, and we often exchanged letters with these societies about mutual research interests.
In March 1976 there were 28 regional societies in the British Isles and 24 of these were represented at a Federation council meeting at Norwich together with 15 of the national societies which included the Society of Genealogists, the university, one-name and allied societies. It was said then that eight further regional societies were in the process of formation. A list of all of them (including for Cheshire, Hampshire and Yorkshire, their branch societies) was published in the June Magazine [2811]. It was then announced that the Federation would itself be sponsoring a scheme to register members of the societies who offered reasonably priced bed-and-breakfast accommodation to fellow members, Miss Cynthia Read of Tadley, Hampshire, acting as co-ordinator [2812].
The arguments about what a national society like the Society of Genealogists should be doing, what its Magazine should contain, and about its relationship with the local societies continued. The member Ian R. Harrison, of Bideford, a regular and dispiriting complainer, wrote that 'It has always been a source of grievance to me that the Society never appears to promote, encourage or co-ordinate activities' such as Mrs Lodey's 'Out-of-Area' Index', adding that grand projects of this type were beyond the resources of individual enterprise and suggesting that the Executive Committee 'define two or three worthwhile projects which it would then officially sponsor and positively control' and 'pledge itself to completing just one project' [2813]. In the same Magazine Peter Clough, of Sale, Cheshire, who had joined in 1969 complained at the lengthening time taken to obtain replies to letters, saying that he would willingly pay double the subscription for 'prompt replies to letters and the removal of the feeling that my simple problems may be a nuisance to highly skilled and over-worked personnel' [2814]. Mrs Lodey agreed with Harrison but at least acknowledged the work that was being done ‘in the transcription of parish registers, marriage licences [sic] etc’ [2815].
In that September 1976 Magazine, Mrs Christine Powell listed what she had accomplished in southeast London (outside any society) with her transcripts and indexes of registers and records around Bermondsey, Pauline Litton in Stockport expressed the view 'as a historian and as a genealogist ... that the academic approach to genealogy has bedevilled it for too long', Ann Chiswell in Plymouth cast her vote 'on the side of a few scholarly articles', and John Rayment said that 'only a few of the members of federated societies, who are not already members of the Society of Genealogists, are likely to become such - yet' [2816].
A very small 'Special Liaison Committee' had been set up between the Society and the Federation and met regularly at the Society from 1976 onwards under the chairmanship of Sir Andrew Noble. We talked about subjects such as the National Pedigree Index, the National Index of Parish Registers, the co-ordination of county marriage indexes and the transcription of monumental inscriptions [2817]. I did not think the meetings of great practical value but they probably helped to inform Sir Andrew of the Society's views for communication to the Federation's Executive Committee. The list of committees of the Society published in September 1977 shows that by then the Society had accepted the formal nomination by the Federation of members to the Publications and Lectures Committees [2818] and for some years the Society's nominees also served on the Federation's sub-committees. An anonymous note about the Federation in the June 1978 Magazine says that 'only by establishing competent working groups will the Federation be able to serve adequately the needs of its member societies' [2819].
However, the Society was beginning to think a little more about itself and in September 1976 it announced that the courses, conferences and lectures organised by local societies and which did not directly involve the Society of Genealogists itself would no longer be reported in the Genealogists’ Magazine but that their organisers might instead take advertising space at the usual rates [2820]. The Society, having dispensed with the services of Phillimore & Co for the publication of the Magazine, was now receiving the income from the advertisements in a way that it had not done for several years, and in any case pressure on editorial space was increasing. Economies with the Magazine are mentioned above and in March 1977 it was reported that the future of the unwieldy section on 'Local Groups' was under discussion, coverage already being given in Federation News, though new groups would continue to be mentioned. Wiltshire was the only English county not now covered by name and the Heraldic and Genealogical Society of Wales formed at Cardiff in 1974 had foundered [2821].
The first issue of the Federation's new official publication Family History News and Digest edited by Elizabeth Simpson, appeared at the Day Conference in June 1977 (at 75p per issue) and contained very short abstracts of articles that appeared in many British family and local history journals, all classified by content, country and county [2822]. At the Society I encouraged the volunteer Edith Pritchard to start the compilation of a card index to these articles, pasting onto slips photocopies of the entries and arranging them to mirror the library catalogue, and it soon became a valuable reference to recently published material (though Lawson Edwards refused to have it in the Library). It was placed with the library catalogue in May 1984 when it contained 6,000 cards [2823] and, following Miss Pritchard’s death, it was carefully continued and expanded by Meg Reeves. The problem of how much space one gave to the activities of the Federation was solved by allowing the Federation a page in the Genealogists’ Magazine in exchange for one in Family history News and Digest, another little chore that fell quarterly on the Director.
Meanwhile the preparations for the 13th International Congress of Heraldic and Genealogical Sciences to be held at Imperial College, London, from 31 August to 7 September 1976, were making good progress. In September 1975 it was announced that there would be 110 lectures in four languages, several exhibitions, excursions and receptions, visits to Canterbury, Oxford and Cambridge, a tournament marshalled by heralds in the tilt yard of Allington Castle and a mediaeval banquet as well as other social events. The full residential cost was likely to be £115, with day-attendees paying £4 a day or £30 for the week [2824].
The Interim Programme of the Congress contained much that was only found at this series of International Congresses with talks on such topics as 'The testament of the last two princesses Medici', 'The Romanian boyars - an aristocracy or a nobility?' (in French), 'Heraldic dress for ladies' and 'The genealogy of the elite of the Empire of Brazil', but Donald Steel in his role as Vice-Chairman of Organisation saw the Congress as a 'unique chance to put over this country's particular emphases - the genealogy of the common man rather than that of the nobility and gentry, our increasing interest in family history rather than "mere genealogy" and the close links we are developing with historians, demographers and workers in other disciplines'. He therefore crammed every spare moment with additional lectures, organising others as an alternative to excursions. He published a list of these in the March 1976 Magazine when over 800 people had registered provisionally [2825], and then, of course, he changed his mind, and in the name of the Federation, he re-organised the lectures so that those of greatest interest to English genealogists all came together 'for the Federation' on the Saturday and Sunday (Sunday already included the next Council Meeting of the Federation; most overseas visitors were going to Oxford on that day) and asked a separate fee for those two days [2826].
Almost complete chaos ensued, particularly at the weekend when many more than anticipated turned up and lectures were crowded and later in the week as a result of the many changes to the programme, several talks being cancelled at short notice or postponed to a later day. The complexities of the layout of the building did not help. My memories of those hectic few days, when the ordinary work of the Society also continued, are rather hazy but Jeremy Gibson did a good 'personal impression' of the Congress in the Magazine the following year, though like many others he did not attend the social events. The Society's library, which was usually closed on Mondays, was opened to the Congress participants on that day and many visited the rooms.
Several people made a major contribution to the week and were to take an active part in the genealogical world in the future. Alan Reed, assisted by Colonel Stanley Marker and Marker's wife Joan, led a large band of harassed honorary helpers. Royston Gambier dealt with the enormous number of questions about the financial administration of the Congress and its social side. Catherine Humphery-Smith and Betty St George Brown were at reception and Philip Simpson, Elizabeth's husband, devotedly manned the Federation bookstall [2827]. Cecil Humphery-Smith, writing afterwards, paid particular tribute to Sir Andrew Noble, Major Bobby Collins, Royston Gambier, and to his wife Alice (1930-2017) and family, as well as to Donald Steel without whom, he said, 'the beginnings, the organisation and the event would have been a great deal more chaotic than they were' [2828].
I lived then in Cornwall Gardens fortunately within easy walking distance of Imperial College and I went over on the previous Friday to set up the Society's exhibition in the entrance hall. It was a selection of books and records from the library and collections illustrating the theme Using the Library of the Society of Genealogists. Jeremy Gibson kindly called it 'a most imaginative display' and I remember taking round the Lord Mayor of Westminster, Jack Gillett, after Friday's reception. The library guide with this same title had, as mentioned, originally been drafted by The Hon. Guy Strutt, John Phillips and myself in 1958, and it was now brought up to date and expanded with the assistance of Mildred Surry, Lawson Edwards and Anders Larsen, as a key to the exhibition, the text being nicely typed by the Institute. That guide was then subsequently revised almost every year, going through many editions and selling thousands of copies, it usually being left to me to finalise the wording, draw the maps of the rooms and compile the index. I was glad many years later to re-use for its cover the design drawn by Claire Evans for the 1937 exhibition catalogue.
In the event there were almost four hundred full-time Congress participants from twenty-six countries and 453 were present when Earl Marshal the Duke of Norfolk, a Vice-President of the Society, formally opened the proceedings on Wednesday, 1 September 1976, introducing Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, President of the Congress (and of the Institute at Canterbury), who (giving a selective view of the events leading up to the Congress) in turn introduced Baron de Vos van Steenwijk, Acting-President of the Congress Bureau, who introduced Sir Anthony Wagner, Garter King of Arms, who gave the opening address, expanding the themes of his recent book Pedigree and progress: essays in the genealogical interpretation of history (1975). At the end of the talk, his publishers, Phillimore & Co, most embarrassingly wheeled in a trolley piled with copies of the book for sale. In it he had examined possible links between the ancient world and modern genealogies and attacked the supposed rigidity of class distinctions in England, illustrating his themes with numerous chart pedigrees showing tentative connections to the pre-Christian world and the links between rich and poor, famous and unknown [2829].
During the seven days of the Congress with its five streams of lectures (about 170 altogether and in five languages) I spoke three times. Jeremy Gibson said that I 'set the tone with ... thought-provoking and stimulating views on the roles of amateurs and professionals in English genealogy', though correspondence about careers in genealogy, the employment of professionals and complaints against them were taking up an increasing amount of my time. I spoke secondly on 'Records of the English abroad' and thirdly on 'Sources for internal and external migration'. All were subjects on which I subsequently spoke frequently to local societies in the British Isles and around the world.
Donald Steel's talk, 'Family history in England: the outlook for the future', rather like that at Cambridge in 1975, dealt with the shift in emphasis from genealogy to family history and from landed, professional and business families to those of yeomen, craftsmen and labourers, brought about by the popularisation of the subject through do-it-yourself handbooks and publicity in the media, the growth of record offices, the teaching of demographic studies in the universities and the microfilming of the Latter-day Saints. He wrongly predicted a great growth in family associations and one-name societies, widespread courses with recognised examinations and qualifications, and, more correctly, the setting up of Mormon regional libraries [2830].
There were various receptions, formal meetings, excursions and other proceedings and at the closing banquet at the Guildhall in the presence of the Lord Mayor, Sir Lindsay Ring, as promised in 1972, Lord Mountbatten gave a relaxed and most entertaining speech [2831] (to which I remember contributing one or two sentences), and the whole unwieldy conference was generally reckoned a great success. The Society’s Annual Report rather coldly said that ‘your Committee was glad that this Society was associated with such an international event and consider the organisers deserve the Society’s thanks and congratulations’ [2832]. In thanking Lord Mountbatten, Baron de Vos van Steenwijk said that it had been one of the most successful and entertaining congresses in the series and that it would be remembered for its 'colourfulness, good company and great diversity of lectures' [2833]. The colourfulness resulted from the Institute bedecking the reception area with bright armorial banners and brass rubbings.
Short summaries of some of the Congress lectures appeared in its Proceedings (1979) [2834] but the printing of the texts proceeded only slowly over several years because of the cost involved, by which time some were quite out of date. It had been hoped that the next Congress in the series would take place in Madrid in 1978 but owing to the prevailing financial and political situation it was cancelled [2835] and the next or 14th Congress took place in Copenhagen, 26-30 August 1980. I attended throughout, though I don't think that any of the 'Federation' people did, except Cecil Humphery-Smith of course. After that the series proceeded almost completely without UK involvement (other than by the Institute) and no further Congress in this series was held in the British Isles until that on the theme ‘Myth and Propaganda in Heraldry and Genealogy’ at the University of St Andrews in August 2006.
In 1975 the Magazine had its attention drawn to an article by Alex Haley (1921-1992) [2836] a native of Tennessee, entitled 'Search for an Ancestor' that had appeared in the journal of the Community Relations Commission the previous year [2837]. After twelve years of research the author had apparently compiled a nine-generation pedigree back to a Gambian family via a slave ancestor transported to Maryland on the Lord Ligonier in 1767. After studying the verbal tradition in his family the author had visited London, Gambia and Annapolis, claiming to have obtained documentary confirmation of the voyage at the Public Record Office and in Gambia continuing back to the end of the seventeenth century through the oral genealogy preserved by a tribal griot who told him that the family had migrated from Mauritania. At Annapolis he had traced in the Maryland Gazette the advertisement for the sale of its slave cargo placed by the owners of the ship [2838]. It was the first time that the ancestry of a black American had been traced through the 'emigrant' ancestor to a specific place of origin in Africa.
The extraordinary book, Alex Haley's Roots (1976), which developed the story in this article and in another that had appeared in Reader's Digest in 1974, was described by the magazine Newsweek as 'bold in concept and ardent in execution, one that will reach millions of people and alter the way we see ourselves'. It certainly did that for many black Americans. First published in Great Britain in 1977 and adapted for the screen it had an enormous success [2839] and inspired countless numbers of people around the world to attempt to trace their ancestors. After Alex Haley appeared on television with Johnny Carson talking about the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, attendance almost doubled and letters poured in, one day peaking at 3,700 pieces of mail [2840]. Within a year the first ‘how to’ guide to black genealogical research had appeared [2841].
It was a wonderful story which earned Haley some 200 literary prizes and a £2m estate, but that its genealogy and chronology were severely challenged by Mark Ottaway in The Sunday Times in April 1977 [2842] and almost totally demolished in 'Roots Revisited', a lecture (which I attended) given by Gary Mills, Professor of History at the University of Alabama, with Elizabeth Shown Mills, at the National Genealogical Society Third Annual Conference in the States at Fort Worth, Texas, on 14 April 1983, was unfortunately only to be expected by any genealogist who had looked closely at the book [2843]. However, amongst the many inspired by Haley’s book, Dorothy Spruill Redford set out to trace her ancestors and in 1986 more than a thousand descendants of the 350 slaves on one plantation in North Carolina, Somerset Place, held a moving reunion at the restored and beautiful estate which their ancestors had created for the Collins family, representatives of which were also present [2844]. Sadly in 1997, however, it was reported that the American television networks were boycotting a BBC documentary exposing the extent to which Haley’s family history had been falsified, for fear of the racial tensions it might cause [2845].
About that time (1975) I had become involved with people at the BBC who were considering making a television documentary about the tracing of a family history, the aim being to show the methods, tools and skills used by the genealogist and by tracing a sample pedigree in some depth, to use the characters to illustrate aspects of English social history [2846]. The help of members of AGRA was enlisted but as in so many schemes of this kind, much time was wasted and nothing came of it.
Another large group of persons anxious to know about their background and ancestry began to come to the fore in 1976 as a result of the Children Act 1975, which from 26 November that year enabled adopted persons in England and Wales to apply for their original birth certificates, something that had been possible in Scotland since 1930. By the end of October more than 1,200 enquiries had been made to the Registrar General about this change in the law and it was then thought that a large proportion of the 600,000 adopted people in this country would be seeking the facts about their parentage over the next few years [2847].
A note in the Magazine about the change in the law thought that 'investigation may lie more in the field of the private detective than that of the genealogist' but the Society, which had lobbied consistently for the change, assisted many adoptees with challenging genealogical problems to find their birth-parents, and subsequently lobbied for that right to be extended to their children.
For many years an Associate of the Royal College of Art, Frederick Burgess, had collected a photographic record of 'English Churchyard Memorials', making notes of their form, material, imagery, lettering and inscriptions, as well as biographical details of their makers' careers, hoping to rescue from anonymity the work of these minor stonemasons and carvers. He had spoken to the Society about his valuable pioneering work in 1948 and a précis was published in the Magazine [2848] but his English Churchyard Memorials did not appear until 1963 [2849].
Also in 1963 the librarian, John Sims, appealed for assistance with the checking of the Society's collection of copies of monumental inscriptions [2850], with the idea of eventually publishing a catalogue [2851], but little happened on that front until the mid-1980s. However, in 1964 Kendall Percy-Smith contributed some thoughts on transcribing monumental inscriptions to the Magazine, drawing a distinction between copying for historical and genealogical purposes and for the use of sculptors, artists, lapidaries and students of language, etc. [2852], and the following year Archibald Maurice Colliard (1914-1966) [2853], the first LDS member of the Executive Committee (1964-65), placed on loan with the Society a very large collection of copies of monumental inscriptions taken in the course of his research work around the country [2854]. His sudden death on 5 May 1966 was a great blow to his friends and family.
In March 1967 it was again suggested that local schoolchildren might be involved in copying inscriptions and the interest of the local press aroused. At the same time the considerable work of Ronald Alan Lewin (died 2015) in the Bristol area was noted for the first time [2855]. In 1969 there were discussions about the possible publication of a bibliography of copies of monumental inscriptions which had been compiled by Arthur Charles Tucker who had assembled some 7,000 references but he needed more time in which to complete his project [2856].
Towards the end of 1969 an Ad Hoc Committee was formed at the Society to deal specifically with monumental inscriptions and the preservation of tombstones [2857] and, under the chairmanship of Dr Henry ‘Leslie’ White, of Bournemouth (1903-1986), as part of European Conservation Year, a letter was sent to all archdeacons and diocesan registrars expressing the Society’s concern at the wholesale clearance of churchyards in disregard of the recommendations of the Central Council for the Care of Churches. Other societies with kindred interests were also approached and the support of Members of Parliament invoked. The Annual Report said that ‘a great deal of encouragement has been received but it is clear that there is much apathy to be overcome’ [2858].
Since 1923 rather basic information about the graves and inscriptions in closed cemeteries had been sent to the General Register Office but their use by genealogists was almost completely unknown until a chance mention of them to Arthur Willis by Cregoe Nicholson was followed by a letter to the Magazine in 1971 [2859]. A list of the 166 grounds for which there were copies of the inscriptions, provided by Christopher Watts (1942-2012) and his brother Michael, was published in the Magazine in 1978, the collection having by then been transferred to the Public Record Office [2860].
By curious coincidence these copies of inscriptions were also mentioned in the Magazine in 1971 by Dr White in an article on the legal position when cemeteries were cleared. In these cases there was an urgent need for adequate copies of the inscriptions to be made, for the law merely required that they be 'sufficiently described' and this was frequently interpreted as the making of a list of the names and dates [2861]. Dr White, a member since 1946 and with much practical experience, was himself the author of a little pamphlet Elementary Notes for Churchyard Recorders, first printed in 1970 and revised in 1972. Martin C. Brimble, who had copied the inscriptions at Hartley, Dartford, Kent, warmly endorsed Dr White's comments on the value of the information that might be found [2862] and in January 1973 both Sir Anthony Wagner and Malcolm Pinhorn wrote to The Times about the need for complete and accurate surveys to be made (and not left to uninterested local authorities) and urging the notification of the specialist societies when changes to a graveyard were proposed [2863]. It is interesting to note that way back in 1912 the Society had been stressing this point to the Registrar of the Diocese of Southwark who had agreed that a faculty would not be issued to convert the churchyard of St Paul’s Deptford into a recreation ground under the Open Spaces Act 1906 until a statement as to the monuments had been filed in the Registry [2864].
So much work was being done by 1973 that John Rayment suggested that there would be an incentive for Members to copy inscriptions if district lists were available of those which had not been recorded [2865], something that remains true to this day. Following a suggestion that some manuscripts in the Society’s library might be suitable for editing for publication, Dr Leslie White (not 'Wright' as printed) drew attention to the number of small notebooks containing transcripts of churchyard inscriptions taken earlier in the century and in the nineteenth century (such as those by Arthur Ridley Bax) which were particularly valuable for the unique information that they contained but were vulnerable to theft. He again appealed for volunteers to produce a catalogue of the transcripts in the library, county by county, which might be published [2866]. The production of such a hand-list was itself controversial in that some thought that it might be used as evidence that a burial ground had been well copied and thus that the inscriptions might be destroyed and the book used, in Arthur Charles Tucker's words, as 'a blue-print for destruction'.
In June 1974 the member Lionel Aird (1902-1990), formerly Education Officer to the Pakistan High Commission in London, who had agreed in February 1973 to be responsible for the coordination of the Society's MI transcription work, appealed for members to signify their occasional willingness to help copy MIs in danger of destruction when churches were newly declared redundant and burial grounds were given over to other uses and urgent action was needed [2867]. Pressure had been maintained on the church authorities by Dr White and in March 1973 we published the recommendations of his group for the 'Proposed Revision of the Pastoral Measure, 1968' which had been sent to the Secretary-General of the General Synod in anticipation of imminent discussions. The 1968 Measure had set up the Advisory Board for Redundant Churches and the Board's annual reports had highlighted the neglect of some buildings and the resultant threats of damage and destruction to documents and memorials. White's proposals set out many suggested safeguarding procedures [2868].
The loss to the national heritage through the unrecorded destruction of monuments and their inscriptions was becoming more generally recognised and in 1972 the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) had set up a Churches Committee which included amongst its objectives the recording of churchyards. In July the Society’s application for membership of the Council was confirmed and I, Dr White and David Hawkings were appointed as the Society’s representatives. In addition a close liaison had been set up with the Advisory Board for Redundant Churches [2869]. In all of this Dr White showed enormous energy, enthusiasm and tenacity.
Other bodies such as Nature Conservancy and the British Lichen Society had also become interested in the preservation of churchyards as habitats for wild species. The Society of Genealogists therefore, led by Dr White, convened an afternoon meeting at the neighbouring Hotel Eden in Harrington Gardens on 21 November 1974 and invited representatives from twelve organisations to discuss the issues involved. In January 1975 a further meeting was held to iron out some of the differences in approach which had been revealed.
A new edition of the Church of England's Churchyard Handbook, which appeared at this time, recommended the recording of inscriptions in full, the Church Commissioners having already made the same recommendation under the Pastoral Measure for inscriptions in redundant churches at risk of destruction. Their booklet Tombstones, Monuments and Memorials (1973), included as an Appendix the Society's guidance notes for transcribers. The Faculty Measure of 1964, however, still only required that the name and date (usually interpreted as the year) be noted.
Dr White then persuaded the Diocesan Chancellors at their Annual Meeting in October 1974 to agree formally that it would be 'desirable and helpful' if genealogical advice were available at diocesan level when clearance of churchyards was considered though he admitted that, judging by the experience of the Diocesan Advisory Committees with the archaeologists, the likelihood of formal genealogical appointments to the Committees was not good. He was proved right, for although approaches were made to fifteen dioceses no formal appointments were made, the Committees preferring to give the advisors consultant status only [2870]. As it transpired, however, perhaps much more importantly, the office of the Redundant Churches Committee of the Church Commissioners agreed in 1975 to provide the Society of Genealogists monthly with the names of churches which were subject to official 'declarations of redundancy' [2871], together with some indication of the possible future fate of their churchyards, so that arrangements might be made to copy their inscriptions.
With the passage of time the Society began to receive copies of all the formal notices about church and churchyard alterations and with the development of the local societies these notices were regularly passed on so that any threatened inscriptions might be copied [2872]. It became a major part of the work of the MI Secretary. In 1975, however, there was a great shortage of people willing to take on the work in spite of a highly successful appeal for assistance made in 1974 when a circular about its value was enclosed with the papers for the SoG's Annual Meeting. Dr White's paper on the recent developments described above was published in March 1975 when it was noted that earlier appeals for members to send in press announcements of the clearance of churchyards was producing a regular stream of information [2873]. The highly unsatisfactory nature of much of the transcription work previously done was outlined in his paper, ‘The fate of churchyard monuments with their inscriptions and sculpture’, along with its extensive comparative study based on his own practical experience in the Bournemouth area, ‘The story of seven churchyards’, which he circulated at this time.
In 1975 the Society received three typescript volumes of Leicestershire Monumental Inscriptions copied by Patricia de Fontenay Moll, the work of seven summers (she intended more but sadly died later that year) [2874], containing some 19,000 inscriptions from 165 parishes, and a group of members in Northumberland gave for photocopying their transcripts of nine burial grounds in the county and appealed for assistance to copy others [2875]. In 1976 we received altogether the inscriptions in about 90 churchyards and a further 60 were being worked upon [2876]. Few copies were received from Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire, mainly because there were no local groups to assist in the work, as is mentioned in the Society’s 1977 Annual Report.
Kendall Percy-Smith died on 3 June 1975 and his last letter to me, written just four months earlier and containing a small donation to the Society, had been about his continuing parish register transcription work for which I had sent him some paper [2877]. He did not live to see it but he would have warmly welcomed the foundation in October the following year (1976) of the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia by Theon Wilkinson (1924-2007) the author of Two Monsoons (1976; revised 1987). Wilkinson's fascinating book reviewed 250 years of European influence in India in terms of the epitaphs and monuments left behind [2878]. It was an area in which Mrs Doris Pullen, who had succeeded the painstaking Lionel Aird as MI Secretary in 1975, took a particular interest, always attending their meetings and making sure that the Society received the Association’s publications. Theo Wilkinson spoke to the Society about ‘Epitaphs of the Raj for genealogists’ in 1977 and I always read with interest his Association’s twice-yearly newsletter Chowkidar.
For some time Dr White, with the encouragement of the Society, had been preparing a general booklet about monumental inscriptions and the legal situation. This, after much diplomatic discussion about his drafts and difficult prose, was then left to my editorial and typing skills and eventually published (though worthy of a nicer print) as Monuments and their inscriptions: a practical guide (1977; £1.00),deservedly receiving widespread acclaim. Part of the delay was due to the fact that it incorporated a series of suggestions made by John Rayment on behalf of the Federation, many of which Dr White had strenuously resisted.
In the previous year the Council for British Archaeology and RESCUE had published How to record graveyards by Jeremy Jones (1976; £0.75), a book that Dr White disliked intensely as it advocated the use of a rigid framework of forms which could later be used for data processing, whilst White emphasized the importance of the preservation of every fact on the stone [2879]. The historian John Harvey called White's book 'a more common-sense guide' which recommended the use of a notebook instead of forms, of feet and not a metric scale, the distribution of typed copies, and which insisted upon the priority of recording against time [2880]. The disagreement led to a discussion on the relative value of recording forms at the Society of Antiquaries in October 1976 which was attended by Dr White, Isobel Mordy and Mildred Surry [2881].
At the first major conference of the Federation of Family History Societies hosted by the Hampshire Genealogical Society on 15/16 October 1977, Stephen Emlyn-Jones proposed that it give priority to a national project to complete the recording of all monumental inscriptions within the next five years. This ambitious proposal was supported by Leslie White and John Rayment and carried [2882]. The Federation now published John Rayment's slight Notes on the recording of monumental inscriptions (1978) providing 'sound and straightforward advice' to the groups of Federation members who involved themselves in the project [2883.]
Practising what they preached Leslie White, Stella Colwell, Christopher Watts and David Hawkings, led groups of volunteer members to the churchyard of St Anne, Limehouse, in the East End of London, on several Saturdays, commencing on 10 June 1978, to copy the inscriptions. The unkempt churchyard, one of the few in central London that had not been transcribed, posed particular problems and it was unfortunate that many of the stones had been lined up three deep and half buried, so that excavation was involved [2884]. Having completed that parish this small ‘Gravestones Project Group’ went in the following year to tackle the graveyard at St Mary, Chiswick [2885] where excellent progress was made under the direction of Christopher Watts, Victor Gale and David Hawkings [2886]. That being completed the Group turned its attention in association with the West Middlesex Family History Society, to Brentford and Hillingdon [2887].
Cecil Mackay had visited her family in South Africa in the autumn of 1968 and was then away for almost three months [2888] and I deputised on her behalf. On other occasions when she was away or had not been well I had usually acted in her stead. It was generally thought that she intended to resign at the end of 1975 but meanwhile the office staffing arrangements were very ad hoc to say the least. At the Executive Committee in March the Honorary Treasurer, Arnold Hawker, who was a weekly visitor, commented about staffing generally and it transpired that the Committee believed that I had full time secretarial assistance whereas I had not had any since April 1973. After the meeting I wrote to him and to the Chairman, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, saying that I had begun to hope that if a good assistant could be found in the office (in succession to Mrs Elizabeth Gibson who had left late in 1974) and another in the Research Department that I might be considered a suitable applicant for the post of Secretary in succession to Mrs Mackay. However, as I wrote, Mrs Gibson had not been replaced, more work had fallen on Mrs Reid so that she could not help me and a member, Anthony S. M. Dickins (1914-1987), had been engaged part-time to answer general queries at a rate of pay in excess of all of us [2889]. Having been asked to help interview possible successors to Mrs Mackay I was consequently considering my position. Hawker and Fitzgerald-Moore drew the situation to the attention of the Executive Committee in May but that same month Cecil Mackay, without the Committee’s knowledge had engaged Mrs Ruth H. Harvey as Assistant Secretary and in the expectation that she would succeed her as Secretary.
At the Annual Meeting in June 1975 it was formally announced that Cecil Mackay would retire at the end of the year [2890]. She had for some time looked forward to this ‘joyful day’ [2891]. She had been Secretary for thirteen years and as Molly Tatchell (1910-2003) a member of the Executive Committee wrote in the Magazine, during a period of constant change and chronic shortage of staff she had always been ready to turn her hand to anything and had been responsible for a number of innovations designed to cut down work, most essential with the yearly increase in membership [2892]. Contributions to a retirement gift were solicited and at the Annual Meeting in 1976 Lord Mountbatten went so far as to say that he was convinced that the Society owed its possession of the Harrington Gardens to her efforts [2893], a slight exaggeration as this narrative perhaps shows. She intended to give up the flat above the Society and move to Cambridge but she continued her interest in the Society and was elected a Fellow in 1992. She and I always had an excellent working relationship and when she died in 1998 her nephew kindly wrote that she had been 'especially fond' of me, a comment that I greatly appreciated.
Meanwhile, of course, the Executive Committee had gone into over-drive! At an adjourned meeting (of a meeting on 13 May) on 27 May 1975 the members were told that Mrs Harvey had been appointed at £2,500 p.a. following an advertisement in The Times to which there had been only the one response. It agreed that Lawson Edwards and I should be told that the ‘whole structure of the Society’ would now come under review. Mrs Mackay had acted in good faith and had said that when she was appointed the then Chairman ‘had given her authority both to appoint and dismiss staff’. Both Mrs Mackay and Denis Burton, the chairman of the Staff Committee, now offered to resign. Alexander Sandison, as a member of the ‘ad hoc Reorganisation Committee’ was in his element and already on 14 May had circulated a paper on the collective ‘Functions of senior staff’.
A further meeting of the Executive on 17 June was told that there had been three meetings of the Reorganisation Committee. It now recommended that the Secretary should have overall management and supervision of all the staff and ‘actively promote the objectives of the Society among members, other persons and organisations at home and abroad’, there being also two principal officers, the Director of Research and the Librarian, with duties ‘broadly similar’ to those presently carried out. On 2 July the Librarian wrote a fierce letter to Denis Burton, the chairman of the Staff Committee rightly saying that that Committee was ‘a hollow sham’ with a ‘feudal attitude’, meeting ‘at far too infrequent intervals at far removes from reality’ [2894]. In effect the Committee met only once a year and then merely to consider the staff salaries; only the Secretary was present.
The Executive Committee met again on 15 July when a more detailed report from the Reorganisation Committee was adopted, abolishing the Finance, House and Staff Committees and forming instead a six-member General Purposes Committee with representatives from the other committees. It was required to meet monthly and report in writing to the next Executive Committee. It recommended also that the staff salaries should be considerably increased (the new Secretary to £3,540, the Director of Research to £3,300, the Librarian to £3,240 and the Library Assistants to £1,755). The Principal Officers (other than the Secretary) had no right to attend this new Committee unless ‘required’ but soon made a habit of being there whether ‘required’ or not. One of the three Principal Officers was expected to be present in the rooms at all times when they were open. The new Committee was immediately charged with advertising for a successor to Mrs Mackay and with the appointment of all future principal officers.
Meanwhile Alexander Sandison had got his teeth into some draft ‘Staff Conditions of Service’ which he prepared in October and which, for three of us at least, being introduced some years into our employment, showed much lack of sensitivity and were bound to cause difficulties. Cecil Mackay, sensing problems, wrote firmly to Denis Burton that they should be discussed with the staff involved before being put to the Executive Committee. ‘Speaking personally’, she wrote, ‘they would not be acceptable to me … they seem full of pitfalls’ [2895]. In particular the requirement that the copyright of material written by the staff in their own time should belong to the Society was quite unacceptable to both the Librarian and myself and I wrote to the Chairman, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, in no uncertain terms, telling him what he already knew, i.e. that I would never agree to it [2896]. I believed that the staff, who received miserable salaries, should be given every possible encouragement to write, publish and lecture in their own time to the benefit of everyone concerned. The possibility that they might bring discredit on the Society by so doing, as was claimed, was no greater, as I well knew, than if they had been members of the Executive Committee or indeed Fellows of the Society.
The new Secretary, as an advertisement in the September Magazine indicated, was to be 'responsible for the direction of the Society's activities, including the supervision of office and library staff, the management of premises, the conduct of correspondence, the servicing of various committees, and fostering the voluntary activities of Members'. It was said that applicants should have experience in administration and finance, and should possess tact, initiative and judgment. Knowledge of genealogy, archives, local history or related subjects was considered desirable but not essential [2897]. An advertisement in the wider press was a little different, saying ‘Applications are invited for the Post of Secretary. Those with ability to supervise a small staff, to encourage the voluntary activities of Members, in crowded premises, to service Committees, and to work irregular hours for £3,540 p.a. (superannuable) should write in confidence to the Chairman’. There were about fifty applicants and ten were interviewed, a short-list of five having a second interview at a special meeting of the Executive Committee on 27 October. I, of course, applied but, of course, was not successful.
The successful candidate was Miss Mildred Surry (1929-2018), a member since 1964, who commenced work on 2 January 1976 [2898]. An Associate of the Library Association, Mildred Surry had, from 1967 to 1975, been the Librarian of the Fawcett Society a group which had been at the centre of the non-militant campaign for women's suffrage under the leadership of Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett. The Fawcett Society’s growing Library, tended by Miss Surry without much help, had become a major national research source. However, the Fawcett Society had found it could no longer support its Library in Wilfred Street, Westminster and had agreed to transfer it to the City of London Polytechnic [2899]. Miss Surry was naturally much interested in the transfer and involved herself quite controversially in the proposals which continued to take up a good deal of her time. However, she worked hard at the Society and during her three years there, had a most caring and supportive interest in the welfare of her staff and of those members with whom she came into contact [2900]. When young in London in the late 1950s she had been a flat mate and good friend to the troubled but now widely acclaimed New Zealand writer and poet Janet Frame (1924-2004).
As a result Ruth Harvey was instead appointed Assistant Secretary as from 1 January 1976 with responsibility for the membership records and files and for 'general enquiries from both members and non-members, except those on policy, genealogical research or the library' [2901] or, as the Chairman put it, 'queries raised by members on administrative matters' [2902]. She also worked hard in what was probably not too congenial a position, particularly in view of the increase in subscriptions that year and all the problems of a rapidly growing membership with varying bankers' orders and deeds of covenant. She was formally appointed Membership Secretary in July 1979 and remained with the Society until December that year when she decided to go with her husband to live in Spain.
Arising from the staff changes there was much discussion also about the research department and in June 1976 I prepared a paper setting out some of its current problems. For thirty working days I had kept a note of the 237 letters I had answered, of which 55 were from members and 40 contained return postage. Some 97 of my letters were specifically about the research that the Society was currently conducting, including twelve that asked for money for new research. However, a further 23 enclosed a list of recommended searchers or named searchers in specific areas. The remainder, which included twelve about research in other countries, were on a great range of genealogical topics worldwide.
I identified a particular problem in that the widely distributed membership leaflet had for 15 years contained a statement that the Society was able to undertake a limited amount of research for non-members and for members at reduced rates. As a result some overseas members joined specifically to have research carried out at low fees or were using the Society as a general advisory service, with no intention of commissioning research but wanting free advice on what to do or where to look next. They rarely if ever came to the Library and usually resigned after two or three years, dissatisfied to some extent with the service given. The membership had risen from 1,800 to 5,000 since I had taken over the research in 1962, and the number of pieces of mail received had gone up from 4,300 in 1960 to 12,400 in 1975 (or 50 every working day), the Society being regarded as the final authority on so many topics. The research rates (£2 an hour for members and £3 for non-members) had only been increased to those levels in July 1975 but one tended to make short searches for members for nothing, though some took advantage and became very annoyed if charged £1.08 (inclusive of VAT) or neglected to pay so that two or three reminders became necessary.
The researchers were normally paid £1.50 an hour and I had the half-time assistance of Raymond Foster who did nearly all the outside work at the GRO and PRO, of Mervyn Medlycott who did one day every two weeks, of Alan Rolfe who probably did two or more days every week but only charged for half of them, and of Lydia Collins who worked in the library for about five hours a week. Alan and Lydia did their own typing and reports, the remainder being done by myself (often, though I did not say it, at the weekends) with the assistance of Mrs Reid on about one day a month. There were now considerable delays in reporting, particularly if one had to organise research somewhere in the provinces, and large cases (which might make more profit) were generally avoided because one could not give them continuity and individual attention.
I had advertised for a part-time assistant in 1973 but found no satisfactory person with the necessary knowledge of the library and outside sources who was able to type their own reports, and I could not offer a regular income as the amount of paid research to be done in the library fluctuated considerably. There was the added problem of lack of room to house a regular worker in the Society’s somewhat ‘open-plan’ offices which, as I said, ‘are in any case particularly ill-suited for quiet research’. One urgently needed further secretarial assistance, preferably with some knowledge of the subject, but it could not be expected that this would to any extent pay for itself [2903].
In the March 1975 issue of the Magazine the Treasurer, Arnold Hawker, had given a summary of the Society's then financial position and staffing. Six full-time staff were employed with an equal number of part-time employees. Pension arrangements for the senior staff, something in which Hawker had taken considerable personal interest, had been entered into in 1974 [2904]. The ratio of staff to members was about 1 to 450. Although costs had risen considerably, by the end of 1975 the subscriptions would have remained unaltered for five years. The cost of running the Society had risen from £19,000 in 1971 to a projected £29,000 in 1975 and, although there had been a 15% rise in membership, there would need to be an increase in subscriptions from 1 January 1976 [2905].
Hawker therefore proposed and it was agreed at an Extraordinary General Meeting on 28 June 1975 that London Members should pay £9 and Country and Overseas Members £6 per annum, with students paying half those rates and pensioners (over 65) paying £7 or £4.50 [2906]. At the Meeting a member, Jan Reid, herself a professional searcher, had suggested that professionals, who received tax relief on their subscriptions, should pay a higher rate, something that would have required the defining of 'a professional' and a change in the Articles for a relatively small number of people. There was resistance to the main proposals by some members of local groups present but Heather Hawker, Arnold Hawker's wife and herself also a member, said that if people wanted a Society with a large library and properly trained staff, they must be prepared to pay for it. Hawker had previously suggested that the Entrance Fee for students should be increased to £1.25 and to £2.50 for all other members and this was done the following year. Following a report from F. A. Davies, the actuary to the Eagle Star Insurance Company, the Executive Committee also suspended Life Membership of the Society, intending to review it again in a year's time [2907].
However, with escalating costs and inflation it was agreed at the Annual Meeting in 1976 that an increase in subscriptions in 1977 was 'almost inevitable' [2908] and an Extraordinary Meeting was called on 16 November 1976 (with Brian Brooks in the Chair) when it was proposed by Arnold Hawker and overwhelmingly agreed that Town Members who had joined since July 1965 should pay £12 and Country Members £8 per annum, that retired members should pay £9 or £6 and students £6 or £4 per annum, the Entrance Fee for students being increased to £1.75 and for all other members to £3.50 [2909]. The novelist Anthony Powell gave £100 to the funds that year.
Slightly fuller detail was given in the Accounts for 1976 and at the Annual Meeting in 1977 Jeremy Gibson asked that the postage on the Magazine be shown separately so that the true cost of the Magazine production was known to Members, that Photocopying be separated from the sale of Publications, and that the profits on the production and sale of the Society's own publications be shown separately from those brought in for re-sale, all matters that he had mentioned in the past and of importance to anyone interested in the Society's true trading position [2910]. Not all these figures subsequently appeared in the printed Accounts but they were always available at future meetings.
The rules about subscriptions were at this time relatively liberally applied. Under the Society's Articles of Association Members were supposed to give a month's notice of their intention to resign, and if they resigned after 30 November they were technically liable for the following year's subscription, the legal liability to contribute to the Society's funds if it were wound up also continuing to the end of the following year [2811]. Subscriptions were payable on 1 January but the Members were sent reminders with both their March and June magazines and they were not 'struck off' for non-payment until September when a formal list of their names was brought before the Executive Committee. It was not until the change in the Articles in 1979 that we began to tighten up on this procedure, no magazines being sent if a subscription had not been paid. However, in 1975 membership cards were introduced for those visiting the library [2912] (to differentiate them from day searchers) which they were asked to display, a not too popular decision, but aimed mainly at discovering those who had not paid. Previously members had just signed their names in a book kept at reception without any question being asked. If a member of staff thought the member had not paid that could easily be checked from the card index in the office.
In notes in the Magazine Ruth Harvey reminded members that if their subscriptions had not been paid by 1 September of the following year that they would be struck off and that they would then have to pay a second entrance fee if they subsequently wished to re-join (though a proposer and seconder would not then be needed) and that re-election to membership was not to be relied upon by constant defaulters [2913]. These points were reiterated in a letter that Miss Surry sent to all the defaulting members on 19 August 1976 which also pointed out that the March and June Magazines which they had already received would have cost a non-member £1.25 each plus postage. She suggested that those who did not wish to renew their subscriptions should make some contribution to their cost [2914].
Prompt payment, of course, also helped when ordering print-runs of the Magazine, an estimation problem that escalated considerably as the membership grew and the print-runs themselves could not be controlled exactly. Expensive reprints of the Magazine were to be avoided but occasionally proved necessary; sometimes far too many copies resulted in storage problems. The dollar rate equivalents were also frequently a matter of argument being calculated to take into account the bank charges that had to be paid, something that was not always appreciated by the member.
Although details of the increase in subscriptions were sent to members the day after the Extraordinary Annual Meeting on 17 November 1976, many members did not change their bankers' orders and many payments were made at the old rate on 1 January 1977, so that the balance had then to be collected. The matter was further complicated in that members who had joined prior to 1975 could not have their subscriptions increased but were now being charged an additional £5 for the Magazine. Some, as a result, chose not to take the Magazine. Life Members paid no subscription and received the Magazine without further charge. All this had to be set out and pleas were then made to those members in 'sufficiently good circumstances' to voluntarily increase their subscriptions to the new rates [2915]. What their legal liability would be, if their circumstances changed, was never decided. The Membership Secretary's task was not an easy one and arguments about these matters took up a considerable amount of time. A radical overhaul of the records resulted in 629 names being removed from the membership list in 1976 and a slight drop in the total number (to 4,852) at the end of the year [2916].
These problems were further complicated because the December 1976 issue of the Magazine contained an index only and for economic reasons it was held back and sent out with the March issue which was brought forward to February 1977. Only the March issue contained advertisements and so the charges to advertisers who paid in advance for four insertions had also to be adjusted.
As if Ruth Harvey did not have enough problems trying to apply the regulations about membership, the AGM in June 1977 introduced another concessionary category, that of married couples who opted to receive only one copy of the Magazine. This came into force on 1 January 1978, the subscription being 75% of the normal rate for two individuals [2917]. Arnold Hawker said that the loss to the Society, if any, would be very small, but he did not anticipate the arguments (amongst several others that wasted hours and are far too tedious to enter into) that would arise from some couples as to whom the Magazine should be addressed. This tricky question arose because, in order to save money, the Addressograph plate of the first of the couple to join was not altered when the second became a member.
At the AGM in 1978 it was noted that £6,000 was still owed on the mortgage, the income from the recent subscription increase had not brought in quite as much as was expected [2918] and a further increase was proposed and agreed without opposition. As from 1 January 1979 the rates would rise from £12 to £15 for Town Members, from £8 to £10 for Country and Overseas Members, and the Entrance Fee from £3.50 to £5. The concessionary rates would also increase to £11.25 for Town Members and £7.50 for Country and Overseas Members, but it was also agreed that the concessionary rate for Retired Members should in future inly be allowed to those who had been members for ten years [2919]. The situation was further complicated at this time in that 44% of the subscriptions received was liable to VAT at 8% and although this was absorbed and not charged separately, a few members demanded to have separate VAT invoices and a nasty little calculation had then to be spelled out, 66% of a £15 subscription (i.e. £9.90) for instance being zero rated, and £4.73 being subject to VAT of 37p. Fortunately most members were quite unaware of the situation.
The cards that recorded the addresses and payments of Members who lapsed and were struck off or died were transferred to a separate series of drawers that Ruth Harvey christened 'Boot Hill', a name that remained with them for many years. The index was a valuable source of information about former genealogists. In July 1979 with the membership coming up to 5,000, Edith Pritchard looked at all the cards and found that there were still 140 Life Members and 156 Members who paid old rates of £6 or less a year. Since the first days of the Society the members had each had separate correspondence files and these too, on death or resignation, were usually preserved and transferred to a separate series. Into these membership files were generally placed all the correspondence from the various sections of the Society, including the Library, and by looking at the file one could soon see how active or otherwise any member had been and whether he or she had been troublesome or helpful in the past. It was an important point as one was frequently asked to write formal letters confirming a person's membership or providing a reference for them when visiting an incumbent or record repository such as the Department of Literary Enquiry at Somerset House or Lambeth Palace Library or indeed the Public Record Office. I remember someone at the PRO saying in 1986 that if he had a pound note for every letter that he had seen with my signature on it he would be a wealthy man.
The amount of correspondence received at the Society was now becoming a very major problem. At the AGM in 1976 the Chairman, Brian Fitzgerald-Moore told the members that in 1960 the Society received 4,300 pieces of correspondence, but that in 1975 there were 12,400 items. In 1962 we had 1,800 members; the number was now about 5,000. The small staff had to deal with about 50 items of correspondence every working day [2920].
General enquiries about the Society were usually answered with a regularly revised duplicated sheet which could be folded in three and stapled, the address being written on the back. It incorporated details of the Library and an application form for membership. I had devised this in 1963 [2921] to replace the simple printed half-sheet that had been in use since Major Church's day and it worked well, many thousands being sent out over the years, though the stencilled picture of the Society's home on the front did not always come out too clearly [2922]. After the move to Charterhouse Buildings in 1984 we replaced it with a very similar yellow form, regularly updated and much more nicely printed in dark brown.
In answer to queries about research we had devised an impersonal letter that we called the 'Advice' letter and which was often sent with the membership form. Many enquiries followed very similar lines and in 1977 we started to produce a series of leaflets on particular subjects that could be sent with the membership form or a compliment slip. The first two of these Leaflets were a list of the publications sold by the Society and a Bibliography for beginners and these were available at the Day Conference that year. They were followed by Family records and their layout (based on a draft by Alexander Sandison), Note taking and keeping for genealogists, Genealogy as a career (about which we had an enormous number of enquiries), The relevance of surnames, and A note for Americans on tracing their British Ancestry. All these appeared in 1977 [2923]. The leaflet for Americans, which pointed out the problems entailed in tracing the place of origin of early migrants, again answered thousands of letters and was eventually printed on much thinner paper to save postage. We had for some years refused to take on research where the migrant’s place of origin was not known for, as I had written to the Mayflower genealogist Lucy Mary Kellogg (1899-1973), I had long ago concluded that it was ‘foolish to encourage and improper to take money in these cases’ [2924].
The problems in the identification of these early migrants were exemplified in the year of publication of our leaflet by the publicity given to a search for the ancestry of the US President Jimmy Carter whose emigrant ancestor was probably (but cannot be proved to be) Thomas Carter who arrived in Isle of Wight County, Virginia, in 1635. In June 1977 the President’s son visited Christchurch in Dorset in the firm belief that this Thomas was the son of a Christchurch merchant [2925], but in August the ubiquitous and quite unreliable Harold Brooks-Baker, then managing director of Debrett’s, announced that Thomas had come from Kings Langley in Hertfordshire [2926], and in October the firm sent four genealogists to Virginia for further research, The Times reporting that Debrett, ‘apart from the disinterested search for truth, is gratified by the publicity its search is attracting’ [2927]. No doubt it was, but so far as I am aware the origins of this particular migrant remain entirely unknown.
The leaflet on careers became a best seller and we considered it a far more realistic summary of the situation than that provided by the Institute at Canterbury [2928]. There were thousands of requests for it, not only from individuals, but from schools, colleges and universities throughout the kingdom, and overseas.
As a note in the Magazine relates, the preparation of the draft leaflets mentioned above revealed substantial differences in practice between various individuals and some surprisingly strongly held views on what Alexander Sandison described as 'really unimportant matters of detail' but there was usually full agreement on the important issues and the leaflets undoubtedly helped to inform good practice. The intention to seek a consensus of opinion on permissible abbreviations, however, unfortunately failed and has never been satisfactorily addressed. Sandison had begun to prepare a wide ranging draft on ‘Conventional practices in genealogy’ for a working party early in 1978, but it unfortunately raised many questions at a more than busy time and was not taken further [2929].
Apart from the list of publications (which was sent to all the members with the December 1977 Magazine and printed in that for June 1978) [2930], these leaflets were basically designed to be given away in reply to letters but they were also sold at 10p each and bulk supplies for resale were available at a discount to member societies of the Federation. All were regularly revised and reprinted. Later when they and others in the series were seen by the Publications Committee as something to be 'designed', printed on heavy paper, and produced specifically to make money, the idea collapsed, the Internet fortunately intervening to make the more worthwhile ones available without charge.
The printing of the list of publications became, with the passage of time and as the list grew, almost a major event, its checking and revision taking several days. The work of the Publications Committee was outlined by Alexander Sandison in the Magazine in March 1978 when he spoke of the leaflets being typed on a machine that 'simultaneously recorded the details on a magnetic memory' to facilitate updating and the possibilities of future publication on microfiche. His article completely overlooked the involvement of the staff concerned [2931]. He did, however, mention that the Society had joined the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) which took publicity stands and displayed books at various exhibitions and was now shrink-wrapping the Magazine instead of the Society's staff inserting it in envelopes for distribution, a major step forward as the membership rapidly increased.
At this time the Society's rooms were closed on Mondays, but open from 10 am to 6 pm on Tuesday and Fridays, 10 am to 8 pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and from 10 am to 5 pm on Saturdays. It closed on Friday afternoons at 1 pm and all day on Saturdays prior to Bank Holidays. However, late in 1978 it was decided that the Society would, in future, close on two separate weeks in the year to enable the Library Staff to take stock and do other work that could not be undertaken when the rooms were open. The first of these closed weeks took place in February and the second in October 1979 [2932].
As mentioned above the accountant Herbert Chadband retired after fourteen years in the middle of 1976, going to live in Norfolk, and was greatly missed [2933]. He was replaced by Chandra J. Bhatt who had recently come from East Africa, a fine and able accountant, who remained with us until October 1979. Sometime after we had moved to Charterhouse Buildings in 1984 he sought me out to say that he was migrating with his family to America and he touchingly wanted to thank the Society for employing him earlier. Haidee Reid who had been with us since 1970 and Anthony Dickins who had also helped Mrs Mackay both retired in 1976. They were replaced in June by Edith Pritchard who had been recruited as a part-time office assistant by Mildred Surry. Joan 'Edith' Pritchard (1916-1986) had recently retired as an editor with the BBC and for the next ten years she made herself quite indispensable with all manner of tasks around the office, working full-time from early in 1979.
The highly competent and organised Mrs Patricia Mary Riach (nee Cutting; died 2010) who had joined the Society in 1971 was in September 1972 invited to take over the work of the late Doreen Briscoe (and in succession to Margaret Duggan who had kept it ticking over) in the organisation of the parish register subscribers and this she did with great success for the next ten years, providing a steady stream of work to a loyal band of workers. Her husband, Major Hamilton ('Tony') Fraser Riach (died 1993) was also a member and typed numerous parish registers for the Society.
At the same time another member and a popular teacher of local and family history classes, Mrs Doris Evelyn Pullen (nee Lord), in May 1975 took over from Lionel Aird the similar work of co-ordinating the transcription of monumental inscriptions. She also, with great energy and enthusiasm, carried that work forward until her retirement in 1998, her husband John also typing registers and, after the move to Charterhouse Buildings, assisting the ‘Monday Club’ there.
These two ladies shared a desk and each worked one day a week in the library and their dedication and helpful presence was a considerable asset as they both came to know the library's organisation well. Two able assistants, Timothy Howard and Christopher Edwards, also joined the library staff in 1976 [2934] and we looked forward to a little more continuity generally. In 1977 there were a number of suggestions from Members that the Society might benefit from the Government's recently introduced Job Creation Scheme and the matter was given active consideration by the Executive Committee [2935] but found quite impossible, three people apparently being the minimum number to be employed.
However, as is frequently the case when there is plenty else to think about, the provision of afternoon tea to the members became a major issue in 1977 and much time was expended in argument. Mrs Norris now found it hardly worth her while to come to the Society, sometimes for only one or two people, and the staff were generally unwilling to act. Hamilton-Edwards and a small number of regular visitors, remembering the days of yore when the tea bell rang and the room filled with people to enjoy a genealogical discussion, were particularly tiresome in drafting notices and calling meetings, though their main meeting on 1 July 1977 only attracted a dozen members, most realising that the day had probably come for some automatic self-service system, though these machines, like photocopiers, were not so efficient then as they later became. His thought that some local retired lady would, at almost no cost to the Society, give up every afternoon from Tuesday to Saturday, was quite unrealistic [2936].
Jeremy Gibson gave up the joint editorship of the Magazine with Francis Leeson after the June 1976 issue and 'Frank' Leeson continued as Editor alone. Although based at Ferring in Sussex he and the printers, the Grosvenor Press, had an excellent relationship with the Society in the timely circulation of copy, proofs and final product, the large office and library sections of the journal being prepared ‘in-house’.
As Jeremy Gibson mentioned at the AGM in 1976 the postage on the Magazine was a major item at about £400 a quarter [2937] and the December issue (which consisted solely of an index compiled by Isobel Mordy) was despatched with the March 1977 issue, members being kept informed meanwhile through a special News Letter. As a result the payments by regular advertisers had then, of course, to be adjusted. In March 1977 Leeson introduced a slightly new format in A5 size with a smaller type in two columns, as had been proposed by Jeremy Gibson, they attempting to keep the costs down without lowering standards [2938], but when the print size of the lengthy lists of new members and library accessions was still further reduced in the June 1978 issue, to save about 20% space [2939], and the sections of reviews and correspondence were further reduced in March 1980 [2940], some members began to complain, saying that the lists of library accessions were unreadable. However, in June 1980 it was agreed to discontinue listing the names and addresses of the many new members, though the addresses of those who gave birth briefs were now included instead.
The Librarian remained as Reviews Editor. He used a panel of reviewers whose names were now generally given in full and in June 1977 he appealed for further reviewers, at the same time setting out some basic guidance drafted by Jeremy Gibson [2941]. However, many books were now sent directly to the editor at Ferring and were then frequently reviewed by Leeson himself.
The Magazine continued to publish important pioneering articles. These included Mervyn Medlycott's 'The City of London Freedom Registers' [2942], 'Post-1834 Poor Law Records' by C. R. Webb [2943], and 'In search of a soldier ancestor' by Christopher T. and Michael J. Watts [2944]; in 1977, 'Genealogical Research in the Channel Islands' by Lawrence R. Burness [2945], 'British Knighthoods' by Colin Parry [2946], 'Bigamy in 19th Century England' by Stella Colwell [2947], and 'Genealogical Research in South Africa' by Dr R. T. J. Lombard [2948]; in 1978, 'Unravelling Merchant Seamen's Records' by Christopher T. and Michael J. Watts [2949], 'Genealogy in Canada' by Brenda Merriman [2950], 'Genealogical Resources in Chancery Records' by Peter Wilson Coldham [2951], a useful note on 'Feet of Fines' by Molly Tatchell [2952], and an important article on the relationship between 'The Archivist and the Genealogist' by Felix Hull [2953] in 1979. The India Office Library and Records published its important Brief Guide to Biographical Sources by Ian A. Baxter in 1979 [2954].
The Society's library and collections continued to grow, the foundation of local family history societies in the mid-1970s doing much to increase the rate of transcription of parish registers and monumental inscriptions. The character of the Society had rapidly changed and the great modern movement in 'grass roots' genealogy was well under way. The downside was that on lecture days the rooms were often dreadfully overcrowded with the library and document collection in a shambles. People were generally very good-natured but security was extremely poor and thefts of books and documents were sadly not infrequent.
I remember an extraordinary range of visitors from all social levels, from grand old European aristocrats, like Prince Alphonse Clary et Aldringen or the Baron Andre de Moffarts, to ordinary working people, mixed with a great many professionals, army men, teachers and a sprinkling of ‘resting’ actors or actresses. The Society, of course, attracted a fair number of 'social climbers' and eccentrics as well as some impostors like the nervously timid Peter Francis Mills (1927-1988), self-styled Prince Petros Palaeologos, Emperor and Autokrator of the Romans, a real menace who falsified entries in parish registers, gave us pedigrees in which his labouring ancestors had been turned into princes or princesses and signed his letters in Greek characters 'The Despot'. He was the son of Frank Mills, a GPO wireless operator, but claimed through his mother, Robina Colenutt, that he was descended from a brother of Constantine XI Palaeologus, the last Byzantine Emperor, who died at Constantinople in 1453 [2955]. In 1969 I urged him to set a good example to other claimants to distant thrones by depositing at the Society a detailed pedigree of his family, setting out all the sources used [2956], but that of course he never did and after his death his son wrote sadly about the embarrassment and discomfiture he had long caused his family by his bogus claims [2957]. Another impostor but also a knowlegeable genealogist was the charming self-styled ‘Baron’ de Breffny (1931-1989) [2958], first known to us as Brian Leese. The Baron himself introduced a number of titled and glamorous people including the actor Michael York who came to tea. The Australian singer Helen Reddy, keen on her convict ancestors, was a correspondent, as was the comedian Spike Milligan (1918-2002) with his interest in the First World War. The actor Sir Donald Sinden came to Harrington Gardens several times as a member and the writer Doris Lessing (1919-2013) came about her very Irish grandmother who, she found, was born in the East End of London. In my early days I had met at reception, on some quest for his publisher, the great novelist Nevil Shute (1899-1960) and I remember calls from 'The Man in Black', Valentine Dyall (1908-1985), about an entry in the Newgate Calendar for someone who had been pressed to death, and from the pompous Simon Dee (1935-2009) who was Britain’s first ‘pirate’ disc jockey in 1964. The exquisite Shirley Lord, wife of the carpet millionaire Cyril Lord (1911-1984), came several times in 1968 about his ancestry in the silk industry. Such was the extraordinary variety of those who began to think of tracing their ancestors or using genealogical sources.
The actress and art-historian Adrienne Corri (1930-2016) joined the Society in June 1978 on the advice of the theatre designer David Walker and later related that she found the library, 'a glorious muddle of information and confusion, reference books on every county, some in longhand from zealous local historians', adding, 'It takes a bit of finding your way around. There is a certain amount of one-upmanship from the staff, but mostly help'. I don't remember her discussing her search for Thomas Gainsborough's early life but she did not like my attitude and wrote, 'Mr A. J. Camp, the expert on wills, thinks I am an idiot and shows it' [2959], and there was I thinking that I had the patience of Job.
Her book shows an interesting sidelight on attitudes to researchers at this time. The vicar of St George's Hanover Square told her crossly, 'I have no time for dead people' [2960] and the boy who opened the door in the deathly hush at Lambeth Palace Library said scornfully, 'You're not a researcher. You look too cheerful' [2961]. She, however, realised that she was a typical genealogical bore. 'There is', she wrote, 'not a shopkeeper, passing stranger, postman, chemist, grocer, the man who sweeps up the leaves, within a five-mile radius of St John's Wood who has managed to escape the Gainsborough Lecture' and she admitted to bringing him into her every conversation so that her neighbours' eyes glazed over and they crossed the road when they saw her coming [2962]. Like several actors I have known she found that she could continue the research wherever she was and that the study of her papers filled many a gap whilst rehearsing for The Mitfords or Dr Who, but in a few years she had 'begun to notice a bored look on people's faces, or one of pity and disbelief; or worse, a kind of humouring kindness, as shown to a child or someone in their dotage' [2963]. Thus she learned, I hope, as the saner genealogists eventually do, to keep their discoveries to themselves, or at least to put them into print as she herself did in her amusing book. Her opinion of me, too, must have improved a little with the years as she came to my 30th anniversary party in 1987.
The description ‘Great Genealogical Bore’ or ‘GBB’ was given by Lawson Edwards to several well known genealogists who one tended to avoid if at all possible but there were some, even on committees of the Society, who could be amusing in short doses but who certainly did not know how or when to stop. Cecil Brand and Gillie Potter were prime examples but the phrase was coined, if I remember correctly, for the kindly bumbling Gerald Hamilton-Edwards.
On 16 November 1977 the members had been surprised to see the outside of 37 Harrington Gardens used in an episode of BBC TV’s ‘Secret Army’ filmed on a Sunday in September for which the Society received a most useful fee.
Commencing on Tuesday, 23 September 1975 at 6.30 pm, and running for 24 weeks at the Society, Stella Colwell (then a free-lance genealogist at the College of Arms) provided under the auspices of the University of London Department of Extra-Mural Studies a 24-week course, ‘Genealogy: 18th and 19th century sources’, which included one special visit, the session costing £6.
This proved very popular and in September 1976, she commenced a similar course which this time included two visits, 'Genealogy: 17th century and earlier sources', on Wednesdays at 7.30 pm, the fee being £9 or £6 for registered students and pensioners [2964]. She subsequently ran similar courses at the Society on 'The theory and practice of genealogy', for similar fees, on Thursday evenings at 7.15 pm from September 1977 to March 1978 [2965], and another entitled, 'Studies in genealogy', from September 1978 to March 1979 [2966], and yet another, ‘Genealogy: Family and Community’, from September 1981 [2967]
In 1976 Michael Burchall, the librarian and editor, and Judy Warren, the new secretary, of the Sussex Family History Group brought together in a joint project with the Hampshire, Kent and West Surrey Borders societies, the 'interests' of their more than 1,000 members in a Southern Counties Family Register which sold at £1.25 post-free [2968]. Many local societies were publishing individual county lists and the sixth edition of the Birmingham and Midland society's Midland Genealogical Directory (1978) contained 13,000 references [2969].
Following the success of their combined 'Southern Counties' venture, Michael Burchall and Judy Warren decided to launch a national index and circulated subscription forms through the Federation and its member societies [2970], producing a National Genealogical Directory (or NGD) containing about 20,000 names from 1,748 subscribers, in 1979 [2971], the first such list since the Society published its Directory in 1966 and its supplement in 1968-71. A second edition with 23,500 names appeared in 1980 and Michael Burchall alone then produced further directories in 1981, 1982-3, 1984, 1985 and 1986. Iris Louise Caley, also at Brighton, then took over the project and produced volumes for the years 1987-1993. Interests in particular places and other specialist subjects were listed in these volumes from 1985.
Of course the local societies continued to produce their own lists or to publish them in their journals, as they do to this day, and they have a considerable local value (particularly to those without access to the Internet), but whilst the NGD was being produced in England, out in Australia, two noted genealogists and publishers, Keith A. Johnson and Malcolm R. Sainty, had produced two parts of an ‘Australian Edition’ of a Genealogical Research Directory (GRD) containing about 40,000 entries, and the following year published an ‘International Edition’ (1982) with more than 35,000 entries. Following the appointment of local agents in various countries worldwide in 1984 the annual volumes of the GRD grew rapidly in size, passing the 100,000 mark in 1987 and 150,000 in 1996. They contained entries relating to every country and included valuable listings of practically all known genealogical societies. The careful editing and regular appearance of the volumes was widely appreciated and their success in putting people in touch with each other undoubted [2972]. The last edition appeared in 2007, having only partially been superseded by the many databases and discussion lists on the Internet.
Meanwhile in 1993 the Federation of Family History Societies had also launched a scheme to index the interests, solely within the British Isles, of any interested subscriber, christening it the British Isles Genealogical Register or BIG-R. The first edition, containing over 300,000 entries from 22,000 subscribers and thus the largest index of its kind, was published on microfiche in 1995.
The Society's second Day-Conference took place at Baden-Powell House in Queen's Gate, within easy walking distance of the Society, on 25 June 1977, there being a choice of a lecture, two seminars and a problems and queries brains trust in each of three sessions, the day ending with the AGM [2973]. The crowded day was attended by 350 members and friends and organised by Stella Colwell. I spoke on ‘The English Abroad’. Bookstalls were provided in the foyer by the Federation, Phillimore & Co, a number of local groups and by the Society which also mounted a small exhibition [2974]. The AGM was chaired by Brian Brooks but he resigned as Chairman of the Executive Committee in November.
A third Day-Conference with a similar format, organised by Alan Reed, was also held at Baden-Powell House on Saturday, 23 June 1979 [2975], though this time it was decided to hold the AGM on the following Wednesday evening so that Prince Michael might take the Chair [2976] and the two events were not held together again. At the Conference in addition to the usual question and answer seminars there were lectures by specialists on local history, Irish and Scottish records, the army, maps in the Public Record Office, the National Maritime Museum, the Guildhall Library, the India Office Library, and on the records of the working man [2977].
The Silver Jubilee of The Queen was celebrated by the Society at a dinner in the Baronial Hall at Colonial House, Mincing Lane, London EC3, on Saturday, 19 November 1977, presided over by the Earl Marshal, Major General the Duke of Norfolk, a Vice-President of the Society, and attended by 120 members, wives and guests. Anthony Colin Cole, Windsor Herald, proposed a toast to the Society and was also the Guest Speaker, discussing 'The Use of Arms in England', and Sir Andrew Noble gave the response [2978]. At the reception, to my amusement and indeed slight embarrassment, the Duke asked to speak to the 'young man' wearing, though I did not realise it, the Lancers' 'Death or Glory' tie!
There had been a very rapid growth in the number of Latter-day Saint converts in England in the early 1960s and the British Isles had also been the focus of the Church's microfilming activity but the number of cameras operating here fell steadily and by 1969 there were only three. That year the patient and diplomatic Jeffrey F. Packe took responsibility for directing the work in the United Kingdom, seeking out records and persuading the custodians to have them microfilmed and this he continued to do until his retirement in September 1986.
Prejudice against the Latter-day Saints was still very strong in many quarters and it was an uphill task. The archivists usually saw the benefits of microfilming, but opposition frequently came from the clergy, not necessarily on religious grounds but because of their loss of income from search fees which many regarded as their private perks. It was not until after the 1978 Records and Registers Measure had resulted in the deposit of so many registers in county record offices that this opposition fell away and that doors were sensibly opened to the Genealogical Society of Utah. The number of cameras at work here was increased to thirteen in 1986 [2979] and a special seven-year filming initiative continued until 1992 by which time the registers of 5,110 parishes and the bishop's transcripts of 4,516 parishes had been filmed [2980].
Copies of the films were normally only given to the record offices where the Church had carried out the filming but in the 1970s its representative Jeffrey Packe (1921-2018) arranged for copies of the Church's computerised files to be made available on microfiche to the major family history societies in the British Isles, he touring the country and speaking about the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and the uses of the great indexes that were being created.
Thus one of the most important acquisitions ever to come into the Society's library was the donation in 1977 by Frederick Norman Filby (1915-1995), his son David J. Filby and Miss Dorothy Streeper (1906-1996) in Salt Lake City, of the British Isles section of the first microfiche edition of the Computer File Index or CFI (later called the International Genealogical Index or IGI) compiled by the Genealogical Society of Utah. I was asked about it at the AGM in June 1977 when I came forward in the meeting to say that delivery was expected in July, though the Index would not be available until a microfiche reader with a special high magnification had been obtained. It was hoped that this would be installed by the end of the year [2981] as indeed it was, other donations (totalling £205) contributed to the cost of tables and drawers for the fiche. The 1,699 microfiche contained 25,015,318 entries of baptism and marriage, the parishes covered being listed in Parish and Vital Records Listing (June 1976).
Lawson Edwards, the librarian, who warmly acknowledged the assistance of Jeffrey Packe in the acquisition of this great new tool, reckoned that at least two microfiche readers would be needed [2982] and in December he reported that the Executive had approved the purchase of two Mini-Cat TN readers [2983]. He and I described the Index's strengths and weaknesses in an article in the Magazine in March 1978 [2984].
At that time there were no facilities for taking copies direct from the fiche and members had to write or telephone well in advance of visiting the Library in order to reserve one of the viewers for an hour, but the vast new index naturally attracted many new searchers to the rooms, and the two library assistants, Christopher Edwards and Timothy Howard, were put under considerable pressure. The Index occasionally proved a mixed blessing and David Gardner in Salt Lake City was obliged to admit that as the result of a 'logic error' by the programmer the wrong place of marriage was sometimes shown. However, the correct place could be found (if the entry resulted from a Controlled Extraction) by checking the Batch Number, and to enable us to do that he provided the Society with a microfiche copy of the Parish and Vital Records Listing in Batch Number sequence [2985].
This first edition of the Index was initially available in only a few record offices and libraries in the British Isles, but in 1978 a new edition that corrected the locality errors was produced together with a new edition of the Listing [2986]. In July 1979, with a generous interest-free loan of £1,000 for two years from Frederick Filby [2987], the Society acquired for the first time a microfilm and microfiche reader-printer from which the Research Department was able to make printouts from the fiche (the Librarian not wishing to be involved in the correspondence that would ensue) and a lively trade commenced [2988] at 20p per page, increased to 40p on postal application in 1981 [2989]. The number of non-member visits in 1979 was 3,704, a 26% increase on the previous year [2990].
At the Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1978 it was agreed that church members would no longer be required to trace their ancestry as far back as possible, but for four generations only, including their own. The Church thereby hoped to avoid much duplication of effort and would concentrate on its Controlled Extraction Programme [2991].
Other major indexes were also becoming available and in June 1978 the Magazine published a major article by Michael Walcot which listed some twenty-three county and part-county marriage indexes which were in course of preparation by individuals and local societies around the country, the majority of which could be searched for small fees [2992]. On 9 November 1979 I spoke at the official opening by Sir John Nicholson of the Consolidated Index of Parish Registers on the Isle of Wight at the County Record Office, Newport, which had been organised by the archivist Clifford Webster and was the first complete county index to be compiled [2993].
That vigilance was still required where the safety of registers was concerned was graphically illustrated about this time by the stories of a register from Urswick, Lancashire, 1608-95, that had been found covered in mould in the damp cellar of a former vicar and by the gift to the British Library by the Kraus Reprint Corporation in New York of part of the burial register of St Leonard, Colchester, Essex, which had been dismembered in the nineteenth century [2994]
The criticisms at recent meetings that the Society was not known for its friendly and welcoming atmosphere was addressed to some extent in December 1977 by the introduction of quarterly Open Days for newly elected members on Saturdays, each new member being given the dates for the forthcoming year in the hope that one Saturday would be convenient. The Secretary, Director of Research and Librarian were usually present, together with some members of the Executive Committee, and Lawson Edwards and I conducted tours of the building [2995].
On these and other occasions members of the various Committees were instrumental in providing tea. There was generally a greater involvement of the committees with the day-to-day running of the Society at this time and in 1977 Isobel Mordy, the Chairman of the Library Committee, organised a series of working parties to assist with tasks about the Library [2996] often to Edwards’s annoyance.
Although we were fortunate with some members of staff, others did not stay so long and there were frequent changes in the library and in the office. Prospective staff were often interviewed on the first floor and taken round the building afterwards and they could be seen mounting the stairs from the office doorway or the landing. It was a simple test that many failed, for if they could not cope easily with the stairs they would be of little use in a building without a lift in which the library was on three (and latterly four) floors. In 1978 Edwards had a further eye operation and was away for some time, he himself finding the stairs increasingly difficult to cope with. I also, as the Chairman told the AGM, was 'very unwell' but was now on the way to recovery and would complete twenty-one years with the Society in a few months [2997].
No major work on the British royal family had appeared since the Canadian Arnold McNaughton’s illustrated work on the descendants of King George I which, as mentioned above, had been promoted by Lord Mountbatten in 1973. However, at the end of the nineteenth century George Wentworth Watson (1857-1940), a private tutor eduated at Cheltenham and St John’s College, Cambridge, had contributed a series of important and well referenced articles on the ancestry of the then Prince of Wales to The Genealogist [2998], which were later reprinted as The 4096 quartiers of King Edward VII (Exeter, 1904). This work inspired Gerald Paget (1885-1980), of Welwyn Garden City, who had worked for Lloyd’s Bank and was the son and grandson of vestry clerks in Clerkenwell, to revise and extend the tables to include the ancestries of Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary. More than fifty years later when aged 92 and for the present Queen’s Silver Jubilee he produced The lineage & ancestry of H.R.H. Prince Charles, Prince of Wales (2 vols. 1977; £60) listing in the second volume some 222,400 of the Prince’s ancestors in all its lines for eighteen generations to the 13th or 14th centuries, that on the Hungarian and Swedish lines being noteworthy though generally lacking any account of the sometimes obscure sources used. The first volume also contained pedigrees of the various reigning houses of England, Scotland and Wales and 79 tables of the seize quartiers of the kings and queens of England and Scotland [2999]. In his later years Paget had been assisted by Arthur Charles Addington (1939-2015), of Harpenden, who worked for NatWest bank and was the son of a newsagent at St Albans, and who had himself produced a definitive work on The Royal House of Stuart: the descendants of King James VI of Scotland, James I of England (3 vols. 1969-76) [3000]. Both Addington’s and Paget’s great works were published by Charles Skilton (1921-1990), of Barnwell Castle, Somerset, better known for publishing postcards and the ‘Billy Bunter’ books, but who in 1974 had reprinted Ruvigny’s The Jacobite Peerage and now in 1977 became a member of the Society.
The year 1977 also saw the publication of the first of the two valuable volumes of Burke’s Royal families of the world: Europe and Latin America (1977; £18) which usefully included the offspring of many morganatic marriages and some details of the better known illegitimate children, and the first volume of a work on the fifteen former reigning families of Germany, L'Allemagne Dynastique, by Michel Huberty, Alain Giraud and F. and B. Magdelaine. [3001] The seven volumes of the latter which appeared over the next seventeen years rivalled The Complete Peerage in their careful attention to sources and their encyclopaedic nature, paying tribute to Arthur Addington and Morris Bierbrier for assistance in England, and were an outstanding contribution to knowledge but sadly, like The Complete Peerage, their intended index of names was never published.
I had a few years earlier in 1973 contributed a lengthy article, 'La recherche généalogique en Angleterre', to Héraldique et Généalogie, the Bulletin of the Sociétés Françaises de Généalogie, d'Héraldique et de Sigillographie [3002], of which the Duc de La Force (whom I met at the International Conference in 1976) was President, and in 1978 I had been honoured to write a short Introduction to the eleventh part of the Cahiers de Saint Louis by the Abbé Jacques Dupont and Jacques Saillot [3003], an enormous work which sought, in eight volumes, to enumerate all the descendants in both male and female lines to the present day of Saint Louis IX, King of France 1226-70, and which included the descendants of Edward I and Edward II of England. The eleventh part covered the descendants of Edward III and included much new material [3004].
Also in 1977 I was delighted to contribute a foreword to a valuable new The Genealogist's Guide (£9) by Geoffrey Battiscombe Barrow (1927-2002) published by the Research Publishing Company and the American Library Association, containing an index to pedigrees and family histories which had been printed between 1950 and 1975, and forming a most useful supplement to George Marshall's Genealogists' Guide (1903) and Beach Whitmore's Genealogical Guide (1953) [3005]. I had made sure that it incorporated the unpublished Addenda that Beach Whitmore had collected and which I had sorted out at the Society following his death way back in 1957. Ten years later, in 1967, I had contributed a new Introduction to the reprint of George Marshall's Guide published by the Genealogical Publishing Company, a book selected by the American Library Association as one of the best reference books published that year, and I was always proud of my small association with these indispensable volumes.
The number of general books on genealogical research was now also proliferating and in 1978 Donald Steel was asked to review a new edition of Arthur Willis's Genealogy for Beginners (1976, £2.95) that he judged not well revised, and two new books, Tracing your Ancestors by Meda Mander (1976, £3.95) that had annoyingly stolen my title, and Your Family History by Mrs C. M. Matthews (1976, £3.95). He predictably considered both latter books as manuals for the genealogist rather than for the family historian, but thought Mrs Matthews' the more careful work. The editor, Francis Leeson, very kindly added a footnote that my little Tracing your Ancestors (62p) was, after 14 years, still in print and had sold more copies than any other book of its kind.
The publication of Alex Hailey's Roots (1976) had an enormous impact on the numbers of people worldwide who were attempting to trace their ancestors and although there were by 1978 several handbooks on the market that gave general guidance on how to compile a genealogy or assemble a family history, there was no recent survey of the subject as a whole, and so when I was asked that year to write something for W. H. Allen in its Star Books series of paperbacks, I took the opportunity to attempt a general book that might look, in a relatively light-hearted way, at the major sources but against a background of their users and what they hoped to find. It was published at 95p as Everyone Has Roots: an introduction to genealogy (1978) and Lawson Edwards called it, with some truth and in comparison to the book by Anthony Wagner, 'a poor man's English Genealogy', though it was no work of scholarship in that league. Francis Leeson wrote that it was 'compulsive reading' with 'an easy flow of often recondite information and illuminating examples' and although sub-titled 'An Introduction' there was much 'in this book for the veteran genealogist to learn and enjoy' [3006]. A particularly nice compliment, I thought, came from Gerald Hamilton-Edwards who wrote that he now wanted to re-write his In search of ancestry again. The book was much more nicely reprinted as a hard-back in the United States for $9.50 by the Genealogical Publishing Company in Baltimore which called it 'shrewd and elegantly written ... as delightful an introduction to the subject as has ever been written' and kept it in print for many years.
The suggestion that I write that book had been put forward by Mrs June Bassett, formerly an assistant to Cecil Mackay and an amused observer of the Society but later working with the publishers W. H. Allen, and I must here pay another tribute to her editing skills to which much of the book's success was undoubtedly due. I had, also in 1978, completely redrafted and brought up to date the British Tourist Authority’s booklet Tracing Your Ancestors which had a very wide circulation overseas [3007].
The duplication of effort that many had feared was now a frequent matter of discussion between the Federation and the Society. The Society had for years thought of itself as a clearing house for information about the transcription of parish registers and monumental inscriptions but so much work was now being undertaken that frequent appeals for information had to be made for both the Society and the Projects Organiser of the Federation to be kept informed [3008]. It was not an easy relationship.
The amount of correspondence generated by the upsurge in interest at this time was enormous and in April 1978 at a Federation conference at Bristol, Elizabeth Simpson whose workload had grown to unmanageable proportions, resigned as General Secretary, Colin Chapman taking over the post. At that same conference the Federation's constitution was changed and Iain Swinnerton was elected President. The following month a meeting at Leicester of those interested in one-name studies agreed to form a Guild of One-Name Studies (to which individuals might belong) which would seek full membership of the Federation and thus have voting rights at Council meetings, the existing one-name groups being only Associate Members without such rights [3009].
A regular and frequent contact between the Federation's officers and its member societies was early recognised to be a major difficulty [3010]. It was one that was never satisfactorily solved and a regional structure that might have helped was never encouraged. The Federation's first American member was the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History which Donald Steel had been instrumental in fostering, based in Ohio [3011].
The Federation's Annual Meetings were always held at a weekend conference in the spring and it became a general rule that I attended these wherever they were held (initially at my own expense) and the Society's Librarian, Lawson Edwards, attended the Federation's Council or half-yearly meeting at a similar weekend conference in the autumn. On both occasions the Society's bookstall was generally taken and manned throughout, though the transport of books frequently caused problems until Edith Pritchard came on the scene fulltime and manfully did practically all the work. She had started, if I remember correctly, with bookstalls at the courses I ran at Missenden Abbey, at the Society’s residential course at York in March-April, at the Federation AGM at Bristol in April, and at the English Genealogical Conference at Cambridge in September, all in 1978, and with growing success.
The successful residential course ‘Genealogy North and South’ had been held at the College of Ripon and York St John at York from 31 March to 2 April 1978 and had 55 residents and 15 day attenders, the tutors being me, Stella Colwell and Lawson Edwards, with Dr David M. Smith from the Borthwick Institute [3012]. Together those attending spent £244.72 on Society publications and bought in addition 38 copies of the Federation’s News and Digest.
The Second English Genealogical Congress was held at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, 4-9 September 1978, this time on 'The Theory and Practice of Genealogy - the contribution that genealogists can make to historical studies' with Dr Frederick Emmison as President and Brian FitzGerald-Moore as Chairman [3013]. It was attended by 180 people from all over the world and gained a good deal of publicity, both Anglia Television and the BBC giving time to the activities of the daily groups, led by John Rayment and Leslie White, which transcribed the tombstones in a local churchyard and, led by Mrs Susan Stewart, transcribed the parish registers of Landbeach [3014]. There were parties and meetings, as well as outings to Bury St Edmunds and Framlingham and guided tours of local landmarks and of the record office. The Society's bookstall did a lively trade and I was persuaded to mount an exhibition of pedigrees in the glass cases in the central well of Heffers' Bookshop. Stella Colwell was again the Organiser, supported by the same committee (with Major R.M. Collins as Secretary and Patric Dickinson as Treasurer) and by many stewards. Roy Strong, then Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, was the Guest Speaker at the Banquet, Colin J. Ford of the National Portrait Gallery opened the Congress and Dr Emmison, the President, attended throughout.
Alexander Sandison, who reviewed our activities for the Magazine, wrote that it was a very worthwhile and enjoyable week in which the lectures were devoted to topics of very practical help, particularly commending Dr Alan Rogers 'who made us put our work into context and stop to consider if it had any purpose at all beyond gratifying our personal vanities. He posed valid questions and asked that we should produce some general conclusions, not specific cases all the time. He accepted the answer that our sets of data, cutting across local and temporal boundaries, can be exploited for many social, historical, genetic and medical studies in a way that other records cannot - but this does lay on us all a responsibility for ensuring that, by deposit in a library or by publication, our results are made available for others to use' [3015].
I went to the Federation's annual conference at Nottingham at the end of March 1979 (when Sir Andrew Noble formally represented the Society) and it was interesting then to note that it was largely supported by the sale of its publications and not by its members' subscriptions, a situation which continued for many years and was often a cause of discussion and friction, the member societies acting, not always willingly, as agents for what became a stream of Federation publications [3016]. Sir Andrew resigned from the Federation’s committees in 1979 and Alan Reed was appointed as the Society’s representative in his place, he and the librarian attending the half-yearly meeting at Plymouth (1-2 September) [3017].
In July 1976 a paper suggesting various amendments to the Public Records Act 1958 was submitted to the Advisory Council on Public Records, signed by me and twelve representatives of other societies. A detailed reply was received, a delegation followed, and a useful dialogue ensued. The concern of the Society at the closing of the Census Room on Saturday mornings was the subject of additional representations [3018].
During the course of 1977 many records were moved to the new Public Record Office building at Kew and searchers were advised to telephone in advance of their visits for up-dates on the situation. In the summer it was announced that the Kew repository would open on Monday, 17 October. The rooms at Chancery Lane were closed from 9 September and re-opened on that date. It was thought that those in the Land Registry Building, Portugal Street, which were also closed in September, would not open again but after a month they were re-opened and the census returns, non-parochial registers and PCC wills remained in London, the records of the War Office, Colonial Office and Admiralty going to Kew [3019].
However, the Chancery Lane reading room was not now open on Saturday mornings and David Hawkings raised the matter at the Society's Annual Meeting in June 1977 when affected Members were asked to write to the Keeper of the Records. I had been involved through the Records Users’ Group in correspondence on the matter, but without success [3020].
In 1978 Jeremy Gibson appealed for information on the whereabouts of microfilms, hard copies and indexes to the various census returns, 1841-1871, with the intention of publishing a guide [3021] and this, the first of what later became known as the 'Gibson Guides', was published by the Federation the following year [3022], Gibson giving 100 copies for sale in the Society's bookshop [3023]. A national scheme to publish indexes to the various British census returns, using the Government's Manpower Services Commission Temporary Employment Programme, discussed that year and given publicity by Royston Gambier in 1979 [3024] came to nothing.
Conditions in the new Public Record Office building at Kew were naturally of great interest to members and in March 1978 the Magazine editor, Francis Leeson, described his first experiences at this un-sign-posted 'out-of-the-way place' that impressed him with its 'roominess and space-age luxury' and its 'elegant restaurant', though, of course, there were initial problems with the computers [3025], with the bleepers that notified one that documents were ready for collection [3026] and with the mechanised food dispensers in the basement [3027]. Dr Mark Hughes, a member at Newton Abbot, was not impressed with the office's inability to provide photocopies of the PCC wills to postal applicants, its excuse being that the wills had been given new references that the staff were unable to translate from the previously adequate old ones which had been used for six hundred years [3028]. Alice Prochaska spoke about the new search rooms to the Society on 18 October 1978 and a week later a group from the Society, limited to twenty members, was given a tour [3029].
In June 1979 many London searchers were sad to see the closure of the old Middlesex Record Office at 1 Queen Anne's Gate Buildings in Dartmouth Street. It had been administered by the Greater London Council jointly with the County of London Record Office since April 1965 and the records were now moved to County Hall where the search room, B21 in the basement and from all accounts not greatly liked by searchers, was closed for the last three months of 1979 in order to make the necessary alterations and improvements [3030].
On 7 March 1979 I represented the Society at a meeting of the Record Users Group with the Keeper and Deputy Keeper of the Public Records and we discussed many of the points later detailed in a formal submission to the Public Records Committee on the selection and preservation of records and on public access, under the chairmanship of Sir Duncan Wilson.
However, at the end of the year we were shocked to hear that as a contribution to the reduction in the size of the Civil Service announced by the Prime Minister on 6 December the Public Record Office would lose about forty staff. The Reading Rooms in Chancery Lane would be closed in the course of the next two years and the records removed to Kew. Letters of protest to the appropriate authorities were immediately written [3031] and the Society’s members contributed to correspondence to The Times in January 1980. The Records Users’ Group wrote to the Keeper of Public Records and to the Advisory Council on Public Records which met on 22 January and I wrote to the Keeper stressing our members’ concern that the records be kept in central London, copies of my letter being distributed to the members of the Council. The Keeper replied that no decision had been taken about the Search Room in Portugal Street as this awaited a decision on the future of the Registrar General’s records. He accepted that inconvenience would be caused by the closures but saw no alternative, saying that the more heavily used classes of records would be go to Kew. At this stage, however, a sub-committee of the Advisory Council was set up to look at possible alternatives and appeared cautiously optimistic. An informal petition was started by members of the Society of Genealogists and there was a meeting with the Keeper in March. The editor of the Magazine wrote then that the personnel at Kew ‘already have the appearance of being over-worked’ [3032].
On 3 June 1980 I went with other members of the Records Users Group to the House of Commons to talk with members of the All Party Heritage Group and we later provided examples of amateur searchers who would experience difficulties from the proposed closure, though one member thought that the Society should itself move to Kew [3033]. Many members wrote to the Attorney General and Lord Chancellor and Members of Parliament asked a number of questions in the House, there being a debate on the effect of public expenditure cuts on the work of the PRO on 8 August. On 8 December 1980, in answer to a question from Lord Teviot, it was announced that a study was being carried out into the possibility of bringing together at Kew all the PRO’s records and that the 100-year old records of the Registrar General would be considered in that context [3034].
A preliminary report was circulated in June 1981 suggesting that such a concentration of records was feasible by 1987-8. It envisaged the addition of a further storey to the existing building, the use of its basement and the construction of a new linked building there. The Records Users’ Group considered the site at Kew particularly unsuitable (as expressed in its letter to The Times, 18 July) because of the danger of flooding, it being in any case remote from the centre of London and the specialised needs of census and General Register Office users. I was one of the representatives of the Group which met the Houses of Parliament’s All Party Heritage Group on 1 July and again at a meeting set up with the authors of the report at the Lord Chancellor’s Department on 28 September 1981. It was then reported that the possibility of setting up a Microfilm Reading Room in central London to house the Wills, Census and General Register Office records, was being considered and costed. This was considered ‘essential’ by the Advisory Council on Public Records. Following a further meeting, the Records Users Group reiterated its fears in writing on 15 October.
Meanwhile the report of Sir Duncan Wilson’s Committee, Modern Public Records: Selection and Access had been published in May 1981 and the Society took the opportunity to agree warmly with many of its recommendations, urging their early implementation. The comments on opening hours and photocopying charges were particularly welcomed, as was the recognition given to the vastly increased use made of modern records by the genealogist and local historian [3035]. The Government’s response was less satisfactory and at the end of 1982 the Records Users Group and the Society made separate representations on several of the issues to the Select Committee dealing with the Report [3036].
The study which had been carried out into the possibility of bringing together all the records in the custody of the PRO at Kew was not published until April 1982 but the Solicitor General then announced that although the report demonstrated that it was physically feasible to concentrate the records on a single site at Kew (instead of being split between four sites), building work costing about twelve million pounds would be needed and this could not be justified ‘in the present’. The proposal was therefore ‘now in abeyance’. No further reductions in staffing levels, however, would be made and there were no immediate plans for discontinuing the public search room in Chancery Lane [3037].
In November 1980 the death indexes at St Catherine’s House were moved to a separate building on the opposite side of Kingsway, thus enabling the birth and marriage indexes to be spread out to relieve the notorious congestion, but certifiates had still to be applied for and collected in the main building [3038]. The cost of certificates had increased to £3.50 (or £8 by post) on 1 April 1980, with checks at £2 [3039], and on 1 April 1982 they were further increased by 15% from £4 to £4.60, drawing a swift letter of protest to The Times.
In October the GRO offered to lease copies of its indexes for the period 1866-1912 to interested professional genealogists, for £17,800 payable over four years. The Society once more deplored the attempts to obtain prohibitively high fees, and urged wider distribution of copies of the indexes as a means of reducing the pressure in the search rooms. The opportunity was again taken to urge the deposit of the older records and to explore the possibility of on-line access to the computerised indexes of the more recent events. A party from the Postal Application Section of the General Register Office visited the Society on 18 October [3040] and on 11 January 1983 members of the Executive Committee of the Society toured the General Register Office when the system of producing certificates from personal and postal applications was explained by Mr K. J. Stalker and his staff.
The Public Records (Amendment) Bill which sought to transfer the older records to the Public Record Office had its Second Reading in the House of Lords on 28 January and was amended in Committee on 11 March. Correspondence on its provisions developed in The Times to which I contributed a letter (15 April), but there was a general fear that the freeing of the records would be conditional on heavy fees for access and that such fees, once accepted for the registration records, might rapidly spread to the other material which it was proposed to house in the suggested central London microfilm reading room. The Society therefore proposed and it was agreed at the AGM of the Federation of Family History Societies on 10 April 1983, to oppose the levying of any charges for access to these records. The Bill, however, fell at the dissolution of Parliament [3041].
It was, I think, particularly unfortunate that in 1984 the British Association for Local History which had provided administrative support for the Records Users Group decided on grounds of finance to move from Bedford Square to Cromford Mill near Matlock in Derbyshire and that the active Bettie Miller’s two-year contract with the Association came to an end [3042]. The Group, with Christopher Charlton as Convener, tried to continue its valuable work for a while but the continuity of regular meetings was broken [3043] until the British Genealogical Record Users Committee (BGRUC) was established late in 1985.
In March 1984 the Registrar General sent letters to the Society and other organisations suggesting the possible sale of copies of his indexes of births, marriages and deaths, 1837-1980, on 1,722 reels of 16 mm microfilm, at from £10 to £20 per reel depending on demand and enquiring as to ‘the possibility of selling certified copies of entries on microfilm in respect of those birth, death and marriage records more than 100 years old’. These proposals met with little encouragement and were the subject of a critical editorial in Local Population Studies. The Society took the view that any wider distribution of the indexes was to be welcomed but in general it was in agreement with the Record Users Group which believed that the older records both central and local should be made freely available to searchers [3044]. However, the Registrar General issued a Press Notice on 2 December 1985 with details of microfilm copies of the indexes, 1866-1980, which might be purchased from his office [3045].
In October 1985 the Department of Health and Social Security made public an Efficiency Scrutiny Report on Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths printed in February and circulated copies to various bodies, asking for comments by 31 January 1986. Stephen Hale, Alexander Sandison and I were asked to draft the Society’s response, after discussion with the Registers and Records Committee. I was also involved in the wording of a submission by the Records Users Group in March 1986. Although the Society welcomed some of the suggestions made in the Report, it again stressed the necessity of keeping a search room in London for the centralised indexes and of freeing both the central and local copies of the certificates to public use [3046]. Following a meeting of BGRUC the Chairman wrote to the Department of Health and Social Security requesting a discussion of the Report and this took place with the Baroness Trumpington, the Registrar General Designate, and other officials of the General Register Office, on 8 December 1986. It was a frank and useful discussion and in February 1987 the Government announced that it would not be closing ‘the central searching and certificate issuing facility’ at St Catherine’s House, but that further consideration would be given to possible access to registration information and the methods of its release [3047].
A few months later the Society’s President, Prince Michael of Kent, accepted an invitation to unveil a plaque at St Catherine’s House commemorating the 150th anniversary of the General Register Office on 1 July 1987 and I represented the Society that evening at a reception at the House of Lords given by the Registrar General, Mrs G. T. Banks, and Lord Teviot. The Prince’s speech (which I drafted) had been used to say something about the needs of the genealogists where these records were concerned and arising from articles about the celebrations I wrote a critical letter to The Times which was printed in a prominent position on 7 July under the heading ‘Rigours of Consulting Birth Registers’. It highlighted the appalling conditions resulting from over-crowding, the charges for certified copies that most people did not require, the inadequate indexes and the need to make and distribute cheaper copies of them on microfiche (and not on microfilm at £240 per year as was currently the case).
In September BGRUC was asked to appoint a representative to sit on a small ‘Historic Records’ Sub-Committee to consider the release of material over 75 years old. Dr Geoffrey M. Swinfield and I were appointed to represent BGRUC and its recommendations were awaited with some optimism, the Government having announced its intention to legislate at the earliest opportunity [3048]. Our Report was published in March 1988 and in October it was announced that it had been accepted by the Government as a basis for wider consultation, a Green Paper (Registration: a modern service, Cm 531) being published in December [3049]. Early in 1989 a summary of its contents was sent to all the local family history societies with the suggestion that their comments be submitted to the Registrar General. A questionnaire on its recommendations, prepared by Stephen Hale, was made available to members who called at the Society in January and their comments were used in the Society’s response which I drafted along with Stephen Hale, Alan Reed and Dr Watts and submitted at the end of March. Stephen Hale also contributed a summary of the Green Paper and of our submission to the June issue of the Genealogists’ Magazine. The matter also received the attention of BGRUC which met on 25 February and of the Record Users Group on 13 September [3050].
A White Paper, Registration: proposals for change (Cm 939), summarising the Government’s conclusions was published in February 1990. It proposed that microfilms of the ‘historic’ records, i.e. those over 75 years old, should be made available in a central library outside the sphere of central government ‘either as a non-profit making trust or a commercial concern’. On 17 February BGRUC, of which I was the convenor, welcomed the proposal to open up the older records. It asked the Society to explore the possibilities with a view to calling a wider meeting of representatives of users in due course.
The Executive Committee believed that the Society’s members would expect it to consider seriously the viability of such a library and with Stephen Hale I met the Deputy Director of OPCS with the Deputy Registrar General and the Head of Search on 15 March. The Society’s Honorary Treasurer, Vic E. Gale, drew up a paper on the likely cost of such a library and this was discussed by the Executive Committee in May when it was agreed that the Society should continue to involve itself in discussions, though without any formal commitment at this stage. The Deputy Registrar General was invited to visit the Society on 18 July for informal discussions with members of the Committee.
Our position was explained to a meeting of BGRUC on 4 August 1989 when a possible joint operation was proposed and agreed as a basis for future discussions, the Society being left to monitor the situation [3051]. There was, however, little progress in 1990 though on 6 September, Stephen Hale, Chairman of the Executive Committee, met a team which had been appointed by the Lord Chancellor to carry out an Efficiency Scrutiny on the Public Record Office, a copy of its Study Plan having been previously debated by the Executive Committee. The opening hours, photocopying, publications, the library, charges, the amalgamation of the repositories and the wider involvement of the Public Record Office in a more integrated national archives service were discussed [3052]. The Efficiency Scrutiny Report on the PRO appeared in January 1991 and its various radical proposals for long-term changes in the location and administration of the Office were summarised in the March issue of the Genealogists’ Magazine. The Society’s comments thereon, drafted by Stephen Hale, were forwarded to the Lord Chancellor in March. Following discussions with the Society, Lord Teviot initiated a debate in the House of Lords on 1 May 1991, when the Lord Chancellor made a statement accepting the great majority of the Report’s recommendations. They included the transfer of the original records at Chancery Lane to Kew when an extension there was complete, extensive microfilm reading facilities being retained in central London [3053].
Meanwhile a meeting of BGRUC on 27 April 1990 had supported the Society’s view that a central London reading room of microfilms of the General Register Office records should preferably be run by the Government in conjunction with that now being proposed for the Public Record Office. This view had been put to the Lord Chancellor in the Society’s comments on the PRO Efficiency Scrutiny Report. The possibility that an independent charitable trust be formed to raise the necessary capital for such a library was, however, also under consideration [3054].
The next few years saw little development on this important front, though the Society warmly welcomed the opening of the Census Room at the Public Record Office in July 1992 [3055] and I spoke about the needs of genealogists and the possibility of more open access to registration records without legislation at an important seminar, ‘The challenge of the Citizens’ Charter for the Registration Service’, held at Chester on 11 February 1993, which was attended by the Registrar General, his Deputy and over a hundred registration officers [3056]. It was, I like to think, a forceful summary and when at the end I was asked why no progress was being made and, without replying, just passed the microphone to John Ribbins, the man responsible for the Registration Service, I received surprisingly warm applause. My text was published in the December issue of the Genealogists’ Magazine (and is available on this web site).
However, on 11 May 1994, David Lidington, M.P. for Aylesbury, introduced a Bill that would have made those registration records over one hundred years old Public Records, but on 14 July, at its Second Reading, it was rejected without debate.
Following the publication of my speech at Chester, a dogged correspondent, Mr Sparry, to whom the Society offered every assistance, received a letter from the General Register Office saying that ‘arguably there is no clause in primary legislation which specifically prohibits a superintendent registrar from allowing public access to registration records’. Having been refused access to his local records and the Local Authority Ombudsman having no jurisdiction in the matter, he had, through his M.P., referred his request to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and it was accepted for investigation in July 1994 [3057]. However, the complaint was not upheld and the Commissioner decided in August 1995 that the legal situation was not clear and that ‘only the courts could give an authoritative ruling’ [3058].
I had attended a meeting at the PRO on 5 July 1995 to discuss the facilities which might be offered at the proposed central London microfilm reading room when the PRO moved to Kew in 1997 and we greatly welcomed the statement that the Census Returns 1841-1891, the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Estate Duty Office wills, and the non-parochial registers, would be included, and that it was intended to co-locate this room with the public search room of the General Register Office and perhaps with that of the Principal Probate Registry.
In May 1995 it had been announced that the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys would be united in April 1996 with the Central Statistical Office as a Next Steps Agency and the Society was asked to be represented on a Certificate Services Users Consultative Group. I attended meetings on the Society’s behalf and in September 1995 it was announced that a review of the registration part of the Government’s 1990 White Paper was taking place and it was indicated that an early and favourable announcement might be expected [3059]. On the latter point we were, of course, completely misled. In April 1996, as its convenor and on behalf of BGRUC, I wrote to the Minister responsible once again setting out the Committee’s objectives. There was a small crumb of comfort in the decision by the General Register Office in October to market on microfiche its indexes of overseas returns, something long advocated by the Society. The latter became available with the other miscellaneous returns (other than adoptions) early in 1997 [3060].
We also welcomed the announcement, finally made in November 1996, that the PRO microfilm reading room and General Register Office public search room were to be co-located at a ‘Family Records Centre’ at 1 Myddelton Street, London EC1, early in 1997. I toured the new building and later attended the public meeting (at the General Register Office on 2 December 1996) on the facilities to be offered there. However, we greatly regretted the reluctance of the Principal Probate Registry to be involved in spite of the long delays in the production of copies of wills for inspection resulting from the recent removal of the wills themselves to Companies House. I made representations to the Lord Chancellor that in the interests of the historical professions and of administrative economy the pre-1930 microfilms and the later wills be brought together in the room which had been set aside for them at Myddelton Street [3061]. In June 1997, however, it was announced that in view of the costs involved the Probate Search Room would transfer in June 1998, to First Avenue House in High Holborn.
The new rooms at the Family Records Centre opened in March and April 1997 and I continued to attend meetings at the General Register Office of the Certificate Service Users Consultative Group which, following the move, was reconstituted as the Family Records Centre Users Consultative Group, and I was present at the formal opening of the Centre by the Lord Chancellor on 23 July 1997.
In July and again in October 1997, I raised various access matters, this time through the M. P. for North Swindon, the constituency of the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Marjorie Moore, concentrating on the early registration records, the census returns 1901-11, and on the permanent preservation and access to adoption case records and on public access to their indexes.
Meanwhile the Society had been informed that the Registrar General was preparing yet another ‘options’ paper which would again examine the question of access to registration records, both centrally and locally, and the possibility of working with other organisations outside the public sector along similar lines to those mentioned in the 1990 White Paper Registration: proposals for change [3062].
Most unfortunately the Society’s Annual Reports after that for 1997, when I resigned as Director, make almost no reference to any particular involvement in these matters which I considered so fundamental. The new Director, Robert Gordon, a solicitor who had been appointed specifically for his legal knowledge and in the expectation that he would continue to be active in lobbying in this and other records-related fields, seems to have accepted the status quo, perhaps thinking other things more important and in this one assumes that he was supported by the Executive Committee (and, indeed, by the Federation of Family History Societies) but I considered it a terrible dereliction of their duty. Following Gordon’s resignation in September 2001 (when incidentally he said that someone with lobbying skills was needed), it was left for Family Tree Magazine to continue this particular fight. In this I was only too glad to give my active assistance.
The Standing Conference for Local History had in 1977 set up a Committee under the chairmanship of Lord Blake to make an assessment of the pattern of interest, activity and of study, in local history in England and Wales, and to make recommendations for meeting any needs revealed by amateur and professional local historians for support and services. In February 1978 the Society of Genealogists made a submission to this ‘Blake Committee’ setting out its observations under the heads of Parish Registers, Records of Civil Registration, Monumental Inscriptions, National Records and Local Records. One of the points that I brought up, but which gained no attention at the time, was the need for some form of centralised record of those working on specific places or on ‘one-place studies’ (a Society for One-Place Studies was not formed until 2013 [3063]). Arising from our submission and that from the Record Users Group, in which I had also assisted, as a representative of both organisations I gave verbal evidence to the Committee on 3 August [3064].
The Report of the Blake Committee to Review Local History was published and formally adopted as a consultative document at the AGM of the Standing Conference for Local History which I attended on 28 September 1979. Much concerned with the education and training of local historians, the Report’s major recommendations of interest to genealogists were in connection with access to study materials. Consultations with a wide range of organisations followed [3065].
The Society was at this time involved in many other matters concerning access to records, often in conjunction with the Record Users Group. These included the photocopying charges at the Public Record office (about which Parliamentary questions had been asked), the report of the Data Protection Committee (following the Government White Paper ‘Computers and Privacy’) [3066], the draft Guide to the Parochial Registers and Records Measure, a submission to the Committee on Public Records, the publications programme of the Public Record Office, the restoration of searches in the more recent Census Returns and the levying of fees in County Record Offices [3067].
On the initiative of Dr Christopher Watts (who had come onto the Executive Committee in June 1979) a meeting of representatives of the Society, the British Records Association, the Society of Archivists, the Law Society and the Federation of Family History Societies took place at the Society on 11 September to discuss the preservation of solicitors’ records [3068] and, as agreed, articles on their historical value by Colin Prestige appeared in The Law Society’s Gazette for 16 July 1980 and another by Roger Suddards in that for 27 August. A letter strengthening points in the articles over the signature of Lord Denning, a Vice President of the Society of Genealogists was published in the Gazette on 14 January. The hope that these might be brought to the attention of solicitors was then expressed in notes published in the Genealogists’ Magazine and in Family History News and Digest. I was closely involved with the British Records Association in these matters and in March 1980 its Council elected me to the Committee of its Records Preservation Section [3069].
In the year before the 1976 International Congress, Donald Steel had given up teaching to become the Education Officer for BBC South West, based at Bristol, and when in 1979 the BBC decided to produce five programmes on tracing ancestors, with the accent on family history rather than genealogy, he naturally became the series adviser. The five episodes of Family History, produced by Bryn Brooks and narrated by the TV presenter Gordon Honeycombe, were first shown on BBC 2 from Wednesday, 21 March 1979, and raised the profile of the subject very considerably.
Gordon Honeycombe had long been an enthusiastic amateur genealogist and his family was used as an example throughout the series as well as in Steel's accompanying book, edited by Bryn Brooks, Discovering your family history (£3.75; 1980),which became a best seller. Steel complained to me afterwards that much of what he had written had been heavily edited and reduced in size (no surprise in that) and the book certainly went through innumerable drafts, but I don't doubt that much of its success stemmed from that process and from its numerous excellent illustrations.
The television programmes that we all tried to see and the BBC book were Steel's last triumphs. In England he had alienated almost everyone he knew. Working at Bristol he had, of course, stopped being a lecturer for the London University Extra-Mural courses and after the International Congress his relationship with Cecil Humphery-Smith and the Institute at Canterbury was one of unremitting conflict. He either resigned or retired from the Society's Executive, Publications and Lectures Committees, and from the Federation's Executive, all in 1977, but received no special tribute at the Society’s Annual Meeting [3070].
His once popular but now marathon lectures which always overran any schedule earned him a dreadful reputation. On one infamous occasion in America he said that he would go on speaking until everyone had left the room, and he did just that. At another lecture he persuaded Royston Gambier to write on a revolving blackboard behind him as he spoke the main points from his lecture and we were all mesmerised by Gambier's exhausting and quite distracting performance. Steel's mechanical aids inevitably failed and I remember once, with two machines both going in and out of focus, that we all thought that we would be seasick. As a result there was an unwritten rule at the Society never to ask him to speak again. He was notoriously accident-prone, though blissfully unaware of the chaos he caused. If his luggage could go astray it certainly would. Everyone had stories about him. In one American hotel, although told not to do so, he left the window open and was surprised in the morning to find a snowdrift across the room. Staying somewhere overnight after a lecture he threw his briefcase down on the bed, not noticing that it was covered with oil which had leaked from a can in the boot of his car. Going downstairs he asked the lady who had offered to put him up if he could have a scrubbing brush and a bucket of water and left her wondering what he was doing until the following morning when, of course, he had to confess what had happened.
Steel tried various commercial ventures, being Chairman of Environmental History Limited (or 'Family History Services') [3071] from 1978, offering a wide range of services anywhere in the British Isles from tours to lectures and from publications to research, the latter organised by Mrs Eve McLaughlin. In later years he could be seen as a bookseller at many conferences and family history fairs, always helpful but his overflowing tables and the cash side of his affairs seemingly always in chaos. He retired from the BBC in 1989, consistently ignored all my letters about a possible revision of the National Index, and died on 7 April 2008, aged 72. I wrote then that Donald Steel believed that family history should be 'an enquiry into the thoughts and actions of people in the past' and that he had spent his life in helping people in that endeavour. His pioneering books had undoubtedly given him an assured place in all our history, but we had suffered a good deal along the way [3072].
When Lord Mountbatten reached the age of 77, he was advised by his doctors to cut down on his commitments and he decided that he would resign as President of the Society and if it was the Society's wish that he would become Patron instead, the Society not having had a patron since the death of Queen Mary in 1953. This was proposed by Brian Fitzgerald-Moore and agreed at the AGM held at the Royal Society of Arts on 19 June 1978 at which Lord Mountbatten had taken the Chair. He said that it was very pleasant to be following Queen Mary as Patron and recalled that he had succeeded Lord Mersey as President twenty-one years ago and had, in fact, two months seniority over me. By becoming Patron he would not be losing touch with the Society [3073]. His last words to us were that he would next visit the Society when it was established in its new premises and he repeated this intention as he got into his car in John Adam Street, but it was sadly not to be. Just a year later Mildred Surry telephoned me at lunchtime on Monday, 27 August 1979, with the dreadful news that he had been murdered in Ireland. The Chairman and I represented the Society at the Ceremonial Funeral in Westminster Abbey on 5 September, a bright sunny day, being seated in the North Transept, and I went with others to his Memorial Service (which also commemorated Lady Brabourne and Nicholas Knatchbull, killed at the same time) in St Paul's Cathedral on 20 December, we being seated close to the Royal Family in the South Transept.
Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, our former Chairman, wrote that the brutal murder of Lord Mountbatten had sent a wave of horror through the civilised world where he was widely admired as one of the greatest Englishmen of the century. He had taken a deep interest in the doings of the Society and he had been easily accessible to its officers and ready to help with a discreet word behind the scenes [3074]. Prince Michael of Kent wrote that 'he was loved and respected all over the world, not only by those who knew him or served with him, but by people who wished they had fallen into either of those categories' [3075]. He had indeed been a great servant of his country and a magnificent friend to the Society. I wrote an account of his 21 years of involvement in the Society's affairs for the Magazine and recalled his remarks in 1976 when he so aptly described himself as a 'true lover of genealogy and heraldry' [3076].
Lord Mountbatten had suggested to us that Prince Michael of Kent be asked to accept the Presidency of the Society and that had been formally agreed at the AGM in June 1978. Mountbatten had always taken an interest in the Prince having been a close friend of his father, the Duke of Kent, who had been killed on active service in 1942. The Prince first came to the Society with Princess Michael on Wednesday, 25 October 1978, and met the Executive Committee and staff, who together fell back into what must have been a rather intimidating circle in the Members' Room. The couple were conducted around the Library by Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, then Chairman of the Executive Committee [3077], and showed considerable interest in the collections, the building and all that we did. As an immediate tribute to Lord Mountbatten the Members' Room had been renamed the Mountbatten Room and the possibility of some other memorial was discussed and suggestions invited [3078] though none was agreed. A little later the Fellows agreed to invite subscriptions from the Fellows to pay for an inscribed Chairman’s Chair in his memory [3079] which would match the green upholstered chairs obtained by Sir Christopher Courtney (and annoyingly later sold by Michael McEvoy). Sufficient money was not obtained but a fine Chair was eventually displayed at the AGM in 1982 and formally presented to the Chairman at the Executive Committee on 20 July [3080].
This was, of course, only a few months after Prince Michael's marriage and long before the Princess's books were published but she had always been interested in historical matters and later sometimes corresponded with us on knotty genealogical problems, acknowledging that assistance in one of her books. Later that year we published a detailed account of the couple's ancestry, compiled by Patrick Montague-Smith and Dr Morris Bierbrier and that on the Princess's background created a good deal of interest, descending as she did from most of the mediatised houses of the former Holy Roman Empire as well as from Henry IV of France and Edward III. The pedigrees also showed that the couple had common ancestors in Prince Ferdinand of Lobkowicz (1655-1715) as well as in Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel (1572-1632) [3081].
Prince Michael came very regularly to our meetings and several times visited the Library, very kindly coming to my retirement party in 1997 and making a most flattering speech. He then too was elected Patron in 2005 when Patric Dickinson, then Richmond Herald, was elected President.
The Society’s membership was at this time rapidly increasing. Some 789 new members were elected in 1978 (as against 603 the previous year) and at the end of the year the membership stood at 4,544 of whom 880 lived outside the British Isles. This figure included 199 who did not take the Magazine but there were an additional 180 subscribers to the Magazine only. The Society now had a healthy basic income, augmented by rents and bank interest. Although 1978 was the first year in which the Society was completely subject to VAT, the Treasurer, Arnold Hawker, negotiated a formula which was very favourable to the Society and a re-assessment of the VAT paid in previous years was also agreed. Deposits and investments were, however, being kept in an easily realizable form, bearing in mind the search for new and larger premises which was taking place.
The year 1978 was also a record one for visitors with 2,924 non-members paying to use the library. With those booking an hour on the Computer File Index in mind, an innovation of an hourly search fee was introduced in October, the two microfiche readers being in continual demand. Self-service with the fiche had been introduced in May and relieved the Library staff of frequent interruptions. A reader-printer which would make Xerox copies direct from the fiche was ordered in October, a new photocopier having been installed in June.
In the course of the year we held four new members’ days to introduce them to the facilities and a new edition of the Library guide was published in January, Edwards recording a much shorter version on tape for sale in September. The latter was done entirely from memory and Edwards being Edwards, it overlooked one room entirely. Successive chairmen of the Library Committee, Miss Mordy, Major Collins and Dr Morris Bierbrier, continued to lead volunteer working parties on Sundays, others met on Tuesday evenings to sort accumulations of documents and the Fothergill and Shield collections [3082]. The remainder of the original documents in the Places section of the Document Collection were taken out and sent to the appropriate county record offices and Edith Pritchard sorted the large number of duplicate parish register transcripts which had accumulated since the 1940s and partly distributed them to county record offices. Some 166 parish register transcripts were added to the Society’s collection this year and Miss Pritchard compiled a new catalogue of the 5,700 held, which was printed in 1979. Copies of churchyard inscriptions from 103 parishes were added to our collection and information about 98 cases of redundant churches and/or alterations to churchyards were investigated with the appropriate local societies. A valuable list of copies of inscriptions formerly with the Registrar General and now in the Public Record Office (obtained by the brothers Christopher and Michael Watts) was published in the Magazine in September [3083].
In September 1978 I had completed 21 years with the Society and was presented with a cheque for £100 as a token of the Society’s and of the Executive Committee’s appreciation [3084]. However, early in 1978 our Secretary Mildred Surry's elderly father had been seriously ill and just before Christmas she decided to retire to spend time with him at Bury near Pulborough, he being again unwell, and by mutual agreement she left on 1 February 1979, her father dying shortly afterwards [3085]. She continued to take an interest in the Society and involved herself in local affairs at Pulborough, being at one time secretary to the computer club there, but died in a nursing home at Littlehampton, 17 December 2018.
The Executive Committee had appointed a special committee to consider Miss Surrey's replacement and it recommended that I be appointed to the newly created post of Director (and Company Secretary) of the Society and I took up those duties immediately. However, I decided to remain in the small research office that had been created when the general office was partitioned in 1969.
Alan Reed and Mildred Surry had for some time been keen that I should do the opening address at the upcoming Society’s Third Day-Conference of which Alan was the organiser and this we had agreed in August 1978 [3086]. The conference took place at Baden Powell House on 23 June 1979 when, in a packed Assembly Hall with three hundred present, I reviewed the past, present and possible future activities of the Society, the talk being published in the Magazine as 'The Society in a Changing World' [3087].
I gave a few statistics about the Society at that time. There were about 5,000 members. We had elected 545 new members in the last six months when ten had died and 90 had resigned. At the end of the year probably 300 would lapse, not having paid their subscriptions after two reminders. There would be 15,600 letters in the year, about 300 a week. Twenty thousand magazines would be sent out and £13,000 worth of publications sold. Twelve non-members were on average using the library every day.
I went on to discuss how the Society had changed and to put forward various ideas for its improvement, provided that one could gain the co-operation and assistance of the members. The Magazine editor described the address as 'of such thoughtfulness for every Member' that it was worthy of publication, but any impact that it might have had was overshadowed by a lengthy and unpleasant letter published in the same issue from our critic Flt. Lieut. Ian R. Harrison who said that 'if you are feeling unhealthily euphoric and wish to redress the balance' you had only to read the back-numbers of the Magazine!
According to Harrison the building was 'squalid', new members were deterred by a 'lack of warmth', there were no social facilities and the place was 'Hell'. The Magazine, he wrote, often contained articles 'that inclined to the stratosphere' and the Society's other publications were 'slightly disappointing'. He even wondered if the National Index was 'worthwhile'. He wanted copies of the lectures to be made available for purchase (the best, of course, were always published in the Magazine when permission could be obtained),and he was 'swamped' and felt 'despair' by the amount of paper in the library. Harrison had discovered computers so why, he asked, revealing how little he understood the finances and membership or the Society, did we 'waste hundreds, if not thousands of man-hours annually' by compiling indexes when they could be produced by machines in minutes? [3088]. The letters that we received in response to this ill-informed tirade were not summarised or published but copies were circulated to the staff and to the committees [3089]. Not for the first time, however, did I think that I was wasting my time. However, Charles Shepard of Rochester, New York, thought otherwise and to celebrate fifty years of membership that year and in appreciation of the Society's work, gave us a cheque for £500 [3090].
At that day-conference I had also chaired a lecture by Richard A. Storey the senior archivist at the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick on ‘Records of the working man’. Storey was already a prolific writer on the material at the Centre but for the 130 or so present it was, as I said on the day, the first talk on the records of trade unions given specifically to genealogists [3091].
A week after the Day Conference, on Wednesday 27 June 1979, the Society's Annual Meeting was held at the Royal Society of Arts and with Brian Fitzgerald-Moore I had the pleasure of welcoming Prince Michael of Kent who took the Chair. He gave a talk about his family's interest in the subject that I had helped to sketch out, though I was taken aback by his unwarranted description of Frederick, Prince of Wales, as 'a malicious lunatic'!
The quarterly new members’ days were continued in 1979 and that year for the first time we closed for a week in February and again in October for stock-taking when all kinds of things were done around the library which could not be done at other times, volunteers coming in to assist. These closures were not popular with the members at large but were very necessary at a time when the Library was so busy. In February 1979 several sections of the library were moved to the less used basement so that the county shelves could be expanded. Dr Bierbrier and Major Collins again led volunteer working parties on Sundays and Jean Tsushima reorganised the London shelves. It was at this time that under my direction the card index to the pedigrees in the deposited collections was commenced. The number of parish register transcripts acquired in the year reached a total of 234. Following the rearrangement it was agreed that the general guide Using the Library of the Society of Genealogists should be sent free to all new Members [3092] and a new edition, with plans drawn by Charlotte Firmin, was typed by Christine Gerken and published in June 1980 [3093].
In the latter part of 1979 there were various staff changes. Mr C. J. Bhatt our excellent Accountant had left in October and it proved difficult to find a replacement, thus throwing an extra burden on the remaining staff. Ruth Harvey the Membership Secretary (from July) left in December. Mrs Norris, who had been the cleaner for many years, retired in August and the cleaning was then placed for the first time with a commercial firm, Associated Contract Cleaners Ltd. The security of the building on Library 'late nights' and Saturday lunchtimes was strengthened from 18 July by the employment (at £3 an hour for six hours) of a member of the Corps of Commissionaires [3094], the two Hall keepers having retired in 1978 and not been replaced [3095].
Lydia Collins (Mrs Morris Bierbrier), previously a part-time worker, was appointed Research Assistant in July 1979 and following her appointment, inroads were made into the backlog of old cases and a speedier turnover in current research was ensured. Considerable numbers of postal requests for searches in the Computer File Index were being received. The showing on television in March of Gordon Honeycombe’s series Family History mentioned the Society’s facilities and fees, as did a short article in Woman’s Own which was copied into several other journals later in the year. In all 15,098 letters were received that year [3096] with 17,378 in 1980 [3097].
In the light of the staff changes I was asked to draw up proposals for a revised staffing structure. We had had a very difficult few months with a skeleton staff working under pressure. My plan, accepted by the Executive Committee on 9 February 1980, envisaged a third Principal Officer (in addition to the Director and Librarian) who would have responsibility for all the financial aspects of the Society and supervise the Office Assistant for Membership and a new Assistant for Publications. The latter would relieve the Library staff of all the work of postal sales of publications and stock keeping. We were then extremely fortunate to obtain the services of Sir Wilfred Robinson as Finance Officer in April, of Miss Meg Connor as Membership Assistant in March, and of Miss Margaret Watkins Birts (with us until February 1982) [3098] as Publications Assistant in September [3099]. The calmly dependable Meg Connor was with us through the move to Charterhouse Buildings, but sadly left in March 1985.
Sir Wilfred Robinson (1917-2012), 3rd Baronet, a Major in the Devonshire and Parachute Regiments in the War, had for many years been on the staff of the Diocesan College School at Rondebosch in South Africa. He needed some persuasion to take the post of Finance Officer but threw himself into it with great energy and proved a much liked, greatly respected and most dependent servant of the Society who, until retirement in 1990, contributed enormously to its financial stability. He once said that people were attracted to the Society because it was 'a safe haven of integrity' and if that were true, as I like to think it was, it owed much to his work and presence there. I was myself left with a wide variety of duties and was glad to note that some on the Committee understood what they entailed, Arnold Hawker sending me an amusing ‘job description’ that covered everything from occasional cleaning to political lobbying [3100].
In the Library, Edwards had been an enthusiastic and popular Librarian in the 1970s and he was a familiar figure with the Society's bookstall at many conferences and meetings where his knowledge and sardonic humour were much appreciated, though his apt nicknames, withering comments and abruptness sometimes caused offence. He was placed under great strain by the growth in membership and enquiries, when asthma and bronchial trouble took an increasing toll. Although protective of their interests, his assistants, on whom he was obliged to rely more and more, worked around him rather than with him. He long resisted the involvement of volunteers and exasperated the committees further by his negative attitude to the local family history societies. In March 1979 our member Michael J. Wood brought to my attention ‘A professional code for genealogical libraries and librarians’ that Gary Boyd Roberts in New England had contributed to the National Genealogical Society Quarterly and which, whilst recognising that the librarian might be ‘in essentially a dead end position, with low salary and little possibility for advancement’, thought that the ideal librarian should be ‘a recognized scholar who publishes frequently, lectures often, and moves quite readily between widely disparate genealogical topics’ as well as giving patrons his ‘full genealogical expertise and complete guidance through relevant printed and manuscript sources’ [3101]. If that is what our American visitors expected, and some of them clearly did, they were being sadly disappointed.
In our Library an additional Library Assistant had been appointed in 1978 and Christopher J. Edwards (no relation to Lawson and an Assistant since 1976) was promoted Senior Library Assistant in October that year [3102], providing some stability, strengthened after further staff changes, by the appointment of two new Assistants, Miss Charlotte Firmin (with us until February 1982) and Miss Deborah Chapman (who remained a year only), in June 1980 [3103]. The salaries were a good deal better but the General Purposes Committee in July 1980 showed its irritation with the Librarian by not increasing his salary in line with the others that year, the possibility of obtaining the services of an experienced and energetic librarian, perhaps on a part time basis, to enforce some system of classification, being discussed [3104]. In 1981 there was a further concerted move to try to do something about his stance and an independent report was commissioned from a librarian, James L. Howgego. This proved useful, it being possible to put some of his recommendations into effect almost immediately. In August 1981 a qualified librarian, the active Clive R. Vaisey, a member since 1979 who had worked as a volunteer in the library since April, was appointed Assistant Librarian [3105] and proved a great asset, being cheerful and highly competent and able to deal with Lawson Edwards, but he only remained with us until June 1982. As had been anticipated, however, little progress was made with the implementation of the library classification scheme, further voluntary assistance being needed [3106]. The loyal Christopher Edwards had resigned in October 1981 [3107] and although the competent Mrs Janet W. Thornton, an Associate of the Library Association, was appointed to succeed Clive Vaisey in August 1982 [3108], she did not get on with Lawson Edwards and unfortunately left in December 1983 [3109]. Miss Jennifer Wraight, B.Lib, succeeded Charlotte Firmin as Library Assistant in March 1982 [3110].
In my office Mrs Christine Gerken who had been the much-valued part-time audio-shorthand typist since 1978, doing letters and research reports, resigned in January 1981 and, to our great distress, died in June after a painful illness [3111]. She was succeeded by Miss Winifred R. Grinsted (1920-2005) who worked for me until the Society moved in 1984 when she decided to retire because of the extra journey.
The small bookshop at the reception desk was slowly acquiring new publications and in 1979 we took over the publication of the popular Genealogical Record Cards designed by Keith Lovet Watson which were selling in large numbers. A new leaflet in the Society’s series, No. 9 Starting Genealogy, also had a wide distribution following publicity in the national press and Edith Pritchard again organised bookstalls at the Society’s Day Conference (where £530 was taken), at my course at Missenden Abbey in March and at the Federation’s half-yearly meeting at Plymouth in September [3112].
The Society had for some time been considering possible revisions to its Articles of Association to bring them into line with current needs. An 'Ad Hoc' Committee to consider their revision was appointed in 1978 and Alexander Sandison and Sir Andrew Noble (nominally its chairman) took the lead in the resulting discussions and negotiations with the Department of Trade and the Charity Commission. In September the views of members were sought on a new draft prior to its submission to the Department of Trade and the Charity Commissioners but the editor of the Magazine published a letter from Leslie White, who lived at Bournemouth, which was critical of the Society's general stance, suggesting that the 'of London' in its former name and the London-based committees had greatly restricted its activities, and that, except for the 'outstanding example' of the campaign over the General Register Office, it did not act like a national society. He thought that this might be achieved by having an Executive Committee elected by postal ballot of all the members and by paying the expenses of those who travelled long distances to meetings. These, he said, should be held on Saturdays so that younger working members might attend. He criticised the lack of contact between the Executive and the Society's other committees and called for their minutes to be published in the Magazine and for 'distant group membership with concessionary use of the Library', believing that 'the most important service the Society can render to genealogy in the future is through its Library' [3114]. At the AGM in 1978, Royston Gambier, said that the definition of a Town Member (those living within a 25-mile radius of Trafalgar Square) should be re-drawn to coincide with the boundary of the Greater London Council [3114], but a quick sample survey showed that the resulting loss in income would have been considerable.
The new Articles came before the Society’s AGM at the Royal Society of Arts in John Adam Street on 27 June 1979 when Alexander Sandison said that the main reason for the alterations had been the discovery that the old ones did not allow the Executive Committee to appoint sub-committees from outside its own ranks, although it had in fact done so for many years. The opportunity had been taken to simplify everything and to transfer into General Regulations some matters which could in future be amended by Ordinary Resolutions at Annual Meetings. Other matters that related to the day-to-day running of the Society would be placed in Standing Orders. There was no discussion and when Prince Michael put the Resolution to the Meeting it was carried unanimously.
When sending the papers about the Meeting to the Members we had made it clear that the new Articles would continue the practice of election to the Executive Committee by the ballot of those Members who were personally present at Annual Meetings. However, in order to give an opportunity for a debate on postal voting the Executive had arranged for an amendment to be proposed providing for elections by postal ballot. Michael Faraday, who lived in Herefordshire, had agreed to propose such an amendment and Leslie White, from Bournemouth, to second it. This arrangement of the Meeting’s business enabled the Members to express their views in any way they desired.
Accordingly Michael Faraday then put forward a Special Resolution on Postal Ballots. He said that over the last ten years the elections to the Executive Committee had only been contested on five occasions but a postal ballot would provide an opportunity to seek and obtain the wider support of the membership. Leslie White, seconding, said that the Committee members were drawn from London and the commuter belt. However, Dr Patrick Smythe-Wood (1914-1997), who lived in Northern Ireland, said that if Country Members were elected to the Committee it might be liable for large claims for expenses and new-comer Gregory Lauder-Frost said that the proposal did not warrant the large cost in money and administration which would be needed. He believed that the Executive should reflect those who were constant users of the Library. Frederick Emmison was quite unnecessarily offensive about the proposal and it was overwhelmingly defeated. Brian Fitzgerald-Moore retired as Chairman of the Executive at this meeting and was thanked by Isobel Mordy for his 'infinite tact and kindness', a resolution which was carried with warm acclaim [3115].
The necessary Standing Orders for the general administration of the Society and its Committees had already been the subject of considerable discussion and were agreed by the Executive Committee in November [3116].
In the last months of 1979 there were considerable problems with the production of the Magazine. Increasing costs and other difficulties persuaded the Society to dispense with Eyre & Spottiswood at the Grosvenor Press in Portsmouth after the June 1979 issue and we went to Coasbyprint Limited, also at Portsmouth, who produced the September issue. With part of the December issue already at galley-proof stage, however, the firm went out of business shortly after moving to new premises. The old-established St Richard's Press at Chichester quickly rescued us from this predicament and they were able to produce the first copies of the December issue (containing an index to the volume compiled by Isobel Mordy) in early January [3117]. After the June 1980 issue we stopped publishing the names of new members in the Magazine, thus saving four pages for other material in each issue, but from that date the addresses of the donors of birth-briefs were included. Following publicity in Family News and Digest, magazine exchanges with most local family history societies were also arranged [3118].
The St Richard’s Press continued to print the Magazine with great competence and courteous efficiency until the changes at the Society in 1999. The Society had, in 1979, very considerable stocks (though few complete runs) of past issues of the Magazine and I made an effort that year by employing Ferenc Himer to have them put into some order and to reduce their numbers by offering them at 10p each to personal callers and at Federation meetings [3119]. The numbers, however, never seemed to reduce and it was a continual problem to know what to do with them.
In March 1979 I agreed to meet Jean-Claude Peissel, Editorial Director of the Phaidon Press at Oxford, who was interested in finding someone to write a thorough, well-illustrated book about family history to be called The Family History Book. His researchers had told him that 'the escapist mental retreat into nostalgia for the past' had, in recent years, contributed to a growth of interest in genealogy and that this had 'created an expanding popular market for books on the subject, at present catered for either by the wordy, though worthy tomes which might put the beginner off, or by cyclostyled brochures and small booklets which, though cheap, are not widely distributed' [3120].
I did not care much for this summary, though from the number of publishers who approached me about possible books, these were widely held beliefs. I recommended Stella Colwell as a likely author and as a result they published her The family history book: a guide to tracing your ancestors (£9.95; 1980) in which she paid tribute to those who had helped her with 'encouragement, advice and support over the years', describing me as 'my first genealogical mentor'. She presented me with a copy inscribed, 'If it hadn't been for you all this wouldn't have happened'. The successful book became something of a standard and was revised in 1989 (£14.95).
Membership of the Society passed the 5,000 mark in 1980 and had reached 5,802 at the end of the year, 1,026 new members having been elected. The possibility of using direct debit facilities for the payment of the annual subscriptions was investigated at this time but the Society unfortunately could not give the unlimited guarantees then required by the Bank. Some 4,067 non-members had paid to use the Library. To mark his retirement from the Executive Committee in June Sir Andrew Noble made a handsome contribution of £1,000 to the Library funds and an old friend and frequent visitor, the Revd William ‘Douglas’ Walford (1895-1979), bequeathed us £250. In October a magnificent collection of 258 volumes was presented by Arthur Edward Oldaker (1901-1999), a member since 1934.
The President, Prince Michael of Kent, accompanied by Prince George Galitzine, visited the Society on 14 July and toured the library, a small exhibition having been laid out in one of the rooms. I received them along with the Chairmen of the Executive and Library Committees, Stella Colwell and Morris Bierbrier, and the Librarian. Our former President, Lord Mountbatten, had contributed generously to the library’s binding expenses and in July the Executive Committee decided that the fund he set up specifically for that purpose should be revived to commemorate his name. Monies which had already been received for a memorial were credited to the fund and further contributions were invited through the Magazine, the Executive Committee adding £2,000. A commemorative bookplate was printed for insertion in the rebound books and another bookplate was inserted in the books bound with the funds provided by Sir Andrew Noble. Altogether that year £4,692 was spent on binding and rebinding 886 books and transcripts [3121].
The Society was of course keen to be the first place in England to have each successive new edition of the Computer File Index and another edition with thirty-two million entries was obtained in August 1980 and resulted in heavy use of the readers and printer. In March that year the ever-practical Arnold Hawker had given two large cabinets for the storage of the growing collection of microfilms.
The quarterly new members’ days continued throughout the year and the rooms were again closed for a week in February and again in October for stocktaking when the checking of most of the county shelves on the ground floor and the family history room was completed, the volumes for Scotland and Ireland being given shelf-marks. These checks revealed that over the last fifteen years the Society had lost about ten per cent of its holdings, a quite shocking figure, though many of the rarer items had fortunately been microfilmed by the Latter Day Saints in the 1960s. However, at the end of the year the Library Committee made plans to microfilm many more. In October that Committee had accepted a report on the classification of the Library though it was realised that little headway would be made without volunteer assistance.
Work on the consolidated index to the special collections continued throughout the year, Meg Reeves writing cards for the pedigrees in the Wagner Collection of Huguenot Pedigrees, the Rogers Collection of Cornish Pedigrees and the Mitton Collection of research cases and commencing work on the Macleod Collection. Miss E. B. Clapham made a new index to the Campling Collection of Norfolk and Suffolk families, and Miss Elisabeth McDougall listed the Whitmore Collection so that index slips could be made [3122]. May Toop continued her repair work and sorting of collections.
There were about 60 volunteer transcribers and indexers working on parish registers under the direction of Patricia Riach and she passed a remarkable total of 282 transcripts to the Library. Included amongst them were those completed in March made by Michael Burchall who had copied all the Sussex nonconformist registers from the microfilms borrowed four years earlier from the Public Record Office. These were typed by volunteers and a composite index made by Alfred Stephen Harcourt (died 1990). Lawson Edwards then similarly borrowed microfilms of the Devon nonconformist registers from the PRO and commenced their transcription. As previously mentioned the 1980 edition of the Catalogue of Parish Registers in the Possession of the Society of Genealogists, revised by Edith Pritchard, was the first of the Society’s publications to be revised using the text of an earlier edition composed on a memory typewriter. Early in the year a valuable group of copies of transcripts of monumental inscriptions found in other libraries was given to the Society through the project ‘Arboris’ funded by the American-based International Society for British Genealogy and Family History.
I spoke about the centralisation of parish and nonconformist registers in the Radio programme ‘You and Yours’ in November. Publicity continued and a detailed article about the Society by Michael John Wood, illustrated with photographs of the rooms, appeared in the autumn issue of Pruview the house magazine of the Prudential Assurance Co. The second showing on television of Gordon Honeycombe’s series ‘Family History’, which mentioned the Society’s collections, produced many letters about the Society’s facilities and fees, as did articles in various popular journals later in the year. Several members of the Society attended a reception given by the BBC to launch the publication of the ‘book of the film’, Donald Steel’s Discovering Your Family History on 27 February and in October, as mentioned above the publication of Stella Colwell’s The Family History Book led to several broadcasts in which the Society was mentioned. Society bookstalls were provided at the Chester Conference and at the Federation Conference at Lancaster, and in September the Society appointed an assistant to deal with the growing number of postal sales and to maintain stock control, the Society now dealing in about seventy items.
Other articles on the Society’s work appeared in the spring issue of the Public Record Office’s house journal The Petty Bag and in the autumn issue of Family History News and Digest. A postcard view of the building was produced and sold well and a nicely printed fixtures card of lectures, events and closures was again produced annually, thus ensuring that ample notice of all of them was given. Navy blue and maroon ties incorporating a design from the Society’s seal were also produced in 1980 and proved popular with Members, though a small number of our lady Members proclaimed that they were being discriminated against, suggesting that we produce a headscarf. As already noted our vast post-bags continued and in all some 17,378 letters were received in the year [3123].
Prince Michael of Kent, as President, had taken the Chair at the Annual Meeting at the Royal Overseas League on 12 June 1980 when about 150 members attended and he met many members at the reception afterwards. It was probably the largest turnout for an AGM that we have seen. As well as the traditional six winter lectures, there were the usual beginners’ courses of seven lectures in February-March, the demand for the latter being such that a second series was held in September-October. We also organised an intensive course in palaeography at the Lutheran Church House on four Saturdays in April-May at which instruction was given by Mrs Jo-Anne Buck. An innovation this year was a series of three lectures for beginners specifically on the Society’s Library which the Librarian and Christopher Edwards gave in October and Lydia Collins repeated in October-November.
Following the success of the residential course ‘Genealogy North and South’ held at York in 1978, Betty St George Brown, who had been elected to the Executive Committee in June, ably organised a similar course under the same name at Chester College, Chester, 29-31 August 1980, when there were 67 in residence and 29 day attenders, the charge being £35 inclusive or £15 for the latter. The lecturers were Dr Brian E. Harris the editor of the Victoria County History of Cheshire, Brian C. Redwood the Cheshire County Archivist, Miss A. M. Kennett the Chester City Archivist and the Society’s Librarian. I gave the opening talk about the basic centralised records and Canon W. H. Vanstone provided a guided tour of Chester Cathedral on Saturday evening. Edith Pritchard again organised a well patronised bookstall at which £450 was taken [3124].
The Chester College course started on the day I returned from attending the 14th International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences at Copenhagen University where at least I did not have to speak but which was overshadowed for me on the first day, to which Queen Ingrid came, by my luggage being taken on to Moscow. However, I had a very pleasant few days strengthening our contacts with other societies in Europe and elsewhere and our former Library Assistant, Anders Larsen, showed me something of his hometown.
Earlier that month, 12-15 August, Mrs Marilyn R. Peterson had been the Society’s observer at the Second World Conference on Records on the theme ‘Preserving Our Heritage’ organised by the Genealogical Society of Utah in Salt Lake City [3125]. Back in 1977 the ever-optimistic Colonel Stanley Marker, US Air Force (ret), had been canvassing the idea of a group of genealogists going from England to Salt Lake City for a conference at Brigham Young University in July-August that year. He had hoped for 180 participants, the three-week tour costing, he estimated, about £500, but his plans were too premature and overly optimistic [3126]. However, the First Australasian Congress of Genealogy and Heraldry had taken place at Melbourne at Easter 1977 and had been attended by the professional genealogist Brian Brooks, briefly Chairman of the Society's Executive Committee, who had been educated in Australia and had many contacts there [3127].
Closer at home Alan Reed and I attended the Annual Meeting of the Federation of Family History Societies and the ‘First British Family History Conference’ at Bedford in March 1980, and Alan and the Librarian attended the Federation’s half-yearly meeting at Lancaster in September. The Librarian and I were now regularly giving lectures and guided tours to a growing number of visiting groups and these were generally listed in the Annual Reports along with details of other major meetings attended.
At the AGM of the Association of Genealogists and Record Agents on 16 May 1980 I was elected a Vice-President of that Association.
In spite of the difficult economic climate in 1981 the Society’s membership passed the 6,000 mark (to 6,402, including 1,028 overseas) and 1,234 new members were elected in the course of the year. Only 321 did not take the Magazine but an additional 477 copies were sent to subscribers and in exchange for other periodicals. For the first time there was a decrease in the number of non-members using the library, to 3,736 as against 4,067 the previous year, but this was counterbalanced to a large extent by the greater number elected to membership. The usual four new-members’ days were held and the Library was closed for a week in both February and October for stocktaking.
The indexing of the special collections continued, with Meg Reeves working on the Macleod Collection and Elisabeth McDougall on the Holworthy Collection, she having completed slips for the Whitmore Collection. May Toop continued with her repair work and the expansion of the Document Collection to make room for recent acquisitions. Some 296 parish register transcripts were received in the year, including 69 for Essex.
It had long been recognised that the Library Catalogue was incomplete where the copies of Monumental Inscriptions were concerned and in 1981 a project was started to compile a list of all the transcripts in the library. Many volunteers came forward to check all the books on the shelves, the manuscript material and the periodicals. To assist the process I did those for Hertfordshire. Copies of 183 graveyards were added to the collection this year and the appropriate local societies were informed of 119 cases in which stones were perhaps at risk through redundancy or alteration.
Concerned for the security of the collections and for the number of Members who delayed in the payment of their subscriptions we for the first time issued Readers’ Cards to all who came to the Society. On the advice of the Society’s brokers the Society’s insurances were increased to a level consistent with the cost of rebuilding its listed premises and replacing as much as possible of the Library. With the high interest rate then current the Society’s investments produced £15,000 but it was thought prudent at the Annual Meeting to increase the subscriptions as from 1 January 1982, from £15 to £20 for Town Members and from £10 to £14 for Country and Overseas Members. The reduced subscriptions for married couples, students and Retired Member were also increased.
Prince Michael took the Chair at the AGM which was again held at the Royal Over-Seas League on 30 June and he remained to the reception afterwards. He had also visited the Library on 1 June, being received by the Chairman of the Library Committee, Dr Bierbrier and the Librarian.
That year £8,678 was spent on binding 1,290 books and transcripts, a generous donation of £500 from Dr Marc Fitch towards the Mountbatten Binding Fund being particularly welcome. Arthur Howard placed on permanent loan with the Society a Recordak A. K. Micro Film Camera in October and this enabled the projected programme of microfilming of the rarer items to be carried out.
Edith Pritchard edited a revised List of Parishes in Boyd’s Marriage Index in February and an amended version of Using the Library of the Society of Genealogists was issued in April. She also organised bookstalls at the Society’s Day Conference, the English Genealogical Congress at York, the week-end course at Great Missenden, and at the Federation conferences at Birmingham and Cheltenham. Representative copies of the eighty publications stocked by the Society were also displayed on the American Lecture Tour and a useful number of orders taken, but the weight of the books and the work involved were both considerable. The list of publications was now sent twice a year to the many societies and other organisations on the Society’s mailing list. The June issue of the Magazine contained a major article by David Williamson on ‘The ancestry of Lady Diana Spencer’ which was received with considerable interest. However, I told Jonathan Sale the Feature’s Editor at Punch that I was fed up with people telling the Society that they were related to her, saying that she was the cousin of practically everyone of any consequence! [3128].
At the end of the year I persuaded the Committee to agree that in view of the growing number of persons with little or no practical experience who wished to advertise professional genealogical services in the Magazine, they should only be allowed to do so if they had been members of the Society for at least five years or were members of the Association of Genealogists and Record Agents, something I considered of great importance.
In August 1981 the Society had again sponsored the Third English Genealogical Congress, this time at the University of York and on the theme ‘Ancestors on the Move’. The Congress was under the Patronage of Prince Michael of Kent and the Presidency of Garter King of Arms. Brian Fitzgerald-Moore was the Chairman of the Organising Committee with Stella Colwell as Organiser, Major Collins as Secretary and Patric Dickinson as Treasurer. The practical projects on monumental inscriptions and demography led by John Rayment and Stella Colwell attracted much interest as did the exhibition ‘From the Cradle to the Grave’ which I organised from material at the Society and had a struggle to set up and get ready on the opening day.
The fourth in our series of biennial day conferences was organised by Frederick Filby at Baden Powell House, Queens Gate, on Saturday, 10 October 1981, on the theme ‘The Uses of Genealogy’ and attracted about 250 attendees, fifty staying to a reception afterwards, an innovation for these occasions. There were lectures on lateral genealogy, population statistics, eugenics and hereditary illnesses, all by distinguished academics, and a demonstration of parish register transcription by computer, specially arranged by Alexander Sandison [3129]. Following on from our American tour, Christopher Watts and I spoke about ‘The Overseas Connection’.
In addition to the usual six winter lectures, yet another Sessional Course of 24 lectures, as related above, took place from September 1981, there was an evening Beginners’ Course in September-October, an intensive palaeography course, again with Jo-Anne Buck on two Saturdays in October and November and I went again as course director for a weekend at Missenden Abbey, 20-22 March 1981. The Deputy Registrar General, F. A. Rooke-Matthews, was our first speaker and the team included Lawson Edwards, Stella Colwell and the County Archivist, Hugh Hanley. It attracted some fifty people with 34 resident in the Abbey where the Warden, Peter Hebden, was a perfect host. Amongst other meetings and lectures I had the pleasure of attending receptions at the College of Arms to launch the publication of Christopher Lake’s European Rulers (21 July) and of Jiri Louda and Michael Maclagan’s Lines of Succession (23 November) and, continuing the royal theme, a garden party at Buckingham Palace on 16 July at which Prince and Princess Michael and many members of the Royal Family were present with Lady Diana Spencer whose engagement to the Prince of Wales had been announced in February [3130].
Articles about the Society in The Times (17 January), Punch (18 November) and various popular journals continued and produced many letters about the Society’s facilities and fees, as did a broadcast that I did for LBC on 24 January. In all there were 17,202 letters this year, a very slight decrease on 1980. On 27 November 1981 representatives of the Society were entertained by the Committee of the Irish Genealogical Research Society in their rooms at the Challenor Club when there was a useful exchange of views on mutual problems and experiences but mostly about accommodation long-term [3131].
Early in 1981 admission charges were introduced by the North Yorkshire County Record Office as a result of the central and local government economies that year. Representatives of the Records Users Group met the Association of County Archivists on 28 April and joined in the widespread condemnation of such charges. Following hard upon the publication by the latter body of a policy paper condemning fees for personal searches, Derbyshire County Record Office reversed a decision to introduce charges at a meeting on 23 June, but Devon Record Office introduced a scale of fees in July. The matter was one of those discussed with the All Party Heritage Group on 1 July 1981 which, with other economies introduced in many offices at that time, gave considerable cause for concern.
Representations were also made this year to the Companies Registrar about the increase in fees for the production of a file, and to the Home Office about possible charges for access to records under the British Nationality Bill [3132].
Further unsuccessful representations about fees in county record offices were made through the Record Users Group in 1982 when Gloucestershire proposed to make charges as from 1 March. The Council of the Society of Archivists issued a statement on 19 January condemning all fees for admission to the record offices of local authorities and to other record offices maintained by public funds. Perhaps as a result no other archives joined ‘the unhappy trio of Devonshire, Gloucestershire and North Yorkshire’ though in the autumn of 1982 the Bodleian Library imposed an annual fee on users of the Library who were not members of Oxford University [3133].
The year 1982, following a meeting that I attended on Saturday, 13 March, saw the transformation of the Standing Conference for Local History into the British Association for Local History (BALH) and at the end of the year, in view of recent developments about access to records, it agreed to organise a one-day conference on the selection of records for preservation, their keeping and the public’s access to them nationwide, including opening hours and search room facilities. The Conference, ‘Access to Records’, took place at the Victoria and Albert Museum on 25 June 1983 during the course of an exhibition there ‘The Common Chronicle’ (8 June – 29 August), and was organised by the Society of Genealogists for the Association’s Record Users Group and in conjunction with the Association of County Archivists [3134]. A policy document of the latter Association, Yesterday’s future: a national policy for our archive heritage, was introduced at the conference, discussed in detail, and received the general support of the Records Users Group and of the Society though there were reservations about the proposed listing and registration of documents in private hands [3135].
There was concern at this time about the future of the Greater London Record Office and a statement on the Future of Archive Services in Greater London and English Metropolitan Counties issued by the Association of County Archivists in August 1983 viewed with disquiet any proposals which might lead to the dismantling of the Office and the dispersal of its collections, a view supported by the Society through the Record Users Group [3136]. However, in June 1984 we were glad to hear that the City of London had announced its willingness to consider undertaking responsibility for the Office in order to maintain the advantages of the single service, an announcement warmly welcomed at the soon-to-be neighbouring Society [3137]. The formal agreement of the City to take over and run the Office ‘on behalf of Londoners as a whole’ was announced on 27 February 1985 [3138].
A good friend of the Society, Bill Royce Linder (1937-2000) [3139], who was Director of the Central Reference Division at the National Archives in Washington, had since 1974 been bringing groups of Americans on study tours to England. He was a charming and extremely popular man and several of his elderly students came with him year after year, doing research in the main London repositories and then travelling around England to visit the places from which their ancestors came. From 1977 onwards I usually helped with the introductory talks in London and the group always came to the Society for a tour when most became members. Over the years several became good friends.
Bill Linder, who had previously worked on publications for the Genealogical Society in Salt Lake City, was the author of the succinct How to trace your family history (New York, 1978) and had initiated the first World Conference on Records in Salt Lake City, serving as its programme chairman in 1969. In May 1981 he initiated for the National Genealogical Society in Washington a highly successful program of annual 'Conferences in the States', serving as Chairman when the first Conference was held at Atlanta, Georgia. Linder was keen that representatives from England should attend and after lengthy correspondence, conducted on the Society's behalf by Colonel Stanley Marker, the Chairman of the Lecture Committee, who, as mentioned, had been considering some such idea for several years, it was agreed that Elizabeth Simpson, Dr Christopher Watts and I would make a general tour to various centres on behalf of the Society, which would take in the Conference and be paid for from lecture fees.
The three of us left on 22 April and flying via New York were the guests of the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History (ISBGFH) at Cleveland, Ohio, speaking at the conference ‘British Genealogy and Family History’ arranged around their AGM at Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea (24-25 April). Dr Watts and I stayed at the home of the great genealogist Meredith Colket (1912-1985) who had been Director of the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland (1957-80) and all doors were opened to us. As well as tours of the Western Reserve Historical Society and Cleveland Public Library, there was a memorable lunch at the Union Club with former ambassador, Hon. Henry Norweb (1894-1983), for whom I had been doing research, a visit to Lorraine Harpur’s daughter’s house at Erie Lakeside where we visited the Great Lakes Historical Society Museum and walked along the beach, and a very special trip out to the Western Reserve’s reconstituted Jonathan Hale Farm in the Cuyahoga Valley of which Julia and Meredith Colket had many fond early memories. The industrious Lorraine had in 1979 been with Donald Steel one of the co-founders of ISBGFH, now based in Salt Lake City. Here Elizabeth Simpson also spoke on ‘Mayflower Moonshine’ to the Spring Assembly of the Cleveland Colony, Society of Mayflower Descendants.
The three us then proceeded to Boston (28 April-4 May) where, after following the Freedom Trail in the city with Elizabeth and taking coach trips out to Lexington and Battle Bridge, Concord, and to Plimouth Plantation, we provided a day-meeting in a local church for the New England Historic Genealogical Society, 'Searching for your ancestors in England' (2 May). Here an unexpectedly large audience of about 250 enthusiastic people had obliged the Society to hire a neighbouring church for our lectures.
Two of Bill Linder's students, Shirley Nickerson and Alice Anderson, met us early in Washington on 4 May and gave us several tours, including the Library of Congress, the National Archives (where we were particularly honoured to be received by the Archivist and Deputy Archivist of the United States), the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Lincoln Memorial and even the Space Museum, with a dinner at the Kennedy Centre hosted by Vivian Luther-Schafer a Vice-President of the National Genealogical Society (NGS). We visited the charming headquarters of that Society, then at Glebe House, but did not speak in Washington, proceeding to the NGS’s conference at Atlanta, co-hosted by the Georgia Genealogical Society, at the Century Centre Hotel, 7-9 May 1981.
At Atlanta I stayed at the lovely home of the distinguished lawyer Bates Block (1918-1990) close to the Governor’s mansion. The highly successful conference, a project of NGS President, Phyllis Johnson, to make NGS truly national, was indeed as she said, ‘a real milestone’. The energetic Bill Linder was general conference chairman and Rita Worthy the local arrangements chairman and it was attended by 630 people, then the largest genealogical gathering in the United States outside Salt Lake City, there also being a quite remarkable array of bookstalls. At a 'Britain in Atlanta' luncheon on 7 May I was presented with a scroll recording the names of the participants in Bill Linder's Genealogy Tours and of others who had contributed over $3,000 to a fund in memory of Lord Mountbatten, the proceeds from which were used to purchase a word processor. On the penultimate evening Mrs Block took me to see the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Samson et Dalila at the Civic Centre and on the last day there was a fascinating tour to Antebellum Madison.
Elizabeth Simpson then went to Cincinnati to speak to a meeting of the Warren County Genealogical Society, Chris Watts returned home and I flew via Denver to Salt Lake City as the guest of the Genealogical Society of Utah, staying at the magnificent old Hotel Utah (now the Joseph Smith Memorial Building) and touring with my kind host, Thomas Boam, the Granite Mountain Record Vault in Little Cottonwood Canyon, the library at Brigham Young University and the Genealogical Society headquarters and library.
Returning to New York I took a train out from Grand Central Station to Westport where I was met by the enthusiast Don Bergquist (died 1997) [3140] and driven to Windsor, Connecticut (via Hartford and Wethersfield to see the dogwood), as the guest of the Connecticut Society of Genealogists, speaking on emigration at their Annual Meeting to some 250 members [3141]. Back in New York there was another marvellous dinner with James (‘Jim’) Edward Bolles (1926-2014) of Norwalk, founder of the Bolles Family Association, in a thunderstorm at the top of the World Trade Centre and a final evening to see Linda Ronstadt in The Pirates of Penzance on Broadway.
The hospitality given by so many had been outstanding. We had tried to explain in the lectures how best the Society’s facilities and other sources in England could be used in correspondence and in person. A set of slides showing aspects of the Society’s collection against the background of its building were particularly helpful and examples of the Society’s publications were displayed at most of the places visited. Many valuable contacts were made and at the end of 1981 preparations were put in hand for another tour the following year, centred round the NGS’s Second State Conference at Indianapolis, 13-15 May 1982. I did not know it then, but regular attendance at these annual conferences would become a major and most pleasant feature of my life until the Society's Annual Family History Fairs, which unfortunately usually fell in the same week as the State Conferences, had to take precedence.
Four representatives of the Society went to Indianapolis in May 1982: Elizabeth Simpson, Patric Dickinson from the College of Arms, Stella Colwell and myself, flying to Denver, Colorado, via Chicago. We began with a two-day seminar at Denver as the guests of the Columbine Genealogical Society and as our Annual Report says 'particularly appreciated the warm hospitality of this small but energetic Society which showed them so much of their State in the time available'. This very active group included Ann Lisa Pearson, Betty Kaufman and Doris Farmer Hulse (1934-2012), the latter also taking us on a trip via Central City to Ten Mile Island where we stayed overnight and then to the ski resort at Vail. The second Conference in the States, organised by NGS and the Indiana Genealogical Society, took place at Indianapolis (12-15 May) and attracted about 850 people, the capable Willard Heiss being local arrangements chairman. Here we were delighted to be joined on the lecture platform by the former Essex county archivist Derek Emmison and the benefactor and genealogist John Brooks Threlfall, and I, on behalf of the SoG, was presented with a cheque arising from the generous contribution of Bill Linder’s group.
The energetic Joy Wade Moulton (1928-2016) then drove us from Indianapolis to Columbus, Ohio, where Ohio State University were our hosts and she had organised a half-day seminar at which we all spoke. We then flew to New York and provided a day seminar for 130 members of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. In New York we were entertained by the greatly respected Rabbi Malcolm Stern (1915-1994) of New York and his wife Louise. Rabbi Stern was the author of Americans of Jewish Descent (1960) and the highly effective Program Chairman of the 1981 and 1982 congresses in Atlanta and Indianapolis and he had given every assistance to Colonel Marker in all his arrangements for our tour.
However, it had proved almost impossible to organise a tour funded mainly from lecture fees which also covered the cost of mid-week accommodation when talks were not required. A heavy suitcase of representative copies of all the Society's publications had been taken around and displayed at the various meetings on the first trips, orders being taken for later despatch, but the manning of a bookstall at these events was an added complication which caused considerable work.
The overwhelming enthusiasm and interest shown by our hosts during these very busy conferences had also the effect of driving me to seek refuge in hotel accommodation so that I could occasionally enjoy a little peace and get ready for the next lecture. As Elizabeth Simpson used to say, it is difficult to remain polite when a pedigree is opened up across your meal or a persistent genealogist pursues you even into the smallest room in the house! As a result, however, my subsequent trips became more expensive and I was obliged personally to bear much of the cost, it being necessary to disillusion those (and there were always some) who thought that I was gadding about the world at the Society's expense. It had also become increasingly embarrassing to accept hospitality overseas when it was not the Society's policy to give hospitality to visiting genealogists in London.
From New York I flew to the tiny airport at Lexington, Kentucky and at the invitation of Charles and Elizabeth Rawls spoke to a very pleasant late evening meeting of the Owsley Family Historical Society which had been formed in 1979 by descendants of the Rev John Owsley, Rector of Glooston in Leicestershire [3142]. The following year (1983), however, with so many other things happening at the Society, I was the only British representative and guest at the third of the conferences organised by the National Genealogical Society, this time with the Genealogical Society of Fort Worth, at Fort Worth, Texas (13-16 April), with Sharron Ashton as Program Chairman, when generous hospitality was again provided and I spent time helping on the ISBGFH booth [3143]. The congress drew 1,145 registrants and the archivist of the United States was the banquet speaker. The NGS President was now Varney Nell and although only able to stay a few days, I renewed many friendships and saw much of Fort Worth, even taking in a rodeo with Jane English and her friends, and touring the Kimbell Art Museum then showing the splendid Faberge collection.
Heather Hawker asked about the progress of the National Index at the AGM in 1977 when Alexander Sandison said that under the prevailing conditions it would be best to publish the county sections as they became available [3144] and that became the Society's future policy. She brought up the question again at the AGM in 1979 when Patrick Palgrave-Moore said that Northumberland and Durham were about to be printed, the completed texts for Kent, Surrey and Sussex were being typed and he hoped to finalise the text of the East Anglian volume that year. She expressed the hope that deeds would follow words; it was thirteen years since the first volume had appeared and five since the last and she believed that the Publications Committee were sitting on their 'clutch of eggs', as she put it, with more patience than competence [3145]. Fortunately, as mentioned above, with my direct involvement the volume for Durham and Northumberland appeared at the end of 1979 and was able to be advertised (at £4.20) in the December issue of the Magazine [3146].
The continual movement of original registers caused major difficulties but in November 1980 Palgrave-Moore was able to produce another regional volume of the National Index covering Kent, Surrey and Sussex (vol. 4) [3147] the texts of the three counties, however, being of variable quality. A thousand copies were printed. The following year considerable funds were invested in reprinting the first two introductory volumes and that for Scotland but no further progress was made [3148].
The decision to publish the National Index in single counties when they were ready, as I had long argued, and not to wait for a whole region, resulted in the publication in April 1983 of Dr Peter D. Bloore's survey of Staffordshire (published as volume 6, part 1), compiled with the active co-operation of the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry [3149], 750 copies being printed. Following further deposits of registers Dr Bloore compiled a revised edition in 1990, which, under the general editorship of Clifford Webb (and with camera-ready copy provided by Neville Taylor), was published in 1992.
The editor, Patrick Palgrave-Moore, next produced in August 1984 what proved to be the last complete regional volume of the National Index covering Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk (vol. 8) but having seen nine counties published he retired in May 1985 and Clifford R. Webb was appointed Editor in his stead, he making fresh approaches for assistance to the local Family History Societies in the counties which remained to be covered [3150]. He also issued some detailed Notes for County Editors (August 1985) and subsequently took advantage of the Society’s change of policy to produce a ‘corrected, augmented and updated’ version of the 1980 volume, but only for his home county of Surrey, in 1990 [3151]. In view of the great improvements that were taking place in computer generated printing I then caused a furore in the Publications Committee by describing as ‘shoddy’ the physical production of the volume for which, I hasten to add, Clifford Webb had not been responsible.
Meanwhile, in April 1986 the Society was able to adopt as its thirteenth volume in the National Index series the splendid Parish Registers of Wales (£6.95), published by the National Library of Wales in association with the Welsh County Archivists Group and the Society of Genealogists and edited by C. J. Williams and J. Watts-Williams [3152]. The third volume of the National Index was reprinted that December [3153] and work on a second separate county, Nottinghamshire, was well advanced.
Towards the end of 1981 we had the idea of publishing a series of booklets on religions and subjects to be entitled My ancestor was a ...: how can I find out more about him? There was much silly discussion as to whether the title should be in the singular or plural, the decision being taken and later, of course, abandoned that it should always be in the singular.
The Revd William Leary, the Methodist Connexional Archivist, had written various booklets about Methodists and, with his active cooperation, I combined material from two of these and added lists of the Methodist registers to be found at the Public Record Office and in our Library (the lists, in fact, forming the major part of the work) and this was published as My ancestor was a Methodist in February 1982 [3154]. The compilation of the additional lists in this and other books in the 'religions' series took considerable time and often revealed errors in the Library catalogue. The lists of nonconformist registers in the Public Record Office were initially extracted from the catalogue printed in 1859 and, following the re-cataloguing of the collection in the late 1980s, from the new class lists. The Methodist volume proved extremely popular and was reprinted in March 1983, selling a thousand copies in two years.
Preparations for other volumes in this series continued throughout 1982 and Isobel Mordy's My ancestor was Jewish was published in January 1983, followed in September by Edward Milligan's My ancestors were Quakers.
The office assistant Edith Pritchard had the most dreadful handwriting but her left-hand was never happier than when, pencil poised, she was editing some text for publication, correcting the spelling and amending the punctuation. Mercifully she was also a fairly good typist, was content to transport things in her car, generally happy to work long hours for little pay and quietly to beaver away for the common good.
With the general growth of the number of Society publications there was much to do. Simply keeping the regularly printed list of them up-to-date was itself becoming a major task but seeing the need for regularly updated editions of all the Society publications, Edith Pritchard carried out the majority of the work on the revisions of two editions (the 7th and 8th) of the List of Parishes in Boyd's Marriage Index, four editions (the 4th to 7th) of the Catalogue of Parish Registers and two editions (the 1st and 2nd) of the Catalogue of Census Returns watching the stock levels to see when the revisions would be needed and then with my help organising the printing, setting the print runs and fixing the prices and discounts.
Being interested in the application of computers to genealogy she frequently attended and helped to organise the meetings of computer enthusiasts and naturally, from September 1982, she organised subscriptions to the new periodical Computers in Genealogy. For the Magazine she organised the readers' queries and advertisements as well as the exchange and non-member subscriptions and for those who attended courses and conferences she took payments and did the necessary correspondence. She continued to maintain the valuable card index to the articles in the 'Digest' section of Family History News and Digest commenced by Meg Reeves. Above all, however, as mentioned above she was remembered for her friendly face and attendance with a bookstall at the twice-yearly weekend Federation conferences and at other venues, checking the stock in and out and driving long distances with her laden car. She was elected a Fellow in June 1985 but sadly died quite unexpectedly after a very short illness in February the following year.
For the first time in many years there was a considerable fall in the number of members elected in 1982 (768 as against 1,234 in 1981) but this was due partly to the increase in subscriptions that year and partly to the world economic situation, the lack of foreign visitors and to travelling difficulties in the British Isles following industrial action on the railways. There was even a public transport strike on the day of the Annual Meeting (24 June 1982) chaired by Prince Michael of Kent and only about eighty came. Along with the great American genealogist John Insley Coddington (died 1991, aged 88) of Bordentown, New Jersey, I was on that day elected the first Honorary Fellow of the Society ‘for very distinguished services to genealogy’, a possibility introduced by the Articles of Association agreed in 1979. I found out afterwards that sixty-five Fellows had signed my proposal form, organised by Alan Reed, a quite unprecedented number. The Society had very few overseas Fellows and the election of John Coddington, Meredith Colket, Bill Linder and Neil Thompson that year and of William Filby in 1983, mostly unknown to English members, was in my view a major step forward though several others that were proposed were rejected.
The numbers of non-members using the library, 3,473, again showed a decrease on previous years (from 3,736 in 1981 and 4,067 in 1980) and the smaller number of overseas visitors was particularly noticeable, but following the recent changes in the library layout a new version of the Library Guide was published in June.
Some 233 transcripts of registers were received in 1982 and the possibility of purchasing microfilms of parish registers from county record offices came under active consideration. An even larger number of transcripts of graveyards (259) was also received, many from the local family history societies. By December 1982 Lydia Collins had commenced typing draft county lists of those in the Library ready for publication [3155]. My letter to the local societies about the possible compilation of a ‘National Index’ of copies was, however, largely ignored, there being only lukewarm support from the Federation because I was resolutely opposed to the involvement of the Institute at Canterbury in the work or its future publication.
Using the microfilm camera which had been placed on loan with us in October 1981, a major programme to microfilm the unique and most valuable collections in the Library was commenced. Donald Norman gave considerable assistance with this in the summer and in October a full time assistant was appointed to continue the work. This programme was long over-due and just prior to our move in 1984 I was horrified to find that someone had stripped out large numbers of the mounted book-plates from our collection (then housed in the basement Family History Room and thankfully only recently filmed) and that eleven volumes of a finely bound History of Norfolk had somehow also been taken from the library [3156].
Additional shelving was bought for the Directories in Room Farrer and for the Public Records in the Basement Corridor and a former wine bin in the basement was cleared and shelved for the Foreign Periodicals. Most of the Library chairs were replaced in the course of the year, a new photocopying machine was acquired in February allowing A3 copies to be made for the same charge as the previous smaller ones and a paper trimmer was provided. In May the 1981 edition of the International Genealogical Index, consisting of 5,460 microfiche, was acquired and a third microfiche reader was purchased and installed in the Periodicals Room. There had been stock-taking in rooms Raglan and Mersey in the closed weeks in February and October. The generally improved financial position had allowed the Society to bring up to date the boxing and binding of many periodicals and local family history magazines, the sets being completed where possible. A legacy of £300 from Miss Vera Margaret Lamb (died 1980) was used to rebind the collection of original apprenticeship indentures (they were microfilmed in 1983) and a valuable collection of American books was given by a former member, Mrs Marie Agnieray [3157].
The series of weekend residential courses was continued in 1982 when Betty St George Brown organised ‘Genealogy on the Welsh Border’ at the Royal National College for the Blind at Hereford, 30 July-1 August. It was highly successful, with 130 attending (full board £35 or £10 a day). There were speakers on the archives at the National Library of Wales, at Worcester and at Hereford, as well as in London, and Frederick Burgess’s widow Pamela spoke on ‘Churchyard research’. On Saturday afternoon there were tours to the book-shop town of Hay-on-Wye and to Hereford Cathedral and there was an interesting exhibition of material selected from the Society’s manuscript collections by Betty Brown and the Librarian. This year, instead of Missenden Abbey, I took an equally enjoyable, if tiring, weekend course at Wansfell College, Theydon Bois (4-6 June) [3158].
Also provided that year were another 24-week Extra-Mural Studies course, ‘Genealogy: Family and Community, Part Two’, based on a family reconstitution project of the parish of Grasmere (£20), a two-Saturday intensive palaeography course, a seven-week evening Beginners Course (£8), a three-week course on the Library (£4), and the usual winter series of lectures. The latter included my ‘Further sources for the genealogist: farm labourers’ (13 October) here given at the Society for the first time. I attended the Federation’s Annual Meeting at Lincoln (2-4 April) and represented the Society at the opening by Lord Mountbatten’s daughter, Pamela, of the new lecture hall and record room of the Institute at Canterbury (16 April). I also spoke at the Annual Dinner of the Birmingham and Midland Society (18 June) at the Norfolk Hotel, Birmingham, afterwards using the same text to the Cambridge University Heraldic and Genealogical Society (24 February 1983) and printing it as Roses in December: some thoughts on tangled roots and recording our memories (1983).
A further volume in the series cataloguing the Library, Marriage Licences: abstracts and indexes in the library of the Society of Genealogists, carefully compiled by Lydia Collins, was published in January 1982, and at the end of September as an aid to finding burials in the London area we published Greater London Cemeteries and Crematoria by Patricia S. Wolfston. The latter proved very popular and has since gone through several editions, being revised since 1994 by Clifford Webb. I devised a new version of the Society’s Birth Brief on A3 paper (to replace the old one on a non-standard size) and this was published in the autumn and followed by a larger but similar Ancestry Chart for recording eight generations of ancestors. Both sold in large numbers, the Chart needing to be reprinted in October 1984, having sold 1,200 copies [3159]. Also in the course of 1982 we added three further Leaflets to our growing series, No 10 ‘Irregular Border Marriages’, No 11 ‘Genealogical Research in New Zealand’ and No 12 ‘Army Musters and Description Books’, all stemming directly from recent articles in the Magazine. Two earlier publications that had proved popular, Monuments and their inscriptions and Examples of Handwriting, were reprinted [3160].
The possible use of computers in the administration of the Society and in genealogy generally was recognised in July 1979 when the Executive Committee appointed an ad hoc Computer Committee with Alexander Sandison as Chairman. Its first interest was in the possible application of computers to the Society’s membership records, there being then just under 5,000 members in several categories, but the cost of a suitable program was a considerable deterrent [3161]. When, the following year, specifications were compiled and estimates obtained, it became clear that until technology advanced there were not sufficient advantages to dispense with the manual system [3162]. The possible introduction of a costly new electric Addressograph machine had also been deferred but a grant of £250 from the High Chart Charitable Trust was earmarked for an electric typewriter to assist with publications [3163].
The March 1980 issue of the Magazine contained an unusually forthright letter on ‘Improving the Society’s income’ from a member, Michael Synge, of Washington, USA, who said that he was disappointed in the Society’s complaisance with its perpetual state of strained gentility, the squalid conditions at Harrington Gardens and the alarming rate of decay in its collections. He urged a more aggressive and businesslike approach to strengthen the finances, suggesting that subscriptions be increased, old library items be reprinted or microfiched, more research be undertaken and donations and legacies actively sought, though he did not realise that tax-free donations, frequent in the USA, were not possible in the UK [3164]. Some eighteen letters of comment were received and circulated to the Society’s officers and to the Executive Committee and in June a member at Hay-on-Wye, Geoffrey Fairs, wrote that advance preparation was the keynote to successful use of the building [3165]. Stella Colwell, then the committee’s chairman, also replied with ‘Improving the Society’, and wrote of the search for new premises, the theft of books from the library, the cost of re-binding books and the possibility of further publications and a larger research department [3166].
These letters appeared in the same issue as an article by Alexander Sandison which aroused considerable interest and asked for information from the members on the possibilities and dangers of the use of computers in several areas – membership software packages which might be linked to the members interests, their use in the library and in the possible word processing of standard letters and publications [3167]. His article was followed by a letter from I. R. Harrison saying that computer storage would take over ‘in a few years’ and making a plea for recommended standards [3168]. The September 1980 issue contained a frank description of the work of the Library Committee by its Chairman, Morris Bierbrier, and Vice-Chairman, Major Collins [3169], and a letter from I. R. Harrison, who claimed to be ‘actively sponsoring work on computerising techniques at the PRO’, in which he advocated his abstraction of various documents, using a ‘Gendex Code’ of 80 characters, but which allowed for only the initial letter of second forenames [3170].
These articles produced a flood of correspondence which Leeson summarised in the December issue. Major H. F. Riach as ‘The Man in the Street’ urged caution until the Society could get ‘input and output in forms acceptable to the average genealogist’. Alexander Sandison also advocated a gradual approach, using the computer to prepare traditional eye-legible indexes, and the widely experienced Mrs Evelyn M. Kenward, a senior lecturer in Mathematics and Statistics at a large college, who was also involved with West Surrey Family History Society, described the practicalities of members of that Society in computerising part of the 1861 census. Colin Chapman, writing on behalf of the Federation, said that he read with horror of the multifarious avenues that enthusiastic genealogists and computer addicts were determinedly driving along, saying that he would be far happier if these avenues were to be only explored at this stage and not regarded as one-way streets [3171].
Early in 1981 it was decided to re-introduce membership cards, but they were not sent by post (the long trays of pre-addressed cards being kept at reception) and were only issued to those who came to the Society if they had paid. They were then to be shown to the receptionist on entry at future visits [3172]. Although a nasty little task to print they proved very effective at catching non- and reluctant payers.
In March 1981 Leeson put together a second summary of the views expressed in other correspondence, some of which, he said, ‘was not couched in terms suitable for publication’ [3173]. Sandison said that his ad hoc Committee and the Executive had agreed that computerisation of the office procedures (such as linking members’ interests to the mailing list) was not likely to be cost effective and it had now turned its attention to transcription and indexing, though the costs of using a ‘main-frame’ computer were presently unknown. The practicalities of indexing the GRO records, if one had access to them, was discussed at some length by Dennis K. Powell, of the Welding Institute [3174]. Leeson could not resist a dig at Harrison, asking him why he disdained to use post-codes on his letters when they were the key to automation and speed in mail delivery. Harrison moved to Norwich in 1981 and then described himself as ‘a full time professional genealogist’, in 1984 advertising as ‘The Professional Genealogist’ and saying that he conducted research throughout England [3175].
However, in 1982 which was called 'Information Technology Year' the Society, supported by the Federation, took several major initiatives. On 19 June, Peter Swann organised a day seminar at Baden Powell House on the theme 'The genealogist and the computer' which was attended by eighty people with Dr Chris F. Reynolds of Brunel University and Conway Berners-Lee (the father of Sir Tim Berners-Lee the inventor of the World Wide Web) as the main speakers. The Executive Committee then agreed to provide facilities for 'Interest Groups' for beginners on different types of computer, to encourage the formation of a committee that might advise on the relation between archives and computers, and to publish a quarterly newsletter, Computers in Genealogy, for which there would be a separate subscription (initially £4 p.a. to members and £5 to non-members). The first number of the newsletter, edited and prepared for the printer by David Hawgood, appeared in September 1982 and contained a report on the seminar.
The newsletter Computers in Genealogy was an immediate success, its circulation rising rapidly to 800 in December and to nearly a thousand in the course of 1983, about 200 of the subscribers living overseas. Over fifty enthusiastic people attended the inaugural meeting of the interest groups at the Society on 18 October 1982 and groups of users of Sinclairs, of BBC micros, and of those still deciding what to buy, met on Monday evenings throughout November. A questionnaire was circulated with the December newsletter asking what equipment its readers owned and what they wanted from the Society [3176]. These groups held fourteen meetings in the course of 1983 and on 7 May the little group that co-ordinated them, led by the dependable Donald James Francis (1921-1997), organised a half-day conference at Queen Elizabeth College, with talks on census indexing, parish register transcription and choosing software. Don Francis had first come into contact with computers in 1963 as part of a Civil Service team investigating the possibility of payment of National Insurance benefits by computer. He later headed the DHSS project that put Unemployment Benefit on computer and managed the Department’s Reading Computer Centre until 1974. Having retired in 1981, he bought his first home computer, a Sinclair ZX81, in 1982.
There were, in fact, three groups of computer enthusiasts at this time: the ad hoc Committee formally appointed by the Executive Committee to advise on a computer for the Society; an Advisory Committee on Computers and Records which was supposed to report to the Registers and Records Committee on the use of computers and Public Records; and a Steering Committee that organised meetings of specialist user groups and was beginning to think about a separate membership and a constitution for itself outside the Society.
Alexander Sandison had started to devise Standing Orders for the separate interest groups when in May 1983 I circulated a note suggesting that all three be amalgamated into a formal Computer Committee (drawn from the Members only, but with powers to co-opt) appointed annually by the Executive which would organise all the meetings and advise the editor of the computer newsletter [3177]. The Society would absorb the costs of the small meetings at the Society for which no fees were charged and these would be open to non-members as well as members, like the Society’s winter series of lectures, but all would pay for any larger conference. That did the trick and in June the Executive Committee, as suggested, appointed a formal Computer Committee with standing similar to that of the six other committees of the Society, the Federation being invited to appoint a representative [3178].
The May meeting had been such a success that Donald Francis was then asked to organise a day-conference at the same College on 29 October (£7 including lunch) when about 120 attended. I made some opening remarks about not re-inventing the wheel and then Nicholas Cox spoke on the impact of computers at the Public Record Office and John Welford on standards. The practical demonstrations in the afternoon proved particularly popular. The possible formulation of a standard format for exchanging machine-readable data received much discussion, Sandison having just written a paper suggesting relationship codes for the April issue of Personal Computer World [3179].
By the end of the 1983 it had become clear that the immediate uses of computers at the Society would be in connection with the membership system and the mailing of the two journals as well as with word processing for the smaller publications. John Addis-Smith then drew up a specification for a word processing and mailing list system which allowed for growth and this was approved by the Executive Committee in December, it being recognised that this could not be put in place until after the projected move to new premises [3180]. A memorandum drawn up about this time on the office and banking procedures to be observed in connection with the election of new members, their changes of address, deaths and resignations, and so forth, and the many pitfalls involved, covered six closely typed pages.
There was considerable concern in 1983 about the proposed Data Protection Bill. It had become clear at an early stage of discussions that any genealogist who collected information about living persons on a computer would need to register and pay the fees involved, as would any incorporated society storing details of its members and their subscriptions. These matters were raised on the Society's behalf in the House of Lords during the Bill's Committee Stage on 22 February and were further explored by the Record Users Group and by several Society members through their Members of Parliament. The Sixth Principle enshrined in the Bill caused particular concern as it stated that 'Personal data held for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or other purposes'. Data held for historical purposes could be held indefinitely but the positive step of re-registration for that purpose would need to be taken at the end of the data's useful life. It was feared that if this were not done it would then be an offence not to destroy the records [3181].
Although a small deficit had been anticipated in 1983 the pessimistic forecast was not borne out by events in spite of the large sums spent on the building the previous year. At the end of the year the membership stood at 6,494, some 900 new members having been elected. The number of non-members using the Library rose to 4,103, the overseas visitors having returned in strength and an average of 120 members came to each of the four days for new members.
Colonel Hugh Manus O’Donnell (1901-1983) bequeathed the Society £3,500, the largest bequest yet received and, as mentioned elsewhere, the £4,000 loan which the Society had long had from the Pilgrim Trust in connection with the National Index was repaid. A surprising £10,058 was spent on rebinding 1,429 books and transcripts and the extensive programme to microfilm the rarer material, including Boyd’s Marriage Index, his ‘Citizens of London’ and many of the larger family and topographical collections, was completed in October, a camera operator having worked for some months hermit-like in one of the cellars under the forecourt [3182]. With the assistance of the appropriate county archivists, a large number of microfilms of Gloucestershire parish registers were purchased and arrangements made to receive microfilms from Essex and Herefordshire. Ronald Matthews gave an additional bookcase for Room Mountbatten and in September the old metal shelving in the Family History Room was replaced with new wooden shelving. A new microfiche and microfilm reader-printer was purchased in July and three microfiche readers for eventual use in the new building were acquired through the good offices of Alan Reed in March.
The recently appointed Keeper of the Public Records, Dr Geoffrey H. Martin (1928-2007), a distinguished and interested historian, toured the Library prior to the Annual Meeting of AGRA on 17 June and our own AGM was again chaired by Prince Michael of Kent at the Royal Over-Seas League on 30 June.
A new edition of the Catalogue of Parish Registers in the Library of the Society, prepared by Edith Pritchard, was published in April, followed by a revision of the Catalogue of Marriage Licences by Lydia Collins in October. Isobel Mordy’s My ancestor was Jewish appeared in January (its authorship, after a disagreement, being credited to the series editor, Michael Gandy) and Edward Milligan’s My ancestors were Quakers in September. William Leary’s My ancestor was a Methodist proved popular and had to be reprinted in March. A Library ‘Floor Guide’ was added to the series of Leaflets as No 13. Altogether some £25,391 was received from the sale of books this year. In November it was agreed that discounts on Society publications sold to member societies of the Federation of Family History Societies for resale to their members, a matter about which there had been much lobbying, should be increased to 25% regardless of the quantity or total value of the order, though some felt that to retain the same income an increase in prices was bound to result.
There were fewer advertisements by record agents in the Magazine following the new regulations and an increase in the advertising rates, but the opportunity was taken to give greater prominence to advertisements of the Society’s own publications and this resulted in increased sales. Articles by Lance J. Jacob of Salt Lake City on the International Genealogical Index proved of particular interest [3183].
It fell to Patricia Kirkland and Peter Park to organise the Society’s fifth Day Conference, this time on the theme ‘… on the eighth day the clerks created the records’, which was held at Bedford College, Regent’s Park, on 8 October 1983 (£7, plus £3.50 for lunch). Dr Geoffrey Martin, the Keeper of Public Records, gave the opening address to about 230 participants, welcomed by Christopher Watts, Chairman of the Executive Committee. He was followed by a choice of sixteen speakers including K. J. Stalker from the General Register Office and there were bookstalls provided by Phillimore & Co and the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies.
Stella Colwell continued with her work on Grasmere family reconstitution at another Extra-Mural sessional course of twenty-four lectures, ‘Genealogy and the community: Part Three’, commencing in September. For the first time this year we amalgamated the Beginners’ Course and the Lectures on the Library and provided a course of nine lectures running from September to November. Jane Cox and Alan Reed were, as had become usual, the other speakers in addition to the Librarian and myself, the final talk taking place at the Public Record Office.
I took another weekend course at Missenden Abbey (11-13 February) which sadly proved to be the last before its closure and development in 1984-5. Colonel Marker organised on behalf of the Society a series of lectures to the American Wives Club at Northwood in February-March at which I was one of the speakers. As mentioned elsewhere I was the only British representative at the Third Congress in the States at Fort Worth, Texas, in April. The list of lectures given and meetings attended, detailed in the Annual Report, was very long again this year [3184].
The efficient Parish Registers Secretary, Mrs Patricia Riach, retired at the end of November 1983 and was a great loss to the Society. For eleven years she had formed a close relationship with the volunteers she organised and in her final year was corresponding with about fifty transcribers and indexers. The value of their joint work is shown in the 450 part register transcripts and indexes accessed that year [3185]. Mrs Mavis J. Sharp, a Member who was one of the volunteers, took over the work but unfortunately had to give up the position in December 1984 owing to the ill-health of her husband [3186], when Miss K. Monnica Stevens, a member who had been helping me with correspondence, was appointed in her stead. She threw herself most enthusiastically into the work, again forming a close bond with her many transcribers and indexers.
Although desperately busy in the closing days at Harrington Gardens I again visited the United States to speak at the Fourth Annual Conference of the National Genealogical Society in San Francisco, 23-26 May 1984, hosted by the Napa Valley Genealogical and Biographical Society with its headquarters at the historic Sheraton-Palace Hotel and with Kip Sperry as National Conference Chairman. This highly successful and pleasant conference was attended by more than 850 genealogists and was the first to have a ‘Computers in Genealogy’ seminar. At the banquet, held in the magnificent historic Garden Court of the hotel, I was delighted to meet the entertaining speaker, Louis L’Amour (1908-1988) - a member of the London Topographical Society and a prolific writer of Westerns - who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom that year. I gave a two-part talk on ‘English Research’ and provided a detailed eight-page hand-out of sources, repositories and books, which was eagerly seized upon by the large numbers present. At the banquet I was honoured with the NGS’s Award of Merit for distinguished contributions in the field of American genealogy, presented by President Varney Nell. Although I escaped with several friends one day to visit wineries in the Napa Valley (including the renowned Falcon Crest) and went another day to see the redwoods in Muir Woods, I was not able to go on the trip organised to Alcatraz in the bay but was pleased to meet the elderly Colonel and Mrs William R. Stewart, keen genealogists (she saying, ‘You may kiss my hand!’), who had just visited the island where he had been the prison’s last Commanding Officer before its closure in 1963. Although the Conference was immensely enjoyable a photograph taken at the banquet by the expert Jacqui McDaniel shows a rather exhausted me. The long daily programme began at the very un-English hour of 8 a.m. and was taking its toll. However, the crowded exhibit areas at this and future NGS conferences persuaded me that something along the same lines could and should be organised in England, though it took a while to persuade others of its potential benefits.
I flew then to San Diego and after a hectic day with Nancy and Frank Knight, driving down to Tijuana in Mexico, visiting beautiful San Diego Zoo and taking in the Old Town, Point Loma and Balboa Park, the next day (2 June) I gave a four-session seminar to about 70 enthusiastic people at the San Diego Genealogical Society. Afterwards I was very glad to have a few days completely free and to be taken by Bette Anderson to be most pleasantly looked after by Thelma Phelps Ward (the widow of Captain Frank Trenwith Ward, Jr.) in her little orange grove on the island near the famous Hotel Del Coronado.
My next engagement was at Chicago where I was joined by Christopher Watts for an all-day workshop which we gave at the Public Library Cultural Centre (9 June). This meeting, organised jointly by the Chicago Public Library and the Chicago Genealogical Society, and with the wonderfully enthusiastic June Barekman in the chair, was organised by the Librarian, Ralph Schneider, and sponsored by the Chicago Council on Fine Arts, taking place in the truly magnificent Preston Bradley Hall, about 220 attending. I flew home and Dr Watts then visited Salt Lake City and was warmly received by the Genealogical Society of Utah which had presented the Society with a microfiche copy of its new Family Registry, containing about 30,000 names, and with details of the personal computer software which they had been developing [3187].
Before the tour I had taken the opportunity to write to all our members in North America about the proposed move of the Society and its new facilities (and, of course, appealing for funds) and expressing the hope that I might again meet some of them at the conferences on the tour [3188]. I arrived home on 12 July and went later that day to a meeting to see the progress at Charterhouse Buildings, finding it (as I wrote in my diary) ‘partially painted and looking much better’.
The growing number of indexes and copies of census returns coming into the Library was reflected in 1983 by the creation (from the 'Lists' section) of a separate division of the Library catalogue and of the accession lists published in the Magazine. About 183 copies and indexes were received that year and I was keen to publish a leaflet listing those held (whatever their format) which might take its place with the other published catalogues of sections of the Library. This appeared as Leaflet No. 14 in 1984 and quickly went into a second edition [3189].
Later, when the number of indexes and transcripts had grown considerably the Library Assistant, Jane Kenyon, compiled a full list by county which I typed and this was published as a separate booklet in 1987 [3190], with a second edition, in which I was assisted by Suzanne Spurgeon, in 1990. The publication of hand-lists of this kind, with the related checking of the Library Catalogue and of the material on the shelves, as Lydia Collins had found with the monumental inscriptions and marriage licences, did much to correct the library catalogue and to publicise the Society's growing collections, at the same time as high-lighting the gaps and encouraging the deposit of further material.
Meanwhile, as described above, the freehold of 37 Harrington Gardens had been purchased in 1968. The investment proved a most valuable one but the building was already too small to house the expanding library and as early as the Annual Meeting in 1973, Alexander Sandison urged that larger premises be actively sought [3191]. The rooms and high shelves were crowded, the latter a deterrent to elderly members, and their general upkeep, tidiness and security were growing problems. With increased footfall the polished floors of the old house were hardly recognisable. The matter was discussed at a House Committee on 31 July 1973 when it was agreed that an absolute minimum of 6,000 square feet was needed and might be found in a redundant school or church or in industrial premises, but it was not until 1978 that an ad hoc Premises Committee was appointed and an organised search was commenced for somewhere that would provide proper offices for the staff and a separate lecture hall as well as a members' room.
Major Robert (‘Bobby’) Collins took the lead on the Society's behalf and spent much time investigating the numerous possibilities and I conducted the correspondence with agents, local authorities and the many members who made suggestions about possible buildings, many of which, like one that we should take Battersea Power Station [3192], were unbelievably unrealistic. It was then thought that a former warehouse, where the floors had already been strengthened to carry the heavy load of the library, or a redundant school building or even a church might be suitable, about 7-10,000 square feet being desirable, not necessarily in central London but with a good public transport service close by. No modern office building would have the necessary load bearing structure [3193].
A possible building was mentioned at the Annual Meeting in 1978 and was being further investigated [3194], but like several others proved impossible for one reason or another. In view of the location of the new National Archives in the Thames' flood plain at Kew some members expressed concern that any building should be above the reach of flooding [3195]. The search continued through 1979 [3196] but when in October 1980 the lease of the second floor front flat at Harrington Gardens came to an end, the opportunity was taken to apply to the Borough for permission to use it as part of the Society's headquarters. This was granted for two years as from 31 December and gave a much-needed breathing space for the library.
I devised a plan that would relieve the great pressure on the county shelves by moving all the lesser-used periodicals to the flat's larger room and lobby which we fitted out with new shelving. The new Finance Officer and the Publications Assistant were placed in the flat’s other main room [3197]. At the same time the lesser used 'places' part of the Document Collection, together with the Macleod Collection and some other special collections, were moved to this room and to the flat's former kitchen, the IGI with its readers and reader-printer taking their place in the Tweeddale Annexe on the first floor landing. The Library Catalogue which had outgrown the fireplace in Room Farrer was made more easily accessible in Room Mountbatten and in November completely re-housed in four new cabinets. For the first time the Librarian was given space in the general office on the first floor and his unsightly overflowing desk at last removed from the library, allowing further reading space there [3198].
The opportunity was also taken to decorate part of the flat and to do other over-due work throughout the building, the bathroom in the maisonette being reconstructed, the back-stairs and the basement painted, the doors fitted with self-closing devices to meet new fire regulations and the main electricity cable enlarged to take account of the additional film and fiche readers [3199]. This programme of repair continued into 1982 with the redecoration of Room Raglan and was the first internal work of this nature to be carried out for some years. Some re-pointing of the brickwork and repairs to windows also took place. Concern about the possible overloading of the building returned in the autumn, but a survey commissioned from Messrs Lander Burfield, Chartered Surveyors, in October did not consider the floors overloaded. It was fortunate too that the Society's application to continue its use of the second floor front flat was approved by the Borough in December 1982, if only for a further year [3200].
In late 1982 a schedule of the works envisaged in the survey was drawn up and quotations obtained and it was agreed that the more urgent of these should be put in hand by Messrs Mansell Ltd in April-July 1983. The front and back of the high building and a chimney stack were re-pointed, broken tiles and rain-water pipes and gutters were replaced, a decayed girder in the front riser wall was replaced, and fractures to the stone rear bay windows were repaired. Whilst scaffolding was in place the whole of the front elevation of the building was also cleaned for the first time, this work being assisted by a grant from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea [3201].
Meanwhile the small ad hoc committee had continued to meet and to look at possible schools and churches and in September 1981, in conjunction with the Society of Analytical Psychologists, we made an offer for Marylebone Grammar School's modern science block, but without success. Another much older and rather dreary school in nearby Rossmore Road, Marylebone, was investigated in some detail and a more promising one in Exton Street near Waterloo Station proved too large a commitment for the Society by itself. The possibility of sharing freehold premises, and thus some facilities, with other societies, was at this time actively investigated. In September the decision was taken to test the market and we put 37 Harrington Gardens up for sale (at £450,000) and appointed Chestertons sole agents, various offers then being received [3202].
In 1982 there were discussions with other societies and planners about the Society's possible use of part of Kensington Town Hall. An account by the Treasurer, Arnold Hawker, of the continuing search was published in the Magazine in June and set out the various choices to be made [3203] and approaches were made to several of the larger charitable trusts for possible assistance with the purchase of a building, again without success. The President, Prince Michael of Kent, who had studied the account referred to, ably summarised it at the Society’s Annual Meeting in June and said that ‘the reality of the situation is very clear to me. If we remain in Harrington Gardens the Society will, of course, continue, but it will not flourish, and indeed there are already signs that it will gradually regress’. Of course not everyone agreed, amongst them the Yorkshire novelist Barbara Whitehead (died 2011 aged 80) [3204], a member since 1963 who had taught evening classes in family history in the 1970s and whose students had formed the York Family History Society. She wrote saying that we should stay in Harrington Gardens and find an ancillary building into which the lesser used material might be hived off to be retrieved on notice and on payment of fees. She also thought that we were trying to be all things to all men and that the new members should be left to local societies, our own membership being limited to those with a permanent interest who could produce proof that their ‘probationary period’ had passed’ [3205].
However, the majority thought that the Society’s services, library and staff, could only be maintained with income from a growing membership and that the search should continue and in July an approach was made to the London Docklands Urban Development Corporation, but the only building suggested, a former pumping station at Lavender Pond which I toiled out to see, was considered to be in an unsuitable area. Other buildings recommended by the National Trust and the Historic Buildings Bureau of the Department of the Environment were also investigated. I pointed out in the Annual Report that many office buildings which were being suggested were immediately ruled out on structural grounds, the floors needing to take 170 pounds to the square foot, and that this was not normally found in residential buildings or offices. In other cases planning permission for alteration from commercial use to educational use could not be obtained. In October we expressed an interest in former warehouse buildings near Fitzroy Square and in January 1983 in an excellent modern warehouse in Cowcross Street, Islington, close to Farringdon Station, but in both cases there were planning difficulties, the Society's intended use of the latter building being opposed by the Planning Department in the belief that it should be put to light industrial use [3206].
The search for alternative premises was, however, eventually rewarded when in March 1983, following a chance conversation with Frederick Emmison on a train from Chelmsford, Mr J. P. Hiner of Messrs Sir Charles Nicholson, Rushton & Smith, brought to our attention a most suitable former silk warehouse at 14-15 Charterhouse Buildings, EC1. The Society then appointed Messrs Kemsley, Whiteley & Ferris additional agents and negotiations were put in hand. Islington Borough Council approved our planning application to change the building’s use from warehousing to our particular needs on 18 July [3207] and following a detailed structural survey the Executive Committee decided to go ahead, the planning situation of the basement being further clarified at a meeting on 17 November [3208].
Meanwhile in February 1983 we had received a fair offer for the freehold of Harrington Gardens and a 'put-option agreement' had been set up with Hardaker Estates Ltd whereby the Society could call for the purchase of the building at an agreed price at a convenient time, the Midland Bank agreeing to provide the necessary bridging loan. The Executive Committee approved this arrangement in October. At the same time the position of the tenants of the flats had been clarified by Fair Rent applications in April which were taken to appeal in October, the tenants of one flat then surrendering their rights. The necessary planning consents and that of the Charity Commission having been obtained, the way was clear for an exchange of contracts with completion in March 1984. A relocation committee was therefore set up in October to plan and oversee the move into refurbished premises and Rodney Baker of Baker & Associates, a member of the Society, was appointed Surveyor on the Society's behalf [3209]. It was a singularly fortunate appointment and he worked most diligently at the task at the conclusion of which, in April 1985, he presented us with a fine heavy lectern for use in the Meeting Room [3210].
Tenders were put out for the needed refurbishment of the new building and it being understood that this could be completed in three months, work started on 1 April 1984. Meanwhile in March the Library Committee had made arrangements for the installation of a book security system. The refurbishment of the Society’s new home had been almost completed by Saturday, 7 July, when the rooms at Harrington Gardens were closed for the last time and a small farewell party held.
The Library volunteers met on Sunday 8 July to label the books and shelves and on the following day packing of the offices commenced. Most of the bookcases, which had been constructed in the old rooms, had to be broken down completely prior to removal and rebuilt in the new building. By working very long hours the move was accomplished without major difficulty in the period 9-27 July and the valiant efforts of a small group of volunteers, particularly in the last few days, enabled the Society to open without formality at 10 am on Wednesday, 1 August 1984. Meanwhile the put-option agreement had been invoked and the old premises were handed over at noon on 27 July, the transfer having been signed at a special meeting of the Executive Committee on 24 July.
There were still minor carpentry and electrical works to be carried out, and the display racks for the reception area and the lockers for the cloakroom did not arrive until later in August. Additional shelving was constructed in the Library in October enabling the original plans to be put into effect in November when a new Library guide was published. Some useful metal racking had been purchased with the building and this was rearranged by John Rayment in the two large store rooms that had been created in the basement, the various miscellaneous collections being put into order there by Elisabeth McDougall. The Meeting Room in the basement was finally got into order, ready for the first lecture in October. Bill R. Linder’s Genealogy Tour contributed £300 to the cost of 110 chairs there, a projector was purchased, and Stephen Hale organised volunteers to sort and rearrange the boxes of Magazines which remained in the room. Some additional chairs for the offices and Library were obtained through the good offices of Michael John Wood in December. On Tuesday, 27 November, Prince Michael of Kent paid a private visit to the new premises, met the staff, and went carefully over all that had been done, touring all the rooms. The Chairman of the Executive Committee throughout the year had been Dr Christopher Watts, the Vice-Chairman and Chairman of the Library Committee, Dr Morris Bierbrier, and the Honorary Treasurer, Alan Reed.
In the early part of the year it had been decided to make an Appeal for the refurbishment of the new building and a small working party compiled a leaflet, to which Prince Michael contributed a letter, setting out the Society’s aims, which also included a sketch of the modern box-like building which was such a contrast to its predecessor. This was sent to all the Members in April and there was an immediate and very heartening response and by the end of the year the cash received stood at £44,085. This figure would be increased to £64,185 by additional sums promised through bankers orders over the next four years and would be further increased to the magnificent total of £76,333 by the income to be received from Deeds of Covenant. There were very generous donations from Sir Andrew Noble and Marc Fitch’s Aurelius Charitable Trust. A further £7,314 received from the estate of Colonel Hugh Manus O’Donnell was also added to this fund and Major Ynyr Alfred Burges bequeathed £500. The cost of the new building (£272,500), including its refurbishment, survey and legal fees, was approximately £420,000. This was financed from the gross proceeds of the sale of 37 Harrington Gardens which obtained £360,000, the Appeal Fund and the Society’s accumulated funds. The net cash resources had, however, been reduced to £27,500. The rates on the new building were double those on Harrington Gardens and we no longer received rents from the flats above.
The registered proprietor of 14-15 Charterhouse Buildings was Diamond Silks Ltd, but the firm had sold the building to Sundown Limited of Hong Kong in September 1983, and it was technically conveyed to the Society by Diamond Silks Ltd at the direction of Sundown Limited [3211]. The company had named the building ‘Diamond House’ but that was not a name we ever used, though there was some discussion about giving it another name, Christopher Watts suggesting ‘Pedigree Building’.
The area had been heavily bombed in the Second World War and the land which had originally been part of the Sutton Hospital (Charterhouse) estate lay derelict until purchased for £4,500 in 1957 by Douglas Warne & Co Ltd, a firm of sports clothing manufacturers based at Bury St Edmunds but with an office in St Paul’s Churchyard. That firm apparently constructed the building, sometimes then called Unwin House after its property in Northgate Avenue, Bury St Edmunds. Advertisements in the mid-1960s show it dealing in the ‘Spall Ball’ range, ‘the finest value in match-play footballs’ as recommended by Bobby Moore. Douglas Warne & Co sold the building to Diamond Silks Ltd for £75,000 in 1969 [3212] and it was then used for offices and the storing of rolls of silk as we saw when we first visited in 1983.
Seen from the cul-de-sac that ran off at the junction of Goswell Road and Clerkenwell Road, it was a plain square building of three floors and basement, two-thirds of the ground-floor street frontage consisting of a large garage. However, the land fell away at the back of the building and the basement had fairly good natural lighting from windows on the south and east sides, those on the south looking onto an untended area of greenery which was later turned into a car park and then developed. This basement was divided to form a Meeting Room which would seat 110 people, a Common Room and two store rooms, one for the library and the other for the stock of publications.
The offices on the right of the ground floor initially suited the Society very well. A small entrance hall led into an open reception area and bookshop. Beyond that a locker room had been built into part of the garage and there was a security device that bleeped if books were taken from the library. There were three offices here, for the membership secretary and publications assistant, for the Finance Officer and for the Director, with two very small offices at the back one of which was linked to that of the Director.
On the right of the ground floor a large area beyond the garage and central staircase became the Lower Library and housed the Great Card Index and all the microfilm and microfiche readers, several more of the latter being obtained this year through the good offices of Alan Reed. The Society’s collection of microfilms, then only 900 reels, and the Bernau Index, were put on open access here for the first time and completely re-catalogued, a duplicate catalogue being placed near the films in October. At the same time the microfiche collection was made easier of access in new display units.
The upper floors which were each just large rooms were called the Upper and Middle Libraries. I was determined that we should get away from the names of former Presidents as used for the rooms in the old building. Carved out from part of the Middle Library were two offices for the library staff and a staff room which had access to the patio roof of the Lower Library below. The Middle Library took the whole of the British Isles Collection and the Library Catalogue and photocopier. The unbound parish register transcripts were shelved near the library offices and a new system of numbering introduced this year, the old shelf numbers now being completely dispensed with.
The Upper Library received the Document Collection and the family histories as well as the whole of the remainder of the Society’s bound material including Boyd’s Marriage Index.
Of course, regardless of the thousands of maps that were published and circulated, great numbers of people had difficulty in finding the building and I remember someone ringing up in desperation from various locations and saying that we were moving it about! To make matters worse the local Council put up a sign in distant Charterhouse Square with our name on it, but pointing to the British Records Association. In January 1987, Anthony Weaver, the energetic Director of the Clerkenwell Heritage Centre, telephoned, almost in hysterics, the sign having been moved to Clerkenwell Road where for a while it pointed across the Medical School car park, but a few days later he got it moved to a lamp-post at the end of our cul-de-sac. I used to say that if people could not find the building it was a fairly good indication that they would never find their ancestors.
To add to our problems, vast quantities of mail continued to be sent to Harrington Gardens and had to be recovered from the Russian tenants there, the house having been bought by the USSR’s Permanent Mission to the International Maritime Organisation, and I made frequent visits in the first few months to deliver their mail which had been forwarded to us and vice versa. The security of the new premises, at the end of a cul de sac and away from the main road, was also a considerable concern but after two break-ins we decided to put security bars on all the vulnerable windows. We did not like the idea but after they were fitted in January 1987, we quickly became used to them and had no further trouble.
Francis Leeson wrote a most encouraging description of the ‘bright box-like’ building for the Magazine saying, ‘one would never dream that bolts of silk had once reclined in such light and airy splendour as do now the Society’s Collections in their serried but rarely more than head-high stacks, with wide windows shaded by modern vertical venetian blinds, white emulsioned walls and endless strip lighting, giving the volumes a patina of freshness and beckoning accessibility they never enjoyed in the cramped confines of Harrington Gardens’. He wrote that ‘much praise is due to Staff and Executive’ in the planning of the new building [3213].
Press interest in the Society and in the subject generally had steadily increased and in March 1984 there was a major well-informed article in The Times by John Carey which produced many enquiries [3214]. In that article Ann Chiswell for the Federation interestingly said that ‘the present trend is towards believing that all our ancestors are of equal importance, be they rich or poor, famous or just ordinary workers’. In May the Society appeared amongst some non-existent organisations in the list of ‘Learned Societies’ in David Benedictus’s eccentric Essential Guide to London [3215] and although from the correspondence received more publicity sometimes seemed hardly necessary, an ad hoc Publicity Committee was appointed with the objective of increasing the Society’s membership. Ten thousand leaflets were printed and steps taken to publicise the additional facilities which would be available in the new home. This coupled with the publicity generated by the move itself, when I devised an advertisement about the millions of 'ancestors on the move', brought many new enquirers to the building and was followed by a further rapid expansion in the collections and membership. To ease applications we changed the rules at the Annual Meeting on 27 June so that people joining after 1 July in any year could pay half that year’s subscription provided that they paid for the following year in advance. Those you joined after 1 October paid a quarter in the same way. A £5 voucher to be spent on Society publications was given to those Members who proposed two new Members in the last three months of the year.
At the end of July I wrote to the secretaries of all the local family history societies summarising the Society’s new facilities and the ways in which we might help each other. Enclosing a list of our publications, I said that we were glad to give a discount of 25% on any books ordered for resale to their members and that we would bring them to the next meeting of the Federation of Family History Societies (at Writtle, 13-15 September) if they so desired. We were ourselves glad to stock the local societies’ publications in our bookshop if they related to the whole county or were guides to research. We could arrange free Library tours at almost any time and if a group stayed all day we could arrange a light sandwich lunch. Alternatively I said that I was ‘happy to come to any local Society in the evening or on a Saturday to talk about the Society’s library and collections, with slides … without any charge, provided my travel costs are covered’. Finally, I suggested that the societies consider using the Meeting Room for meetings of their members who lived in the London area (at £7.50 an hour or £37.50 for the day), slide and overhead projectors being freely available.
These arrangements had already been made with some local societies and they were developed and refined with the passage of time. Together they again brought many into the building via the book shop and membership thus grew rapidly. Many societies brought groups for guided tours. My lecture showing slides of what was to be expected as one entered the building and then going into and around the library, proved particularly helpful to uncertain newcomers, some of whom had not used a library since they had left school.
The involvement and work of the local societies was now considerable. The Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology deposited within the year the graveyard inscriptions from 79 parishes, Hampshire Genealogical Society gave 53, the Birmingham and Midland Society gave 32, and 30 came from Yorkshire. The copies of Avon graveyards deposited by Ron Lewin now filled 25 volumes. Copies of registers and bishops transcripts from Essex and Suffolk from the great collection of the late industrious professional Leslie Hugh Haydon Whitehead (1899-1985) of Long Melford were now being bound and coming into the Library, though his Suffolk bishops transcripts arranged by date were now sorted by parish on the instructions of the Librarian, a decision with which I could not agree. Other major groups of registers came from Oxfordshire and Wiltshire, and from Huntingdonshire there was an almost complete marriage index, 1754-1837, compiled by Thomas ‘Peter’ Roysse Layng (1901-1985) and typed by Mrs N. K. Travers. The first part of the Society’s important Monumental Inscriptions in the Library of the Society of Genealogists: Part One: Southern England, edited by Lydia Collins, was published in July. The co-operation with the Church authorities enabled us to notify local societies of those chapels whose licence to celebrate marriages had been revoked by the Registrar General, this being a likely indication of closure. As mentioned above the collection of census transcripts and indexes also continued to grow.
Also in 1984 the Society published Francis Leeson’s useful Directory of British Peerages: from the earliest times to the present day forming an index by surname and title to all those created, in which he had been assisted by Colin Parry and which was also published in America by the Genealogical Publishing Company ($12.50). Also this year we produced (as mentioned) the third volume of my PCC Will Index 1750-1800 on the paste-up and correction of which I had spent many evenings. Apart from the leaflet (No 14) listing the census indexes and transcripts held, we also produced leaflets No 15 The Right to Arms, which I wrote, and No 16 Assessing Computer Software for Genealogical Use by Alexander Sandison, both of which were used to answer many letters.
Some 1,022 new members were elected in 1984 bringing the total membership to 6,879 at the end of the year. The numbers passed the 7,000 mark in 1985, reached 8,000 in 1986 (when an average of a hundred persons were using the library every day), 9,000 in 1987, 10,000 in 1988, 11,000 in 1989, 12,000 in 1991, 13,000 in 1993, fell back a little following an increase in subscriptions in 1993; reached 13,000 again in 1995, and 14,000 in 1997. After I left at the start of 1998, the figure remained at 14,000 (peaking at 14,382 in 2001), but fell abruptly (following a subscription increase which drove away the overseas members) to 11,000 in 2006, and then to 10,000 in 2011.
In the Library, Dr Charles Isetts was appointed Assistant Librarian in January 1984 in succession to Janet Thornton and was a major asset, working hard with the assistants Jenny Wraight and Melven Helsey to prepare for the move to Charterhouse Buildings and in the subsequent arrangement of the Library there. On one occasion Melven, of course, got stuck in and had to be rescued from the goods lift which was used to take the crates of books to the upper floors and then sealed up. Charles Isetts was only with us until February 1985 when Jenny Wraight was appointed Assistant Librarian in his place with Jane Kenyon as second Assistant.
My careful typist Miss Grinsted retired in June 1984 but I was fortunate to recruit Monnica Stevens in her place for a few months immediately after the move. Young Alison Hicklin who had been appointed Receptionist just prior to the upheaval came with us (a part-time assistant being engaged to help with the Saturday working) and was with the Society until December 1986 when she went to Australia [3216]. It was an extremely busy and difficult year for all the staff with the extra travelling and work involved in this historic year in the Society’s development.
The usual meetings and courses went on. I organised the six lectures of the winter series, 1984-5, the first to be held in the new Meeting Room, around local subjects: Charterhouse, the Honourable Artillery Company, the Museum and Library of the Order of St John, Smithfield Market, St Bartholomew’s Hospital and England’s Huguenot Heritage. Just prior to the move Betty St George Brown organised another highly successful week-end course, ‘Genealogy in Essex and East Anglia’, at the University of Essex, Colchester, 20-22 July 1984, with 56 participants, and I remember in particular the pleasant visit to Harwich, led by Mrs Cooper.
Early in the year Joan Coburn the busy Head Archivist to the Greater London Council had been persuaded to conduct a two-day practical intermediate course in reading the handwriting of local archives on Saturdays, 10 and 24 March, at the Lutheran Church House. On 2 April many members of the Society attended a useful meeting organised by the Chartered Insurance Institute on the theme ‘The Use of Insurance Records for Social and Family History’ at which the Society was presented with a transcript of the First Policy Register of the Amicable Society 1706-7 [3217], a summary of the talks being published in the Magazine [3218]. We did the usual nine lectures for beginners in September-November and sponsored Stella Colwell’s Summer School ‘Some genealogical problems and possibilities’ at Lancaster University, 30 July – 4 August. She conducted a fourth sessional course on Grasmere, ‘Genealogy and the Community’, from September onwards, but this year I had a change and went as Course Director to Burton Manor Residential College in Cheshire, for ‘Trace Your Ancestors’, 21-23 September.
Whilst I was away that weekend Donald Francis had on 22 September organised a most successful Computer Day Conference on the theme ‘Standards’ at Queen Elizabeth College, London, with about 65 attending. The programme again included demonstrations of home computers and talks on census projects in schools, on the computerisation of local history records and on database organisation and standards for the exchange and transmission of genealogical data. On Saturday, 24 November, David Hawgood organised an afternoon meeting at the Society on ‘One-Name Studies and Computers’. The highly organised and competent David Hawgood as editor of Computers in Genealogy was doing an enormous amount to promote the whole subject and in 1984 the Society was affiliated to the British Computer Society. Much of the Computer Committee year had been taken up with discussions about a standard format which might be recommended for exchanging machine readable data from as many types of record as possible and the preliminary recommendations of a small sub-committee were also discussed with the Cambridge Group and the GSU. At the same time the committee had obtained the agreement of the British Standards Institute to consideration of a standard code for the representation of names of counties and was turning its attention to the advice which should be given to genealogists with regard to registration under the Data Protection Bill.
Also in September the Society had been one of the sponsors of the Fourth English Genealogical Congress held at the University of York under the Patronage of Prince Michael of Kent and the Presidency of the Earl Marshal. Brian Fitzgerald-Moore was the Chairman of the Organising Committee and Stella Colwell was the Organiser with Bobby Collins as Minutes Secretary and Patric Dickinson as Treasurer. Alan Reed organised the excursions and I organised an exhibition, ‘From the cradle to the grave’, taken from records at the Society. On 1 October I had the great honour of attending a Dinner in the Earl Marshal’s Court at the College of Arms to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the granting of their first Charter by King Richard III, speaking briefly to the now blind Sir Anthony Wagner beforehand, he having sadly lost his sight the previous year. Amongst many other meetings that year I spoke at the Library Association Branch Conference at Norwich in November. Alexander Sandison had intended to represent the Society at the International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences at Helsinki, 16-21 August, but he was unwell, though his paper on ‘Interchange of Genealogical Data held in Computers’ was published in the Congress Proceedings.
The need for a popular journal about genealogy and family history was finally filled in 1984 by the publication at Ramsey of Michael Armstrong’s bi-monthly and highly popular Family Tree Magazine, which was published monthly from 1986. I had given him every possible encouragement and when on 4 December 1984 he came to see me with his editor Ralph Braybrook I volunteered to provide extracts from the more genealogical parts of my diary for publication. The first extracts of my ‘Diary of a Genealogist’ appeared in its second issue in February 1985. I was allowed a page a month and I have very little doubt that they, with other material in the magazine, had a considerable effect on the development of the Society and its growth in membership. The latter doubled from seven to fourteen thousand over the next twelve years.
Michael Sharpe in his Family Matters (2011) described the diary entries as ‘especially controversial’ but the majority of readers were, in fact, avid followers of my daily activities. After some complaints I withdrew the entries in May 1990, but they were reinstated by popular demand in October and continued until my retirement, the last entries appearing in March 1998. They were certainly not ‘dropped’ in 1990 and replaced with general articles, as Sharpe wrongly says, the articles commenced in April 1998 and continued until December 2003.
The Society had, of course, only a few months earlier moved to new premises and it seemed to me that Family Tree Magazine, which developed a considerable worldwide circulation, provided a splendid opportunity to show what the Society was all about. As I wrote in 2002, I knew enough not to ask the permission of any committee; I had learned one of the great rules of life from Admiral Grace Hopper that it is easier to apologise afterwards than it is to ask permission beforehand. It had been my habit for many years to scan all the books and the hundreds of periodicals which came across my desk and to make notes of anything which interested me, and these notes naturally formed the basis o the published diary. Each month I edited down my diary of about 10,000 words to the required 1,500 words for the printed diary.
The published entries thus quickly drew attention to the great variety of material which was daily coming into the library, mentioning new publications and major articles in the field, some quite basic but others quite esoteric, and relating to an extremely wide spectrum of British society. It undoubtedly encouraged further donations. It described the Society’s involvement with other societies and organisations and its activities on the wider, indeed world, stage. It calendared and paid a tribute to the involvement of the volunteers and their valuable work within the Society. It showed that there was a place in the Society for both computer enthusiasts and those who had little time for computers or were just starting in that field, but perhaps gaining greater enjoyment from the older more traditional forms of research. And the leavening of the entries with a few personal items was also, it transpired, widely appreciated. Consequently the Society owed a considerable debt to Michael Armstrong for his personal generosity and interest at this time.
With the great growth in interest in family history the sale of ‘arms of the name’ now became widespread. One firm in particular, The Hall of Names or La Maison des Noms, founded by David Richardson at Toronto in Canada in 1971 had begun by producing extremely generalised ‘Parchment Scrolls of Surname Histories’. Following the advent of micro-computers these were made available at Eaton’s Centre store in Toronto at Christmas 1987. Having collected together all the references in the old heraldic dictionaries, ordinaries and armories, the firm then matched the two databases together and in 1999 started to licence the results for use by other interested parties (in 2013 a franchise cost $5,000), so that these generalised surname and heraldic databases with software to make printouts on demand became available to mail order businesses and they are now seen in pushcarts in shopping malls all around the world. One cannot deny that many people find such outline details of interest and that they may thus be encouraged to delve into the histories of their own particular families, but that any of the information provided, particularly where the heraldry is concerned, will actually relate to their own family is, as discussed above, not altogether likely.
About the same time, in 1969, a ‘copywriting and direct marketing genius’, the late Gary C. Halbert (1938-2007), of Ira Road, Bath, Ohio, had assembled mailing lists from electoral registers and telephone and other directories and having spent several years in the Boron Federal Prison Camp for fraud in the 1980s, had an idea to sell the lists themselves as part of ‘family name books and coats of arms’, the letters soliciting subscriptions to the books being signed by people of the relevant surname, but, as the Observer pointed out, all with the same squiggle signature [3219]. Some signatories were, from about 1988, real people who had agreed to this use of their names but when no person of the right surname was available, pseudonyms such as ‘Sharon Taylor’ were used. The cheaply produced books themselves contained an absolute minimum of information ‘barely changed from one book to another’, as an article in Which? commented [3220], and the lists of addresses were often out of date and, of course, far from complete. Those approached were led to believe that they were receiving (for about $30-$40 or £14.95) a carefully researched history of their families. Many millions of these solicitations were sent out, including about 750,000 to families in the United Kingdom [3221]. and resulted in complaints from genealogical organisations worldwide. In 1985 and 1988 complaints about the misleading wording of the letters led to the US Postal authorities prohibiting the firm from representing that the books were principally about a particular family name, or contained information about particular forebears and their emigration from Europe or about the heraldry and family crest of a particular name, or explained how a particular family got is surname.
Notwithstanding this order much further mailing worldwide (under the name Family News Network in America) took place in 1994 and 1995, and led to the National Genealogical Society in Washington, supported by the America-based Federation of Genealogical Societies, protesting to the US Postal Service which in November 1995 issued a cease and desist order prohibiting Halbert’s from pretending that (1) a solicitation for a surname-related product was sent by a relative of the solicitee, (2) a relative of the solicitee was involved in preparing a surname-related publication, and/or that (3) a relative of the solicitee endorsed the surname-related product. The company was also ordered to include a disclaimer that ‘No direct genealogical connection to your family or ancestry is implied or intended’. In Canada Halbert’s was fined $5,000 by the Quebec Department of Consumer Affairs for violation of consumer laws. In spite of this and other actions around the world the firm continued to produce similar books but Gary Halbert sold his interest in the firm and it was shut down completely in 1999. Gary Halbert is said to have spent eleven million dollars in less than a year before he died in April 2007 [3222].
Most unfortunately the Numa Corporation, which latterly owned Halbert’s, had earlier come to a licensing agreement with the thoroughly disreputable Harold Brooks-Baker (1933-2005), by now the self-proclaimed ‘editor’ of Burke's Peerage, to use Burke’s name to promote The Burke’s Peerage World Book of … around the world. The American born Harold Brooks-Baker (who had adopted the hyphen), had never actually written or edited anything, least of all Burke’s Peerage, but had been managing director of Debrett’s Peerage Limited in London from 1976 to 1981 when absolute chaos had developed in the office and the firm having changed hands he was dismissed. With some associates he acquired the rights to some minor publications of Burke’s Peerage, but not the Peerage itself (it had last been published in 1970 and did not reappear until 1999), until in February 1987 these were wound up by the Department of Trade and Industry as ‘hopelessly insolvent’ [3223]. However, Brooks-Baker, who now started a new business as Brooks Marketing Limited, had acquired the name ‘Burke’s Peerage’ from the liquidators and traded shamelessly on it, using it on letterheads and compliment slips, and sending with all his mailings a photograph of himself either holding a copy of the Peerage or with one prominently displayed on a bookshelf behind him. His other stock-in-trade was a stream of ill-informed and frequently outrageous comments on the activities of the Royal Family about which he, in spite of his appalling snobbery, was entirely ignorant but which delighted ‘reporters, feature writers and columnists seeking to beef up their threadbare stories’ (as his obituary in The Times put it) [3224], who believed or pretended to believe that his pronouncements had some authority or knowledge because they came from ‘Burke’ rather than from ‘Brooks Marketing Limited’ [3225].
A good example of Brooks-Baker’s bizarre and unfounded genealogical pronouncements was one in 1986 that the Queen was a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed ‘through the Arab kings of Seville’. It appeared in The Sun under the banner headline ‘Her Majesty is an Arab’ and Brooks-Baker wrote to the Prime Minister saying that although ‘sacred in Moslem eyes’ she ought to have better security. His claim was unfortunately quickly picked up by The Times of India but, as he should have known (from reading my Everyone Has Roots if not from elsewhere), it had been conclusively demolished by research some twenty years earlier and no such descent can be shown [3226].
However, following the agreement with Halbert’s vast numbers of The Burke’s Peerage World Book of … were sold, thousands of innocent genealogists and other mildly interested persons being curious to see what they contained. In 1994 following the many complaints that I and the magazine Family Tree were receiving and encouraged by an enraged member, Martin Penny, who had received the usual letter from Brooks-Baker signed by an almost certainly fictional ‘John H. Penny’, I made a formal complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority, concentrating on the pretended connection with a Peerage that had not appeared for twenty-four years and the use of fictional names to promote the books. I had myself been similarly approached by ‘Richard C. Camp’ whose existence I also doubted.
My complaint was initially upheld on the grounds that the company did not have the right to mislead consumers that they were the Burke’s Peerage of old merely because they owned the rights to, but none of the fixed assets of, the company, and that the company had also failed to demonstrate that John H. Penny existed [3227]. However, when the preliminary adjudication went to the Council of the Authority it chose not to uphold it, saying merely that the company had acquired the Burke’s Peerage name and had provided evidence to show that John Penny had permitted the use of his name in advertisements [3228]. My further letter on the subject received no answer.
Having expected us to believe his claims to ‘extensive research throughout the world’ and ‘years of effort and considerable expense’, Harold Brooks-Baker feebly now told the Sunday Times the books were ‘a general survey – it is not genealogical research. I don’t think it should be taken too seriously’ [3229]. The Weekend Telegraph ridiculed the computer generated and worthless books with some spoof arms and the motto ‘Money Groweth on Family Trees’ [3230] and the Independent, mentioning my ‘unequivocal criticism’, asked if it were ‘A peerage for berks?’ [3231].
As well as the complaints and real anger caused by these books, Brooks-Baker was also involved in some extraordinary ‘research’ in America about which the Society received a large number of enquiries. In 1987 he latched on to the Walling Heirs Association and received considerable amounts of money from several hundred hapless people who were led to believe that, ‘As publishing director of Burke’s Peerage, the American-born expert with the double barrelled name is Britain’s top gun in genealogy’ and could prove their entitlement to many millions of dollars in oil revenues from the Walling Survey in Nacogdoches County, Texas. Brooks-Baker had typically described the Wallings’s expectations as ‘one of the biggest pots of gold at the end of the rainbow that has ever hit the genealogy world’ [3232]. The claim, which had gone to court in 1941 and had been decisively dismissed in 1944, centred on John Walling, Senior, who in 1841 had left 320 acres of land to each of the nine children of his first marriage and the remaining 2,862 acres (an area known as the Walling Survey) to his second wife Judy and their two sons, Richard and William. Judy died in 1842 and William died a minor in 1854. Richard conveyed the 2,862 acres to R. W. Berry in 1857 and the land was subsequently sold and/or leased in portions to individuals and oil companies. The heirs of William’s half-siblings claimed in 1941 that Richard could not and did not convey William’s interest to Berry in 1857. However, although as mentioned the case was thrown out in 1944, Mrs Beatrice Thedford the granddaughter of one of the heirs involved who had been brought up on stories of the family’s claims and wrongful treatment, in May 1987 formed the unincorporated Walling Heirs Association which soon had 1,200 members intent on proving their claims.
Although the genealogy of John Walling’s descendants had been carefully compiled and published in 1945 [3233], Brooks-Baker asked for $700 (shortly afterwards increased to $800) from each descendant ‘to research this possible connection and present any findings in a form acceptable to the courts’, adding ‘Our stamp of approval on your family tree could guarantee your success’ [3234]. Eight hundred members of the Association (each paying a $200 membership fee and $25 annual dues) met ‘a team of 35 Burke’s genealogists’ (who these were or what they thought they were doing is difficult to imagine) at the Sheraton Century Centre Hotel in Oklahoma City on 8 November 1987 [3235] but following adverse publicity, a worried Mrs Thedford telephoned Brooks-Baker on 22 February 1988 to be reassured that he was making ‘very impressive progress on the Walling cases’, that Burke’s Peerage was ‘the most prestigious name in ancestry tracing and has been for almost 200 years’ and that only ‘certified genealogists’ worked for the company. The cost was now $1000 each for ‘non-Walling clients’ but in order to break-even Brooks-Baker said that he needed about 118 clients from the Heirs Association. Pretentiously dating a confirmatory letter in Roman numerals, he was ‘confident that the reports that we produce and the publicity which Burke’s Peerage will generate will bring you to the negotiating table with the oil companies’ [3236].
Of course the reality was that the involvement of British genealogists was quite superfluous to any action that might take place and in which the majority of the pedigree lines had already been documented with affidavits. My careful replies to the worried letters that I was receiving from America caused a concerned Brooks-Baker to telephone me on 28 July 1988. One Walling descendant (that I had first met in London in 1972) wrote, ‘As you know, naïve Americans in search of their roots are very vulnerable to scams’. She had rightly seen ‘troubled legal and financial problems ahead’ [3237].
I was not the only person watching developments with interest and in June 1989 the Oklahoma Department of Securities commenced an action in the County District Court against the Walling Heirs Association which terminated in January 1990 when the Association (then with 4,000 members), Mrs Thedford, her two daughters and another, were ordered to cease and desist from their many violations of the Oklahoma Securities Act, to stop offering or selling memberships (judged to be securities under state law) and to refund those already received. This was not however the end of the matter and whilst aggrieved subscribers began to take court action against Mrs Thedford, she in turn continued her claim against the oil companies, going as far as the Texas Court of Appeals in 1999, but completely without success [3238].
Meanwhile, Harold Brooks-Baker had transferred his interest to another very similar but much larger claim. Back in November 1986 he told the City Editor of the London Standard that he had ‘already been called in to work for the 7,300 claimants to the 10 billion dollar Humphries heirs’ case in Texas’ [3239]. This was another claim against oil companies, this time in connection with land granted to one Pelham Humphries in 1835 on which oil was discovered in 1901 and which became known as the Spindletop oilfield. In 1987 a rival, more conservative, genealogist (Hugh Peskett) said that the estate was worth £1.3 billion and that there were 2,000 claimants including about 200 living in England; a successful claimant, he said, might get anything from £75,000 to £7.5 million [3240].
Brooks-Baker’s clients were the Humphries Heirs Association with 7,500 members and he began to collect fees of $750 from each person introduced to him by the Association, he and seven colleagues visiting Tennessee in October for that purpose [3241]. The proposed action to challenge the oil companies’ leases had, in fact, gone to court unsuccessfully on at least seven previous occasions and in 1968 the judge had ruled ‘the Humphries heirs have no title in the league of land’. The early descent of the property is uncertain but by 1883 it was clearly possessed by a rancher named William P. H. McFaddin who the following year ‘enclosed the entire league with a substantial cattle-proof fence’. In 1964 the Texas appellate court had ruled that McFaddin’s heirs and assigns had an unbroken and peaceful adverse possession of the land. However, Brooks-Baker was still actively hyping up the possibilities in October 1987 (when the ‘unpaid oil royalties’ were said to be $100-$200 billion!) [3242] and the Humphries Heirs went again to court in 1989 when the judge said, ‘Lest there be any further misunderstanding as to this court’s ruling, take heed: there is no claim available to any heir of Pelham Humphries as to any part, parcel, or portion of the league of land commonly known as the Humphries Survey, nor the minerals extracted therefrom; nor is there any such claim by any heir of Pelham Humphries available to be asserted to that property or minerals extracted from the league since 1901. “Any heir” means every heir, past, present or future’ [3243]. In spite of this the matter was raised yet again in 1995-8 [3244] and appears still to be before the courts.
Unsurprisingly, Private Eye reported in October 1991 that Harold Brooks-Baker and his partners in the Burke’s Peerage ‘empire’ were under scrutiny by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States for their failure to deliver the results of genealogical research to several hundred people who had paid out sums totalling approximately three million dollars. One disillusioned man had gathered a hundred affidavits and said that a final figure of 650 complainants would ‘not be exaggerated … There are a lot of angry people’ [3245].
Unfortunately nothing seems to have happened and the unscrupulous Brooks-Baker had already turned his attention to the possibilities of making money from the marketing of Scottish feudal baronies. In 1994 he had been quoted as saying, ‘There is nothing wrong with selling titles, but it must be to a carefully selected market, or who knows who will end up as the aristocracy” [3246]. I had long disliked the trade in lordships of manors in England but now some very large sums were being asked for feudal baronies in Scotland. Originally attached to a particular piece of land containing the ‘caput’ of the barony, perhaps a castle or mansion, these feudal baronies, like English manors, could pass to anyone by inheritance or conveyance, but they had been phased out by official policy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the last barony actually ‘erected’ or created was in 1824. Although until 1874 each new baron had to be confirmed in his barony by Charter of Confirmation recorded in the Register of the Great Seal of Scotland, they were of so little importance in the nineteenth century that their very existence seems to have been overlooked or forgotten. No feudal barony had been listed in the ‘Roll of the Peerage of Scotland’ laid before the House of Lords at the Union in 1707, let alone in Sir James Balfour Paul’s The Scots Peerage (9 vols. 1904-14) or The Complete Peerage (13 vols. 1910-59).
Although the Heritable Jurisdictions Act 1747 had preserved some of the jurisdiction of these barons and placed it on a statutory footing, the appropriate section of the Act had been repealed by the Statute Law Reform (Scotland) Act 1948 which provided that the repeal would not ‘revive or restore any jurisdiction’ [3247] and the devolved Scottish Parliament by the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc (Scotland) Act 2000, which came into force on 28 November 2004, put an end to the feudal system in Scotland and abolished the jurisdictions of feudal baronies. As a result baronies by tenure became in 2004 merely ‘incorporeal heritable property’, or floating dignities. When detached from their land they are no longer registerable in the Land Registry and deeds relating to them are no longer automatically recorded in the Register of Sasines.
Some sales of such baronies had taken place in 1779 when a company which had bought up many of the estates forfeit after 1745 got into financial difficulties, but in 1989 Brooks-Baker attracted much publicity when he organised the sale of the feudal barony of Alford ‘near Aberdeenshire’ to Kerry Hamer, a property developer, and placed a notice opposite the ‘Court and Social’ section of The Times that Hamer had ‘acceded to the title of the Baron of Alford’, granted by William III in 1702. The notice said ‘Burke’s Peerage has verified Mr and Mrs Hamer’s right to be addressed as Baron and Baroness Hamer of Alford’ [3248]. Brooks-Baker with unusual modestly told the Evening Standard that ‘it is not enough just to have the approval of his genealogical knowledge’, owners had to get the approval of the Lord Lyon [3249]. In the following February the Barony of Ruchlaw, East Lothian, with about half an acre of land, was sold at auction in London by ‘Manorial Titles’ to a Canadian for £99,000 [3250]. The sale of other baronies quickly followed and these ‘titles’ came regularly to be sold through mail order catalogues and by auction, a process which Burke asked us to believe had ‘a presumption of royal consent’ [3251]. Some owners were not themselves Scottish, but by the purchase of sometimes miniscule amounts of land had acquired their ‘titles’. It is said that these are the only genuine UK ‘titles’ which can be bought and sold but it seems to me that when bought and sold and not inherited, these baronies, detached from their original caputs, confer on their owners little if any honour or prestige.
In 1989 the copyright of Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage had been acquired by Brian Morris and his editor Charles Mosley (1948-2013) [3252] set about creating a new, 106th, edition of the Peerage which appeared in two volumes in 1999. I reviewed it in Family Tree Magazine in 2002 [3253] and said that since its publication, Morris had in 2000 licensed the use of the name Burke’s Peerage to Dr Gordon Prestoungrange (formerly surnamed Wills), a marketing expert who was Lord of the Manor of Milton in Northamptonshire (which he had purchased in 1979) and whose barony of Prestoungrange had been recognised by the Lord Lyon in 1999 [3254]. In 2001 he and Mosley published the first volume of a 19th edition of Burke’s Landed Gentry, relating only to Scotland, in which much space was given to owners of feudal baronies. In 2002 Prestoungrange bought the rights to Burke’s Peerage from Brian Morris and thus reunited both titles under one publisher, Burke’s Peerage and Gentry (UK) Ltd, but Charles Mosley’s book Blood royal from the time of Alexander the Great to Queen Elizabeth II was published by Robert Smith of the Manorial Society that year (2002) when about eighty feudal barons and manorial lords were subscribers. The indented narrative, familiar in other Burke publications, had, however, lost most of its indentation and was almost impossible to follow.
Following the separation of the dignity of baron from the ownership of land in 2000 many barons formed a non-statutory ‘Convention of the Baronage of Scotland’ intending to create and maintain a register of claims in which assignations or sales would be recorded, simultaneously making them public by registration in Scotland’s official Books of Council and Session [3255].
The use of Arms that have not been matriculated with the Lord Lyon is a statutory offence in Scotland and it had meanwhile transpired that a hundred and thirty-three of these baronies had been recognised by the Lord Lyon between 1965 and 2000. For some time Lord Lyon’s intentions as to the future armorial recognition of the owners of baronies was uncertain but in 2003 Prestoungrange, with Mosley as editor, produced the 107th edition of Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage which for the first time in a peerage included the pedigrees of many feudal barons. I reviewed it in April 2004 again criticising the inclusion of the feudal barons and Scottish Chiefs who, whatever the situation before the Union with Scotland, are not today peers in the generally accepted sense of the word [3256]. The Burke’s Peerage was dated in November 2003 but it also included without comment the pedigrees of some Irish chiefs even though the Attorney General had said in July that there is not, and never was, any statutory or legal basis for the practice of granting courtesy recognitions to chiefs of the name. Of course some Scottish feudal ‘barons’ take great interest in promoting the places from which they take their ‘titles’, but I took the view, as Lord Kinnoull had done in 1977, that the inclusion of these families in the peerage, when they had no place in the official Roll of the Lords Temporal and Spiritual, only diminished the standing of the latter. Mosley’s reply, with its customary bluster and abuse, described with relish the former traffic in titles, the end of which was something he obviously regretted [3257]. Later in 2004 for undisclosed reasons he was dismissed and by Royal Warrant on 1 June 2004 the Queen established a Roll of the Peerage (similar to the existing Roll of the Baronetage) to include all those peers who have proved succession to an English, Scottish, Irish, Great Britain or United Kingdom peerage (but not, of course, to feudal baronies), the Roll being administered by the Secretary of State in consultation with Garter King of Arms and Lord Lyon King of Arms.
I have been charged with taking an overly puritanical view of these matters [3258] but in view of the turmoil caused in England in May 1995 by the sudden retirement of the Garter King of Arms, Sir Conrad Swan, following allegations of irregularities in relation to a grant of arms to his son-in-law [3259], and similar but greater turmoil in Ireland over the recognition of spurious ‘clans’ and bogus ‘chiefs’ by the state’s Office of the Chief Herald or Ireland between 1989 and 1995 [3260], I have no doubt whatever that if these matters are to have any continuing validity and place in our society that they need the closest possible and continuing scrutiny away from all financial interest.
In 2013 Dr Gordon Prestoungrange sold the united Burke company to a new company, Burke’s Peerage Limited, and that year he was awarded the MBE for services to the community in Prestonpans, East Lothian, though the citation in the London Gazette did not mention his barony [3261]. Previously the key question for a petitioner for a Grant of Arms in Scotland had been where he or she lived, but in 2015 the newly appointed Lord Lyon, Dr Joseph Morrow, decided that ownership of a lordship in Scotland (as evidenced by an entry in the Scottish Barony Register and so long as that Register was in the custody of ‘a person of skill’) was sufficient to bring a person within his jurisdiction for the granting of Arms, though the grantee needed also, under an Act of 1672, to be ‘a virtuous and well-deserving person’. The latter point, a previous Lord Lyon had said in 1990, normally involved having given some service to the community in the UK [3262]. In 2015 the Lord Lyon noted that ‘anyone is at liberty to call themselves what they wish subject to it not being the intention to deceive another person’. Accordingly he would in future word his Grants of Arms to say that ‘the Petitioner holds the Lordship of --- being of the genus of barony, which ownership brings the Petitioner within the jurisdiction of the Lord Lyon King of Arms’ [3263]. Feudal barons have generally been known by their surnames and have usually considered it bad form to call themselves ‘baron’ or ‘lord’ [3264]. Today in cases where the Lord Lyon has recognised a feudal barony the owner may have that fact noted in his or her passport, the equivalent in many cases, it seems to me, of saying ‘owner of a legal fiction for which I have paid a ridiculous sum’.
Just before I left the Society of Genealogists in 1998 I received a copy of a new edition of The Burke’s Peerage World Book of Camps which to add insult to injury included a further section ‘The Camp Wills Index’ consisting of ‘a specially compiled’ and ‘exclusive index’ of all the Camps whose wills were proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury from 1750 to 1800. This list had, of course, been copied directly from one of the volumes of the PCC Will Index which I had produced in 1977 and was a clear breach of the Society’s copyright.
When Brooks-Baker died in 2005 the rubbishy books and the schemes which this ‘Crooks-Faker’ (as he was apparently referred to in his office) had promoted in conjunction with Halbert’s and in the name of Burke’s Peerage were unsurprisingly not mentioned in the sanitised and misleading obituaries in The Times and Daily Telegraph [3265]. He was, as a former colleague said, ‘a total charlatan. He was not quite a crook, but he was a cunning little so-and-so’ [3266]. Others were not so generous. A saddened former editor of the Peerage, Peter Townend, who died in 2001, doubted that the name which Brooks-Baker had so tarnished would ever recover.
A volunteer who had adopted the Society as her own after the move was Elisabeth McDougall (died 2005). Although Chairman of the Library Committee she had no experience of such matters and was loathed by Lawson Edwards. Experience had taught me that whatever one did at the Society there would nearly always be some member of a committee or a volunteer who would criticise or oppose it, but Elisabeth McDougall, a member since 1976 who had been a social secretary in the Foreign Office, carried this opposition to absurd lengths, latterly waging a long war to make life as difficult as possible. Apart from disagreements over library matters and her use of the garage, she carved out for herself a small empire in the basement library store into which no staff were allowed to go without her consent and then took over the basement Meeting Room as her private office. Having organised ‘her’ volunteers there, she made any use of that room for its intended purpose as difficult as possible, refusing to clear papers from the tables until the very last moment, always disorganising their layout, clearing away and piling up the stacking chairs and even insisting that she continue to work behind the lecturer as he or she spoke.
As a result almost every day and sometimes two or three times a day there was a last minute scramble to get the room ready for a committee or evening course when at least four heavy collapsible tables and two smaller ones with sixteen committee chairs needed to be set out, or for a larger meeting which needed a lectern and 110 chairs and the collapsing of all the tables. Late on Fridays the whole room usually had to be set out again ready for a visiting group or conference on the Saturday (and even again on the Saturday evening or Sunday morning if the Federation met there on a Sunday), solely because she had got ‘her’ volunteers to stack everything away. She returned to Australia in 2003.
Above all Lawson Edwards disliked the move in 1984, memorably describing his overly bright new office with its un-plastered brickwork as 'an outside lavatory'. He had done almost nothing to assist in the planning of the removal of the library. However, in spite of his health (he mounted the stairs at Barbican station and in the library with increasing difficulty and rarely visited the Upper Library) he soldiered on, resisting almost every attempt at change. He was elected a Fellow of the Society in 1987 and on 14 October 1988 received a presentation on completing twenty-one years’ service with the Society. However, having developed angina, he suddenly announced in September 1990 that he had decided to retire and he left on 2 February 1991. In retirement Edwards became quite reclusive and he died in August 2005, aged 77 [3267], just a week after Elisabeth McDougall, former Chairman of the Library Committee [3268], whom he had so disliked. I found myself his executor and was pleased to learn that he had left useful bequests for the purchase of Shetland Island and Scottish material for the Society's library and for the perpetuation of his name in prizes at his old school and university.
On 12 March 1985 an unprecedented fifty-two lordships in eight different counties were offered for sale by auction at the Merchant Taylors’ Hall in London by Bernard Thorpe and Partners and advertised in the Wall Street Journal. They were expected to sell at more than £3,000 each and it was reported that ‘everyone expects them to get a good deal more expensive still’ their numbers being limited, though in reality there are probably about 38,000. One, the lordship of Codicote had originally been granted by Ethelred the Unready in 1002 and was expected to fetch £12,000.
Robert Alexander Smith, a former Guardian sub-editor, who had himself inherited seven lordships from a great-uncle and started a company called Manorial Research Ltd, in 1980 took over the moribund Manorial Society of Great Britain and actively encouraged sales [3269]. In 6 June 1986, presumably to whip up interest, his Society staged a re-enactment of a Court Leet and Baron of the Manor of Bromsgrove, which had held courts in Worcestershire every year since 1199, at the Guildhall in London.
Eight auctions, including one in Cumbria and another in South Wales, were held in 1987 and with about thirty lordships sold privately it was estimated that altogether 230 lordships had been sold that year at an average price of £8,750 (compared to £2,500 in 1981). They included the Seignory of Anneville in Guernsey for £40,500, the Irish feudal barony of Naas for £33,000, and the lordship of the manor of Old Buckenham with its fifty acres of village green for £30,500.
Some peers had become active in the market, though they did not usually sell where they held land or where the name of the manor was part of their peerage title. Being classed as incorporeal property the sale of a lordship was free of VAT [3270]. In February 1988 the lordship of the manor of Farnham fetched ‘the alarming sum’ of £57,750, being sold with 41 others, including many cast off by the Dukes of Grafton and Sutherland [3271]. In October 1988 the Evening Standard, which had bought the Lordship of Brighton, offered it as a competition prize [3272] and it was later reported to have been bought by Chris Eubank, a professional boxer, for £50,000 [3273].
Stephen Pile wrote in 1996 that Robert Smith had discovered that there was ‘a rampant appetite for self-ennoblement .. matched by a vast supply of peers keen to off-load meaningless, minor titles for cash’ [3274]. Smith’s Manorial Auctioneers Ltd was incorporated in 1989 and his Manorial Society of Great Britain Limited in 1996, the latter claiming to be the lineal descendant of the old Manorial Society founded in 1906, and on 18 May 1990 thirty-eight lots of ‘baronies, superiorities & lordships of the manor in England, Ireland and Scotland’ were offered by sale by auction in London by the Manorial Auctioneers Partnership. On 27 July 1990 ‘a unique snippet of living history’, the lordship of the manor of Henley-in-Arden for which an annual court leet was held in November [3275], was sold to an American lumber tycoon, Joseph Hardy, for £85,000 and the ‘Feudal Barony’ and Lordship of the manor of Morpeth went to a Japanese businessman, Hiroshi Matsuo, for £50,000 [3276]. When that year John Hoare sold for £6,000 the lordship of Purse Caundle in Dorset which had been in his family since 1720 he said he did so because it was ‘quite meaningless yet had some value’ [3277].
The lordship of Stratford-upon-Avon, hyped up by the Shakespeare connection, and bought privately by Donald Wilson from the Sackville family, had fetched £87,000 in April 1988, but was again put up for sale on 19 July 1990. Sotheby’s hoped to obtain £250,000 [3278] but the highest bid was £120,000 [3279]. It was eventually sold in 1993 for £110,000. An unimpressed Patric Dickinson at the College of Arms said the Shakespeare hype was preposterous and the estimated price absurd [3280]. Dickinson was not alone in thinking that lordships of manors were bogus nonsense and in June the Advertising Standards Authority had ruled that the publicity of the auctioneers Bernard Thorpe and Partners was misleading because it wrongly gave the impression that a lordship entitled its owner to a coat of arms and could be entered on the title page of a passport. Dr John Martin Robinson, Maltravers Herald Extraordinary, was quoted as saying that lordships were no more than anachronistic forms of property and, as he had written to the Spectator, their sale was ‘a perfect manifestation of the 1980s heritage industry which taints and undermines genuine institutions and traditions’. He said that the statement by Peter Spurrier, Portcullis Pursuivant and a specialist in heraldic art and design, that the lordships were created by royal charter and were titles of honour was ‘absolute poppycock’. Sir Colin Cole, Garter King of Arms, a member of the governing body of Smith’s Manorial Society, refused to comment on the situation [3281]. Bernard Thorpe had said that manors convey ‘the status that lordship implies’ but this was dismissed by Robinson as ‘utter rubbish’. Indeed it transpired that lordships had not been listed as evidence of gentlemanly status in Letters Patent granting arms until Cole, who had one of the largest genealogical practices in the College of Arms, became Garter [3282]. Cole resigned as Garter in October 1992 [3283].
The Earl of Kinnoull continued to believe that the whole lordships industry and the ‘auction house aristocracy’ debased genuine titles and in February 1990 it was reported that he intended to re-introduce his Bill banning the sale of all lordships and baronies, but opposition from Labour members of Parliament, as expressed by Dennis Skinner, didn’t want ‘to have anything to do with something which would make the Lords a cleaner place’ [3284]. Lord Kinnoull lost his seat in the House of Lords as a result of the reforms in 1999.
And so this sad state of affairs continues. In 1996 a local historian, Eric Taylor, was able to buy the manor of Balneath, Sussex, for ‘about £8,000’, a court leet being held at Lewes for the transfer of the title, and the Earl of Chichester sold the Manor of Hastings [3285]. That year Smith’s business had a turnover of £2.5 million and he estimated that in fifteen years a hundred peers had sold 1,500 titles, the Duke of Newcastle offloading 120 lordships [3286]. However, other firms were entering the market and sales were levelling off and a report in the Sunday Telegraph in 1998 said that several of these ‘Mickey Mouse’ lordships, sold in the late 1980s, were now being investigated by the fraud squad and that the unlucky purchasers had discovered their error in recent attempts to resell [3287]. A further article in 1999 pointed out the dangers of purchasing a house to which the only vehicular access was over a small strip of manorial land, for which a fee (in this case £15,000) was charged, the right to charge being upheld by the High Court [3288].
On September 1997 the Bangkok Post carried an advertisement which showed how these things were sometimes marketed overseas. The ‘Chief Heritage Officer’ of a firm ‘Chatsworth of London’ offered two ‘rare and valuable “Lord” titles of great respectability and standing’, saying that they confer ‘incredible social and business benefits worldwide, as well as being a solid investment, with typical growth value of 21% per annum ... fully recognised by all governments and include the right to use the word “Lord”/”Lady” in your name ... only those of impeccable integrity, honour and standing will be accepted’. The price was £11,750 or £11,150, and ‘Certificates may be worded to show a “bestowal” rather than sale’.
Meanwhile, in an Editorial to The Coat of Arms, the journal of the Heraldry Society, in early 1997, John Brooke-Little, Clarenceux King of Arms, said that legal opinion generally supported that the sales were legal conveyances of the lordships of manors and entitled the purchaser to style himself ‘Lord of the Manor of Blank’, but he added ‘that is about it’. Purchasers might not style themselves ‘Lord of Blank’ as many new lords tended to do and it did not entitle them to be granted arms as was often stated in the Press. The purchase of a lordship conferred no honour, ‘nor social recognition now that the coinage is so debased’. The designation ‘Lord of the Manor’ was no longer included in the description of a grantee of arms and possession of a manor had never been a qualification for being granted arms. He thought it sad that the trade had become a folie de grandeur and that the purchasers had brought upon themselves ‘the ridicule, scorn and derision rather than the envy of those who really are the backbone of England’ [3289].
The story of the Society following the move and for the next decade or more was one of very considerable success, of great expansion and of financial stability. That there was throughout this period a growing interest in the subject is undeniable but the Society did everything possible not only to encourage that interest through basic publications and lectures but also to develop knowledge of the subject as a whole, its sources and its uses.
The year 1985 saw the election of 1,352 new members and by its end the total had passed the 7,000 mark and was 7,842, of which 1,086 lived overseas. Despite an increase in rates on 1 July, there were 4,813 fee-paying visits by non-members, a new record. In total some 24,000 visits were made, an average of 100 a day; the highest number, 185, came on the last Wednesday in April, though March was the busiest month. New members’ days were held in March and June, but subsequently because of their popularity we provided tours of the library on alternate Saturdays, making it easier to deal with the crowding. There were in all 35 guided tours and/or lectures for visiting local groups. Meg Connor who had been with us for five years as Membership Secretary resigned in March 1985 when Peter A. F. Bacos was appointed in her stead.
The Society now being well established in the new premises and the financial position (aided by the high interest rates) being much improved it was possible to set aside £50,000 from the General Reserve for possible future maximisation of the use of the building, provision also being made to build up the Library’s resources. However, the Annual Report recognised that the staff salary levels still caused concern, there being a considerable gap between them and those paid in comparable employment elsewhere with a resulting high staff turnover to better paid jobs. Sir Andrew Noble had made another generous donation to the Appeal Fund. Robert Massey had left the Society £250 and Edith Pritchard had given £500 specifically for the purchase of Poll Books.
During the latter part of 1985 a system of voluntary manning of the Upper Library was introduced in order to aid readers in the use of its collections and we were particularly grateful to Mrs Norma Allum, Mrs Susan Bourne (died 2012, aged 73), Mrs Isabelle Charlton (1920-1016), Mrs Vivienne Lawrie (1929-2014), Ernest Angell (1920-2006) and his wife Esme (1927-2004), Arthur Brown (died 1990, aged 87), Frank Hardy and Mr R. Mott, for their willing and regular assistance. Appeals were then made for further help in the evenings and on Saturdays. In 1986 those in the Upper Library and elsewhere were joined by Miss J. D. Hobday, Mrs Jenny Key (1930-2011), David J. Pinborough and Mrs Suzanne Spurgeon, and further assistance was sought for Wednesday evenings and Fridays [3290].
A valuable collection of abstracts of wills of those with monies in the public funds 1717-1844, in 176 volumes (with three extra volumes that related to Horatio Nelson, the Duke of Wellington and Charles Dickens),was presented by the Bank of England and, collected by Elisabeth McDougall on 31 October, immediately becoming the subject of a fascinating indexing project for the Upper Library volunteers. In November the House of Lords’ Library gave a large collection of duplicate printed peerage claims. More than eighteen hundred items were added to the Library and with the improvement in finances it was possible to purchase more books and periodicals and to bind or rebind more books and transcripts. Some 230 transcripts from the Haydon Whitehead collection for Suffolk were added in 1985 and there were major groups from Oxfordshire and Berkshire. The purchase of microfilms of parish registers from county record offices continued, Members now being encouraged to sponsor by joint-purchase any microfilms in which they had an interest, they being given the films exclusive use for a limited period.
In September the Chairman wrote to The Times about the theft from the church of ten volumes of the original parish registers of Winson, Gloucestershire [3291] and I wrote fiercely to the Bishop and Diocesan Archivist, as their deposit had been recommended eighteen months earlier. A new edition of the Catalogue of Parish Registers, revised by Edith Pritchard, was published in February. Microfilms copies of the indexes of births, marriages and deaths for all the Australian states (except Tasmania and Victoria) prior to 1900 were also obtained, and in August 1985 I struggled home from Salt Lake City with the heavy boxes of the latest (1984) edition of the International Genealogical Index on microfiche. A new microfiche reader-printer had to be purchased in May, and two more readers were purchased and another given. The book numbering system introduced in 1984 was now extended to the greater part of the English counties during the February and October 1985 closure periods. In July 1986 the old Registers and Records Committee was dissolved and its responsibilities transferred to an enlarged Library and Records Committee [3292].
The ad hoc Publicity Committee formed prior to the move was in 1985 made a permanent Committee of the Society and a poster designed by Peter Park was distributed to county record offices, another 10,000 leaflets being printed in October. In addition some 2,000 maps of the area showing the Society’s premises were donated by Scholl following my support of the Clerkenwell Heritage Centre and the promotional project ‘Towards Historic Clerkenwell’. In addition the free publicity given to the Society through the pages of the new Family Tree Magazine and the kindness of its proprietor, Michael Armstrong, nominally in return for my regular articles, benefited the Society enormously, producing many hundreds of enquiries. The Publicity Committee was consequently deemed somewhat less important and demoted in July 1986 to being a working group of the General Purposes Committee [3293].
Responsibility for the bookshop was transferred from the Library to the Publications Committee in June 1985 when additional shelves were built and the stock much expanded, an additional Office Assistant for publications being engaged in November. Following an arrangement with the Harvester Press, the Apprentices of Great Britain 1710-1774 were published on microfiche, followed (in 1986) by some of the older genealogical periodicals and the Catalogue of the Library holdings taken from a security microfilm made in 1983. Stephen Hale took charge of the accumulation of older issues of the Magazine (some 34,500 copies) and led volunteers in their sorting prior to their sale at a nominal price. Edith Pritchard continued to take bookstalls to the Federation conferences in Wiltshire and at Writtle and to the Society’s Day Conference. The latter, the Society’s sixth and entitled ‘A day in their life’, organised by Patricia Kirkland and Peter Park, took place at Regent’s College on 2 November 1985, when there were over 400 participants (at £10 for members, £11 for non-members) and three streams of four lectures, the opening address being given by Lord Briggs of Lewes (Asa Briggs) (died 2016).
There were two series of classes for beginners, a third series taking place at the American Wives Club at Northwood, and Stella Colwell completed her fourth London University Extra-Mural Course on Grasmere in April 1985. In December she and I represented the Society in discussions at the Extra-Mural Department and agreed the outline of a certificate and diploma course in genealogy and family history which might be offered by the University in 1987. I had myself conducted weekend courses at Theobalds College in Hertfordshire and at Burton Manor Residential College in Cheshire in 1985 and did two more at Theobalds College the following year in March and July. Plans for a fifth London University Extra-Mural Course to be conducted by Stella Colwell in 1986-7 unfortunately had to be abandoned for lack of support.
On 3-4 December 1985 I attended the Annual Conference of the British Records Association on the theme ‘Genealogy’ and the relationship between genealogists and archivists. I was at the time a member of the Council of the Association’s Records Preservation Section which continued to be much concerned with the sale by solicitors to stamp and ephemera dealers of parts of collections in their custody and in 1986 the Society gave £100 to that Association to assist its advertising campaign with regard to the disposal of documents in solicitors’ offices and their transfer to county record offices. Later on its behalf the Society circulated to all the local societies an article for publication on the same subject [3294].
Evening meetings of computer enthusiasts took place in most months throughout the year and on 5 July 1985 the Society, which had joined the Association of Computer Clubs in April, welcomed Howard Nurse of Commsoft, who spoke about the program Roots II marketed by his company, publicity for the meetings being given on Prestel. On 5 October Donald Francis organised a Computer Day Conference in the meeting room (£6.50 to members of the Society and the British Computer Society, £7.50 to others) with demonstrations of home computers, and talks on what the computer could do for the genealogist, computers and heraldry, the application of scientific techniques to genealogical problems, the programming and marketing of a genealogical database and on the use of generalised commercial databases for record keeping.
David Hawgood, who in February had published his widely acclaimed book Computers for Family History, gave a day course ‘Introduction to computers for genealogists’ on 11 May and at an open meeting on 13 February I talked about projects that might be done using computers and an appeal for volunteers was published in the March newsletter. By October about thirty volunteers had come forward and were being organised by Donald Francis and Eric Probert to transcribe and index parish registers on an equipment basis.
In the summer of 1985 Chris Bingley re-evaluated the situation with regard to a computer at the Society. It was then thought that the first need was for word processing in connection with the leaflets and publications, the scope of any service to members not being known until one saw how much use was made of any machine by the office where computer experience was almost completely lacking. The back-up for any file management system was expected to come from members of the Computer Group.
A Torch Graduate Computer with Xchange software (based on the BBC micro-computer possessed by many members and yet compatible with IBM personal computers) was hired and several members of the Computer Group assisted the staff in its use. The system was not, however, found suitable and at the end of the year the lease was discontinued, though the hire of an alternative machine was actively considered [3295]. By then there were 1,069 subscribers to Computers in Genealogy, the mailing labels for which were being prepared for us by Roy Thompson, and it was found necessary to reprint all the earlier issues of the newsletter. In May 1986 the Society registered its membership records under the Data Protection Act 1984.
Details of a proposed program for BBC micro-computers to be sponsored by the Society and produced by David Lane of Bel Tech Ltd were published in June 1986, and a sufficient level of tentative orders having been received a satisfactory contract was entered into but the production of the program, to be called ‘Heritage’, was unfortunately greatly delayed [3296]. The testing by Donald Francis, Eric Probert, Dr Chris Watts and Mrs Doreen Willcocks (died 2009) continued throughout 1987 (David Lane speaking about it at the June and September meetings) and until July 1988 when David Lane decided to withdraw from discussions, but following a favourable review of the program in December it was stocked and sold by the Society [3297].
Unfortunately owing to the pressure of other work the newsletter’s editor, David Hawgood gave up the position with the June issue. Alexander Sandison saw the September issue through the press and the Society was then fortunate to find a successor in Eric D. Probert who took over in December, the newsletter’s printing now being organised from the Society.
Eric Probert also arranged a successful Computer Day Conference in the Society’s rooms on 4 October 1986 with about 80 attending, including many non-members. The programme included demonstrations of home computers and talks on the Domesday Project, the Genealogical Information System (by Reynolds Cahoon), transcription and indexing by computer, the Economic & Social Research Data Archive at Essex University, and on genealogy on the Amstrad. Evening meetings took place throughout the year and a second monitor for use at lectures was purchased in November [3298].
In August 1985 Dr Christopher Watts, the Chairman of the Executive Committee and I again visited the United States and gave several lectures at the enormous Fifth Annual National Conference of the NGS, ‘Genealogy for All People’, hosted by the Utah Genealogical Association in Salt Lake City, 5-9 August. There were 278 lectures and seminars at the Salt Palace Convention Centre, some fourteen running simultaneously. Many new subjects arose, not from direct invitations to named speakers, but for the first time from NGS’s ‘call for papers’ asking potential speakers to submit their own proposals for talks, something that I generally disliked doing. Altogether 2,200 lecturers, ‘conferees’, volunteers and exhibitors were involved, making it the largest NGS event so far.
We stayed in the Marriott Hotel immediately opposite the Convention Centre where the Federation’s stand made a useful meeting point. With talks starting at 8 a.m., great numbers of people to meet and the long days it was a rewarding but quite exhausting time. I was asked to speak on ‘Irish Probate Records’ and ‘British Heraldry’ and at a panel on ‘Current Developments’ I showed slides of our new building. The active Paul Smart was at that time Supervisor of the British Reference section of the GSU library then in the west wing of the Curch Office Building and he was keen to show us the progress being made with the great new library on South Temple which was to be dedicated that October and re-named the Family History Library in 1987. I went with Richard and Marjorie Moore, Don Steel and Geoffrey Swinfield to see the finely appointed rooms then taking shape and Paul Smart arranged for me to bring home for the SoG the 1984 world edition of the IGI with its 88 million entries on microfiche. It was fortunate that we had just bought a new reader-printer.
With so many family historians from the British Isles present at the Conference the GSU took the opportunity to launch a major initiative to promote its microfilming and indexing programmes. The Church’s most senior General Authority then interested in family history was Boyd K. Packer (1924-2015) of the Quorum of the Twelve who, with his wife Donna, were ardent supporters of the Church’s family history and temple work having themselves had considerable personal experience of research. In 1975 the Genealogical Society of Utah had been transformed into a new Genealogical Department of the Church to become a full part of its administrative structure and in 1978 the Church’s President, Spencer W. Kimball (1895-1985), declared that all worthy male Church members might be ordained to the priesthood ‘without regard for race or color’, subsequently clarifying the Church’s three-fold mission as ‘to proclaim the gospel, to perfect the Saints, and to redeem the dead’. That declaration and his renewed emphasis on the redemption of the dead vastly extended the scope of the Church’s future genealogical work. The previous year (1977) Boyd Packer had attended a crash course in computers with IBM and he was one of the first to foresee their potential value in the work ahead. Donna’s genealogy room contained a computer on which Boyd had a fascinating concordance of all the Church’s official publications.
Another General Authority in the LDS Church taking an active part in all these developments was Richard G. Scott (1928-2015), who had been appointed an assistant executive director of the Genealogical Department in 1981 and its Executive Director in late 1984. He had earlier been on the staff of Admiral Hyman Rickover, the ‘Father of the Nuclear Navy’, developing military and private nuclear power reactors, and he was a driving force behind the development of the Family Record Extraction Program through which paper copies of records (initially pre-1970 temple records) were manually transcribed in the homes of Church members, entered locally on personal computers and then returned to Salt Lake City on computer disk.
And so on the final day of the conference, 9 August, Boyd and Donna Packer and members of their family gave an evening reception at their home among the trees near Cottonwood Canyon, to which most of the English group were invited, and Richard Scott outlined the Church’s future plans for computerising records. These were met with considerable enthusiasm. In 1982 his Department had embarked on a scheme to index the 1880 US federal census and he now proposed expanding the indexing program to involve not only Church members but also any other genealogists who were willing to help. Elders Packer and Scott followed this up with a meeting in the Church Office Building on 13 August when it was agreed that I would convene a meeting of likely partners in London in November
After a few days working in the Library in Salt Lake City I flew to Kansas City not expecting to speak at the Federation of Genealogical Societies, 6th Annual National Conference, ‘Crossroads of America’, 15-17 August, but being immediately called upon to fill a space caused by the absence of a speaker. The Congress’s Syllabus contained 346 pages of lecture summaries and information and included the text of Rabbi Stern’s ‘The ethics of genealogy’ and his widely cited ‘Ten commandments for genealogists’ (one of which Joe Brickey had summarised as ‘Thou shalt not use bacon as a bookmark’). Here at an evening reception hosted by the inimitable Joyce Hensen she launched a National Order of Genealogical Convention Hounds and I with many others received a splendid leather luggage label illustrated with an appropriately exhausted looking dog! It was also here at the final dinner on 16 August that I was privileged to meet and hear Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, USNR (1906-1992), the mother of COBAL, give a quite remarkable talk, ‘Hardware, Software and People …The Future of Computing’, with her famous illustrations of nanoseconds and picoseconds (which I still have) and her valuable advice that it is easier to ask forgiveness afterwards than it is to ask permission beforehand!
Terrick FitzHugh, the founder of The Local Historian above-mentioned, had come to local history through his passion for genealogy and he became a professional genealogist in the 1960s and was one of the founders of AGRA, but worked also as an extra-mural lecturer in genealogy for the Universities of London and Surrey. Combining both interests in 1985 he produced The Dictionary of Genealogy, a highly commendable first attempt at such a work but notable for its inclusion of rarely encountered medieval terms and its omission of much basic material which ought to have been included. He invented the terms ‘Total Descent’ and ‘Paragraph Pedigree’, for which I do not care, instead of the old ‘Birth Brief’ or ‘Ancestral Chart’ and ‘indented narrative’, but they are fortunately rarely used. An American edition, although subtitled ‘A guide to British ancestry research’, oddly contained no entries for Scotland or Ireland. In his eighties in 1988, FitzHugh produced How to write a family history: the lives and times of our ancestors (£12.95) but generally failed to address the needs of his younger contemporaries. A revised edition of his Dictionary was published in 1988 and another, edited by Susan Lumas, for which I re-wrote a number of sections, in 1998. By then it had a serious rival in Pauline Saul’s The family historian’s enquire within (1985 &c) but both lacked, as FitzHugh admitted, good bibliographical references.
In 1985 Garter King of Arms, Sir Colin Cole and I had been the genealogical advisers to the organisers of the ‘Domesday 1086-1986’ Exhibition which was staged at the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane, 3 April to 30 September 1986, and sponsored by the Daily Telegraph and Prudential Assurance. I remembered that way back in 1886 at the Domesday octocentenary celebrations that Hubert Hall’s paper on the official custody of the Book had actually been read from the gallery of the Round Room and that in 1937 for the centenary of the General Register Office the band had played there.
In 1986 it was the first time in twenty years that an exhibition (other than the standard one in the Museum) had been organised at the PRO and all the documents associated with Domesday and its compilation were brought together in a way that had never been done before, along with computers and audio-visual displays. The Exhibition had over 130,000 visitors. I attended the Domesday Luncheon on 31 January, the opening on 2 April, and the Reception in the presence of HM The Queen at the Royal Courts of Justice on 29 May 1986 [3299]. The many pedigrees sent to the Public Record Office as a result of the publicity for the Domesday Exhibition were passed to the Society in October [3300].
Following the death of Edith Pritchard in February 1986 and in order to reflect the growing importance of publications and conferences in the Society’s budget, the former Secretary-Treasurer of AGRA (from 1979 to 1985), Mrs Mary Gandy, who had worked for some months part-time in the office, was appointed Publications and Conferences Manager (her husband, Michael, was Chairman of the Publications Committee, 1982-86), taking up full time duties in September 1986. The couple had organised the Society’s bookstall at the Federation’s half-yearly Conference at Norwich in 1984 [3301].
The Publications Assistant since October 1985 had been the enthusiastic and energetic Mrs Barbara Merrall and as the bookshop expanded after the move she was promoted to the role of Bookshop Manager, becoming the friendly face of the Society in its relationship with the local societies and behind its bookstall at a growing number of meetings and conferences. Mary Gandy unfortunately decided to leave at the end of 1992 but Barbara Merrall continued as Manager amidst growing pressures until her retirement in September 1997.
A financial blow to the Society in 1986 was the decision by the Inland Revenue, taken on 1 August, to withdraw the concession relating to recoverable tax on covenanted subscriptions, it taking the view that membership subscriptions were not outright gifts for which no benefit is received but that they were to be considered as payment in part for free use of the library and concessions on book purchases. No new covenants could be accepted and those which were currently held would not be renewable. As a result the income from this source quickly fell away over the next few years. At its budgeted level in 1986 this income (including the Appeal Fund covenants) would have represented almost £1.50 per head of the membership. Fortunately, however, covenants on donations were not affected [3302].
In spite of this setback we were able that year (1986) to add a further £25,000 to the fund which had become known as the Premises Development reserve. Some £7,319 had been received in donations to the Appeal Fund including £500 given by Mr D. Cullum. A bequest of £1,000 by John Unett (1906-1984), the author of Making a Pedigree (2nd ed. 1971) which was strong on medieval sources, was added to the Special Projects Library Fund. I had meanwhile shown old friends Ismini and Marc Fitch over the new premises and she generously gave £500 to re-upholster the chairs in the Members Room and to clean the carpet there which she had chosen in 1954. We were glad also to receive, through the good offices of Clifford Bird at the Mobil Oil Company, eight most useful tables and twenty-eight chairs, followed in February 1987 by seven microfiche readers.
Some additional lockers were obtained in January 1986 and in February and March the intended work to upgrade the lavatories in the basement was carried out. A large sign based on the Society’s seal, which could be seen from the entrance to Charterhouse Buildings, was affixed to the building in March. Unhappily, as mentioned above, in view of two minor break-ins the addition of burglar-bars to the basement and first floor windows was agreed in November and completed early in 1987 [3303].
A trial airmail distribution of the September issue of the Magazine to overseas members by Pharos Distribution Services Ltd proved successful and from now on was regularly used by the Society. Binders for the Magazine, blocked with the Society’s new Badge, were made available in August and proved popular [3304] and similar binders for Computers in Genealogy were produced in June 1987 [3305].
The Annual Report for 1986 when paying tribute to the staff who were facing many extra demands and challenges, echoed Reports for earlier years when admitting that ‘salaries paid to its staff do not in general compare well with salaries obtainable in commercial organisations’. Consequently we had attempted during the year to reduce the gap by introducing a salary structure which provided for continuing progression to better levels of payment. Although this would mean large increases in expenditure in future years, we believed that they had to be borne if we were to hold good members of staff and not lose them to better paid employment elsewhere [3306].
Perhaps as a result of the great increase in the number of part-time professional genealogists, the Society attracted much less research than in earlier years. Very few members took advantage of the reduced rates for specified searches, but the number of general enquiries, mostly without return postage, ill-informed and without any intention to pay even the smallest of fees, continued to escalate and over 24,000 letters were received in the year [3307].
Following the move in 1984 a group of men, the ‘Monday Club’, consisting of Eric J. Balley, John Pullen (died 2008) and John L. Rayment (1923-1991), had begun to come regularly on Mondays to do various maintenance works throughout the premises [3308] and as the ‘Maintenance Work Group’ they were in July 1986 made a working group of the General Purposes Committee [3309]. In 1988 they were joined by the skilled Leslie Crafer (1921-2002) and they and the Library Volunteers became quite indispensable to the adequate running of the building.
The Society’s initial plans had allowed for the retention of the large garage with its heavy shutter door next to the entrance and two store rooms in the basement which utilised a quantity of steel racking purchased with the building but mostly in three-foot squares. These two rooms were known as Store A and Store B, the former containing unsorted library material, roll pedigrees, and a large number of duplicate books, and the second containing the Society’s store of publications, and a considerable amount of old correspondence, research files and minute books. The garage itself had begun to attract an assortment of clutter, including jiffibags and other packing material, boxes of current and old issues of the Magazine and a large amount of wood salvaged from neighbouring building sites. Underneath the garage and in the far corner of Store A was a bricked off area containing an oil storage tank.
It became clear that better use could be made of the large garage area if the other material could be stored on mobile shelving in Store B but there was opposition from those who used the garage to park their cars and to load and unload books for bookstalls at conferences and for incoming collections. In May 1986 we clarified the situation about its possible future use when planning permission was sought for its use as part of the library, this being given on 13 November [3310]. In February 1987 John Rayment circulated a note on behalf of the Maintenance Group discussing various options for the future use of the area and of the stores [3311] and a week later Chris Watts put out a paper on the further developent of the premises generally, suggesting that both stores be fitted with mobile shelving, that the oil tank be removed and the space converted as a workshop for the Group, and that the garage above be converted to library use with additional space for lockers [3312]. The feasibility of these suggestions was referred to Rodney Baker and further refined [3313] but Lawson Edwards and Mary Gandy thought that the conversion of the garage into library space, if parts were still to be used as an unloading bay with additional lockers, not worth the expense involved, they believing that the Society’s assets should be preserved towards the eventual provision of an additional storey [3314]. The plan was complicated in any case by the need for additional space for the growing bookshop in the reception area.
1986 was again a record-breaking year for visitors, with 5,304 fee-payers and a significant increase in the use of the Library by members. The Library was closed for a week for stock-taking in February and this now became a regular yearly occurrence. Tours for new members were held on alternate Saturdays and there were forty-five group visits from local societies, including one from the Scottish Genealogy Society on 12 November. With the accession of so much new material we found it necessary to increase the height of the shelving in the Middle Library in May and that behind Boyd’s Marriage Index was completely renewed in August, the necessary carpentry being done by the Maintenance Work Group whilst the Library was closed on Mondays.
Several hundred film and fiche copies of parish registers were also bought or received as a result of the sponsorship scheme that year. Fiche copies of the indexes of births, marriages and deaths in Victoria, Australia, prior to 1900, were also purchased, the Society of Australian Genealogists gave us a similar index to the New South Wales probate records prior to 1982 and the New Zealand Society of Genealogists gave the Return of Freeholders in New Zealand in 1882, also on fiche. The resulting purchase of three new microfiche readers in turn necessitated the complete re-arrangement of the Lower library in September to make space for further machines.
Two major collections of papers of professional genealogists were received in November: those of the former Chairman, William Cotton, who had died in 1961 (received through the good offices of Malcolm Pinhorn) and those of Ronald J. D’Arcy-Hart (1895-1985) who had joined the Society and become a professional in 1955 although he had had a life-long interest in the subject.
As a new venture the Society organised three tutorial classes in the course of the year: on 19 May, Mrs Eileen Stage conducted a half-day class on ‘Coastguards’ when seventeen attended; on 5 July, Mrs M. R. Rowe, County Archivist for Devonshire and the Librarian conducted a half-day course on Devonshire when seventy-nine attended; and on 25 October, Drs Christopher and Michael Watts conducted a day course on the records of the Merchant Navy when forty attended.
Miss Joan Coburn, Head Archivist to the Greater London Council, conducted for us two day courses in Palaeography, on 17 May and 21 June, and her assistant, Mrs Susan Palmer, conducted a two-day course in Latin on 12 and 25 April. Two series of nine lectures for beginners were also held.
I was away for part of May 1986 visiting Australia as the guest of the Heraldry and Genealogy Society of Canberra, sponsored by Qantas and Ansett. At Canberra I was the keynote speaker and lecturer at the notable Fourth Australasian Congress on Genealogy and Heraldry, 7-11 May, which was attended by some 600 participants and was particularly memorable for its friendly atmosphere, with Bill Marsh as President, Doug Blair as Convener and Geoff Burkhardt as Program Convener. On Saturday evening during the Muster I helped to launch the Biographical Index of South Australians 1836-1885. Dr Neil Gunson had organised an exhibition of heraldic items, including porcelain, at the Menzies Library on the ANU Campus. I proceeded to Hobart, Tasmania, to speak to the local branch of the Genealogical Society of Tasmania and visited the former convict settlement of Port Arthur. After flying to Melbourne I then spoke to a joint meeting of the Genealogical Society of Victoria and the Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies. At Brisbane I conducted a day-seminar for the Genealogical Society of Queensland and spoke to the Southern Suburbs Branch and to a meeting of the Queensland Family History Society. Finally at Sydney I spoke at two meetings of the Society of Australian Genealogists, being everywhere most warmly welcomed [3315].
On 14 June 1986 the members of North Middlesex Family History Society had organised a most successful day meeting at the Society which included use of the library and talks by me and Michael Gandy, their committee members acting as stewards, when sixty attended. Similarly on 6 December an Open Day for officers of local family history societies was organised at the Society by Peter Park the Chairman of the Lectures Committee. Some 60 delegates came from 34 societies and there were representatives of the Federation of Family History Societies, the Institute at Canterbury and the Guild of One-Name Studies. I gave a talk about the history of the Society, Michael Gandy spoke on its organisation and structure, and Christopher Watts described its other activities and facilities, the theme of co-operation being stressed. A buffet lunch was provided, an exhibition arranged and tours of the Library given and the whole event did much to cement the Society’s links with the local societies [3316].
In 1986 the Society celebrated the 75th anniversary of its incorporation in 1911 and several special events were organised. Already in 1983 a sub-committee under the chairmanship of Brian Fitzgerald-Moore had been set up to organise a conference at Oxford in September 1986, it having been agreed that the Society would at that time act as host for the Federation’s half-yearly meeting [3317]. The committee consisted of several of those who had organised the previous English Genealogical Congresses and Stella Colwell was the Honorary Organiser. The resulting international congress was held at the three colleges of Balliol, St John’s and Trinity, from 8 to 14 September, under the Patronage of Prince Michael of Kent and the Presidency of Garter King of Arms, Sir Colin Cole, who attended throughout. Professor Henry Loyn gave the Opening Address in the Sheldonian Theatre and there was a wide choice of subjects from four streams of lectures, some seventy in total, over the next six days. Distinguished lecturers were invited from Australia, Canada, France, The Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States of America and amongst the 470 attending was a party of nine from Australia. The social events included Medieval Entertainment in the Dining Halls of the three Colleges, a Civic Reception at Oxford Town Hall, Folk Songs and Dance in the Garden Quad of Trinity College, a choice of excursions to Burford, Blenheim Palace, Chastleton House and Broughton Castle, walking tours illustrating Architecture in Oxford and Oxford Past and Present, and a Banquet at Balliol College at which the Lord Saye and Sele was the Guest Speaker. The conference incorporated the Federation Half Yearly Meeting and included, instead of their usual banquet, a River Boat Party with buffet. The total cost amounted to £42,529 but with careful budgeting there was a surplus of £789. The whole thing was from every point of view a considerable success and looking back now I cannot but feel that in many ways this Congress represented the Society’s finest hour. Certainly that for the Society’s Centenary in 2011 (a one-day event in London) was by all accounts not a patch on it.
The major London event of the year was a reception after the Annual Meeting on 26 June at the Royal Over-Seas League when a standing buffet was provided and about 105 attended. Three Vice-Presidents had been welcomed to the Meeting chaired by Dr Christopher Watts: Sir Colin Cole, Garter King of Arms, Colonel Somerset Hopkinson (a member since 1919) and Dr Frederick Emmison.
As part of the annual series of lectures I had on 27 September given a lecture, ‘The Story of Janetta’, recounting to a crowded meeting room the research carried out over many years in connection with the biography of Janetta Scott Norwebb the author of The memoirs of Janetta (1812) and the first ancestor of our friend in Cleveland to use the surname. I had given the talk at various places over the years but not previously at the Society.
On the suggestion of Michael Burchall and with the approval of the Executive Committee, the Fellows recommended to the Executive Committee in 1985 that it mark the Society’s 75th anniversary the following year by petitioning for a Grant of Arms and Badge, the costs of which would be covered by the Fellows. Patric Dickinson, then Rouge Dragon Pursuivant of Arms and himself a Fellow, drafted the Petition which the Chairman and I signed on 18 February, and he forwarded it to the Earl Marshal and guided us through the whole process.
The design of the projected Arms, Crest, Supporters and Badge, as Patric Dickinson wrote in the Magazine, was the subject of a good deal of discussion, but it seemed from the outset desirable to retain the oak tree long used as a motif by the Society and such a tree was consequently made the principal feature of the Arms and of the Badge, that on the Badge showing its roots and being encircled with a chain [3318]. I suggested that the shield’s background be the symbolic ‘gyronny of sixteen’ with a ‘gorge counterchanged’ to distinguish it from other Arms with trees and this found general approval. For the crest Patric Dickinson proposed a gold double-tailed lion (as in the crest of Lord Mountbatten) which held a pedigree scroll and rose from a circlet of red annulets (a feature of the Arms used by Charterhouse). Two most elegant backward-looking cranes would support the shield, the word pedigree deriving from pied de gru – crane’s foot.
The design was approved by the Fellows and by the Executive Committee ‘without any notable dissension’, but the choosing of a suitable motto proved more difficult. Fifty-three suggestions were received and balloted upon, one in Latin, ‘Radices Quaeramus’ (‘Let us seek our roots’), proposed by John Blight, eventually finding favour. Anthony Wagner had proposed ‘From one generation to another’ [3319] and the LDS Fellows were keen on ‘Hearts turned to their fathers’, but I was very happy with the outcome and thought the whole Achievement quite exceptional. The preliminary sketches, the scrivening and extra illumination of the Letters Patent, and the line drawings, were all executed with great skill by Henry Gray, a Herald Painter at the College of Arms and also a long-term member of the Society.
The completed Patent, dated on the anniversary of the Society’s incorporation, 8 May 1986, was presented to the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Christopher Watts, at a Reception after the 75th Annual General Meeting at The Royal Over-Seas League on 26 June 1986, by Sir Colin Cole, Garter King of Arms. In the event the costs were considerably more than the funds collected from the Fellows and the balance was met from the Society’s funds. Following the Grant, the Seal on the cover of the Magazine was replaced in June 1986 with the Shield from the Grant, and this in turn by a simple design showing the complete achievement of Arms, which I organised from the start of a new volume in March 1989. Henry Gray subsequently kindly produced a re-worked version of the Seal without the word 'The' in the name of the Society to which I had long had a dislike (and had removed from its name in the new Articles in 1979). As mentioned above the ‘The’ in the title of the Magazine had been dropped in 1972.
A further booklet in the My ancestors series was published in February, the highly successful Merchant Seamen by the brothers Christopher and Michael Watts. A pilot scheme to produce publications on microfiche was agreed in April 1986 and copies of the 1734 Poll Book for Sussex, the 1772 Poll Book for Wiltshire and the 1869 edition of Lloyd’s Captains Register, were produced in that form and sold reasonably well. It may be noted here that the important Lloyd’s Marine Collection was made available at the Guildhall Library in 1980 [3320]. Leaflet No 18 on the Data Protection Act and Genealogists, by Alexander Sandison, was produced in June 1986. A new line in earthenware and china mugs and a pin tray, all bearing the Society’s Seal, was commissioned in small quantities in July and paper bags, similarly printed, were first used in the bookshop in February. The new volume of the National Index for Wales, published in April, is mentioned elsewhere and a revised edition of the Library Guide was also produced. There had been a steady expansion of the bookshop throughout the year, a wider range of smaller books and guides being bought in for re-sale. The discount given to member societies of the Federation was increased from 25% to 33% in February and in May any order above £10 was allowed the larger discount. The usual bookstalls were provided at the Federation’s conference at Loughborough (4-6 April), when a new portable display outlining the Society’s facilities (designed by Charles Plouviez and constructed by Paul Blake) was first used and then, most successfully, throughout the 75th Anniversary Conference [3321].
The early volumes of the PCC Will Index did not sell well but I was much opposed to the publication of the remainder of the index on microfiche as was being suggested. After some experimentation I found that it would be possible to have two columns of typing on each A3 page which might be reduced in printing to A5 and still be legible, thus tripling the number of entries in each volume. Of course the columns could not be typed directly onto A3 and paste-ups had to be made which incorporated any corrections discovered in the checking. All this took considerable time but the sections were typed by Pauline Attrell and then checked against the slips and corrected and pasted up by myself and a third volume, Ch-G, containing some 60,000 entries (as opposed to the 20,000 in volume two), eventually appeared in 1984, when sales of the series became more promising.
Volume Four, H-M, with the many problems of alphabetising the M', Mc and Mac entries, came out in 1988 (£21), followed by Volume Five, N-Sh, in 1991 (£16), and Volume Six, Si-Z, with an extensive series of corrections to the first volume, in December 1992 (£18). By then the success of the volumes was assured and they were making a considerable profit for the Society. In the Preface to Volume Six I said that slips for the Administrations, 1750-1800, had been prepared by the original slip writers and that the typing of these had now commenced, with the intention of publication in due course. As mentioned above they had been sorted by Michael J. Wood back in 1976 [3322] and in fact I had begun to type them myself in my spare time, there being about 120,000 entries.
Under the arrangement with the Federation of Family History Societies, Alan Reed had been the Society’s most active and appreciated representative on the latter’s Executive Committee in succession to Sir Andrew Noble since 1979, but that position he also resigned and in September 1989 Mrs Gill Valentine was nominated in his place. In November 1989 the formal representation of the Federation on the Society’s Library and Computer Committees was brought to an end by mutual agreement, but the useful liaison in the field of publications continued through Mrs Susan B. Lumas. I followed Mrs Valentine as the Society’s representative on the Federation’s Executive Committee from 1992 to 1998 when I was elected President (1998-2000) and Robert Gordon was named the representative.
Sarah J. Walters, the office Assistant, was promoted to Membership Secretary in February 1987 following the resignation of Peter Bacos after two most active years. She herself resigned in March 1988 when Mrs Suzanne J. Spurgeon was appointed in her stead and had the heavy task of entering the details of ten thousand members in the new computer system.
There was, as noted elsewhere, a reduction in the amount of research coming to the Society, and in May 1988 the Research Assistant, Lydia Collins, resigned after ten years sterling work with us, more recently on our publications. It then proved difficult to find anyone with suitable qualifications and experience to administer the work at its then level of income and without considerable expansion (which would itself increase the already heavy level of financially unproductive correspondence) and it was agreed in September 1989 to restrict the work to specified searches in the Society’s library for members only [3323].
I lost my typist, Miss K. Monnica Stevens, to the Library in July 1988 when she was appointed a third Library Assistant to augment and assist the Library staff, and Mrs Beverly Wass was appointed Secretarial Assistant in the general office in her place. A new Library Assistant, who is with the Society still, Miss Clare F. Bullen, took up her position on 3 January 1989. Later that year, in December, another Library Assistant, Nicholas John Fogg, replaced a former short-lived Assistant who had left in October, loyally remaining with the Society until July 2017.
In October 1987 the General Purposes Committee had appointed a ‘Premises Development Working Party’ to consider the overall situation within the building and it was decided that whilst there were clearly growing pressures on the facilities and particularly on the space available, it would be best to build up the Development Fund with a view to a major development at some future date and meanwhile to add a further £25,000 to that Fund, bringing it to £100,000. A further £20,000 was added in 1988 when there was an increase in the sale of publications after a rather disappointing result in 1987. Also in 1988 the membership income increased by almost £12,000, though this was offset by increases in the cost of staffing by £14,000 and of the Magazine by £6,000. As a result of the new rules the tax recovered on covenanted subscriptions continued to fall, from £9,000 in 1986 to £5,860 in 1988.
One particularly generous member who had been closely connected with the Society made an anonymous covenanted donation of £2,000 in April 1988, to be repeated in each of the coming three years. Also in 1988 the Revd J. P. Hill gave £500, Dr Joseph Druse gave $500, Michael Armstrong gave £200 and bequests of £500 each were received under the wills of Arthur J. Howard (together with his microfiche reader) and Sir Andrew Noble.
It was noted in September 1988 that the character of the Society’s immediate surroundings was likely to change considerably by the proposed development of St Bartholomew’s Medical School on the Society’s south and west sides and of the neighbouring Litton House to the south-east and a surveyor had to be engaged and formal protests made before somewhat amended plans were approved by the Borough of Islington on 6 December. Noise and dust from the re-development of Litton House site was endured throughout much of the following year and in June 1989, because of the proximity of the scaffolding, our burglar bars were extended to the rear windows of the Upper Library. Our front elevation was repainted in October 1989. The proposed development of the Medical School site was, however, the subject of considerable discussion and delay and was not completed until 2008-9.
The next few years were remarkably busy. There were 5,406 fee-paying visits by non-members in 1987, and 5,751 in 1988, both record years, with about 19,000 visits by members in 1987 and 25,400 in 1988. The membership passed the 9,000 mark in the first of these years, the 10,000 mark in the second and the 11,000 mark in 1989. However, although there were about 21,500 visits by members in 1989, the number of fee-paying visitors fell to 4,853, the lowest figure for some time, partly no doubt caused by the rail and underground strikes when the Society was several times obliged to close.
Considerable numbers of film and fiche copies of registers were added to the Library but any decision to purchase microfilms of the GRO indexes of births, marriages and deaths was deferred pending the results of discussions as to their possible production on microfiche. Agreement with the diocesan authorities followed by circularisation of the clergy in Devonshire paved the way for the purchase of microfiche copies of many registers from that county.
In July 1986 the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Dr Christopher Watts, had written to The Times about the Society’s work of recording monumental inscriptions and an article in Reader’s Digest did much to publicise our publication on the subject. Consequently there was also a considerable increase, to 619 places in 1987 and 588 in 1988, in the number of transcripts received and in May 1987 we were able to publish the second part of the important Monumental Inscriptions in the Library of the Society covering Northern England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Overseas, the result of much careful work by Lydia Collins and Mabel Morton. Regular new editions were now being produced of all the library catalogues and when in June 1988 the Annual Report mentioned the revision of the Library Guide we noted that 5,000 copies had sold in the preceding twelve months. In October 1987 we published a new booklet Census Indexes in the Library of the Society of Genealogists compiled by the Library Assistant, Jane Kenyon (who unfortunately resigned the following month),which replaced the former Leaflet No 14. Another major catalogue of material in the library was also produced that October: The Trinity House Petitions: a calendar of the records of the Corporation of Trinity House, London, in the library of the Society of Genealogists, compiled by Mr A. D. D’Ews, checked by Isabelle Charlton and Norma Allum and typed for publication by Mr C. V. Porter, I having added an introduction, calendars of the apprenticeship indentures and miscellaneous records and an index of surnames. Mabel Morton continued her work on the library and produced School, University and College Registers and Histories in the Library of the Society of Genealogists, which was typed for publication (in October 1988) by John Addis-Smith. October 1988 also saw the fourth volume of my Index to the Wills Proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury 1750-1800, covering H-M, which was typed by Mrs Pauline Attrell, my double column arrangement now making good headway into the alphabet.
In 1987 we produced two further booklets in the My ancestor series, on Baptists by the Revd Geoffrey R. Breed, and my work on Migrants which was later re-titled My ancestors moved. In May 1988 we produced Mr W. T. Stott’s Volume 6 Part 2 Nottinghamshire of the National Index of Parish Registers and in August, following the great Domesday Exhibition in 1986, my edition of the controversial talks given in 1931-2 and indexes to the various versions of the Battle Abbey Roll, as My ancestors came with the Conqueror.
The material on microfiche continuing to sell reasonably well, a further group of poll books was published in that form in June 1987 and the Bankrupt Directory 1820-43 in February 1988.
There were four new Leaflets in 1987: No 19 Army Research Bibliography and No 20 Navy Research Bibliography, compiled by Dr Watts, No 21 Has it been done before? which I wrote, and No 22 Genealogical sources in London, by Alexander Sandison. Sandison, who had in 1987 spent time on the British Standards Institution’s committee on codes for the name of counties, produced the definitive Leaflet No 23 County Codes in 1988.
Bookstalls were provided at the Federation conferences at Blackpool in April and at Aberystwyth in August 1987. In 1988 the books were taken to six different venues, including the Federation Conference at Aberdeen. Stocks of the Society’s tie showing the Company Seal (produced in 1980) [3324] being exhausted, the opportunity was taken in October 1987 to market a new design with the single motif of the full Achievement of Arms granted in 1986 on a blue background. A badge showing the Seal was also produced in May 1987.
In addition to those already mentioned, further regular volunteers came forward in 1987 to staff the Upper Library and to help with tasks in the library: Miss C. A. Bennett, Miss Iris Caley, Mrs I. Dickson, Miss Jessica Freeman, Mrs C. Hammond, Flt. Lt. Nicholas Newington-Irving, Miss Olive R. G. Jeynes, Mrs L. McGowan, Mr G. Morgan, Mrs Mabel Morton (died 1989), Mrs A. R. Nilson, Mrs Anne Prudames, Mrs Margaret Spearman (died 2012) and Derek Tooke [3325]. New volunteers in 1988 were Mrs Meryl Catty, Mr J. G. Davies, Ms F. S. Deak, Mrs M. B. Ellis, Mrs Lilian Gibbens, Donald Halliday, Brian Hicklenton, Mrs D. Hobin, Mrs Joyce B. Kent (died 2015), Miss Beth Iegge, Edward Lowe, Mrs Wendy Mott and Martin Penny [3326]. Most were happy to man the Upper library and to work there on various projects but they were not so keen to man the Lower Library with its many machines and their ensuing problems!
Substantial increases to the stock of parish registers in microform were made in 1988 when two new microfilm viewers were purchased and additional shelving had to be constructed in the Lower Library to accommodate the growing microfilm collection. The new (1988) version of the English section of the International Genealogical Index was added in June and an order placed for the remainder of the British Isles and the World. We purchased the two per-cent sample of the 1851 Census Returns in October. The large card index compiled by the late Edward Dwelly and mentioned above came to the Society in 1988 and was put in order by volunteers and made available in the Lower Library, the Maintenance Work Group cleverly refurbishing some 92 needed drawers. Further shelving had also to be erected in the Upper Library that year where working parties of volunteers were organised to expand the Document Collection and file therein the large collections of the late William E. C. Cotton and of Mrs Brenda Perks the London-based LDS researcher who was retiring and who died in 1993.
A very successful day conference on the theme ‘Another slice of life’ was organised by Patricia Kirkland and Peter Park at Regent’s College on 7 November 1987, when about 306 participated. Four streams, each of four lectures, were provided and the opening address was given by the Registrar General, Mrs G. T. Banks. The three main talks provided case studies for the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The usual bookstalls were provided by Phillimore & Co, the Institute at Canterbury and the Society.
Two half-day tutorial classes were organised in September and October 1987 on the records of Lancashire and the Birmingham area with local archivists and the librarian as speakers. Joan Coburn again gave two one-day classes and a two-day class in palaeography and Mrs Susan Palmer gave a two-day course in translating medieval Latin, all being fully booked. Two series of ten lectures for beginners were also provided. At the end of the year a more advanced course of eleven lectures, ‘Further sources for the family historian’, was given by Stella Colwell, about sixty attending. Together with Miss Colwell, I represented the Society on an Advisory Committee at the Department of Extra-Mural Studies of London University which approved a syllabus and scheme of study for Certificate and Diploma Courses in Genealogy and the History of the Family offered at two centres by the Department in 1987. As a result I now acted as one of the External Examiners for the Department on those and subsequent courses. In September 1988 Stella Colwell commenced a thirty week Certificate Course, the first year of a two-year course at the Society, with 27 attending.
I had taken further week-end courses at Theobalds College, 18-20 September 1987 and 26-28 February 1988, and with Michael Gandy in 1987 provided a series of day meetings in the Society’s rooms for local family history societies at which we both spoke, many similar group visits along these lines being organised by Mary Gandy with various speakers in the coming years. In May-July 1988 Michael Gandy gave a popular series of eight lectures on 'English History 1485-1914' with forty-seven people attending. On Saturdays in the summers of 1997, 1988 and 1989, David Hawkings, a Fellow who knew the Library well, kindly provided a series of Research Surgeries when a significant number of members were given advice on their genealogical problems. The number of postal enquiries was also great and made greater by an otherwise accurate article in the Edmonton Journal which announced that the Society sold on behalf of the Guild of One-Name Studies its ‘detailed books on each family surname’ (having misunderstood a note about the Guild’s list of registered surnames which we sold), and which resulted in many requests for books on particular families which, of course, we did not have [3327].
In view of all that was happening at home I was not able to go to the Sixth NGS Conference held at Columbus, Ohio, in May 1986, with its 1,200 attendees and at which Donald Lines Jacobus (1887-1970) was the first person admitted to the National Genealogy Hall of Fame, a fine project promoted by President Varney Nell. However, in May 1987 I again visited the United States and lectured at the National Genealogical Society 1987 Conference in the States, ‘Where it all began’, hosted by the North Carolina Genealogical Society and with the amusing expert on Rowan County, Jo White Linn (1930-2006) as Host Society Chairman, at the Radisson Plaza, Raleigh, North Carolina, 13-16 May, which coincided with the 400th anniversary of the Roanoke Island settlement. During the Conference, which had 1,150 attendees, I gave the Meredith B. Colket, Jr., Memorial Lecture, sponsored by the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History, ‘Six things to do in America before giving up on that early immigrant’, as well as two lectures about the Society of Genealogists and its value for the ‘Colonial Period’.
It was with the Raleigh Conference in 1987 that the NGS began to publish a detailed conference syllabus and each lecturer and panel moderator was asked to submit up to four pages of material well in advance so that it could be printed in time. This could be quite a chore and the volumes soon revealed those who could not keep to deadlines, but talks delivered from notes on the backs of old envelopes (which may have had their place elsewhere) thus became a thing of the past. These volumes, at no extra charge, proved to be highly popular and very useful additions to the conferences. The first in 1987 had 232 pages but with the great growth in the number of sessions, the syllabus for the 1990 Conference filled two volumes and had 886 pages. The majority of the talks were also subsequently available on tape for an additional $6 or $7 and one of my first tasks on returning home was to listen to how they went and to see how the texts might be improved. Later, in other countries, lecturers were asked to provide for publication complete texts of their talks in advance and on one occasion I found the prospect of the audience reading along with me so off-putting and restricting that I chose a quite different topic from that in the syllabus, trusting that those present might consider it a bonus.
I went from Columbus to Cleveland again and on 23 May 1987, I conducted a one-day seminar at the Western Reserve Historical Society with Nicholas Vine Hall, Director of the Society of Australian Genealogists. I particularly remember a day there when in the Rare Book Room of the Western Reserve the Director, Kermit Pike, showed us various treasures and opened up on the floor for me the great book commemorating the coronation of Alexander II of Russia in 1855 (I have that for Alexander III in 1883). The previous day I had seen the Russian items in the India Early Minshall Collection, ‘Faberge and his Contemporaries’, at the Cleveland Museum of Art (of which Mrs Norweb was President of the Trustees).
We celebrated the 30th anniversary of my first coming to the Society with an informal reception, very kindly organised by Norma Allum, on 5 September 1987, and attended by 125 members and friends [3328]. A year later, on 9 September 1988, I was, as I said, ‘divided into two camps’ when I formally opened the Federation’s Half-Yearly Conference in two marquees at Avery Hill, Eltham, my speech attracting some attention and being published in full in Family Tree Magazine. I had again been to America in April 1988 when I attended another particularly enjoyable National Genealogical Society 1988 Conference in the States, this time hosted by the L. W. Anderson Genealogical Library at Biloxi, Mississippi, when I was again the speaker at the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History’s Luncheon, addressing the topic ‘Ancestors on the Move; Three Centuries of Migration within England’ which caused some amusement when publicised as ‘Ancestors on the Run’! I stayed with most delegates at the delightful Royal d’Iberville Hotel facing the Gulf and the conference, held along the front at the Mississippi Coast Convention Centre (badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005), attracted some 1,300 registrants. The scholarly NGS President, Erma Angevine, called it ‘a happy, friendly conference from start to finish’ which indeed it was.
The year 1988 had been particularly busy for me and the list of other talks that I gave that year is very long. They included lectures at the Trustees’ Dinner at Dr Williams’s Library (7 July), the ‘Records of the Nation’ conference in connection with the centenary of the British Record Society at the Middle Temple (8-10 August) and the ‘Lure of London’ Day Conference at Friends’ House (8 October).
The algorithm mentioned above with its 85 questions leading to the Society of Genealogists which was first published in 1975 had been reprinted in the first edition of Tracing Your Ancestors in the Public Record Office (1981) and was, I thought, a considerable tribute to the Society's library staff and its harassed research department but I could not help making fun of it when I was asked to open a new (and, in the event, short-lived) Family History Enquiry Desk at the Public Record Office at Kew on 4 July 1988.
The tutorial classes in 1987 having proved successful, the Conferences Manager, Mary Gandy, organised a day class on schools’ records with five lectures on various types of schools on 19 November 1988, when 58 attended. There were the usual classes in palaeography and Latin in 1988 and two series of ten lectures for beginners.
Evelyn M. Kenward organised a successful Saturday afternoon workshop on 21 February 1987 with several practical demonstrations illustrating the use of databases by family historians, when about thirty members attended. Evening meetings for computer enthusiasts took place throughout this and the following year. With John Addis-Smith she also organised two successful half-day conferences at the Society in February and November 1988, both being attended by about 75 people. John Addis-Smith himself organised on behalf of the Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society a day conference at Ardwick Green North on 14 May when 130 attended, the local arrangements being made by Mr H. King.
The Society had, in December 1986, purchased an Amstrad PC 1512 Computer with WordPerfect software and an NEC printer for use in the Society’s office, particularly for publications, and I was able to produce the Annual Report on it that year. The funds for its purchase had been contributed by our friends in Bill Linder’s group [3329]. In 1987 the second edition of My ancestor was a merchant seaman, several other booklets, publication lists and many form letters were composed thereon. However, it unfortunately proved impossible to transfer the mailing list from a volunteer’s Torch Graduate to the Society’s Amstrad and the whole list had to be re-keyed by the Membership Secretary, Suzanne Spurgeon. In anticipation of my thirtieth anniversary with the Society, a second Amstrad was purchased in March 1987 and loaned to me for my personal use [3330].
In the early part of 1988, with the object of computerising the membership records and easing the production of addressed envelopes for the Magazine, three possible membership systems were evaluated by the Society’s staff assisted by John Addis-Smith. The Lodestar System was chosen and a new computer and printer purchased and installed in July. Suzanne Spurgeon then had the heavy task of re-entering the eleven thousand subscription and address records but the system was fully operational by the time of the despatch of the March 1989 Magazine. A major resulting improvement was the inclusion of membership cards as a part of the mailing labels, though naturally these were initially sometimes overlooked and discarded from the plastic sleeves by the less observant members. In September that year the Magazine was itself despatched through an agency, the labels being presorted in the office with Mailsort software [3331].
As a result of our talks in Salt Lake City in August 1985 I had convened a meeting of representatives of all the main bodies representing users of records at the Society on Saturday, 9 November 1985, to discuss ways in which assistance might be given to the Church’s microfilming and indexing programmes and a useful exchange of ideas and information took place. This and subsequent meetings of the group was basically limited to users of records rather than to their custodians and soon came to be called the British Genealogical Record Users Committee (BGRUC but christened ‘BugRug’ by Dr Watts!). It played a most important role over the next twelve years but was greatly weakened in its lobbying work when, after I retired, custodians were admitted. I acted as the Group’s convenor, minute taker and general dogsbody, and the Chair was taken at alternate sessions by representatives of the Genealogical Department (formerly the GSU), the SoG and the FFHS.
In preparation for the first meeting of the Committee, Jeffrey Packe brought Richard Ebert and Mark Bell from the Department’s Acquisitions Division to the Society on 7 November and we went through the agenda. Jeffrey, as noted above, had with great tact and discretion long represented the Church’s genealogical interests in the British Isles and personally knew the majority of those likely to be involved in any meeting. He was based at Ipswich (where much earlier he had been President of the Magic Circle) but was due to retire in 1986.
The particularly active President of the Church, Spencer Kimball, unfortunately died on 5 November, but Elder Scott came to England and was able to be present for the first part of the day-long meeting at the Society which was chaired by Chris Watts. I went early but found the eager Elder Scott with Jeffrey, Richard and Mark, waiting in their car outside. He outlined the LDS objectives as to store, to be able to retrieve, and to make available in libraries and then the home, the worldwide genealogy of man. The intention was to improve the accuracy of the computerised records, capturing the lineage links in original records. A Genealogical Information System (GIS) would be formed, comprising a Patron Access System for those using small computers, the Ancestral File which would eventually replace the IGI, Ordinance Files to check duplicated entries, Resource Files for census, birth, marriage and probate records, and a Research Guidance System. The objectives for the main System were that it should handle all kinds of genealogical data, be upgradeable as technology improved, be usable by unskilled persons, users having IBM compatible machines, and that little initial investment be required. The target was to add sixty million records to the System every year and that it be operational within six months. Elder Scott sought co-operation in the indexing of records, in the exchange of material in GEDCOM format, in acquiring genealogical records, and in sharing lineage-linked data. In the discussion which followed it was said that the Church might provide hardware and software to assist in the process but it needed information on what was available in the UK and its potential, which might then be evaluated. It could then adapt software for Personal Ancestral File and make it available here.
The Committee agreed to form a Project Co-ordination Sub-Committee (which was to meet on 11 January) and an Automation Sub-Committee, the latter consisting of representatives of the SoG and LDS together with Dr Edward Higgs from the PRO and Kevin Schurer from the Cambridge Group. BGRUC would itself next meet, chaired by FFHS, at the end of April.
After the meeting an old friend, George H. Fudge, who for years had been involved in the work of the GSU and was to die rather suddenly in January, toured our library and remarked how things had changed since we first met. It was he who had proposed the revolutionary system of performing sealings for individually extracted names (without the necessity of having them in family groups) and in 1977 had made the ‘inspired’ proposal (its description by Elder Packer) that the extraction work be decentralized to the local stakes, both of which suggestions had contributed enormously to the development of the Department.
The Society’s representatives on the Automation Sub-Committee on 7 March 1986 were Donald Francis, David Hawgood and Christopher Watts, and they discussed with others from the Genealogical Department standards for the holding and transferring of parish register material. Attempts were then made to transfer the Society’s recommendations for copying and indexing parish registers and monumental inscriptions into GEDCOM format and to transfer a register already on computer to GEDCOM. The Project Co-ordinators Sub-Committee had met on 11 January to attempt a revision of the Catalogue of Parish Register Copies: Part Two but the joint approaches to various local societies again met with little response.
It was then agreed that the Society, in consultation with the Federation, should undertake a survey of the equipment that family historians were then using [3332], and slightly differing questionnaires, drafted by Donald Francis, were sent out with the September Magazine and with Computers in Genealogy. The aim, as the forms said, was firstly to inform discussions with Salt Lake City on the possible development of Ancestral File by bringing together privately held material, and secondly to provide an index of users who might provide information and advice on the equipment and software available (such as had existed at the Society and proved useful for the last three years). By February 1987 about 400 returns showed that 33% were using BBC, 25% Amstrad and 10% Spectrum machines. A similar survey made by Mrs Lonnie Race in 1988, showed that about a third had IBM compatible machines and slightly less than a third BBC machines.
In the spring of 1987 the BGRUC’s statement ‘Records at Risk’, drafted by Chris Watts, which recommended the general microfilming of records, was circulated to many record offices. The Automation Sub-Committee met in June and October that year when the GEDCOM Standard was discussed and the LDS’ Automated Public Access Catalogue, a revised version of the Personal Ancestral File, and the Universal Data Entry software were demonstrated by L. Reynolds Cahoon [3333]. He came again from Salt Lake City to report progress in August 1988.
In August 1987 the Genealogical Department of the Church had been re-named the Family History Department and its library became the Family History Library and a month later on 26 September 1987, the groundwork having been laid, I convened another important meeting of BGRUC in London to which Richard Scott again came with Mark Bell and Rick Ebert. After giving a summary of progress with the IGI and demonstrating Ancestral File, Elder Scott put forward a possible project to transcribe and index one of the English census returns which would use the volunteer labour of Church members together with that of the members of the societies belonging to the Federation of Family History Societies. For me it was a typically busy day, with a talk to ninety visitors from the Birmingham and Midland Society in the morning, then the setting up of the room and the moving of chairs and tables for the meeting in the early evening. Although we all went to dinner nearby it was not until 10.30 that I came back to the Society with Mark and Rick to pack things up.
Subsequently the Project Co-ordinators Sub-Committee met on two occasions to discuss details of the indexing project which, it was agreed, would be limited to the 1881 Returns, the latest then available, and launched in 1988. The Church representatives had been keen to produce a national index to the 1851 returns and had already done a trial run on a few counties but much time, effort and resources had already been invested by member societies of the Federation in transcriptions and published indexes to the 1851 Returns. Although one centralised index to the latter would have been invaluable it was thought that such an index to the 1881 Returns would be equally valuable without undercutting the work of the local societies and the Church agreed that an 1881 index would provide ‘a useful platform from which family history researchers could begin their investigations into the past’, though, of course, the work involved would be appreciably larger.
The final agreement put the Federation in charge of transcription and the Family History Department was to provide paper copies of the census, data entry software and hardware, and outputs in the form of microfiche at cost. Work began in February 1988 when the first of 8-9,000 volunteers began copying the 26.5 million photocopied entries (weighing 3 tonnes) onto printed forms (another 13 tonnes). It was the largest cooperative indexing project ever attempted, covering England, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Overall direction was given by Mark Bell the Department’s Acquisitions Manager and Richard Alan Sowter (died 2017) of Bristol acted as registrar of the participating groups, both giving enormous time and energy to the project. In Salt Lake City Sarah Beth Galloway headed the Co-operative Indexing Unit which tracked the whereabouts of each census batch and at The National Archives at Kew it fell to Susan Lumas to organise the checking of the illegible copies by eight missionaries who travelled in twice a week for five years to work on the original returns. A report on the project’s progress was given to the full meeting of BGRUC in April 1988 when the Registrar General’s report ‘Historical Records’ was also discussed. Richard Scott himself was sustained to the Quorum of the Twelve that year and was succeeded as Executive Director of the Family History Department by J. Richard Clarke (born 1927), who had been in life insurance but was then another active General Authority in the Church.
Starting in 1989 a group of 7,500 Church members began the data entry, using 170 personal computers purchased specifically for the project, with Jack (died 1999) and Yvonne Hoare coming from Australia to England and acting as their National Co-ordinators until 1991. The Hoares were succeeded by Kenneth and Dorothy Poole and then by Stephen Young from Canada. In 1992 sixty-two data entry sites at LDS churches in England were working on the project, supported by a staff of thirty full-time missionaries and ten volunteers at Church headquarters. The first outputs for individual counties – Cambridgeshire, Denbigh and Flint – were published on microfiche in 1991. The transcription work in my home county of Hertfordshire was organised by Mrs Janet Pearson and in 1989-90 I joined the volunteers and transcribed for her the parishes of Ardeley and Benington.
By the end of 1994 some 99% of the census had been transcribed and 82% entered on computer discs. Index fiche had been produced for 42 of the 91 counties in the British Isles and the results were revolutionizing genealogical research in England and Wales [3334]. A separate project, co-ordinated by the GSU and the Scottish Association of Family History Societies, started much later and covered the 1881 census for Scotland.
In London the Record Users’ Committee received regular reports of the steady progress of this remarkable project and it was my pleasant duty to acknowledge receipt on behalf of the SoG Library of the regular stream of county microfiche indexes that were produced. Transcription came to an end in April 1995 and data entry was completed later that year. I represented the Society at a commemorative luncheon held at Wolverhampton on 7 October. By then the Record Users’ Committee was turning its attention to another possible joint project, intended to take the form of a series of local burial indexes, concentrating in its initial stages on the period 1813-50, which later evolved into the National Burial Index [3335]. At its meeting in October 1996 the Committee received a report on the completion of the 1881 Census project on microfiche and the Society’s thanks were expressed to the GSU for the enormous contribution of resources and motivation which it had provided. Work to produce a CD-ROM version of the index then proceeded [3336].
At other informal meetings, unconnected with BGRUC, at which the Society was represented in 1987 the launch of a group of Friends of the Public Record Office (FPRO) and of a London Archive Users Forum (LAUF) was agreed. I attended an informal meeting of the Friends on 9 August 1988 and their formal inauguration on 12 December when I was elected to its Council and I was present when LAUF was officially launched on 23 March 1988.
Further sums of £100 were donated in 1987 and 1988 to assist the advertising campaign of the Records Preservation Section of the British Records Association.
Together with the Chairman, Alan Reed, I represented the Society at a reception at the College of Arms on 7 January 1988 to celebrate the Centenary of the British Record Society’s Index Library (of which I had been a member for twenty years) and the eightieth birthday of its Honorary Editor, Dr Marc Fitch.
The Society’s Chairman, Alan Reed, was appointed to represent the Federation of Family History Societies on the newly formed National Council on Archives which was launched at a meeting in London on 9 March 1988 and was intended to act as a forum through which users could exchange views with archivists.
Following the Report of the Warnock Committee the Society had in 1984 made representations to the Department of Health and Social Security, the Executive Committee having agreed that the proposed falsification of the birth certificates of children conceived following artificial insemination by donor (A.I.D.) should be resisted at all costs. The Executive Committee believed that a register should be set up, similar to that for adopted children, which would record the name of the true father. It also believed that this information should become available to the child when it became an adult and that any birth certificate issued, whilst naming the mother’s husband, should be marked in some discreet manner to indicate that conception had followed artificial insemination by donor [3337].
However, the Family Law Reform Bill which dealt mainly with the rights of illegitimate children and came before Parliament in January 1987, proposed to allow children born as a result of A.I.D. to be registered as legitimate children. The Society gave support to its Vice-President, Lord Denning, who sought in Debates in the House of Lords to have the clause deleted or the birth certificate annotated to show the father ‘by donation’. He was unsuccessful and the Bill was carried into Law.
A possible opportunity to amend the Act came with the publication of the Government’s discussion paper Legislation on Human Fertility Services and Embryo Research: A Consultation Paper (Cm 46), on which the Society’s comments, based on a draft by Stephen Hale, were submitted to the Department of Health and Social Security in June 1987. The Society was partially gratified by the publication of a White Paper in November [3338]. This proposed a statutory centralised licencing authority to which clinics would return full details of donors in A.I.D. cases, though the Government was not of the opinion that these details should be available to the child or that the child’s birth certificate should be annotated in any way. However, any person over the age of eighteen would be able to enquire if he or she had been conceived following sperm or embryo donation.
Lord Denning returned to the attack on these matters in a Debate in the House of Lord early in 1988, the Society taking the view that the birth certificate should be annotated and that the child at the age of eighteen or its descendants should be able to discover the true identity of its father [3339].
The Second Reading of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill did not take place until 2 December 1989 when Lord Teviot spoke, indicating the Society’s interest, and he subsequently sought the Society’s assistance in the preparation of amendments to be put forward during the Committee stages. The Chairman (Stephen Hale), Garter King of Arms (Sir Colin Cole) and I met Lady Saltoun (who had also spoken in the Debate) and Lord Teviot, and the Chairman subsequently assisted in the drafting of amendments. These would have required birth certificates to be discreetly annotated to indicate whether the mother or father was so by virtue of the provisions of the Bill, would have allowed the child to have full identifying information about its genetic parents at the age of 18 after counselling, would have made that information available to the child’s descendants after its death as well as to its medical advisers, would have attempted to extend the provisions of the Bill to children already born, and would have required all the records to be permanently preserved and made Public Records after 115 years [3340].
The Society assisted Lord Teviot and Lady Saltoun to organise a meeting at the House of Lords to lobby peers on 23 January 1990 which was well attended. The Earl Marshal (The Duke of Norfolk), Garter King of Arms and the Lord Lyon King of Arms all participated. The Chairman and I attended the Debates during the Committee Stage of the Bill when Lord Teviot was unfortunately heavily defeated. Further Amendments were attempted at the Report Stage when the Government agreed that donor children should not inherit titles or, in Scotland, arms.
The Bill subsequently had its Third Reading in the House of Lords and then went to Committee in the Commons where further attempts were made to amend it. The British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering with the Association of Directors of Social Services and the British Association of Social Workers promoted amendments which would allow any child to establish whether it was conceived following donation and to obtain non-identifying information about the donor and, at the age of eighteen, to have the full identifying information. The Society wrote to all the members of the Commons’ Committee indicating its support for these amendments and suggesting an additional one which would extend the right of access to full identifying information to grandchildren and other descendants. The Chairman made a plea at the Federation Conference at Newquay for participants to write to their Members of Parliament and a letter along similar lines was published in the May issue of Family Tree Magazine. In June the Daily Telegraph surprisingly printed my angry letter pointing out that although the charity Relate was worried about the number of divorces in England and the Prime Minister was concerned with the importance of family life, the Government had spent many days considering how it might license the introduction of a ‘donor’ third party to infertile couples with a spare £8,000 and, so that the supply did not run out, how it might guarantee their anonymity. At the same time, I wrote, it was denying the importance of genetic descent or paternity and although the truth might be recorded, no one was to be told, least of all the child or those descendants who inherited or suffered. I asked, ‘What form of family life, based on such principles and lies, does the Government really want?’ [3341].
Unfortunately not one of our amendments was secured though the Government stated that if the climate of public opinion changed it would be prepared to amend the Regulations relating to access to information. This would not, however, be done retrospectively. The clause exempting titles (and arms in Scotland) which had been deleted at Committee Stage, was re-inserted by the Government, though, as birth certificates are not to be marked, it is not clear how it can be applied [3342]. Altogether, although the arguments would clearly continue, it was a most disappointing outcome.
In January 1992 I submitted a paper to the Inter-Departmental Review of Adoption Law and a Consultation Document was published in October. It made no mention of the problems of descendants of adopted persons with regard to access to the adoptees’ original birth certificates, about which we had been so long concerned, and this matter was then further stressed [3343].
After I had retired I was glad to note that public opinion was deemed to have changed and that in 2004 new Regulations put out by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which came into effect on 1 April 2005 [3344], enabled those born after that date who suspected that they were donor-conceived children (for their birth certificates continue to lie) to request and receive, when they reach the age of eighteen, the name and last known address of their sperm, egg or embryo donor. The Society’s Annual Report made no mention of this important development and my successor as President of the Federation of Family History Societies, in spite of her husband’s earlier involvement, told me that I should not meddle in such things. They seem quite fundamental to me.
In December 2005, as a result of the Adoption and Children Act 2002, which for the first time gave unmarried and same-sex couples the legal right to adopt children, those parents who had given up chidren for adoption were also given the right to trace their children through an intermediary, so long as the child agreed. In November 2014 new rules further allowed the birth relatives of those adopted before 30 December 2005 to find out about their family histories and medical backgrounds, the regulations ensuring that the consent of the adopted person was obtained before contact or information sharing was facilitated, unless only non-dentifying medical information was being sought, the adoptee had died, was incapacitated or could not be found [3345].
Thus I had the satisfaction of seeing that matters for which we had lobbied for so long had, to some extent at least, at last come to pass.
Membership cards were for the first time distributed by post with the March 1989 Magazine following the completion of the computeration of the records and in September the Magazine was itself despatched through an agency using labels presorted with Mailsort software. With the high level of interest rates then prevailing the surplus that year reached an unprecedented level, due also to the increase in subscriptions agreed in 1988, the number of consequential resignations having been quite low. Bequests of £500 each were received from G.W. Iredell and E.R. Campbell that year. The possible payment of subscriptions and bookshop purchases by credit card was considered but deferred.
The Society’s pension scheme had previously been restricted to senior and long serving employees but in 1990 it was agreed that all permanent and full-time staff should become eligible to join the scheme after six months’ service. The investment income in 1990 was £49,928 but the Annual Report [page 4] contained a stern warning that the investments could not be relied upon as a source of income and that interest rates were already falling. Mr R. Jacomb bequeathed the Society £500 that year.
At the Annual General Meeting on 28 June 1990 the Society’s General Regulations were amended and the category of ‘Married Couples’ was deleted and replaced by ‘Family Members’, defined as married couples or two or more related persons resident at the same address who opted to receive only one copy of the Magazine, they paying one normal rate subscription plus a concessionary rate for each additional family member. 1,434 new members were elected that year.
In 1991 the interest rates again fell but membership continued to grow, rising to 12,280, though the Gulf War and terrorist activity in London in the early part of the year reduced the number of visitors and day-searchers. The Society received £250 as a bequest from Colonel Stanley Marker, £500 under the will of Mr B. W. Leask and £2,039 for computer development under that of Alexander Sandison. The final £2,000 of the four-year anonymous covenanted donation for library use was also received this year and placed in a Special Donations Fund.
Membership continued to rise and in 1992 some 1,456 new members were elected, the total reaching 12,967. Interest rates, however, continued to fall and expenditure to rise, that on salaries in 1992 being the largest single increase. A bequest from Mr H. J. Hoby of £1,127 was received that year.
The Finance Officer, Sir Wilfred Robinson, retired at the end of June 1992 after twelve years which had seen a tremendous expansion in the Society; its then financial well-being owing much to his careful management. Tributes were paid and a presentation made at the AGM and Michael F. McEvoy, a former Branch Manager with Barclays Bank, was appointed in his stead.
Some 1,360 new members were elected in 1993, the lowest number for ten years, but at the end of the year membership stood at 13,346 including 1,489 who lived overseas. However, in view of the increased level of expenditure it was agreed at the AGM on 29 June 1993 that the annual subscriptions for new members from 1 October 1993 and for existing members from 1 January 1994 be increased to £30 for Town Members (concessionary £22.50) and £21 for Country Members (concessionary £15.75). The numbers elected fell in 1994 to 1,152 but the total stood at 12,904 including 1,496 overseas. In 1995 there were 1,240 elected and the total stood at 13,255 with 1,472 overseas. Some 537 copies of the Magazine were in addition distributed to subscribers or in exchange for other periodicals.
However, the covenanting of subscriptions was again allowed in 1994 and nearly a thousand members immediately joined the scheme, resulting in the recovery of £8,063 in tax. By the end of 1995 2,100 members had covenanted their subscriptions and that number increased to 3,000 in 1996 and produced nearly £16,000. The two-day Family History Fair with an increased entrance fee in 1994 achieved a surplus of £15,219. Salary rates were now being increased in line with the Retail Prices Index and reviewed annually and loans were being made to individual staff, repayable in instalments, for travel season tickets.
The careful Honorary Treasurer over the previous nine years, Victor Gale, was not eligible for re-election at the AGM in June 1994 when Alan Wood, FFA, was elected to the Executive Committee and appointed Treasurer in his stead. A bequest of £1,000 was received under the will of Mrs O. E. Green and covenanted donations of £1,000 each were received from Misses C. S. and P. A. Loveridge. Mr T. R. Behm generously gave amounts totalling £2,109 for Library equipment.
The Finance Officer, Michael McEvoy, resigned in May 1994 and in July we were fortunate to be able to appoint Roger Lawson, formerly Principal Accountant to Maldon District Council and Deputy Bursar at Brentwood School, in his stead. Mr H. Khansa had provided very effective interim assistance to me meanwhile.
It was agreed at the AGM on 27 June 1995 that for ease of administration the Society’s General Regulations be amended to require Members who wished to claim a concessionary rate subscription to do so by 31 October of the subscription year preceding that for which they first claimed the reduced rate. In 1995 Miss D. A. Hills bequeathed the Society £12,722 and Mr E. Ward Hind bequeathed £2,255. An anonymous covenanted donation realising £2,666 for library purposes was also received that year, Mr T. R. Behm gave £1,000 and Dr Joseph Druse gave $500. An upgrade to the computerized membership system was installed in August 1995 and an electronic credit card processor in December.
Slight but necessary adjustments to the Annual Accounts for 1994 reduced the surplus by about £8,000 and the 1995 Annual Report explained, ‘It is considered that showing the surplus for the year before the addition of any donations received, which are themselves unplanned, best indicates the financial results of the Society’.
Throughout 1996 and 1997 I attended the meetings of Towards Historic Clerkenwell which organised the Clerkenwell City Walk and I was present at the Walk’s inauguration on 12 July 1996, the Society featuring in a widely publicised explanatory booklet and other publicity material.
It was agreed in 1996 that the use of direct debits for the payment of subscriptions be introduced, where agreeable, in 1998, but as with the covenants there was initially only a modest response to Roger Lawson’s appeal sent with the December 1996 Magazine. In 1996 Mrs H. N. Smith gave £1,000 in memory of her late husband Colonel Leonard H. Smith, Jr., and Dr Joseph Druse gave a further $500. A covenanted donation realising £1,000 was received from David Squire and an anonymous donation realised £2,000.
In September 1996 the Executive Commitee agreed to dispense with sponsors for future members (though reserving the right to ask for them under the Society’s General Regulations) and to work towards a single-rate universal subscription for all future members. Some 1,428 members were elected in 1996 and at the end of the year the membership stood at 13,871 including 1,585 who lived abroad. 470 copies of the Magazine were in addition distributed to subscribers or in exchange for other periodicals.
In July 1997 it was agreed that in future the loyalty of those who had been members of the Society for more than fifty years should be rewarded with Life Membership. Accordingly, twenty-three Members were informed that they did not need to pay any subscription in 1998. In 1997 Stephen Hale gave £1,316 in memory of his father, Mr T. Behm gave £1,000 and the Misses C. S. and P. A. Loveridge made covenanted donations producing £1,948 and £2,2597 respectively. A generous bequest by Mrs Ada 'Joan' Goadby, the second wife and widow of Brigadier Goadby, herself interested in local and family history, who had died in 1987, came this year and amounted to £24,374. The anonymous member who paid for my retirement reception gave an additional covenanted donation worth £974. The overall surplus in 1997 was thus £86,919 (as against £34,687 in 1996).
At the AGM on 24 June 1997 substantial alterations were made to the members’ subscriptions in the Society’s General Regulations. These left unchanged the subscriptions of existing members paying the full rates, but increased the subscriptions of those paying concessionary rates to a more realistic level, requiring all future Members to pay one universal rate equivalent to the London Member rate, and removing for future Members any residence qualifiation and the possibility of concessionary rates. By the end of the year it did not appear that these changes had had any effect on the number of new members elected, but they greatly simplified the administration of the Society. The income from subscriptions in 1997 increased by £20,382.
Some 1,489 members were elected in 1997 and at the end of the year the membership stood at 14,097 including 1,410 overseas. 467 copies of the Magazine were in addition distributed to subscribers or in exchange for other periodicals.
In June 1989 the burglar bars on windows were extended to those of the Upper Library. Additional smoke detectors were installed in the Middle and Lower Libraries in 1990. Noise and dust from the continuing development of Litton House to the east of the Society continued throughout 1990, but a projected development of the St Bartholomew’s Medical School site on the south and west sides was delayed.
In July 1992 the entrance hall, bookshop, ground floor corridor and the windows on the side and rear elevations were re-painted. In November 1992 the Executive Committee agreed a plan to redevelop the garage but this was delayed whilst the possibility of expansion into the neighbouring property on the north in Charterhouse Buildings was investigated. The latter proved financially impossible and outline planning approval having been granted in April 1993, it was decided in May to obtain estimates for the necessary work. Tenders were sent out in August and work commenced in November, being completed in February 1994. These works cost £63,000 over two years, taken from the Development Fund. The garage was converted into an open-plan bookshop, through which all our visitors had to pass, the ugly garage shutters being replaced by a large window facing the road. Mobile shelving for stock and an increased locker area were provided at the rear, 24 new lockers being added in October 1994. At the same time a computer and microfilm reading room and a library workroom replaced former offices on the ground floor and the obsolete tank room in the basement was cleared to make space for the maintenance workgroup. The oversight of the bookshop was transferred from the Publications Committee to the General Purposes Committee in 1996 and from October the Bookshop Manager reported directly to that committee. In April its stock had been entered on a new cash register which accepted both bar-code readings and manual entries.
The roof of the tank room was reconstructed in 1995 when security lighting was installed at the front of the building and above the fire escape doors. The cost of the building’s insurance having fallen slightly in 1996 the opportunity was taken to increase substantially the insurance on the books and microforms. An intruder alarm system was installed early in 1996 and a new accounting system in February. A vending machine for drinks was installed in the Members Room for a trial period in December 1996 and a more superior one acquired for the common room in June 1997, a wall telephone for the use of members being then also installed. The common room, lecture room and toilets were decorated during the year.
It having proved difficult to find anyone with suitable qualifications and experience to administer the research department at its present level of income and without considerable expansion which would itself increase the already heavy level of financially unproductive enquiry, it was agreed in September 1989 to restrict the research carried out to specified searches in the Society’s library and for members only.
Lawson Edwards, the Librarian for 22 years, announced in September that he would take early retirement at the end of 1990 and an informal presentation was made on 18 December, but he continued working until the end of January 1991 when Mrs Susan Gibbons took up the post. She was a former member of the Society and of its Computer Group and had sixteen years library service with the London Borough of Southwark, latterly as a Branch Librarian.
Mrs Mary Gandy, the Publications and Conferences Manager resigned in November 2002 to become General Secretary of the Catholic Child Welfare Council, and Stella Colwell resigned from the Executive Committee to take up the vacated post in January 1993. Nicholas Harden, the Senior Library Assistant and Volunteers’ Organiser also resigned in December 1992 to take up a position with the South Warwickshire Hospital Library and in March 1993 was replaced by Mrs Fiona Jackson, formerly with Bromley Local Studies Library. The Librarian was unfortunately absent through illness from mid-January to the end of March 1994 and Miss Jackson took maternity leave in August and resigned in December. Miss Else Churchill, formerly Librarian at the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies, who had worked as a temporary cataloguer since July 1994 was appointed in Miss Jackson’s stead, taking up the appointment in January 1995.
Following Mary Gandy’s resignation and after the usual advertisements and interviews I decided to appoint Stella Colwell in her place, she undoubtedly being the most experienced applicant for the position, but fully realising that she had never been an easy person to work with. She took up the position of Publications and Conferences Manager in January 1993 [3348] and although she had herself been a member of the Executive Committee until the previous month she immediately began to raise questions about her salary and the administration of the Society. As noted the Librarian was unfortunately unwell and absent from the Society from mid-January to the end of March 1994 [3349] and the Finance Officer resigned in May [3350]. At the Annual Meeting on 28 June 1994 with the inexperienced Paul Blake in the Chair, Miss Colwell, a member of the Society but also a member of its staff, without due notice proposed in the most unpleasant language that the Executive Committee should give further consideration to staff salaries and that it should consider an independent review of the 'management, motivation and direction' of the Society. This was agreed by a narrow majority to be the view of the members present [3351].
The proposal was, of course, technically out of order, but a working group was set up from new members of the Executive Committee and consideration given to the points raised. The group found, as the Annual Report says, that the salaries were, in fact, in line with those of other learned societies and libraries (as the tables published by the Foundation for Science and Technology showed), if not in line with the commercial market place [3352].
However, a turbulent and deeply unpleasant period ensued. In March 1995 Miss Colwell walked out of the Society and in April commenced an action against both me and the Society in the Industrial Tribunal which we took active steps to defend [3353]. There was no development in 1996 [3354] and the action dragged on until settled in 1997 on terms that the parties agreed to keep confidential [3355]. Meanwhile her position was not filled and I took on her previous work with part-time secretarial assistance, arranging lectures and publications, although under great pressure until I left the Society. She resigned her membership in 2014.
Miss Marie B. Hickey had been appointed to succeed Miss K. Monnica Stevens as a Library Assistant in August 1992 but the latter continued her important work with the organisation of parish register transcription, working two days a week.
After six years with the Society, Mrs Dawn Jarvis resigned as Publications Assistant/Receptionist in November 1995, and in December Robert Thompson was appointed Publications Assistant in her stead. Wendy Anderson, appointed a receptionist in July 1993 continued to act throughout this period.
The popular Bookshop Manager, Mrs Barbara Merrall, retired in September 1997 having worked for the Society since 1985 and was succeeded by the Publications Assistant, Robert Thompson who was then replaced by Ian Wilde. The Saturday Receptionist, Harold Crocket, who had been with us for some years also retired in November that year.
With a greater income from high interest rates an increased expenditure on the library was now possible. Much binding and rebinding took place and substantial additions were made to the collection of parish register transcripts, many being jointly purchased with members under the Society’s sponsorship scheme.
In 1989 some 948 books and transcripts were re-bound, a further 615 in 1990, 550 in 1991, 482 in 1992, about 300 in 1993, 383 in 1994, 415 in 1995 and 372 in 1996. No figure was recorded in 1997 though £7,338 was spent on conservation work, binding transcripts and rebinding books that year.
Three valuable collections of Jewish material, the Colyer Fergusson, Hyamson and D’Arcy Hart Collections were placed on loan with the Society by the Anglo-Jewish Archives in November 1989 for microfilming with the assistance of a grant from the British Library. The Bank of England Will Extracts were filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah and a valuable collection of books, many on America, was donated by Mrs M. Agnieray. Consideration was given to an offer by the Ministry of Defence to deposit a large group of original records of Deceased Soldiers 1901-21 with the Society; alternatives were explored and they were placed with the National Army Museum. Additional shelving in both the Lower and Upper Libraries was constructed by volunteers this year.
The President, HRH Prince Michael of Kent, visited the rooms on 17 July 1990 and toured the building. The different aspects of the Society’s work were explained by the staff and volunteers and Prince Michael then met members of the General Purposes Committee and discussed the White Paper on the future of the General Register Office and its ‘historic’ records.
The use of the exceptional anonymous donation of £8,000 announced in 1988 received much consideration and it was agreed in May 1989 that it be used to purchase the General Register Office birth, marriage and death indexes when these became available on fiche. At the end of 1990 we thus ordered the Birth Indexes for 1837-1901 and by the end of 1991 all the Birth, Marriage and Death Indexes from 1837 to 1920 had been received and made available on carousels in the Lower Library. Part of this donation was used in 1993 to purchase name indexes to the Griffiths Valuation for seven Irish counties.
The Senior and two junior Library Assistants attended basic computer courses in 1990. The Librarian, Susan Gibbons, spoke to the Federation’s meeting on ‘Running a society’s library’ held at the Society, on 20 July 1991.
Permission to obtain films of parish registers in the National Library of Wales, granted by the Representative Body of the Church in Wales in November 1987, was withdrawn in June 1989, but reinstated early in 1991 and the sponsorship scheme then proved popular for purchases of these registers as well as for Scottish registers and census returns. The scheme was then extended to include the filming of books and manuscripts in our Library.
The loan of fiche to members was approved in October 1991 and from February 1992 all new additions to the Document Collection were microfiched and then made available for loan in that format. Some 117 items were acquired by sponsorship in 1992. A microfilm reader/printer was acquired in September 1991 and amongst donated equipment were two fiche cabinets given by Barry Faiers.
In 1991 the Thameside Family History Group together with three library authorities made very considerable donations of books to the Library, including many regimental histories, several multi-volume nineteenth century biographical dictionaries, a set of Crisp’s Visitations of England and Wales, runs of the Law List, Crockford’s Clerical Directory, the Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, the Cambridge University Calendar and the Annual Register. Microfilms of the Principal Probate Registry will calendars, 1858-1930, rearranged by initial letter and covering surnames A-L were purchased (the remainder coming over the next six years) as well as the indexes to the baptisms and marriages in the Scottish Old Parochial Registers, 1553-1854.
Films of the birth, marriage and death announcements in The Times, with indexes 1816-1920, were purchased in 1992 and other important purchases included the multi-volume Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland and a large number of Victoria County Histories. Miss Isobel Mordy presented her large collection of Jewish pedigrees and indexes in March 1993 and in July 1993 the British Rail Archives presented the original Great Western Railway Stockholders Probate Registers 1835-1932 in 270 large volumes.
The number of visits by members in 1990 increased to about 27,500 (falling to 21,800 in 1991) and fee-paying searchers 5,132 used the Library (again falling to 4,469 in 1991). Fortnightly tours for new members on Saturday mornings continued to be popular throughout 1991-7 as did lectures and tours for other groups. Member visits increased to about 29,600 in 1992 (29,300 in 1993; 27,760 in 1994; 26,525 in 1995; 31,600 in 1996; 29,688 in 1997) and fee-paying visitors to 4,688 (4,426 in 1993; 4,382 in 1994; 4,630 in 1995; 4,574 in 1996; 4,138 in 1997). There were also in 1992 some 34 tours for local and other groups. Some 1,062 items were loaned to Members (998 in 1993; 619 in 1994; 677 in 1995; 677 again in 1996; 580 in 1997), a quarter of those in 1990 being in microform and 55% being copies of parish registers. By 1997 some 9% of the figures were loans of audio casettes of lectures.
The involvement of volunteers within the library had by 1989 greatly increased and regular teams organised by Nicholas Harden staffed the Upper and Lower libraries. Others worked on the special collections and material accumulated in the Library Store. Groups led by Frank Hardy and Norma Allum met periodically to work in and tidy the Library, the names of the volunteers being recorded in the Annual Reports. By 1990 their number had increased to 57 and on 17 March 1990 some 35 attended a general meeting to discuss future work. A small Steering Group was then formed to report to the Library Committee.
A further appeal (on the back of the September 1990 Magazine) suggested that those with interests in particular counties might ‘adopt’ them and make recommendations for their development and in 1992, following my appeal and two meetings of volunteers in January, a team of counter volunteers was organised to work alongside staff at the busy Middle Library enquiry desk and thus free staff for more technical work. It was an important development and the initial organisation was taken over from Nicholas Harden by Fiona Jackson in March 1993 and then by Else Churchill in January 1995. Over fifty volunteers attended a tea party organised by the latter on 22 April 1995 and a similar number attended further parties on 15 June 1996 and 17 May 1997. In 1992 I had described recent changes to the Society’s facilities in The Local Historian [vol. 22 (May 1992) pages 68-73].
The results of the great 1881 Census Project began to arrive in the Library in 1990 with indexes and transcripts for Cambridgeshire and Flintshire that year, together with a fiche copy of the Family History Library Catalog. On 12 June 1991 Elder Richard Clarke, the President of the Genealogical Society of Utah, visited the Society and on 14 June I went with several members of the Executive Committee to the Hyde Park Stake Chapel when his Society’s work in the British Isles was discussed. The 1881 census indexes and transcripts for Denbighshire, Isle of Man, Rutland and the Royal Navy were received in 1992, and those for Anglesey, Cornwall, Devon, Guernsey, Huntingdonshire, Jersey, Merioneth, Radnor and Somerset in 1993. The remaining Welsh counties were received in 1994 along with sixteen English counties. Eleven further counties were received in 1995 and the remaining six (including London and Middlesex) in 1996. The meeting of the British Genealogical Record Users Committee in October 1996 was delighted to hear a report on the completion of the Project on microfiche and the Committee’s thanks were expressed to the Genealogical Society of Utah for the enormous contribution of resources and motivation which it had provided for the Project. Work to produce a CD-ROM version of the index proceeded in 1997.
Following Lawson Edwards's announcement that he would retire in 1990 we engaged as Librarian, Mrs Susan Gibbons, a Member of the Society and an Associate of the Library Association, who had been a Branch Librarian in Southwark and who commenced work on 4 February 1991. She proved an excellent choice, taking forward the cataloguing project and the development of the Library with great enthusiasm and retaining a positive approach and cheerful disposition in what must have been an increasingly difficult position in the retrenchments after I retired. She remained with the Society until her own retirement in the first week of September 2010. Although she had given plenty of notice there was some delay before her Deputy for seven years, Timothy Lawrence, who had been on the Library staff for twelve years, was appointed 'Head of Library Services', his former position not being filled until later. He remained loyally with the Society, providing continuity, until 2017.
The 1992 edition of the International Genealogical Index for the whole world was acquired in March 1993. Also in 1993 the Society purchased from Lambeth Palace Library some surplus microfilms of the Faculty Office and Vicar General Marriage Licence Allegations which together with purchases from the Genealogical Society of Utah provided a complete run of the latter from 1660 to 1851. At the same time Lambeth Palace Library presented a most valuable set of printouts of the calendars to both the Vicar General and Faculty Office series which the computer volunteers hoped to computerise in due course (but which meanwhile formed vast heaps on my office floor!). As mentioned below work on the Vicar General series was completed in 1997 and work on the Faculty Office series was by then well advanced, David Squire having generously sponsored the purchase of microfilms of the allegations themselves, they being vital for the checking stages of the project.
In December 1993 the British Genealogical Record Users’ Committee considered possible future joint projects and agreed to make representations to the Local Government Commission for England about the future secure funding of county record offices if and when unitary authorities are introduced. Copies were sent to the Minister for Local Government and the Society was pleased in 1994 to note the generally satisfactory nature of the Commission’s conclusions.
On 13 April 1994 I attended the opening of the new facilities at Hertfordshire County Record Office and Local Studies Library and on 28 October 1994 the opening of the new extension at the Greater London Record Office. I retired by rotation from the Council of the Friends of the Public Record Office at the Annual Meeting in July when the Librarian, Susan Gibbons, was elected in my place.
In July 1993 the Society’s Executive Committee had agreed to join the lobby of other organisations against the proposal of the Irish Government to re-locate the search room of the General Register Office from Dublin to Roscommon and forwarded a resolution to the Irish Minister for Health. In December 1993 the Committee had also agreed to apply for and was accepted as an Associate Member of the Scottish Association of Family History Societies. At meetings in May and September 1994 the Committee received reports of the rapid progress of the 1881 Census Project and a measure of agreement was reached on the need for a series of local burial indexes. The latter idea quickly became the National Burial Index project which was launched and promoted at various seminars around the country and about which a report was received at the BGRUC meeting in October 1996. In February 1997 on behalf of BGRUC I wrote to the General Register Office Scotland protesting at the delay in making the 1881 census indexes for Scotland available outside that country and at the proposed charge for microfiche copies. Copies of the letter were sent to several newspapers and the matter was taken up with some force by the Glasgow Herald. However, the indexes, compiled in good faith by thousands of unpaid volunteers around the world, remained unavailable outside Scotland at the end of the year.
In 1994 the Federation donated a country-wide microfiche edition of the British Isles Genealogical Register (Big R), Cambridgeshire FHS gave its burial index 1801-37, a member donated the Northumberland Marriage Index 1813-37 on fiche and Jack Baxter gave further volumes of his transcripts of Essex burial registers 1813-65. The Lincolnshire Marriage Index 1754-1812 and parts of the earlier period was purchased in 1994 along with marriage indexes for Cornwall 1813-37 and the pre-1837 Glamorgan Index on fiche. A valuable index to Irish Old-age Pension claims giving much information on claimants and relatives from the lost 1841 and 1851 Irish census returns was donated and a name index to the 1901 census of Fermanagh was purchased as were some 92 Suffolk parish registers on fiche.
Five microfilm storage cabinets were purchased in 1994 for the new room which had been developed on the ground floor together with two film readers and two fiche readers containing high magnification lenses for use with the General Register Office indexes. The rough wooden shelves donated in memory of Major Whitmore to house the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1958 were replaced with metal in 1995 when a considerable amount of new equipment was bought, including five film readers with zoom lenses, three fiche readers with dual magnification lenses, three microfilm cabinets and a fireproof cabinet for computer data.
In March 1995 the Society supported the Public Record Office’s successful application to the National Heritage Lottery Fund for funds with which to film the ‘Burnt documents’ (WO363) of the First World War Soldiers, 1914-20. The Director and Librarian represented the Society at the Federation’s Twenty-first Anniversary Reception at the House of Lords on 22 September 1995 and Dr P. Donlon, Director of the National Library of Ireland, recently appointed Chief Herald of Ireland, visited the Society of 11 December 1995 and toured the Library.
Also in 1995 Oxfordshire Family History Society donated a revised edition of the county marriage index 1538-1837 and Wiltshire Family History Society gave the first volumes of its new Wiltshire will beneficiaries index 1800-58 and burial index before 1837. The Bishopsgate Institute gave a microfilm of the wills and inventories of the Peculiar of the Chancellor of Oxford University 1436-1814. Also received was an index to the 1871 census of Ontario, Canada. Amongst microform indexes purchased in 1995 were a Durham marriage index 1813-37, the Cheshire Marriage Index 1801-1837 compiled by Bertram Merrell (1938-2015), will indexes to the Scottish Commissariot courts 1801-23, a surname index to the 1851 census of Hampshire, a run of Gloucestershire directories 1820-1939, and (using funds from the sale of second-hand books at the Society’s Fair) many Liverpool parish registers. Other large registers and the 1831 census of Londonderry were sponsored by members and the Catholic Family History Society part-sponsored several Lancashire Catholic registers.
In March 1996 a new photocopier was purchased for the Middle Library and part of a bequest from Alexander Sandison was used to purchase a computer for use with CD-ROMs. Some further wooden shelving was replaced with metal that year and a large number of cabinets and a quantity of metal shelving were obtained through the good offices of Stephen Hale.
In March 1996 the Genealogical Society of Utah generously donated a complete set of FamilySearch on CDROM, the remainder of the 1881 Census on fiche (as mentioned above) and the 1851 census of Norfolk on fiche. An anonymous donor gave the Estate Duty Office will indexes on film and the Public Record Office gave a large collection of films of the 1841, 1851 and 1861 census. Somerset and Dorset FHS gave a master index to the 1851 census of Somerset. The Society received for review the fiche 1901 census index for Tyrone and the first volume of a projected transcript of the 1851 census for Hertfordshire covering the Berkhampstead district. We also received copies of the Northumberland Burial Index 1813-37, of the Cambridgeshire baptismal index 1801-37, and of Stuart Tamblin’s Criminal Register Index 1805-16. Francis Winchurch (who died in 1997) paid for the Dictionary of National Biography, Mr T. R. Behm for the New England Register, and Mr. T. Williams for the Tasmanian Pioneers Index, all on CD-ROM. Other material purchased included the Welsh probate indexes prior to 1857, the probate indexes for Victoria, Australia, 1841-99, and CD-ROMS of the Ancestry reference library, of Who’s Who 1897-1996, and of the DA301 Open University course projects.
In April 1996 the Society was one of the members of BGRUC that endorsed the Statement of Principles and Policy Ojectives set out in the National Council of Archives’ report ‘An archives policy for the United Kingdom’. At that meeting concern was also expressed about the preservation of and access to the divorce records in England and Wales since 1858 and representations to the Lord Chancellor followed.
Following the receipt of FamilySearch on CD-ROM in March 1996 a postal search service was initiated to provide copy both on disk and in photocopy form and proved popular. A three-consecutive-day search card for non-members was introduced in February 1997.
In 1997 the Genealogical Society of Utah gave the current updates for FamilySearch on CD-ROM and the 1851 census indexes for Devon and Warwickshire on fiche. Oxfordshire Family History Society gave discs which included an index to the 1851 census and Oxfordshire monumental inscriptions, the Oxford city baptismal index 1813-37 and a revised county marriage index 1538-1837. Other donations included Part Three of the City of London burial index 1813-53. A bequest from Miss D. Hills enabled the purchase of some Dorset town registers and Dr Angela Barlow bequeathed a large amount of Lancashire material.
In 1997 the Quaker Family History Society sponsored the purchase of the Quaker Digest Registers on film and other purchases included film copies of many East Kent parish registers, the General Register Office fiche indexes of overseas and military births, marriages and deaths, a fiche index to the 1891 census of Scotland, the county Durham burial index on fiche 1813-37, an index to Durham marriages not included in Boyd’s Index 1798-1812, and a large collection of fiche relating to East Sussex including the Archdeaconry of Lewes wills index 1660-1857.
Donations to assist in the purchase of a further computer and additional fiche readers in 1997 were received from Mr T. Behm, the Misses C. and F. Loveridge, Mr J. G. L. Griffith-Jones, Dr E. G. Richards, Francis V. Winchurch and Dr D. J. Stoker. Other equipment purchased that year included lockers for the use of volunteers, staff and committee members.
Over eighty volunteers worked on the transcription and indexing of parish registers in the 1990s and 366 transcripts were passed to the Library in 1989, 349 in 1990, 321 in 1991, 292 in 1992, 272 in 1993, 260 in 1994, 433 in 1995, 310 in 1996, and 255 in 1997. A co-operative venture with Westminster Diocesan Archives initiated in 1990 and continuing to 1994 allowed for the photocopying and subsequent typing and indexing of a number of Catholic registers. In 1995-6 Mr E. J. Erith translated, transcribed and typed four volumes of the registers of the Catholic Church of St James, Spanish Place, loaned by the church, and in 1997 commenced typing and indexing the large manuscript copy of the Kingston-upon-Thames registers.
Much work was assisted by computer volunteers and as mentioned below some 170 volunteers came forward in 1991 as the result of an appeal in Computers in Genealogy. In 1992 they were busy indexing the Hertfordshire marriage registers 1538-1837 transcribed by Thomas Allen (completed in 1995), the Bank of England Will Extracts, 1717-1807 (completed in 1995) and the masters’ names in the Apprentices of Great Britain 1762-74 (completed in 1993).
The extensive transcription and indexing work of David Woolven in Glamorganshire was particularly noted in 1993-6 when other volunteers in 1993-5 were assisting Jack Baxter in typing manuscripts for his valuable Essex Burial Index. In 1994 Dorset FHS gave typed and indexed transcripts of 78 parishes. The indexing of the Crisp collection of original London Marriage Licences was completed in 1995 and the final sort of the Civil Service Evidences of Age was commenced. In 1996 a scheme to index on disc the brides in Boyd’s Marriage Index for Yorkshire was also commenced. Some 63 volunteers were being organised by Miss Stevens in 1996 but the number specifically working on parish registers had fallen to 35 in 1997 when the work of Mr Erith and of Mr N. Chaston and Mr L. A. Muriel on the Haydon Whitehead transcripts of Suffolk registers was particularly mentioned.
In 1989 some 613 transcripts of monumental inscriptions in various formats were received, a programme to type and index the older unbound manuscript copies in the Library being promoted by Doris Pullen, the M.I. Secretary. A further 512 transcripts were received in 1990, nearly 400 in 1991, nearly 340 in 1992, over a thousand in 1993, 282 in 1994, 260 in 1995, 325 in 1996 and 384 in 1997. Those in 1991 included copies of inscriptions at Baghdad made by Mr A. G. Peake whilst a hostage during the Gulf War and those in 1993 included 365 parishes (the whole of the county) donated by Wiltshire Family History Society as well as 28 volumes of the Cornish Index. Four more volumes of the latter and the Gloucestershire Monumental Inscriptions Index on fiche were received in 1996.
The Church Commissioners continued to send details of chuches and graveyards which were being altered or made redundant (and might thus put the inscriptions at risk) and notification of 120 was received in 1991 (of these 39 had already been recorded and deposited in the Library), followed by 109 in 1992 and 129 (of which 42 had been recorded) in 1993. Notification of 68 was received in 1994 of which ten had been recorded, and of 153 in 1995 of which 37 had been recorded, of 87 in 1996 (of which 16 recorded), and of 99 in 1997 (of which 22 recorded).
The maintenance work group consisting of Eric Balley, Les Crafer, John Pullen and John Rayment was augmented by the addition of Sidney D. Putnam in 1989, of Mrs Anne Prudames in 1992 and of William R. White in 1995, and all continued their highly valued work until after my retirement in 1997.
In June 1991 the Society purchased a Dell 320 LT computer and TINLIB cataloguing software and commenced entering all new accessions, enabling them to be searched by author, publisher and keyword. Cards for the old catalogue continued to be generated and were now filed monthly, instead of three-monthly following the publication of the quarterly Magazine. It was intended that copy for the lists of accessions published in the Magazine and for Library guides would now be generated semi-automatically and this was first done by Neville Taylor for the December 1992 Magazine and then regularly thereafter, a considerable reduction in costs thus being achieved. By September 1996 some 15,000 items had been catalogued by the Librarian and her small team of volunteer cataloguers.
However, late in 1995 a special meeting of the General Purposes Committee was held to discuss possible Society projects for which funding might be sought from the National Heritage Lottery Fund and it was agreed to apply initially for funds with which to computerise the Library catalogue prior to July 1991 and to provide online access. It was estimated that this would take three full-time cataloguers three years, the Society’s contribution in partnership funding being also three man-years provided by volunteer members and valued at £36,000. James Willerton drafted the application which I finalised and submitted in February 1996 and on 17 September we were delighted to hear that we had been awarded £152,400 to cover the salaries, accommodation and computer hardware involved.
A pilot project was commenced that month, the work being overseen by Christopher Watts, James Willerton and John Addis-Smith. They and the Librarian purchased a server with five networked computers, installed the software, appointed and trained the three cataloguers, formed a team of twenty volunteer checkers (coordinated by Nicholas Newington-Irving), and the main project commenced on 7 April 1997. Rosemary Metcalfe, the Project cataloguer who had started the pilot project, unfortunately left at the end of March and her post was filled by Angela Thomson. The three Project Cataloguers, Miss S. J. Brooks, Miss G. Edwards and Miss M. H. Miller started in April but Miss Miller unfortunately had to leave the Project just before the end of the year. In January 1997 I attended an interesting meeting at the Heritage Lottery Fund to discuss its application procedures and forms.
Major steps in the publication of the National Index of Parish Registers were taken over the next few years. The volume for Berkshire, edited by Anthony Wilcox, appeared in 1989, a fully revised edition of that for Surrey by Cliff Webb in 1990 and a volume for Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire and another for Northamptonshire, both edited by Cliff Webb, in 1991. Volumes for wiltshire and Buckinghamshire, again edited by Cliff Webb, were published in 1992 together with a revised edition of that for Staffordshire by Dr P. D. Bloore. A volume for Essex appeared in 1993 and another for Lincolnshire in 1995, both compiled by Anthony Wilcox. Volumes for Leicestershure and Rutland, London and Middlesex, Cheshire and Derbyshire, all compiled by Cliff Webb, and Mr W. T. Stott’s revision of Nottinghamshire all appeared in 1995.
Regular revisions and reprints of standard catalogues continued to be produced and a revised Catalogue of Parish Registers was published in June 1991, its revision by volunteers and the camera-ready copy being organised by Neville Taylor. This was the first in a new series of ‘Library Sources’, complimentary copies of which together with the new Library Guide, were sent to all the major family history societies in the British Isles and overseas. It quickly sold out and a revised edition was published in September 1992. The second volume in the ‘Library Sources’ series had been a revised edition of the catalogue of Marriage Licences in February that year.
Further library volumes were made available on microfiche; these included in 1989 Lorna Rosbottom’s abstracts of 3,973 Irish wills and the list of bankrupts 1774-86. Several more were published in 1990.
Cliff Webb’s Dates and Calendars for the Genealogist was published in 1989 and several new leaflets added to the Society’s series. A surprisingly popular postcard showing the Society’s Coat of Arms was produced in 1990.
Arrangements were finalised in 1989 for the Society to be responsible for the revision of future editions of Terrick FitzHugh’s Dictionary of Genealogy and he died on 20 November 1990. The first revised edition by Brian Christmas appeared in October 1991 and another, extensively revised by Susan Lumas (to which I had contributed some sections), in November 1994.
The bookshop stock was steadily increased in 1989 and bookstalls, as was now standard practice, provided at six conferences including the English Genealogical Congress at Exeter in August, these being manned by committee members and staff. They were provided at eight centres in 1990 and at five in 1991 and 1992. In the early part of 1992 the publications listing material in the Library and the card index of pedigrees in special collections were microfilmed for inclusion in the National Inventory of Documentary Sources. Review or library copies of all the Library Sources volumes, of the My Ancestor series and of the Library Guide were again sent to all major family history societies in 1992 and 1993. A catalogue of the books sold by the Society was sent to all members and an annotated list of the Society’s publications was sent to all the overseas members in 1992.
The first edition and a reprint of my Sources for Irish Genealogy in the Library of the Society appeared in 1990, as did the similar booklet compiled by Neville Taylor on Sources for Anglo-Indian Genealogy. Tony Benton’s Irregular marriage in London before 1754, breaking interesting new ground, was published in November 1993.
New volumes in the My Ancestors series continued to appear – Manorial Tenants by Peter Park in 1990; Congregationalists by David Clifford and British Army by Drs Michael and Christopher Watts in 1992 (the tenth volume in the series); English Presbyterians by Alan Ruston in 1993; Jewish by Isobel Mordy in 1995; Londoners by Clifford Webb in 1996; and Salvation Army by J. R. Wiggins in 1997. Reprints or revised editions for several were necessary.
The fifth volume of my Index to the Wills proved in the PCC 1750-1800, typed by Pauline Attrell and covering N-Sh, was published in February 1991 and that for Si-Z in January 1993. Later in 1991 the Society published an Index to the Bank of England Will Extracts 1807-1845 compiled by the Library volunteers and typeset by John Addis-Smith, a most valuable finding aid to the second part of the series of volumes in the Society’s Library.
A completely revised Library Guide was published in February 1991 and another in January 1992. In connection with the Family History Fair in May 1993 a ‘Family History Beginner’s Pack’ was assembled , containing details about the Society, a copy of the Library Guide, a new booklet for beginners, First steps in Family History, which I wrote and was available seperately, and a sample copy of the Magazine.
Two beginners’ packs were produced specially for the 1993 Family History Fair: Computers in Genealogy Beginners Pack and Family History Beginners Pack (£2 each). The latter included a new introductory guide, First Steps in Family History which I had written as a companion to Using the Library of the Society of Genealogists (which was also in the pack), and other details of the Society and its publications. I believed that the Society needed its own introductory guide and First Steps was written, typeset by Neville Taylor, and printed all in a matter of about ten days, in the absence through illness of the Publications Manager. It is difficult now to believe that after the event she persuaded the Publications Committee to resolve that I should not do such a thing again. The book sold separately at ninety pence and was a considerable success, being very favourably reviewed, and revised in 1995 and 1998. The intention had been to provide a cheap basic guide that might easily and regularly be brought up to date, but in 2005 after I had left the Society it was slightly expanded to sell at £6.99 and it has not since been revised.
The Society had in 1992 bought the unbound stock of European Rulers 1060-1981: a cross-referenced genealogy by Christopher Lake, originally published to mark the marriage of HRH The Prince of Wales, and in March 1993 the finely produced pedigrees were bound and made available in both hard and soft bindings.
The newly enlarged bookshop mentioned above was opened in February 1994, a small celebratory party being organised on 5 April. Its stock was then slowly expanded to include conservation material and further record office guides. The bookshop list was sent to Members in March and a list of the Society’s publications distributed in September. Review or library copies of publications, limited to those priced under £5, were sent to the major family history societies worldwide.
New editions of Greater London Cemeteries and Crematoria and of Dates and Calendars were published in 1994. In September a number of the leaflets were revised and reprinted in a new format. Other revisions and publications on fiche took place, the latter including Francis Leeson’s Index to the British State Tontine 1766 and Annuities 1745-79 which had been typed by Jenny Key, and the Indexes of Masters in the Apprentices of Great Britain, 1763-74.
In 1995 we published Nicholas Fogg’s list of the General Register Office One-Name lists in the Library (revised in 1997) and Miss E. I. Nichols’s evaluation of The International Genealogical Index 1992 edition. Neville Taylor agreed in April 1995 to act as editor of the series of Library Guides and he revised the Catalogue of Parish Registers and Nicholas Newington-Irving revised the Catalogue of Directories and Poll Books, extending it to include Almanacs and Electoral Rolls, both in 1995.
The Magazine was edited throughout this period by Francis Leeson. Neville Taylor had been computer typesettting the accessions lists and official sections and he compiled and computer typeset the Magazine Index to Volume 24 (1992-4) published in December 1994. Much thought had been given in 1995 to the production of the Magazine and its format was enlarged at the commencement of the new volume in March 1995, but a questionnaire about its scope and content was answered by only a small proportion of the membership and was inconclusive in almost every section
Bookstalls were provided at six conferences in 1995 and the Family History Fair. New editions of the Bookshop List were produced in June and December 1996. In September 1996, in order to reduce stock levels, the prices of six volumes of the National Index of Parish Registers produced before December 1992 were reduced by a third. Bookstalls were provided at seven two-day conferences and fairs in 1996 and at seven and the fair in 1997.
A major new series, London Apprentices, compiled and indexed by Clifford Webb, containing indexed transcripts of City Company apprenticeship registers prior to about 1800, was inaugurated in October 1996 with the publication of volumes on the Brewers, Tylers and Bricklayers, Bowyers and Longbowstringmakers, and Glovers. Seven further volumes of his series on apprentices appeared in 1997 covering Glass-sellers, Woolmen,Broderers, Combmakers, Fanmakers, Frameworkknitters, Fruiterers, Gardeners, Horners, Glaziers, Gunmakers, Needlemakers, Pinmakers, Basketmakers and Distillers. The Society had also published his Index of wills proved in theArchdeaconry Court of London 1700-1807 in March 1996.
In September 1996 the Society published Hilary Sharp’s How to Use the Bernau Index and two new Library guides: Marjorie Moore’s Sources for Scottish genealogy in November and Nicholas Newington-Irving’s Will Indexes and other probate material in December.
The first three sections of the surname index to the Vicar-General Marriage Licences, covering 1750-1825, which I was particularly keen to see in print, were published between September and November 1996 and the remaining sections to cover the whole of the period 1694-1850 came out in 1997. All were then available on microfiche. Also published in 1996 were revisions of the Library Guide, my First Steps in Family History, Neville Taylor’s Computers in Genealogy handbook and his School, university and college registers in the Library, and another reprint of W. S. B. Buck’s popular Examples of Handwriting. Further volumes from the Library were published on microfiche.
Fom the begining of June 1997 the bookshop was opened and staffed on Mondays when the Library was closed and in September that year the Society began to sell and accept book tokens. Catalogues of our publications and bookshop lists were then widely distributed.
1997 saw the publication of John Hailey’s Maritime Sources in the Library and Else Churchill’s revision of the Census copies and indexes in the Library. Also published that year was Clifford Webb’s revision of Greater London Cemeteries and Crematoria, Dr Andrea Tanner’s complete revision of the late John Unett’s Making a pedigree: an introduction to sources for early genealogy and revisions of various leaflets and of Using the Library. An enamel pin that incorporated the Society’s armorial Badge was also produced.
In 1996 I had corresponded with the member Mark Herber about his forthcoming book, Ancestral Trails: the complete guide to British genealogy and family history, and having seen the text I wrote that I was 'enormously impressed by the breadth and depth of its coverage' and that he might use that statement to promote the book. However, early in 1997 the Society’s Publications Committee, prompted by Paul Blake and with Lilian Gibbens in the Chair, agreed that it would not accept my recommendation and that before the book could be sponsored by the Society that the text should be submitted to another reader. The Executive Committee made no comment. The book was, of course, following a most cursory examination by the 'other reader', published by Sutton Publishing in association with the Society (with my comment on the dust jacket) in November 1997 and immediately proved an enormous success, being awarded the McColvin Medal by the Library Association as an outstanding work of reference. A carefully revised edition appeared in 2004.
The index to volume 25 of the Magazine (1995-7), again compiled and typeset by Neville Taylor, would normally have taken up the whole of the December 1997 issue but it was agreed that it be published separately and sent without charge to those who requested it before the end of October. Accordingly, some 2,300 copies were printed and distributed in March 1998.
As noted above the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies based at Birkbeck College in London University had for some years been providing classes in genealogy at two or three centres in London and in December 1985 I represented the Society of Genealogists on an advisory committee which usually met at the Centre in Tavistock Square and agreed the outline of a certificate and diploma course in ‘Genealogy and the History of the Family’ which would be offered at two centres in 1987.
These two-year courses were to be assessed at the standard required for first degree examinations of the University of London. The first year, ‘Genealogy and Genealogical Sources’ provided an introdction to source material and to the location and use of archives including palaeography. The second year, ‘Family History and Demography’, was to concentrate on the interpretation of the sources with particular reference to changes in rural and urban communities from the middle ages onwards, migration, land ownership and transfer, occupations, social mobility, welfare and industrialisation, and was to introduce students to the use of quantitive methods and family reconstitution. Assessment in the first year was on three pieces of written work (60%) and by a two hour unseen written examination (40%) and in the second it was on two pieces of written course work (40%) and a three hour unseen written examination (60%). Those who obtained the Certificate might then proceed to a third year which would concentrate on the preparation and presentation of a research project of not more than 10,000 words, topics being chosen in consultation with an appointed tutor, and regular seminars for the discussion of relevant problems taking place.
On receiving the forty-three sets of papers resulting from that first year in July 1988 I had a most difficult time reconciling the different scales of marking awarded by the two lecturers for their students’ course work and also in reconciling for one lecturer’s group a discrepancy between the marks received at examination and the high marks awarded for some types of course work, the nature of which had in future to be standardised. Those questions being resolved it was very apparent in the second year that many students found the statistical work involved in the ‘History of the Family’ particularly daunting. Many students had seen the certificate and diploma courses as a gateway to a professional qualification and were disillusioned at the amount of time which had to be spent on work which they considered irrelevant.
Before 1987 the two subjects, genealogy and the history of the family, had been taught separately and the University of London had refused to sanction a certificate course in genealogy alone. The possibility of such a course was frequently raised and it was therefore taken up by the Advisory Committee. In April 1991 Dr David Armstrong the Director of Extra-Mural Studies consulted the University’s Registrar who explained that the Centre’s powers to administer Extra-Mural awards, delegated by the Senate to Birkbeck College, required that ‘only subjects which are professed by the University should form the main subject of these awards’. He said that genealogy was not a subject taught at the University in that there were ‘no full-time teachers either in the College or in another School who teach it or conduct research in it’ and that this major difficulty could only be overcome by combining genealogy with the history of the family or demography, both of which figured prominently within history and the social sciences.
And so in 1991/2 the decision was taken to integrate the two subjects in the same course and in May 1991 a revised scheme of study was issued. There were to be two closely connected courses, the two components being taught in five week blocks, with a total of thirty class meetings and a short non-residential intensive component, making a total of 144 hours tuition over the two years. Assessment for the Certificate was on the basis of a three-hour unseen written examination (70%) in June of each year and on two pieces of course work each of about 1,500 words (30%) from both parts of the course in both years. For a Diploma in the third year there would be four introductory seminars on research methods and problems and up to six hours of individual tuition. The project had to contain 7,500 words.
As external examiner or assessor I had for eleven years seen varying numbers of samples of work resulting from the different examinations. Although some fine essays were produced the basic complaints continued. The integration of the subjects with different lecturers for the two strands had not worked well. Poor recruitment followed, probably influenced by the growth of genealogical research on the Internet and as Mary Kennedy later said, the unique marriage of the two subjects culminated in a sad divorce in 1997/8 when the syllabus was reverted. The following year (1998/9) the course was discontinued and subsumed into History. I received the final papers in 2001.
An enthusiastic society (SGFH) of students on the courses had been formed in 1991 when some 84 members joined (paying £7 a year) and a series of high quality talks was organised, usually at Birkbeck College, the Membership Secretary being Rosemary Oliver. The group’s Newsletter was upgraded into a Journal by Eddie Curties in April 2000. The many talks, regular summaries of which were provided by Brian Strong, were listed in its last issue in 2007 along with ninety-nine of the dissertations for Diplomas which had been received. I spoke twice to the Society and in September 2003 joined a fascinated group, led by Dr David Souden, to visit Kew Palace then in the process of extensive renovation. However, without new students the Society became less active and following the death of Eddie Curties in May 2006, at a meeeting on 12 July 2006 (with Jeff Burnard in the Chair and Ray Burridge as secretary) the members regretfully agreed that the Society be dissolved, its final meeting taking place on 30 October 2006. At that meeting the lecturer Mary Kennedy’s explanation of the divorce was that whilst the history of the family was an academic subject, genealogy involved only a number of techniques and that few institutions recognised it as an academic subject, though there were courses in it with the Open University, at the Central Lancashire University and at Suffolk University. Sharon Hintze, herself the holder of a diploma from London, pointed out that it was also a speciality within History at Brigham Young University.
The Society took another weekend conference, this on ‘Genealogy in the East Midlands’, to Nottingham University on 21-23 April 1989, organised by Gill Valentine, when there were two streams of talks, one specifically on Midland topics, when 83 attended. Our eighth biennial day conference, organised by Paul Blake and Patricia Kirkland on the theme ’Transport and Communications’ with three streams of talks, was held at Regent’s College, 4 November 1989, and attended by 182 members, the opening address being given by Professor Theo Barker.
A half-day tutorial course on Yorkshire was organised by the Conferences Manager on 15 April 1989 with three talks, 93 attending, and a day tutorial class on nonconformists, with 59 attending, on 21 October 1989. The high attendances suggested that more specialised sessions of this nature would be welcomed and during the summer of 1990 a series of five lunchtime lectures on sources to be found in the Library was organised as an experiment and attracted considerable interest. There was a half-day tutorial class on manorial records on 7 April with William Liddell and Peter Park when 91 attended and a day tutorial on Irish records on 3 November with Brian Trainor, Christine Kinealy and Mary Casteleyn, when 99 attended. In 1992 we held a full-day tutorial on ‘Continental ancestors’ in March which had 71 attendees and another on ‘Before parish registers’ in November with 72 attendees. There was also a half-day on ‘Scottish research’ in October with 64 attendees.
Joan Coburn coducted a two-day palaeography class in October 1989, two further two-day classes in 1990, and another in April 1991. Also in 1990 Mrs Susan Palmer held a two-day practical course in translating medieval Latin documents on 12 and 19 May. In 1991 Ian Pearson conducted an introductory course on palaeography on five evenings in October-November and Susan Palmer repeated her introductory medieval Latin class in June and followed it with a two-day advanced course in October 1991. The five-week evening palaeography course was repeated by Hilary Marshall in March-May 1992 and Joan Coburn conducted a day palaeography class in June, both were fully booked with 12 attending. Hilary Marsahll repeated her course in early 1993 and Miss A. Barlow led a two day course in June, both again fully booked. Susan Palmer had also taken a course in translating medieval Latin documents with 12 attendees on two Saturdays in October 1993.
There were two series of eleven beginners classes in 1989 with 26 and 34 attending, two of the talks concentrating on the Library and one taking place at the Public Record Office. Two similar series in 1990 had 33 and 34 participants. Similar series in 1991 had 28 and 34 attendees and those in 1992 had 36 and 17. In 1992 the new venture of a course with the same lecturers over two Wednesdays in early December surprisingly attracted 31 attendees. It was repeated on two Saturdays in July-August 1993 with 41 attendees, the usual eleven classes being held from September to December with 27 participants. No evening class was held in 1994 but two further series for beginners were held on two Saturdays in February-March and again in July-August with 24 and 23 attendees.
A second advanced course on further sources with Stella Colwell was held in April-June 1989 with 28 attending and another on ten evenings in April-June 1992 with 31 attendees.
I continued to act as External Examiner for the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies of London University in connection with the Certificate and Diploma Courses in genealogy and family history. These were offered at three centres in 1988-9 and the Society was pleased to act as a centre for both first and second year courses, Stella Colwell commencing a second 30-week first year course with 27 attending and Mary Kennedy commencing a second-year course with 21 attending. Both courses were repeated in 1990, Miss Colwell having 29 attendees and Mary Kennedy and Drs David Souden and David Armstrong having 40 attendees. In October 1991 Stella Colwell and Miss C. Davey commenced a fourth thirty-week first-year Certificate Course, with 25 attending and in September 1992 Mary Kennedy and Stella Colwell commenced a fourth thirty-week second-year Certificate Course with 14 attending.
A most successful Open Day and Forum for officers of local family history societies, organised by Peter Park, was held at the Society on 10 June 1989, when more than 70 delegates representing 41 societies attended. A similar open-day for officers of family history societies was organised by Marjorie Moore on Sunday, 2 October 1994, and attended by 60 representatives. In the course of 1989 the Conferences Manager assisted several local societies and other groups to hold major meetings at the Society. Some 43 tours of the Library were organised by the Librarian that year. Many similar meetings and tours were organised in 1990, 1991 and 1992, the Librarian speaking to nine visiting groups in the latter year. In 1991 they had included a Regional Meeting of the Society of Archivists (19 June) and a day conference of the Information Services Section of the South East Region of the Library Association (2 October) at which the Librarian and I spoke and tours of the Library were provided. In 1992 the Librarian spoke to nine organisations.
An important and highly successful day course for librarians and archivists entitled ‘All you need to know about genealogy’ was organised by Mary Casteleyn on 2 November 1992, at which she, Mr C.W. Harrison, the Librarian and I spoke and tours were organised, some 32 attending. The course was repeated on 15 November 1993 when 49 attended and again on 20 February 1995 when 33 attended. A further course, ‘Think you know the answer’, was held on 27 March at which Mary and I again spoke and the Librarian and Assistant Librarian assisted with a practical problem solving session, 14 attending.
The usual Winter Lecture Series of six free lectures took place in 1989 and David Hawkings kindly gave up five Saturdays between June and September to research surgeries when 22 were given advice on their problems. In 1990 two additional lectures were added to the traditional six and in 1991 we held instead a mixture of eleven ‘open’ mid-day, evening and Saturday lectures. Their number was increased to twelve in 1992 and included three by Susan Gibbons on the Library. Eleven ‘open’ talks on a variety of subjects including two on the Library also took place in 1993. By then regular meetings were being held at the Society by the London Branches of the Welsh Family History Societies, Cumbria Family History Society, Lancashire Family History and Heraldry Society, Norfolk and Norwich Genealogical Society, Northumberland and Durham Family History Society and the Catholic Family History Society.
A public address system became operational in September 1990 when some lectures, with the permission of the speakers, were recorded and made available in the Library and for loan, and a new projector and screen were then made available in the Meeting Room. In 1991 Les Crafer created a moveable storage desk to contain them.
Bookings for the growing number of classes and meetings taking place at the Society were at this time taken by the diligent and painstaking Jean Rutherford who had been appointed as Office Assistant, following the resignation of Beverly Wass, in September 1990.
In the absence through illness of the Chairman of the Congress Committee, Alan Reed (who sadly died in October 1990), it fell to me to chair throughout the highly enjoyable but extremely busy fifth English Genealogical Congress, under the Patronage of HRH Prince Michael of Kent, which Stella Colwell had organised at the University of Exeter on 21-26 August 1989 and at which there were 135 attendees. The Society was also one of the sponsors of the sixth Congress in the series, also under the Prince’s Patronage, which was held at the University of Warwick, 10-15 August 1992 and at which I spoke on different topics every day.
I was course director at three weekend courses , ‘Trace your ancestors’, held at Theobalds College, Hertfordshire, in June, July and November 1989. Amongst other meetings that year I particularly remember the pleasant Nodes Family Reunion at Shephall in Hertfordshire on 23 September, the text of my summary of families of the unusual name (which derived from The Node in neighbouring Codicote parish) then being published.
I had in 1990 spoken to more than a dozen organisations including the General Register Office on 21 May. During 1991 I had spoken to nine organisations and, as mentioned elsewhere, attended throughout and spoken at the First Irish Genealogical Congress at Trinity College, Dublin on 19-24 September 1991.
The Society’s Ninth Biennial Day Conference was held at the New Horticultural Hall, Westminster, on 2 November 1991, on the theme ‘All dressed up’, and was attended by 267 members. For it Paul Blake had organised three streams of lectures, one of which focused on the use of computers. There were 44 attendees at a day tutorial on the ‘Care and Preservation of Records’ on 21 March 1991 and 28 attendees at a half-day tutorial on Air Force records on 5 November 1991.
On 18 September 1992 I spoke to the North West Kent Family History Society having opened the ‘Family History for all’ exhibition organised by Elizabeth Silverthorne at Bromley Central Library that day.
A day tutorial class on Royal Navy records was held at the Society on 27 March 1993 when 36 attended and a popular day school on ‘Victorian Portrait Photography, Costume and Social History’ with speakers from the Documentary Photography Archive took place on 22 May 1993 when 51 attended.
The Tenth Biennial Day Conference, again with three streams of lectures at the New Horticultural Hall, took place on 6 November 1993 on the theme ‘The legacy of our ancestors’, being organised by Patricia Kirkland and Major Brian Oldham and with 263 attendees.
Following the success of the Family History Fair in 1993 (described below) a second National Family History Fair was organised over two days at a larger venue, the Royal Horticultural Society’s New Hall, Greycoat Street, Westminster, on 7-8 May 1994. The organising committee was amply rewarded by the attendance and success of the Fair, some 3,880 people attending. The Society’s display, manned by staff and volunteers, was organised by Paul Blake in a central position. The surplus of £3,229 on the Fair in 1993 was thus increased to £15,219 in 1994.
Stella Colwell conducted a six-week ‘Research Method Course’ in April-May 1994 with 15 attendees and was one of four speakers at a summer school which she organised at the University of York, 15-17 July 1994, with 117 attending, its four streams dealing with methodology, intermediate palaeography, family and local history, and the Public Record Office.
There was an eight-week palaeography course by Miss A. Barlow early in 1994 and a two-day palaeography course by Hilary Marshall in June. Susan Palmer repeated her two-day course in translating medieval Latin documents and Mr R. Perks gave two-days to ‘Interviewing techniques and oral history’ at the National Sound Archive in March. I spoke to eleven other organisations that year.
Six study days were organised in 1994: Jewish sources on 24 April (with 32 attendees), the inhabitants of London on 25 June (64), a Family Album on 2 July (10), Seventeenth Century Records on 17 September (57) and Heraldry on 8 October (29). A half-day course on ‘Researching ancestors in Gibraltar and Malta’ was held on 1 October 1994 with 25 attending. Some twenty five ‘open’ or free talks on a wide variety of subjects took place in 1994 (some being also repeated later) and for the first time eight popular talks and workshops were also organised elsewhere: three at the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane, two at Kew, and one each in the India Office Collections, the National Portrait Gallery and the Institute of Historical Research. In 1995 some thirty-one afternoon and three evening lectures also took place and I particularly remember chairing one by Dr Margaret Cox on ‘Life and death in Spitalfields 1700-1850: the evidence from beneath Christ Church’ which was attended by a number of descendants of some of those those exhumed and identified.
Following the successes of previous years a third national Family History Fair, organised by Paul Blake, was held over two days at the Royal Horticultural Society’s New Hall, Westminster, on 6-7 May 1995, and attended by 2,750 people. This was less than in 1994 and probably due to the VE Day celebrations but there was a sliight increase in the number of stallholders. It followed much the same format as in previous years and made a surplus of £6,410.
A further nine study days took place in 1995: ‘Anglo-German Genealogy’ on 25 February (with 19 attendees), ‘Citizens of London’ on 13 May (22), ‘How to draw up a pedigree’ on 3 June (17), ‘Eighteenth-century records’ on 24 June (35), ‘Poor Law old and new’ on 8 July (17), ‘Migrants’ on 22 July (27), ‘Tracing the history of your house’ on 23 September (38), ‘Maps for the Family Historian’ on 11 November (3) and ‘Roman Catholic sources’ on 25 November (38). Study days, organised jointly with the Public Record Office, also took place on ‘Military Records’ at Kew on 8 March (25) and on ‘Probate Records’ at Chancery Lane on 22 March (25). Heather Garnsey and Martin Killion provided a study half-day entitled ‘Catching Colonials: a tutorial on Australian family history research’ at the Society on 29 March 1995 with 19 attendees.
A ten-week beginners and library classs was held at Thursday lunchtimes in February-April 1995 with four lecturers, when 12 attended, and a two-day course was held on Saturdays, 5 and 12 August, when 26 attended. A successful nine-week course on the Library, ‘What’s in it for me?’, with five lecturers, was held at lunchtimes on Fridays in September-November 1995, when 28 attended. Hilary Marshall conducted an eight-week evening palaeography class from September to November (12); there was a day workshop on ‘Caring for and conserving your documents’ on 24 April (11); a two-day course in basic Latin (8); and a two day course on ‘Interviewing techniques and oral history’ at the National Sound Archive (6).
The Society’s Eleventh Biennial Day Conference took place on 4 November 1995 at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Cenference Centre on the theme ‘Birth and Death: the two great certainties’ when 168 attended, a relatively disappointingly low number. There were three streams of talks, organised by Patricia Kirkland and Lilian Gibbens.
However, low attendances were a feature of many events organised in 1995 and some projected classes and study days were cancelled owing to lack of support. The cost of the courses was perceived to have been a major deterrent and this was much reduced in 1996. In order to recover some of the costs of providing the extensive programme in 1995 a charge of £1 (collected at the door) was introduced at the beginning of the year for lectures not directly related to the Society’s collections and some were, perhaps consequently, very poorly attended.
However, visits and talks at other repositories in 1995 proved popular and several were repeated, groups meeting at Lambeth Palace Library, the Imperial War Museum archives, the National Maritime Museum, the Society of Antiquaries, the College of Arms, the National Art Library, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Post Office Archives, the Middlesex Registry of Deeds (at the Greater London Record Office), the Historical Manuscripts Commission and the House of Lords Record Office.
Following the successes of previous years a fourth national Family History Fair, organised by Paul Blake, was held over two days at the Royal Horticultural Society’s New Hall, Westminster, on 4-5 May 1996. About 3,656 people attended together with about 500 stallholders, somewhat more than in 1995 and there was a slight increase in the number of stalls taken.
A weekend residential course, organised by Paul Blake, and with Else Churchill, Brian Oldham and Geoffrey Swinfield as speakers, was held at the Warwick Arms Hotel, Warwick, on 25-27 October 1996 when 59 attended. A Second Stage Course with the same speakers was held on eighteen Thursday evenings from February to June 1996 (18 attending) and followed by a Third Stage Course with the same speakers on sixteen evenings from October 1996 to March 1997 (23 attending). A two-day Beginners Course was held on Saturdays in August with 23 attending and a second nine-week course ‘What’s in it for me?’ was held at lunchtimes on Fridays from September to November with 15 attending. Hilary Marshall conducted a practical two-day course in palaeography on 2 and 9 November when 13 attended.
Four day courses were organised in 1996 on ‘London Organisations’ on 30 March (25), ‘My ancestor was in trade’ on 18 May (21), ‘Both sides of the law’ on 20 July (28) and ‘London south of the river’ on 19 October (79). Six half-day courses were held that year, that on ‘Two hundred million names, making the most of FamilySearch’ on 24 February with talks by Paul Blake and David Hawgood, was repeated on 6 July both courses being attended by a maximum of 80 people. The five others were ‘Soldiers and the Army’on 23 March (30), ‘Prostitution, suicides and inquests’ on 29 June (43), ‘Chalk and talk: records of teachers and pupils’ on 31 August (26), ‘Lost bodies; cemeteries and finding the place of burial’ on 21 September (80), and ‘Why go to Salt Lake City’ at which I and Geoffrey Mawlam spoke (39).
There were twenty-three lunchtime or evening lectures in 1996 and I particularly remember that by Dr K. S. B. Keats-Rohan on ‘The Continental Origins of English Landholders Project: a Who’s Who of Domesday Book and Norman Families’ which produced her magisterial volumes Domesday Names (1997) and Domesday People (1999). There were ten further popular visits and talks at other repositories, this time including the Fawcett Society, the Huguenot Library and the Middlesex House of Detention.
Two weekend residential courses were held in 1997. The first, held in association with the University of Wales, was organised by John and Sheilah Rowlands at Gregynog, Newtown, Powys, on 19-21 September 1997, and opened by Dr Michael Siddons, Wales Herald since 1994, was attended by about 90 people. The second, held on 24-26 October 1997, saw a course with Paul Blake, Else Churchill and Geoffrey Swinfield provided at Lancaster with 60 attendees.
Four day courses were held in 1997: ‘The seventeenth century revisited’ on 26 April (53); ‘Guilds, companies, apprentices and freemen’ on 31 May (45); ‘Booze and brewing: licensed victuallers, publicans and their records’ on 19 July (61); and ‘Just for the fun of it: the theatre, circus, music hall and circuit players’ on 27 September (63).
Ten half-day courses were organised in 1997: ‘Two hundred million names: making the most of FamilySearch’ on 22 February (80) with talks by Jeanne Bunting and David Hawgood, repeated on 23 October (61); ‘’Spoof and proof: pitfalls, delusions and proof in genealogy’ on 22 March (82) at which I gave both talks, repeated on 2 October (63); ‘The West Indies’ on 21 June with talks by Guy Grannum and Mr S. Porter (65); ‘Dog collars and gaiters: Church of England records and the clergy’ on 9 August, with talks by Miss H. Wakely and Mr E. Pinsent (38); ‘Lost Bodies’ on 4 September, repeated from the course in 1996 (61); ‘The wrong side of the blanket: illegitimacy and its records’ on 20 September, with talks by Dr. R. Adair and Mr P. Ellacott (44); ‘Railways and Canals’ on 11 October, with talks by Dr B. Trinder and Mr. C. Edwards (32); and ‘Genetics and genealogy’ on 22 November, with talks by Lilian Gibbens and Dr Geoffrey Swinfield (62).
Six lunchtime and evening lectures were also organised in 1997, four of them being on the material on seven specific counties within the Library, I contributing those on Norfolk and Suffolk. The series of visits and talks continued with seven in 1997: the National Monuments Record, the Ragged School Museum Trust, Westminster Abbey Muniment Room (twice), the United Grand Lodge of England, Golders Green Crematorium, the Church of England Record Centre (twice) and the Irish Genealogical Research Society. On 19 June 1997 there was a special day visit to Chatham Dockyard which incorporated an afternoon cruise aboard the PS Kingswear Castle.
Following the successes of previous years a fifth national Family History Fair, organised by Paul Blake with a large group of volunteers and on the now well established model, was held over two days at the Royal Horticultural Society’s New Hall, Westminster, on 3-4 May 1997. About 4,000 people attended together with about 750 stallholders.
The Society’s 12th Day-Conference took place on 8 November 1997, again at the New Horticultural Hall, on the theme ‘Restricted Lives’, organised by Deana Godmon and Patricia Kirkland. The 188 attendees heard eleven talks about the impact of poverty, imprisonment and servitude on our ancestors’ lives.
A two-day beginners course was held on 26 July and 2 August 1997. The Librarian gave two talks on the Library and took part in the nine-week ‘What’s in it for me?’ course starting on 26 September with 14 attendees. A fifteen week beginners course started on 9 October. Hilary Marshall held a two day palaeography course in November 1997 with 11 taking part.
An open form ‘The Society and you’ was held on 22 March 1997 and on Sunday, 20 July, the Society’s first Open Day attracted 126 visitors, much of the day being spent greeting people at a table outside in the road!
The great conferences that I had attended in America always had as one of their major attractions a large area of booths publicising the work of the major societies and providing opportunities for the display of computer software and the sale of books, but in September 1991 I read that a simple Family History Fair, without a conference, was to be held in Manhattan to mark the start of New York Archives Week. Forty organisations and vendors, including all the societies in the New York area, had taken booths or tables, entrance was to be free and, based on the attendance at previous years, about 800 people were expected [Anthony Camp, 'The Family History Fair', in Family History News and Digest (vol. 9, no. 2 (September 1993) 42-43].
I again thought that this was something that the Society should be staging in London, not necessarily to make money, but to attract beginners and put them on the right road to the discovery of their ancestors. Some members of the Executive Committee did everything possible to obstruct the idea but after much nagging behind the scenes a group from the Lectures Committee seized on my suggestion and carried it through with considerable energy. They were Paul Blake, Vivienne Lawrie, Joan Marker, Marjorie Moore and Dennis Wakeling. In the event the outcome was an overwhelming success.
Our first Family History Fair was held at the Royal Horticultural Society's Old Hall in Westminster for just one day, 16 May 1993, and attracted over 4,000 people from all over the world. Some 130 tables were taken by 43 family history societies, 11 booksellers and publishers, and 33 organisations offering a variety of services including antique maps, calligraphy, postcards, computer software, archival aids, microfilms, photographs and genealogical research. There were also displays provided by the British Association for Local History, the National Army Museum and the Public Record Office. I was particularly keen that the British Records Association should also be represented and personally sponsored its costs. The candy-striped stand of the London and North Middlesex Family History Society was very attractive and the Society of Genealogists had a large central stand. The latter was designed by Paul Blake using a series of the now well known 'vile yellow' panels (obtained through the good offices of Peter Park) and manned by staff and volunteers. Here new and duplicate books were sold, advice on research topics and on computers in genealogy was given, and volunteers recruited.
As soon as the doors opened we knew that it would be a success, people poured in and engulfed the stalls. The Society’s staff, assisted by many volunteers, was magnificent. Some vendors had practically sold out by lunchtime and all the stallholders said that from their point of view it had been an outstanding success. Under the glass of the great dome in the Old Hall we were glad that the early morning sun had been replaced by a grey cold day, but outside in the cold wind it was another matter. The queue lengthened to encircle the building and tempers understandably frayed. Some who had travelled for several hours were faced with another long wait and, once inside, had to queue again for the small restaurant and lavatories. To get around the stalls, pushing against the crowds, was a major task. The numbers in the Hall were limited at any one time by the Royal Horticultural Society officials to about eight hundred but people tended to stay longer than was expected so that the turnover was slow and some went away in disgust. However, 84% of those who completed a questionnaire said that they had enjoyed the Fair and 93% said that they would come to another.
The Fair had taken a large investment in time and money and in spite of the few angry letters and complaints we felt that this had been amply rewarded. In view of the enthusiasm of the vast majority who came we had little hesitation in staging a similar event, this time over two days and in the much larger New Hall with its adjoining Conference Centre, on 7-8 May 1994, when stallholders were able to exhibit on one or two days as they wished.
In October 1989 I was one of the guest speakers on the Salt Lake City Tour organised by Family Tree Magazine which was attended by 83 family historians from various parts of the world. During the visit I spoke at the Utah Genealogical Association Luncheon and was surprised to be honoured with the Fellowship of the Association.
At Easter 1990 I was one of the guest speakers at the Sesquicentennial Genealogical Convention organised by the South Auckland groups of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists in Auckland which had over 500 nparticipants. I then spoke to its local groups at Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin and was a guest at the National Archives and the Turnbull Library, the kind hospitality of all those involved being truly outstanding.
In June 1990 I went to Washington and spoke at the four-day National Capital Tenth Anniversary Conference of the National Genealogical Society in Crystal City, which was attended by nearly 2,300 people. During the Conference I was also the guest speaker at the Council of Genealogy Columnists Supper. I returned to America in October as one of the guest speakers on the Salk Lake City Tour organised by Family Tree Magazine.
In May 1991 I visited Portland, Oregon, and spoke at the four-day National Genealogical Society ‘Conference in the States’ which was attended by over 2,500 people. During the Conference I was the guest speaker at the Oregon Visitors Association Breakfast.
I was always interested in particular problems in genealogy, in the sources for migration generally but in particular those relating to migrants to America and, of course, to Ireland, about which we received many enquiries. In 1989 after much delving in spare moments into the small but important Irish collection at the Society I contributed an article listing the major items to the periodical North Irish Roots. This I expanded and published the following year as Sources for Irish Genealogy in the Library of the Society of Genealogists (1990) which I again subsequently extended, producing a second edition in 1998. This latter, published after I had left the Society, involved considerable work and listed practically every item of Irish interest in the library including analytical entries from many periodicals. Meanwhile, those of us who had organised the English Genealogical Congress at Cambridge encouraged Paul Gorry and other Irish genealogists who had been present to hold a similar congress in Ireland, saying that if they did so we would give it every support. Paul rose to the challenge and organised the highly successful First Irish Genealogical Congress at Trinity College, Dublin, 19-24 September 1991. For this I expanded my original article into a lecture, 'Sources for Irish genealogy at the Society of Genealogists' and this was published in the Congress's proceedings, Aspects of Irish genealogy, in 1993.
In April 1992 I visited Jacksonville, Florida, and was the Banquet speaker at the four-day National Genealogical Society ‘Conference in the States’. I proceeded to Utah and was one of the guest speakers at the Salt Lake City Tour organised by Family Tree Magazine, 4-18 May 1992.
In May 1993 I visited Canada and was the keynote speaker at the four-day Seminar ’93 organised by Ontario Genealogical Society at the University of Toronto, 27-30 May. I then again visited the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.
In June 1994 I attended the four-day National Genealogical Society ‘Conference in the States’ at Houston, Texas, and in October I was again one of the speakers at the Salt Lake City Tour organised by Family Tree Magazine. Whilst there I delivered a lecture in a series marking the Centennial of the Genealogical Society of Utah on 6 October 1994.
In July 1995 I attended and spoke on two occasions at the three-day New England Historic Genealogical Society’s Sesquicentennial Conference at Boston and in December I again visited the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.
In October 1996 I was again one of the guest speakers at the Salt Lake City Tour organised by Family Tree Magazine.
The quarterly journal Computers in Genealogy continued to be edited by Eric Probert and now had some 1,217 subscribers, its March 1989 issue containing details of all the commercial software packages specifically written for genealogical or family history use (other than shareware) and available in the United Kingdom, a listing revised and repeated in June 1991 and again in December 1992. Enthusiasts met on six occasions in 1989 to hear evening talks on particular packages, John Addis-Smith organised a half-day conference on various packages on 13 May 1989 when 70 attended and there were two Saturday afternoon workshops on ‘Heritage’ organised by Don Francis.
In 23 September 1989 Eric Probert organised in association with Bristol and Avon Family History Society the first of a series of highly successful computer day conferences held around the country over the next few years and with remarkable attendencies, similar to that which he had organised at the Society in 1986 and usually including workshops, lectures and a panel of experienced users. The first was held at Transport House, Bristol, and had 119 attendees. The second, organised in association with North West Kent Family History Society, was at Sevenoaks School for Girls on 27 October 1990 and had 180 attendees. The third, in association with Northumberland and Durham Family History Society, was at Gosforth High School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 16 November 1991, and had 140 attendees. The fourth, in association with Devon Family History was at the Queen’s Building in the University of Exeter on 4 April 1992, and had 150 attendees. Later that year, 24 October, in association with Oxfordshire Family History Society, David Squire organised a similar conference at Exeter Hall, Kidlington, Oxfordshire, with about the same number. In 1993 Eric Probert organised his fifth conference in association with the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry at Westhill College, Selly Oak on 2 October 1993, with 98 attendees. His sixth, in association with the Essex Society for Family History, at Christ Church, New London Road, Chelmsford on 25 March 1995 had 140 attendees. His seventh (organised with David Hawgood) in association with Cheshire Family History Society, at Queen Park chool, Chester, on 18 Mau 1996 had 140 attendees. His eighth in association with the Devon Family History Society at St Loye’s College, Exeter on 12 April 1997 had 125 attendees.
On 16 June 1990 Mrs L. Race organised a day-conference at the Society on genealogical programs with 78 attendees and on 17 November David Squire organised a similar half-day on the ‘Pedigree’ Program with 76 attendees. There were six of the usual evening meetings and in October (assisted by funds donated in memory of the late Alexander Sandison) the Society purchased a ‘Datasplay’ projection panel for the magnification of a computer screen through an overhead projector.
In 1991 Neville Taylor organised a half-day conference for beginners at the Society on 29 June 1991 when 50 attended. Five other meetings were organised that year and the number of subscribers to Computers in Genealogy rose to 1,385. Its March 1991 issue contained a questionnaire and appeal, organised by Mrs Lonny Race, which resulted in some 170 volunteers offering to assist with transcription and indexing projects for the Library.
Similarly on 20 June 1992 Mrs Lonny Race organised a half-day computer conference at the Society with demonstrations of genealogy software, when 54 attended and there were five evening meetings of enthusiasts, members of the Computer Committee giving considerable assistance to the Senior Library Assistant in organising the volunteers mentioned above.
Jeanne Bunting organised a ‘hands on’ practical session on group computer transcribing and indexing at the Society on 10 July 1993, with 22 attendees, and there were five meetings for computer enthusiasts in the course of the year.
An advice surgery was provided throughout the Family History Fair in May 1993 when several shareware programs were copied and sold and a running display provided by Neville Taylor. A Computers in Genealogy Beginners Pack, consisting mainly of advisory leaflets and prepared especially for the Fair, proved popular and was reprinted in December. This pack was revised and expanded in 1994 and launched as The Computers in Genealogy beginners handbook at the second Fair.
Neville Taylor was now typesetting the quarterly issues of Computers in Genealogy and a questionnaire on the main trends in computer use organised by Mr M. C. Marriette was circulated with the June 1993 issue. Those for December in 1993 and 1994 again contained details of the many programs marketed in the UK.
A day of computer software demonstrations was held on 16 July 1994 with demonstrations of Pedigree, Personal Ancestral File, Brother’s Keeper and Reunion for Windows. There were six meetings for enthusiasts and at the suggestion of David Hawgood a computer help-line was inaugurated in February 1994 so that members who telephoned the Society with computer problems could be given the number of a member to assist them.
A major project to alphabetise the calendars of the Vicar General marriage allegations 1710-1837, using a program devised by David Squire, was launched in October 1994 with Colin Allen as organiser. On 11 February 1995 David Squire organised a hands-on practical day-workshop centred on these calendars, when 24 attended.
A highly successful six week evening theoretical course ‘An introduction to computers for genealogists’, devised by David Squire and with talks by David Hawgood, Dr D. W. Jopling, Peter Livock and David Squire, was held in March-April 1995 with 23 attending. The course was repeated in February-April 1996 with 20 attending and again from February 1997, when Neville Taylor took the place of Peter Livock, and 20 attended.
Also in 1997 David Hawgood orgaised a day of computer software demonstrations on 5 July and a day symposium on ‘Advances in genealogical computing’ on 30 August when 30 attended. There were five evening meetings across the year. Peter Christian’s widely acclaimed Web publishing for genealogy had been published in February.
Five evening meetings for enthusiasts were organised in 1995 and through the good offices of Professor Brian Randell details of the Society first featured on the Genuki website on the Internet. A membership application form, copies of the Library guide, the lecture programme and the bookshop list with an order form, were all included. On 16 December 1995 members of the Computer Committee met at the Cafe Internet for a practical exploration of the Internet’s genealogical possibilities. By the end of the year Computers in Genealogy had 1,501 subscribers.
A day of computer software demonstrations was organised by Dr Jopling on 22 June 1996 when 67 attended and through the kind offices of Peter Christian a ‘hands on’ experience of the Internet was held at Goldsmith’s College on 13 April 1996 when 18 attended. There were five evening meetings in both 1996 and 1997 and members of the Committee provided demonstrations (one in 1996 by David Squire of a voice recognition program) and advice surgeries throughout the Family History Fairs in both years.
At the end of 1996 Eric Probert announced his resignation as editor of Computers in Genealogy after ten years in the post and Peter Christian was appointed in his stead. Also in 1996 David Hawgood, the founder editor of the journal was awarded the Fellowship of the British Computer Society specifically in recognition of his pioneering contribution to genealogical computing.
The Census Search Room was moved from the Land Registry in Portugal Street to newly refurbished rooms in the basement of the PRO building in Chancery Lane in 1991 and the 1891 census returns were released there in January 1992.
The census records remained here until March/April 1997 when they were again moved, this time to the expensive and lavish first floor of the Family Records Centre, the remainder of the records going to Kew and the Chancery Lane Building being then closed.
I had known Marc Fitch (1908-1994) and his second wife Ismini (nee Georgacopoulo; died 1999) since my earliest days at the Society of Genealogists and had long been appreciative of Marc’s hard work on the British Record Society’s indexes and his unfailing generosity through the Fund which he had established in 1956 and which is several times mentioned above. He was a contemporary and lifelong friend of Anthony Wagner who had done extensive research on the Fitch family in Essex and with the Essex (later Sussex) archivist Francis Steer and both had been highly influential in the Fund’s creation and its promotion of scholarly causes including local history, genealogy and heraldry. The Fund had itself initiated two major projects. With the assistance of Professor W.G. Hoskins and as Wagner had suggested, it had in 1965 endowed a Readership in the History of Surnames (later upgraded to a Research Fellowship) within the Department of Local History History at Leicester University. Its first county monograph, as described above, had been published in 1969 and Richard McKinley had been succeeded as Research Fellow in 1988 by Dr David Postles. The Fund paid some sixty per cent of his salary and he taught palaeography to undergraduates as well as other teaching and supervising within the Department. The Fund’s second major project had been to sponsor the cataloguing of the records and collections of the College of Arms, Francis Steer working on these until his death in 1978, though the first and only volume of the catalogue to appear, edited by Louise Campbell, did not appear until 1988, the cost of the volume being a personal contribution from Marc to mark the College’s 600th anniversary.
By 1988 the Fund had supported almost 650 projects, mostly publications, and by the autumn of 1991 had given away a million pounds in grants and loans, the majority of its awards having been to assist publication in the fields of archaeology, art history, genealogy, local history and topography. I was thus pleased and honoured in January that year to be asked by the architectural historian John Cornforth (1937-2004), then the Fund’s Chairman, to join its small Council of Management, ostensibly to strengthen coverage in the genealogical field.
By then another old friend, Ismini’s son-in-law Roy Stephens had succeeded Francis Steer as the Fund’s Secretary. Roy was also the practical co-ordinator for the printing of the British Record Society volumes and his considerable expertise in printing and publishing enabled the Fund’s subsidiary, the Leopard’s Head Press, founded in 1975, to publish some of the results of the research projects which had been assisted by the Fund. The Press’s name had been taken from the Arms and Crest granted to the Fund in 1979. By the year 2000 it had published some eighty-two titles including the first volume of the catalogue of the College of Arms and seven volumes of the Survey of English Surnames.
The Council usually met twice yearly in the Mortimer Wheeler Room at the Society of Antiquaries, but occasionally we met in colleges at Oxford or Cambridge. These meetings to consider applications for grants were always most pleasant occasions though initially somewhat daunting in the breadth of the subjects covered. About thirty-five applications were considered at each meeting, full details of each with the supporting comments of the sponsors being circulated in advance. Since 1987 a number of larger awards, usually running for two or three years, had also been made towards the cost of cataloguing or research, including salary, and by 1992 some 37 of these ‘Special Projects’ had been assisted. In 1993 there were, for example, eight of these in progress, those approved in 1990-91 being grants over three years towards the preparation of the indexes to The Gladstone Diaries being published by Oxford University Press, the cataloguing of the Blunt collection of English coins at the Fitzwilliam Museum, the provision of a photographic studio at the Irish Architectural Archive, the research costs of the Buildings of Scotland series, the research into British colonial architecture in Calcutta and the establishment of a Research Studentship in Agricultural History at the University of Reading. By the year 2000 some £833,457 had been awarded by way of these Special Projects since their inception in 1987. At the Council meetings in London there was often a break for lunch in the Antiquaries’ Council Room and these lunches were an opportunity to meet some of those involved in the larger Special Projects and in the case of the important Surnames Survey their supervisors, visits to Leicester being undertaken by Council members
After his research on the surnames of Leicestershire and Rutland (published in 1998), David Postles concentrated on the Northern onomastic region, building on work already completed on Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire but entailing research into Cumberland, Westmorland, Durham, Northumberland and the other Ridings of Yorkshire. Marc Fitch had given his library to the Department of Local History at Leicester and the house allotted to it by the Department had, in April 1989, been named Marc Fitch House and opened by the Fund’s President, the Duke of Norfolk. After I had left the Council David Postles decided in 2005 to take early retirement, but remained a University Fellow in the School of English and his regional volume eventually appeared in 2007 as The North through its names (volume 8 in the English Surnames Survey series), he having produced a general volume Naming the People of England, c.1100-1350 in 2006.
John Cornforth stood down as Chairman of the Fund early in 2001 when Alan Scott Bell (1942-2018), recently Librarian of The London Library was elected in his stead. Roy Stephens retired as Secretary in February 2003 and was succeeded as Executive Director by the energetic Elaine Paintin (1947-2010), formerly of the British Museum and Library, but meetings then began to take place alternately in London and at Oxford and with the pressure of other things at that time I very reluctantly decided on 14 September 2003 to resign my membership of the Council which was doing such wonderful work in Marc’s name.
Under the arrangement with the Federation of Family History Societies, Alan Reed had been the Society’s most active and appreciated representative on the latter’s Executive Committee in succession to Sir Andrew Noble since 1979, but that position he also resigned and in September 1989 Mrs Gill Valentine was nominated in his place. In November 1989 the formal representation of the Federation on the Society’s Library and Computer Committees was brought to an end by mutual agreement, but the useful liaison in the field of publications continued through Mrs Susan B. Lumas. I joined the Federation's Education Sub-Committee in April 1994.
By then the Federation of Family History Societies had been in existence for almost twenty years and hardly a year had passed in which someone said that the Society of Genealogists had no role to play in it. Back in 1975 Michael Burchall had said that 'the Federation was for small and local societies'. And yet even before the Federation had come into existence the first joint venture of the local societies, in September 1973, had been to place a combined advertisement in the The Genealogists’ Magazine which, as Fred Markwell said at the time, 'was of great economic advantage to the participating societies'. I reminded the Extraordinary General Meeting of the Federation held at Birmingham on 12 November 1994 of these points when it was proposed that the Society should lose its status as a Nominating Member under the Federation’s new constitution as a limited company.
I said then that we all recognised that the promotion of the subject was something done by small as well as large societies and that much more could be done with the practical co-operation of all concerned. I reminded those present that all the societies contained beginners and experts, all contained amateurs and professionals, and that all had the same challenges and problems. The Society of Genealogists elected over a hundred new members every month. Many were already members of local societies but a great number were complete beginners. As an international society with 13,000 members we had members in most countries around the world. However, one of the challenges of being a large and old society was that there was a library to maintain, a building to repair, and staff to man it all. There were, of course, advantages too: we had built up over eighty years a working relationship with many societies and organisations worldwide, both official and unofficial, for the benefit of all genealogists everywhere. I was very proud, I said, of what had been accomplished. That combined experience and expertise had always been at the service of the Federation and it had been drawn upon on numerous occasions.
I went on to say that the old constitution of the Federation had said that the Nominating Societies should be chosen 'from among societies in the UK who are leaders in genealogy, heraldry, and kindred studies, and whose collaboration with the Federation is considered likely to be of direct aid to its work'. In order to ensure that a closer collaboration took place not only then, but also in the future, changes were made to the constitution and the Society of Genealogists was given 'a special and privileged position'. It was the view of the Federation's Executive Committee that the arrangement made twenty years earlier had worked very well. A paper circulated by that Committee in August had said that the involvement of the Nominating Members over the last twenty years had been fundamental to the Federation's success; it had been a close and productive association. I recalled that I had had some distinguished predecessors as the Society's representative, people who had worked long and for many hours on the Federation's behalf - including Sir Andrew Noble (died 1987) and Alan Reed - but that two years ago it was felt that an even closer association would be beneficial and that was why I had been asked to represent the Society. I didn't particularly enjoy turning out early on Sundays for all day meetings in Birmingham but I was glad to do so because I had no doubt it was worthwhile. It ensured that for any matter about which the Society of Genealogists had experience, that experience was immediately available to the Federation, and vice versa, and that any joint problem or venture could be followed up immediately. I pointed out that we were both international organisations with large memberships and yet the number of people with time and knowledge that they were willing to give to the subject was small indeed. I urged them to do everything possible to make the best use of the knowledge that was available, not only to avoid duplication but also to promote cooperation, and said that could be done much more easily by direct representation on the Executive Committee. It had worked well for twenty years and I could see no good reason for changing it.
As a result the proposal was rejected and I followed Mrs Valentine as the Society’s representative on the Federation’s Executive Committee from 1992 to 1998 when I was elected President (1998-2000) and Robert Gordon was named the Society’s representative on the Federation’s Executive Committee.
In 1997 I completed forty years service with the Society of Genealogists, but the last few years had been particularly difficult ones in which I often felt overwhelmed by the pressure of work, correspondence and meetings. I therefore, after much deliberation, on 17 December 1996, gave a year’s notice of my intention to resign. At my last Annual Meeting on 24 June 1997 the Chairman of the Exeutive Committee said that I was, ‘Regarded world-wide as ‘Mr Genealogy, his work for the Society seems to increase daily. He represents the Society on many other bodies, lectures frequently at home and abroad, His ‘Diary’ in Family Tree Magazine is often the first page to which many readers turn. There will never be another Anthony Camp, I feel sure that no one in the future will ever devote so many hours to the Society. More will be said later this year, but I cannot let this opportunity go by to wish him a long and happy retirement and thank him for his long and devoted service to the Society’. Similar wording was used in the Chairman’s note published in the Genealogists’ Magazine [vol. 25, no. 11 (September 1997) 468].
The considerable generosity of a member enabled the Society to hold a farewell reception for me in the magnificent Chapter Hall of the Order of St John at neighbouring St John’s Gate on 16 December 1997. The Hall was beautifully decorated for Christmas and I was honoured by the presence of the Society’s President, HRH Prince Michael of Kent, the Registrar General (the statistician Dr Timothy Holt), the Keeper of Public Records (Mrs Sarah Tyacke), the Mayor of Islington (Councillor Rupert Perry), Cecil O. Samuelson representing the President of the Quorum of the Twelve (Dr Boyd K. Packer who was also a Vice-President of the Society) and by representatives of many genealogical and archival organisations (including AGRA, the Federation, the Scottish Association and the Extra-Mural Society) together with about 140 members and staff. Also present were a number of former staff including John Phillips the Society’s Secretary in the 1950s when I first arrived there.
Prince Michael spoke warmly and generously of his term as President which had coincided with mine as Director and presented a cheque contributed by members of the Society and readers of Family Tree Magazine. Michael and Mary Armstrong, the proprietors of the latter journal, recalling my provision of 150 monthly instalments of ‘The Diary of a Genealogist’ and my refusing tp take any fee, most generously presented travel insurance and an airline ticket to Salt Lake City so that I could work in the library there. A statement by Kenneth Knight, President of the Society of Australian Genealogists, was read announcing my election on 14 August 1797 as an Honorary Member of that Society for ‘outstanding services to genealogical studies’ [GM vol 26, no. 1 (Mch 1998) 14-15]. The New Zealand Society of Genealogists also kindly gave me a subscription to their Journal until 2006. All those attending had entered their names in a presentation album inscribed ‘in recognition of his dedication, integrity and enthusiam during forty years of service’.
Although I had written to the Genealogists’ Magazine saying that the overwhelming number of kind letters and other expressions of goodwill received were too numerous to acknowledge I did in fact later send a card to all those whose addresses I was able to locate. For the card I used a reproduction of the ‘London Laughs’ cartoon about the Society published in the London Evening News on 1 November 1938 (described above), I having purchased the original artwork by Joseph Lee (‘Lee’; 1901-1975) from a dealer in 1994.
On 18 May 1999 I was surprised to receive a letter from 10 Downing Street saying that the Prime Minister had it in mind ‘on the occasion of the forthcoming list of Birthday Honours, to submit your name to the Queen with a recommendation that Her Majesty may be graciously pleased to approve that you be appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire’. Having assured him that this would be agreeable to me the announcement was made in the Birthday Honours List on 12 June, the citation being ‘for services to the Society of Genealogists’ [The London Gazette, Number 55513, 11 June 1999, Supplement No. 1] and I was invested with the Insignia of the Order by HM The Queen in the Ballroom at Buckingham Palace on 20 July. The Queen was escorted by the Lord Steward (The Viscount Ridley) who announced the names of the recipients, the Master of the Household (Major General Sir Simon Cooper) and the Equerry in Waiting (Squadron Leader Simon Brailsford), and was attended by two Gurkha Orderly Officers and five members of her Body Guard of the Yeomen of the Guard. I was permitted to have three guests present and these were my sister, my niece and Mrs Barbara Merrall who had co-ordinated the many recent representations kindly made on my behalf. Major Arthur Greenwood in Canada had taken considerable trouble to collect letters and make similar representations in 1995. As I wrote to him afterwards I was particularly pleased that, so far as I could find, this was the first time that any award had been made in the field of genealogy in the UK, other than to officers of the College of Arms. My only slight disappointment was that it was made for services to the Society of Genealogists and not to the subject in general, the improvement of which had always been and remained my aim. The twentieth of July was one of the hottest days of the year but the four of us walked over afterwards to have a lovely lunch at Franco’s of St James in Jermyn Street. On 16 June HRH Prince Michael of Kent most kindly sent a Telemessage of congratulation. The Warrant received later was signed by the Queen and by the Duke of Edinburgh as Grand Master of the Order.
In 1997 I completed forty years service with the Society of Genealogists, but the last few years had been particularly difficult ones in which I often felt overwhelmed by the pressure of work, correspondence and meetings. I therefore, after much deliberation, on 17 December 1996, gave a year’s notice of my intention to resign. The Society’s trustees who formed the Executive Committee and were chaired by Marjorie Moore made little attempt to find a successor until relatively late in 1997 when an advertisement in the September Magazine said that the successful applicant would be ‘responsible for the overall direction and co-ordination of the Society’s affairs’ and that the ideal candidate would have had ‘a considerable experience with genealogical matters and working in a management role’ [GM, vol 25, no. 11 (September 1997) page iv]. Two trustees without administrative experience applied for the position, thus making the process controversial and unpleasant, but probably explaining why discussion of a deputy to me, which would have eased pressures and ensured some continuity, had previously made no headway.
The person appointed in November 1997 was the forceful and ambitious Robert Ian Neilson Gordon (1952-2017), formerly a solicitor and borough councillor at Watford in Hertfordshire who for ten years had been trying to enter national politics. He had stood unsuccessfully as a Parliamentary Candidate at Torfaen in 1987 and at Watford in 1997 and as a Euro-candidate for the Eastern Region in 1999.
Suggestions that he might work alongside me for a while or that I should be retained temporarily in an advisory capacity were quickly dismissed by the Executive Committee and I had only a short discussion with him on 9 January 1998, several days after he had actually started work. Although a member of the Society since 1994, he showed little knowledge of the genealogical world (he did not know, for instance, the difference between the commercial Family Tree Magazine and the Federation’s Family History News & Digest) and he had no experience of working with committees or volunteers in a charitable context. It transpired that he would generally take a legalistic and aggressively commercial view, seeing other organisations in the same field, such as the Federation of Family History Societies and the Genealogical Society of Utah, as competitors. He certainly did not believe that he could learn anything from the past history of the Society and few expected him to stay long in the post, though we noted that ‘former director of a national charity’ subsequently appeared on his promotional literature. One of those who had interviewed him said that he would ‘lead’ the Executive Committee, the quality of the members of which he soon began to disparage and he led the Society for three years with the most unfortunate consequencies.
On my last day at the Society I had left on Robert Gordon’s desk a lengthy memorandum setting out many internal office procedures, deadlines and details of the part that he would be expected to play in upcoming events in 1998, the diary for which had already largely been finalised, together with a lengthy ‘job description’ which set out in considerable detail all the tasks which I had been undertaking on the Society’s behalf.
I was in America from 19 January to 10 February and on 23 February 1998 Robert Gordon sent me a draft of the Annual Report for 1997 worded by the General Purposes Committee. It made an early impression that not all was well as no attempt had been made to go through the Minutes of the various committees to summarise the Society’s activities or to check doubtful points. I made a great number of changes and included four pages of additional text to be incorporated at various places, making the point that the Society’s Annual Report was its main opportunity to place on record to the world what it had done in the year and adding ‘if the committees cannot be bothered to do even that then the Society is indeed in unworthy hands’ [2 March 1998].
It had been agreed in the General Purposes Committee whilst I was in post as Director that I might have continued access to the Society’s older files and Minute Books in connection with the early history of the Society and the biographies of former Fellows on both of which I had been working intermittently for some years. However, Robert Gordon wrote on 22 January that ‘your final text must be submitted to the Society for approval prior to publication so that the Society can consider if any matters are inappropriate for publication on the grounds of confidentiality or otherwise’, adding ‘The Society’s judgement [sic] on any such issue would be final’. He asked that I sign a copy of the letter giving my assent to this condition. He rashly likened me to a previous applicant who had waged an active campaign to discredit the Society and who had been asked to sign a similar document. I could not believe the insensitivity, though I soon saw how all-pervading it was, and I eventually replied on 9 March making it clear that I would sign no such thing. It was a great disappointment but as a result my work on the files at the Society came to an end.
I went, however, several times to the Society’s library, in preparation for two weeks in Salt Lake City in January 1998 (going there again with the Family Tree Group in October),l ectured at the Society on agricultural labourers on 21 February, attended a lunch given by David Squire to mark the completion of the final volume of the Vicar General Project (from 1694 to 1850) and to present a copy to Lambeth Palace Library on 4 March, and on 4 April took the first session, ‘Land Ownership and Ocupancy since 1660’, of the Society’s important day course ‘Changing Landscapes’ which I had organised with Professor David Hey, Dr Brian Short and Professor Ian Whyte.
On 26 April 1998 Marjorie Moore said that she had been asked at the British Genealogical Record Users Committee on 22 April to see whether I would like ‘to continue your crusade concerning access to records’ under the umbrella of BGRUC and saying that my recent article in Family Tree Magazine [‘Easier & cheaper access to older civil registration records’, Family Tree Magazine, April 1998], ‘has sent everyone buzzing’. I replied at length on 6 May 1998 saying that I was finding it difficult to go back to the Society in view of the questions from those who knew little of why I had left and I said that ‘in the last couple of months the situation has been made much worse by the number of letters, telephone calls and questions about recent developments’, which I was finding draining and exhausting, a situation not helped by meeting members of the staff almost in tears in the road. Indeed, as I said in the letter, the volunteers (with whom Robert Gordon, shut in his room, refused to be involved and consistently ignored) were in despair, with everything uncertain and unhappy, the atmosphere so unpleasant. I had no doubt that a number of changes would take place but I had hoped that these would build on what had been accomplished in the past. I did not expect them to be of ‘such an absurdly expedient nature’ by someone without experience in the field and without the slightest foresight or knowledge of the repercussions which they might have in other areas. I had now heard that three members of staff were to be made ‘redundant’ and that they had not been told until the day adertisements appeared for their successors. I said that it was a despiccable and unworthy, a contrivance, with a dreadful effect on the other staff. The trustees had apparently been written to and told that if they could not keep these matters confidential they should not come to the meetings. I said that the new Director seemed to be ‘intent on passing all the work which he himself should be doing to others’ and the situation was a complete travesty of what had been intended last year. It pained me greatly to say that I would not be asociated with such a shameful regime, let alone work closely with it in the way that she suggested. The work of BGRUC was vital and closely allied to the prestige and standing of the Society and if the Director could not be bothered even with that (his presumed lobbying skills being the main reason for his appointment and he being on a nine month probation) then he should go. She did not reply. In November one of those made redundant gained a most favourable settlement by taking action against the Society in the Industrial Tribunal, a matter not mentioned in the Annual Report.
In July 1998 I completed work on the revision of my Sources for Irish Genealogy in the Library of the Society of Genealogists and sent the text to the Society for publication. The book listed practically every Irish item in the library and provided analytical entries for the main Irish periodicals. It was given no publicity and my request to be paid a royalty on it was ignored, as was my later letter about a decision in 2008 to dispose of the remaining stock.
Extremely apprehensive as to future developments I heard from Susan Lumas in August 1998 that because of ‘the present constrictions on space’ the ‘membership papers’ at the Society were being considered for destruction and as an archivist she was naturally alarmed. I replied saying that I could not believe that anyone would destroy the older (pre-1954) correspondence files without going through them (as I had offered to do) and that I used regularly to consult the current ones; those who saw the members as merely the providers of an annual subscription would not understand their importance. The more recent ones were then quickly destroyed. In December 1999 a short-term member of staff was allowed to list the ‘surviving internal papers created by the Society’ for the National Register of Archives [NRA 42592, GB 2034 Soc Gen] but the list did not include the large collection of committee minutes then in the Director’s office and its compiler had apparently not been shown the detailed list of the files in the basement store which I had made in January 1998 and left for the new Director. In March 2000 he advertised for copies of many of the Society’s previous Annual Reports [GM, Vol. 26, No. 9 (March 2000) 352] though there was a complete set in the Director’s office and large numbers of duplicates in the store.
At the AGM on 29 June 1999 the General Regulations of the Society, originally made in 1979, were substantially altered to give greater powers to the Executive Committee. The level of the annual subscription (in future to be determined by the Executive and not by Members in Annual Meeting) was fixed at £33 p.a. The ‘non-London members’ (previously called ‘Country Members’) elected before 8 July 1997 were to pay £24. All the members, including about 1,500 who had qualified for concessions (as Retired, Student or Family Members) before 1997, would be entitled to a reduction of £3 if they paid by variable Direct Debit (to which older members had a great resistance) but not if they paid by Bankers Order. The Entrance Fee would in future be determined by the Executive Committee. These changes would, it was estimated, produce an extra £45,000 in the Society’s income [AR 1999 page 4] and produced £404,447 in the year 2000 as against £372,447 in 1999, though the figures (as was later admitted) were unreliable.
The Annual Report for 2000 [page 5] said that new membership software was acquired at the end of 1999 but not fully implemented until 2000 when it was found that the total membership previously reported was incorrect and at 31 December 2000 was actually 14,243 of which 1,197 lived overseas (as against the 1,341 reported in 1999). The number paying the reduced concessionary rate was 1,234 as against 1,404 in 1999. Comments made in 2003, however, threw much doubt on the accuracy of these figures.
Although the Society regularly lost about ten per cent of its membership every year there was a core of older members (about 60% were aged over 60) paying, as has been described above, various rates which could not be altered and the simplification that I had aimed for was now partly abandoned in that discounts were to be allowed to those who paid by direct debit but not otherwise. Computerisation had simplified the recording of subscriptions (reminders, standing orders, direct debits, and the two periodicals) but the introduction of these discounts and the careful attention and oversight that they required inevitably caused further problems for the office.
Back in 1996 the committees had been exploring ideas for a more active presence on the Internet and the possibility of making source material available there at variable rates for members and non-members [AR 1996 page 12]. In 1998 Peter Christian developed a website for the Society so that it could be contacted by e-mail, with direct mail boxes for sales and the library [AR 1998 page 3]. Two electronic mailing lists were established and managed by Geoffrey Stone, one for news from the Society and the other for discussion amongst its members. The bookshop went online in September 1998 and offered a secure credit card ordering facility, though the Society’s leaflets were made available there without charge.
The decision was also taken in 1998 to begin to make digitised Library material available ‘as soon as reasonably practical’ and to publish online the Library’s computerised catalogue once the work with Heritage Lottery funding had been completed [AR 1998 page 3]. The Chairman of the Executive wrote in May 1999 that the Executive Committee had agreed ‘to make greater use of the Internet in making our material more easily available. This initiative will develop slowly at first but will impact substantially over many years’ [AR 1998 pages 1-2]. The 1999 Report said, ‘Such a project will be costly and will have technical and administrative aspects beyond the Society’s capability’ [AR 1999 page 3]. However, three possible partners were immediately considered and in September 1999 a ten-year contract with one was prepared, the project’s stated intention being to increase the Society’s income, particularly from non-members. This was, of course, at the start of the ‘dot-com boom’. Robert Gordon, without any experience or background in genealogy, was, as I was told, encouraging the trustees to believe that they could obtain ‘more money than they would know what to do with’ through the marketing of books and indexes on the Internet.
The agreement, with Origins.net Ltd (a firm founded as OMS Services Limited in 1997, which had operated the Scots Origins service since early in 1998), was signed on 5 May 2000 and was set to start in the third quarter of that year. A separate trading company, Society of Genealogists Enterprises Ltd, was formed in April 2000 [AR 1999 page 1] and was ‘expected to make a significant contribution to the Society’s income in future years’ [AR 2000 page 10]. It had been formed on the advice of the Society’s new auditors ‘particularly to take forward the Origins project’ [GM, vol. 26, no. 10 (June 2000) 386]. The Society’s long serving and highly competent auditors, BDO Stoy Hayward, who had taken a close personal interest in the development of the Society for a number of years, ‘did not seek re-appointment’ and had been replaced by Messsrs F W Stephens & Co at the Annual Meeting on 29 June 1999 [Minutes in GM vol 26 No 7 Sep 1999 page 254].
When EnglishOrigins.net went live on 2 January 2001 it contained indexes to the Vicar General and Faculty Office marriage licences, the Bank of England and Archdeaconry Court of London will indexes, the London Consistory Court depositions, and the published London City apprenticeship indexes being compiled by Clifford Webb [AR 2000 page 4]. About 1.5 million entries in Boyd’s Marriage Index were also added that year.
A further 3.5 million entries from Boyd’s Marriage were added in 2002 (the names of the Yorkshire brides becoming available for the first time) as well as some 208,000 names, without informing me or mentioning my name, from my PCC Will Index 1750-1800 and the Trinity House Petitions. Two million further entries were added in 2003 from parts of Boyd’s Miscellaneous Series and the Blacksmiths’ Company apprentices.
Members of the Society were being allowed a free access session once every quarter of the year. This was suspended for a month from 14 September 2004 for a redesign of the site and a name change to ‘British Origins’ but in that year more of Boyd’s Marriage Index, his London burials and further London apprentices were added [AR 2004 page 3]. The ‘guaranteed’ income from this venture is discussed below. Origins.net was absorbed into Findmypast on 16 March 2015.
Early in 1996 I had taken an interest and looked over a building for sale immediately behind the Society but facing Aldersgate Street, its extensive basement being easily accessible from our Members’ Room via a small yard between the two buildings. We knew that the Society’s income to support a larger building was completely lacking (as was stressed in the Annual Report that year, the Society’s then financial bouyancy being largely due to the interest arising from its reserves) [AR 1996 page 12] but a little later I was told that about 1,300 square feet of storage space, already fitted out with racking, had become available there to rent. The possibilities were explored and in April 1997 we signed a five-year lease on this large room for £3,609 per annum. Following the necessary work an initial move of little used material and files took place in September, much assisted by the donation of several cabinets and additional shelving by Stephen Hale. It proved a relatively cheap but important extension to our storage facilities.
Meanwhile a committee to consider the future needs of the Society had its first meeting in March 1997 and in October received detailed plans for the possible upward extension of the building by the addition of two further storeys. The annual report for 1997 (put together by the Executive Committee early in 1998) said that although the likely costs involved were far beyond the then resources of the Society, it had been agreed that a planning application should be made to test the future possibilities. The results of this were awaited at the end of the year. That report also noted with regard to the Development Fund which stood at £279,294, that ‘Any future development will reduce these holdings and therefore income currently enjoyed from them - £30,866 this year and £27,823 in 1996. The effect of this reduction in income and the increase of running expenses must be a major consideration in any decision regarding future premises’.
However, the Annual Report for the first year of the new Director struck a quite different note, saying that the premises ‘are too small for current purposes – let alone for further expansion. The working conditions for members and visitors are too cramped, the lack of facilities for people with disabilities is unacceptable, the lecture hall is barely adequate and the library has insufficient space to accept a major deposit of new material, should one be offered’. In May 1998 the Society was advised by Messrs Boon Godbold, the only real estate advisers in the neighbouring City of London, that ‘a move to significantly larger premises in broadly the same part of London might be achievable’ and as a result that firm was appointed to advise on a search and the disposal of 14 Charterhouse Buildings, preparations for a fundraising appeal being put in hand [AR 1998 page 2].
Although the Annual Report for 1998 said that the Society had reserves of ‘approximately £500,000’ and the value of its freehold building, it also said that about a million pounds would ‘need to be added to its value to secure suitable premises’ [AR 1998 page 2], in fact the Development Fund stood at £309,294 [AR 1998 page 27] and was only increased to the more impressive £500,000 in the Annual Accounts for 1999 by including all the Society’s available reserves [AR 1999 page 11]. The Society had previously taken the prudent view that a proportion of the funds should always be held in reserve and that the income from bequests and unplanned donations should be shown quite separately in the Annual Accounts as best indicating the financial position. The book value of the building was £330,786 [AR 1998 page 24].
However, late in 1998 a fundraising committee was established under the chairmanship of the Vice-President, Patric Dickinson, with Prince Michael of Kent as Patron. A specialist firm, Opus, was engaged as fundraising consultants with Messrs Field Fisher Waterhouse as solicitors. The Annual Report for 1998, worded in May 1999, said that the appeal would be launched ‘as soon as new premises have been identified’. It made no mention of the planning application for an upward extension of the existing building mentioned in the previous Report. The ‘Notes and News’ in the Society’s Magazine for March 2000 said that the Executive would continue the search ‘until the right deal can be done’ but put the cost of ‘the 20,000 square feet [i.e. double the existing space] we would like at about four million pounds!’.
Islington and the City fringe areas were, however, witnessing substantial increases in property prices, and no attempt was made to involve the Society’s membership in the search as had been done so successfully in 1984. The Chairman’s overview for 1999, worded in May 2000, said that ‘the last few months have proved a very busy and somewhat frustrating time ... We had hoped to be able to see the Society re-located to larger and more suitable premises – but it was not to be. Strenuous efforts continue to find the right property within our limited financial resources’.
A suitable building, of which no details were published, had apparently been identified in Farringdon Road and the Society applied for planning permission on another in Goswell Road on 31 January 2000. This related to part of the lower ground, ground and first floors of Straus House, 41-53 Goswell Road, EC1, a red-brick building dating from 1928 on the corner of Great Sutton Street. Although consent with conditions on this was granted on 24 February 2000 the owners had already accepted a higher offer ‘in early January’.
Accordingly the Annual Report adds ‘some might consider a move well-nigh impossible’ [AR 1999 page 2] and shortly before the Society’s Annual Meeting in June 2000 the Executive Committee had agreed that due to the increase in property prices a move would not be possible. The Meeting was told that the Society would ‘remodel and refurbish the current premises’ the Annual Report saying that this would ‘expend some of our reserves’.
For many years the Standing Orders of the Society had contained specific regulations to control the expenditure of money by the Society’s ‘Spending Committees’. The General Purposes Committee was required, at the start of each financial year, to produce budgets based on estimates of the expenditure and income in the coming year. That Committee was also required to monitor the Society’s overall financial position, receiving at each of its meetings account balances and at each quarterly meeting accounts of its total receipts and payments as compared to the budget.
However, the exemplary Finance Office, Roger Lawson, a Fellow of the Association of Accounting Technicians and of the Institute of Financial Accountants, who was familiar with and expert in these necessary and fundamental procedures, retired in January 2001 and the Society appointed Mrs June Perrin, without formal accountancy qualifications and quite unfamiliar with the administration of a limited company, to the new post of Assistant Director (Finance & Administration) ‘to oversee the Society’s more complex financial and administrative requirements’ [2000 AR page 7]. The careful divisions between the General Purposes Committee and the Executive had, however, been blurred under the weak chairmanship of the self-important Marjorie Moore (1938-2006) and the General Purposes Committee together with the Computer Committee which had served to chanel support and practical experience to the editor of Computers in Genealogy were now most unwisely abolished in a ‘simplification’ of the Committee structure following the Annual Meeting in June 2000 [GM vol. 26, no. 11 (September 2000) Notes and News]. Mrs Moore had described her Vice-Chairman, Frank Hardy, in 1998 (when proposing him for Fellowship of the Society) as ‘particularly effective on his work on budgets and procedures’ but the tragedy of the next few years shows how little they understood and appreciated the need for competent budgeting or for procedures according to the established rules.
Although the income from Origins in 2001 reached a remarkable £71,819 with expenses of only £72, the Annual Report said that the initial ‘take-up’ was ‘far short of expectations’. This, the Report said, ‘failed to compensate for the loss of investment income resulting from the expenditure of our reserves on the Premises Refurbishment Project’ [AR 2001 pages 1, 3 and 26]. It also failed to meet the income that had been guaranteed under the ten-year contract. Of course a significant proportion of the material placed online had been widely available in other formats for some years, so that expectations of an even greater income were quite unwarranted. The undertaking that the income from internet marketing ‘will be re-invested in the Society’s collection, premises and facilities’ [GM, vol. 26, no. 10 (June 2000) 386] was altogether ignored where the collections were concerned and the whole of the income was given over to the refurbishment programme.
In 2002 the income from Origins was a further remarkable £110,016 with expenditure of £23,775 [AR 2002 pages 2 and 21] and in 2003 it was £43,020 with expenditure of £494 [AR 2003 pages 3 and 21]. However, Mark Herber revealed in questions at the AGM in June 2003 that the contract with Origins had guaranteed a monthly income of £5,000 for the Society and a minimum income of £100,000 in 2002 (the project’s second year). The figures in the Annual Reports were, as he said, ‘not an actual account of site usage’, but the Honorary Treasurer said that the firm was not yet in breach of its contract [2002 AGM Minutes] the exact details of which were never published.
At the AGM in 2003 we were told that a new agreement with Origins had been reached at the end of 2002 and that ‘the site would continue to give the Society a modest income’. No further details were provided. In 2004 and subsequent years the income and expenditure figures for Origins were said to be commercially sensitive and were not itemised in the Society’s ‘consolidated statement of financial activities’, the income seemingly being hidden in that of the ‘Book shop & Magazine’. One has to assume that in spite of the considerable time given by staff and volunteers to digitising library material for inclusion on the site, the income from this source has continued ‘far short of expectation’.
Meanwhile the cost in Professional Charges to the Society had unsurprisingly increased from £5,958 in 1998, to £10,754 in 1999 and to £28,145 in 2000, and no appeal had been launched. Under the incoming Chairman of the Executive Committee, the overly casual James Willerton, the Society had decided that in order to free up about 1,000 square feet of space in Charterhouse Buildings it would relocate the staff dealing with finance, membership and publishing to smart rented rooms at nearby 9 Dallington Street, EC1. These were leased in the autumn of 2000 and the removal to this ‘Administration Centre’ took place on 13 November [GM 26/12 p.497], the Annual Accounts indicating that the rent for the remainder of that year would be £4,500, but £52,000 p.a. in 2001 and subsequent years. The Library staff were that day astonished to find that three tables from the Middle Library had been purloined for use there and had to be replaced with three collapsible tables (to the dismay of the volunteers who used them daily) brought up from the basement. The Director now moved his office to the small room to the right of the entrance at Charterhouse Buildings.
For Charterhouse Buildings a ‘design and build contract’ was entered into with City Office Interiors and scheduled to run from November 2000 to March 2001, though the installation of a new lift in the old lift shaft (the maintenance and insurance of which would be a major continuing expense) would take a little longer. The library was closed for four weeks in February whilst some of the work was carried out, re-opening on 6 March. The meeting and common rooms in the basement were converted to house the document and special collections on new rolling stacks and to make space for additional computers and microfilm and microfiche readers. On the ground floor the former microfilm reading room was turned into a much smaller meeting room with a hearing loop and air conditioning and my former office and that of the Finance Officer became a common room. The two main library floors above were refurbished, the former heavy oak shelves being replaced with metal.
The Annual Report for 2000 noted that ‘a generous bequest of more than £200,000’ had been received from the late Eileen Amy Brock and had ‘made it possible to add or enhance a number of capital items in the refurbishent’ [AR 2000 page 3]. No tribute to this lady, not a member of the Society, had appeared in the Magazine but enquiries revealed that she had died on 3 October 2000 and that her will, made in 1994, had been proved on 27 November 2000. Her bequest was ‘to be used for the copying of parish registers and monumental inscriptions and for the general purposes of the Society’. An unrestricted bequest of ‘about £25,000’ had also been received under the will of the late Derek Milledge of Bracknell in Berkshire, who died on 26 July 2000 and whose will, also dated in 1994, was proved 13 November 2000 [AR 2000 page 10]; he again receiving no obituary or death notice in the Magazine.
By the end of the year 2000, in spite of these unprecedented bequests, the Society’s overall trading surplus, which had been £53,000 in 1997, had been turned into a deficit of £169,000 and there were capital commitments of £28,544 for fixtures and fittings and £309,400 for the refurbishment then taking place [AR 2000 page 37]. The total cost of the refurbishment had been £504,475 of which £48,875 had been spent in 2000 [AR 2000 page 29] and £455,600 in 2001 [AR 2001 page 29]. The Annual Report said that ‘some of the enhancements will increase future revenue expenditure’ and that the Executive Committee would ‘monitor future income and expenditure with particular care’ [AR 2000 page 3]. It was, however, too late; the trustees had already proved themselves quite incapable of keeping any form of financial control and they had mortgaged the future for unknown years to come.
An extraordinarily unrealistic Refurbishment Project Equipment Appeal sent out with the March 2001 Magazine listed ‘just a small selection’ of required items from 160 upholstered chairs at £52 each to four photocopiers at £4,000, and totalling £147,580, but the unsigned appeal and its result were not even mentioned in the Annual Report.
Devastated and very angry at these developments I made a lengthy intervention at the Society’s Annual Meeting at the Royal Over-Seas League on 19 June 2001 questioning many underlying trends in the Annual Accounts and saying that the refurbishment and the present and future reliance on an income from online marketing was little more than an uninformed gamble which was putting the Society’s existence at risk. It was, as I said, ‘a gamble which should never have been taken’. If the donations and bequests were removed from the income there was a deficit of £169,000. The audit fee had doubled and the Accounts were unreliable: the subscription income stated on page 5 was £21,000 less than that stated on page 26. The number of new members was not shown but the income from Entrance Fees had fallen by a third. Subscriptions paid in advance were only £19,000 as compared with £107,000 in 1997. Bank and credit card charges had trebled in one year. Statistics as to library use were lacking. The publication figures were particularly alarming, expenditure on the Society’s publications having jumped from £23,000 to £86,000 so that the profit of the previous year had turned into a deficit of £18,000. The cost of staffing had increased by £167,000 on the 1996 figure. Of the total expenditure of £1,014,000 only £14,000 had been spent on the Library. The Chairman of the Executive Committee, James Willerton, said that he had seen no administrative accounts throughout the whole of the above period and that the specific terms of Miss Brock’s will had not even been discussed, something that I said added a lack of integrity to the overall incompetence of those involved. The Honorary Tresasurer said in 2002 that without the bequest the Society ‘would not have gone ahead with all the refurbishment costs’ but it is obvious that there was no attempt to curtail them. In 2003 Frank Hardy, who would accept no criticism, wrote that once work had started ‘the Executive Committee was already committed to the refurbishment so it had to go ahead’ which was obviously not the case.
On the Society’s online Discussion List Barney Tyrwhitt-Drake described the 2001 AGM as ‘Annual Geriatric Mumblings’ and Willerton replied there, not quoting but distorting my wording (I had given him a copy after the meeting) by drawing his comments from ‘hasty jottings made at the time’, and admitting that the Society’s response had been ‘somewhat disjointed and inadequate’. In a typical post the unpleasant Roy Stockdill (1940-2019) drawing on his many years experience at The News of the World, had used the online Discussion List to say that I reminded him of a sacked football manger, ‘As a man who resisted all attempts at change in the Society for years, he clearly resents it now’ (22 June 2001). The motion to approve the Accounts was, however, approved by a small majority, but with a significant number of abstentions. The resignation of Robert Gordon ‘the Director of the Society’ was reported later in the Meeting ‘to become effective September 2001’.
Robert Gordon had continued to keep his political options open and, although the Society’s members were not informed of the changes, the records of the Company Registrar show that he had in fact resigned as Company Secretary on 31 December 2000 and that June Perrin had, on the following day, been appointed in his place. The only intimation of this change was in the list of Society officers inside the cover of the March 2001 Magazine where June Perrin is named ‘Assistant Director and Company Secretary’. It was not until the Annual Meeting on 19 June 2001 that it was announced that Gordon would leave the Society’s employ in September. The chairman wrote two days later that his resignation ‘was not the result of any disagreement or dispute ... He (Robert Gordon) recognized some time ago that the Executive were keen to reassert the Society’s role in two areas which have recently received less attention than desirable, i.e. the academic side of our subject and the campaigning and lobbying function. He felt his talents did not lay in that direction and had thus intimated to me and the Executive some time ago that we should probably be seeking someone better (or, I should say, differently) qualified’.
One might, perhaps not unkindly, think that Robert Gordon foresaw in December 2000 the pending economic collapse but did not wish to be thought responsible and so delayed resigning as ‘Director’ until after the results of the UK’s Local Elections on 7 June 2001 when he became Leader of Hertfordshire County Council. He remained company secretary of the Society’s trading subsidiary Enterprises until 23 April 2001, June Perrin not being appointed to that position until 17 July 2001. He had also retained his position as the Society’s nominated director on the Federation’s Executive Committee but unfortunately had made himself so unpopular by his domineering attitude that the status of the nominating societies, considered so important in 1975 and beneficial for so long, was now being widely questioned. A proposal that the status be abolished appeared on the agenda of the Federation’s Annual Meeting on 21 April 2001 but was withdrawn and not discussed, but Robert Gordon resigned on 29 November 2001, and the status was formally abolished on 13 April 2002, a very sad outcome which received no mention in the Society’s Magazine or its Annual Report. It was said in 2018 that Gordon ‘was largely instrumental in preparing the Society for the 21st century’ [GM32/10 (June 2018) 419] but in truth he had used the organisation to promote his own ambitions and caused the Society’s financial collapse with long-term results from which it has not fully recovered. The Society remained an ordinary member of the Federation but (as noted below) was obliged to withdraw even that on financial grounds in 2009.
The Annual Report in 2000 also mentioned a query which had been raised by the Inland Revenue as to whether or not Gift Aid (the tax recoverable on subscriptions paid under covenant) was now allowable on the members subscriptions ‘given the various benefits of membership’; a question which remained unresolved at the year-end [AR 2000 page 5]. I have above described the importance attached to Gift Aid in the earlier history of the Society. The Inland Revenue had decided in 1986 that no new covenants should be allowed (except on donations) and this had been a great blow to the Society. The income from existing covenants steadily decreased and in 1993 had been just £28. However, in 1994 the Inland Revenue reversed that decision and new covenants were successfully promoted by the Society so that in the year 2000 they added £33,621 to the Society’s income. However, this questioning of Gift Aid was not mentioned in the Annual Report for 2001 [page 4] which showed that £31,143 had been received in the tax year 2000/2001 [AR 2001 page 26] but nothing at all from this source in 2002 [AR 2002 page 26]. My repeated questions about the loss of this income and its possible return by abolishing discounts to members were then consistently ignored. The 2001 Report, apparently not at all concerned at yet another loss in income, said that a ‘decision to reduce the initial joining fees has been well received’. No detail was given, but the income from Entrance Fees which in the past had been an excellent guide to the number of new members, now became little indication of anything. In March 2002 an unsigned general appeal to offset the effect of the loss of Gift Aid was issued with the Magazine which suggested that each member contribute £10 and according to an insert in the September 2002 issue, signed by Frank Hardy, raised £26,000. It noted that the administrative staff would be brought back from Dallington Street, hopefully by mid-September, which itself would be a benefit ‘with all the staff being on the same premises’.
There was further discussion about the level of the annual subscriptions (and the inclusion of VAT in the calculations) at the Annual Meeting in June 2002 when it was agreed to limit the power of the Executive Committee just recently given under the General Regulations passed in 1999, so that it could not charge a subscription of more than £43 (instead of £33), country members elected before 1997 paying a maximum of £33 (instead of £24) a year, these figures being inclusive of VAT. The rates for overseas members were agreed at £40 or, if elected before 1997, £31. In addition it agreed that the Executive Committee should set the annual amounts for 2003 and future years, ‘taking into account factors such as inflation, suitable rounding and any discounts which may be offered’.
As within the Federation there was considerable staff concern and unease within the Society and in November 2001 two alienated staff members wrote reports highly critical of the Society’s administration, one saying that ‘morale is non-existent’ and perceptively questioning the long-term income from Origins, as well as commenting on the disparity in salaries between the staff in Charterhouse Buildings and those in Dallington Street. The majority of the staff boycotted the annual Christmas party that year.
The Society’s new Honorary Treasurer, Geoffrey Stone, a computer projects manager and a member since only 1997, had been elected in 2001 to replace the admirable Alan Wood who had not been re-appointed on 3 July. Stone admitted that he had no financial experience but gave an exposition at the Annual Meeting in June 2002 about the Society’s subscription income, suggesting that it should have been regularly increased in line with inflation (so, as John Blight later remarked, that there was more to spend now!).
By the end of the year 2001 there was a bank overdraft of £62,979 [AR 2001 pages 34 and 36] which increased to £71,822 in 2002 [AR 2002 page 32] and to £113,279 in 2003 [AR 2003 page 32]. Frank Hardy and Geoffrey Stone generously made personal interest free loans to the Society in 2001 totalling £50,000 and Frank Hardy continued his loan of £10,000 through 2002 and 2003 [Annual Reports, 2001 page 36; 2002 page 34; 2003 page 34].
Under the headline ‘Financial Crisis at SoG’ the February 2002 issue of Family History Monthly revealed that three members of the library and bookshop staff had been made redundant and that the Customs and Excise Department had ruled that it would charge VAT (then at 17.5%) on the annual subscriptions of members. The three staff were an archivist, a recently appointed library assistant, and the General Manager of Enterprises (appointed on 3 April 2000) who were all summarily dismissed on 7 December 2001.
At the Annual Meeting at the Royal Over-Seas League on 25 June 2002 the horror of several members at the developments of these last two years was again expressed and Mrs Deana Godmon asked when during the year it had become apparent that the Society would need to cut staff costs, particularly as monthly management accounts had been introduced in June 2001, but the Treasurer said that ‘cash flows were not completed until the latter end of the year’ and Willerton lamely added that ‘whilst we had felt finances were on a sound footing the need was there to appoint roles such as the archivist, an extra library assistant and extra staff for Enterprises’. Mrs Susan Bourne asked if the library collections had been offered as security for any loan, overdraft or mortgage and was told ‘Categorically no’, but the Treasurer had subsequently to admit that he had not realised that the bank overdraft was secured on all the Society’s assets, as indeed the particulars given to the Company Registrar by HSBC Bank made clear. No statement of the overdraft’s satisfaction has since been registered but the Honorary Tresaurer reported to the AGM in 2003 that the Bank had written saying, ‘The library of books and Special Genealogical Collections are excluded and released from our Debenture’.
Another member asked if the Executive Committee did not feel that it had been ‘naive in its dealings’ but Willerton replied that they may have acted as incompetent old fools but they were the only fools to stand for election. That, in my opinion, says it all where lack of oversight and foresight were concerned. The Committee had powers to co-opt and should have found an experienced and qualified person as had been done in the past. The trustees, if aware of the monthly income and expenditure and if receiving statements from the trading company, should have realised quite quickly in 2001 the inevitable outcome but it appears that they did not see bank statements and the usual accounting reconciliations until late in the year, the first bank overdraft not being agreed until 12 October 2001.
The offices in Dallington Street were hurriedly vacated in 2002, the staff being brought back to Charterhouse Buildings where space was now tight, the recently allocated staff common room being quickly dispensed with [AR 2002 page 9], but the expensive vacated and rented offices proved difficult to sub-let on a short lease. A new tenant eventually took the end of the Society’s term and by the time of the AGM in June 2003 the remainder of the lease had been surrendered though the Society was liable for 10 months rent in that year [2003 AGM Minutes]. The lease on the large basement room in Aldersgate Street at the rear of 14 Charterhouse Buildings remained at the relatively modest cost of £8,500 a year.
In the early part of 2002 I had come under considerable pressure from several volunteers and members of staff to organise the calling of an Extraordinary General Meeting in order to remove those responsible for the financial collapse from the Executive Committee but I delayed until I had seen the Annual Reprt for 2001. Sadly the administrative incompetence continued unabated, Frank Hardy obstinately refusing to accept any responsibility for the disaster for which he and Marjorie Moore were much at fault, those involved being very unwilling to face up to the situation or to take any remedial action. The directors had even spent £15,000 on a Management Survey which, as I said, laughed all the way to the bank, having concluded that ‘the overall leadership of the Society needed to be on a sound business footing whilst maintaining our ethos and achieving our aims and purposes’. The Charity Commission, of course, recommended without charge that a charity should have a realistic reserves policy, forecasting expenditure in future years on the basis of planned activity, analysing future needs and risks and assessing the likelihood of those needs being met, none of which had been done. The Commission also said that every charity should be keenly aware of its need to secure its viability beyond the immediate future by putting aside a reserve against future uncertainties.
On 23 May 2002 I received a letter from June Perrin suggesting that we meet to ‘swap shared experiences’ and to answer any questions that I might have about the annual report for 2001 which had just been published. I took considerable trouble to reply at length on 14 June about the developments of the last three years, naming some of those particularly involved and asking that copies of the letter be circulated to the Executive Committee.
Criticism continued at the Annual Meeting held at the Royal Over-Seas League on 25 June 2002 when unusually 135 members were present. Some basic Minutes of the Annual Meeting in 2001 had been printed in the Genealogists’ Magazine for September 2001 [Vol. 27, No. 3 (September 2001) page 103] and thus circulated to members, but the Meeting in 2002 agreed not to approve them, many members asking that a more comprehensive account be provided which truly reflected the high level of criticism at the meeting and contained details of the undertakings then given.
With the financial collapse of the Society no member of the Executive Committee wished to be its chairman, but the railway engineer and counter volunteer Frank Hardy, a member since 1981, who always had so much to say on every topic, had been elected Chairman after the Annual Meeting in June 2002 and served for a year. He had once referred to me as ‘the conscience of the Society’ and there was great need for one now. At this June meeting James Willerton retired from the Committee, but Marjorie Moore, who had withdrawn her involvement in the Family History Fair in January 2002, was re-elected to the Committee despite my public objection at the Annual Meeting she having chaired the committee that took the Society into this shambles, but she resigned on 3 September 2002. Perhaps by then she had realised the extent of her responsibility for the Society’s difficulties. I had again taken exception to the Agenda for the Meeting which said ‘there being fewer nominations than vacancies, all those nominated are elected automatically’, saying that it was a matter of Company law that a shareholder, i.e. a member of the Society, could ask for any formal proposal, such as the appointment of individual trustees, to be put to the Meeting.
After this meeting I wrote again to June Perrin, 29 June 2002, asking for the names of the proposers and seconders of the four new Executive Committee members (which should have been given to the Annual Meeting), questioning the number of vacancies, correcting several statements on the Agenda about the rotation and eligibility of some of its members including the Treasurer and querying the attendance at Executive Meetings of an ‘ex-officio member’ not allowed for in the Articles. I added that the Auditor was required under Article 62 to read his Report to the Meeting and that the Society was required to make ‘consistent application of accounting policies’ but that there had been several unexplained changes to established policies which had made yearly comparisons difficult or impossible. I reminded the former Chairman of his presence at meetings from 1995 to 1997 when he received detailed management accounts and budgets (filed with the Minutes of the General Purposes Committee) and I named the other committee members to whom these procedures were familiar. I asked who in May-June 2000 had proposed and seconded the deletion of the relevant sections of the Standing Orders with all their safeguards. I mentioned the undertakings that had been given ‘to answer the main points raised, to record the number of votes and abstentions on the motion to approve the Annual Accounts, to record in some permanent way within the building Miss Brock’s bequest, and to answer the very damaging point that it appeared that the trading company was being supported by charitable funds’. June Perrin replied briefly on 18 July 2002 saying that the second letter ‘was particularly constructive’ but, without answering any of the questions raised she said that ‘one or two items seemed to be slightly factually wrong’! Frank Hardy replied the same day saying that my naming of those involved was ‘deeply regrettable’ and had overshadowed my criticisms of the management of the Society’s affairs. He said that revised and expanded minutes for the Annual Meetings in 2001 and 2002 were being prepared, but showed his lack of experience by maintaining that the requirement that the Auditor’s Report ‘be read before the meeting’ meant only that it be available prior to the meeting. My many questions remained unanswered and my letters were not seen by the incoming members of the Committee.
In 1997 the bookshop had stocked 469 items and taken £131,933, making a surplus of £48,845 after allowing for the bookshop catalogue and other expenses of £5,191. The surplus had, in fact, more than paid for the salaries of the Society’s receptionist and the bookshop manager. Orders for new stock were always approved either by the bookshop manager or myself and we were very aware of the narrow profit margins involved but in January 1999 the Executive Committee agreed that the discounts to members be increased to twenty per cent to equal the discounts on the fees for lectures and courses [Notes and News insert in Gen Mag, December 1998]. A ten per cent royalty was already payable on many of them and since 1986, under considerable pressure from the Federation of Family History Societies, a discount of a third on those for re-sale had been given to member societies of the Federation. Thus in effect much of the publications’ profit was already being given away. The User Survey in January 2003 very unwisely continued to call discounts one of ‘the most important benefits’ of Society membership.
As noted above I had at the Annual Meeting in 2001 said that the publication figures were ‘alarming’, the expenditure on publications having jumped from £23,000 to £86,000 (a figure corrected to £89,152 in the 2002 Accounts) so that the profit of the previous year had been turned into a deficit of £18,000. No heed was taken of the warning and on 26 February 2003 members were shocked to hear that the Society’s bookshop had been closed having ‘failed to meet the targets that were set for it’, but that the Society would continue to publish and sell its own works. My requests for exact figures separating Society and non-Society publications since 2000 were ignored. The Honorary Treasurer wrote that ‘the paperwork and staff effort behind the scenes is too costly to be efficient’ [sic] but at the Annual Meeting in 2003 Frank Hardy said that ‘over ordering had taken place’ and later that there had been a downturn in sales [Genealogists’ Magazine, vol. 27, no. 10 (June 2003) 471-2]. He said that 6,000 items were stocked but that their administration was a problem, only about 250 selling regularly.
The bookshop closure had apparently been recommended by Enterprises Ltd (which the Treasurer said on the Society’s Discussion List ‘ran the bookshop’) and was accepted by the Executive Committee but the Annual Report for 2002 gave no indication as to which of the Society’s activities were the responsibility of Enterprises Ltd and reflected in its accounts. The Report did not provide the names of that company’s directors or say how staff costs were apportioned. What control, if any, its officers had over the bookshop budgeting and expenditure was nowhere stated. Large amounts had clearly been spent but the number of 6,000 items stocked seems hardly credible. It was rumoured that many books sent to the Society for review had found their way into the bookshop for sale and that few were being reviewed in the Magazine. Indeed the Annual Reports show that the number of books received for review dropped from 267 in 2000 to 60 in 2001. It appears that the great amenity value of a bookshop, attracting many into the building, had been destroyed by a complete lack of competent oversight.
In retirement the small amounts that I received from royalties on the two books of which I held the copyright but were published by the Society (one of which included income from America) were naturally of concern to me. I had always attached importance to the Society’s relationship with its authors, considering the regular payment of royalties a courtesy that any publisher, hoping for further contributions, would extend to its authors. The process for dealing with payments on books published by the Society was therefore set out in the memorandum that I had left for Robert Gordon in January 1998 and the payment of royalties early in the year was, in fact, its first item. However, presumably as a result of the formation of the new trading company, I received on 4 August 1999 an unsigned letter from the Society, ‘Revised Royalty Process’, which took no note of individual contracts with authors and said that in future the bookshop would purchase stock from the Society and pay royalties in units of 100 copies, firstly on publication and then when a further 100 copies were needed.
However, a year later, on 12 September 2000, I was told that from 1 January 2001 royalties would be paid on actual sales, meaning that any royalty advances would have to be re-adjusted. Chaos resulted, blamed on the ‘premises refurbishment, extensive staff sickness and the revamping of till, stock and financial operations’. The General Manager of Enterprises, was one of those made redundant on 7 December 2001. There were considerable delays and June Perrin wrote on 14 October 2002 that ‘royalties were a task that slipped through the net of everyone’s responsibility’. She repeated this excuse on 30 July 2003. On 9 February 2004 she claimed that royalty statements on the American editions had not been received since December 2000. ‘It may be’, she uncaringly wrote, that there had not been any sales and some stock had been written off. On 25 February 2004 she promised that she would contact me about the royalties when the Finance Manager had looked into them. I did not hear and wrote again in June 2004, she replying that the American royalties had in fact been received but posted incorrectly and that two boxes of books in Dallington Street had been missed in the stock check. In December 2007 I was obliged to complain that small cheques were being sent to me without any indication as to what they were for!
One of the members of the Executive Committee newly elected in 2002 was Sharon Hintze the Director of the LDS Hyde Park (now London) Family History Centre, a concerned member of the Society since 1998. She had considerable business experience and was a friend of the President of the Quorum of the Twelve, Dr Boyd Packer (died 2015), who had always taken a close personal interest in the Society and had been elected a Vice-President in 1997. Like me Sharon Hintze was anxious that a balanced account of the Society’s difficulties be made available through the Minutes of the Annual Meetings in 2001 and 2002 and we were concerned to find new members for the Executive Committee on which there were several vacancies.
On 17 May 2003 I wrote to her and to June Perrin again setting out my concerns about the Minutes, referring to my letter of 29 June 2002 and saying, amongst other things, that I would propose the Minute’s amendment at the forthcoming AGM (specifically to record what I had said in 2001 about the terms of Miss Brock’s will and to record the undertakings given to the Meeting by the Chairman) if the Executive Committee did not itself do so. I noted that Item 10 of the 2002 Minutes was a request that the Executive ‘be more open and keep members informed more’ which had been accepted, but that a decision had immediately been taken not to circulate the Minutes to the Members!
The Society’s use of the bequest by Miss Brock had been questioned with the Charity Commission in June 2001 and in May-June 2003 members of the Society raised further queries with the Commission about the lack of cash flow or bank statements in 2000 and 2001, the lack of adequate financial control following unexplained changes in the format of the Annual Accounts over the last three years, and concerns that the trustees and Honorary Treasurer did not have sufficient financial expertise to perform their roles. Some changes of trustees had been contrary to the Articles and one had been appointed, without advertisement, the paid Editor of the Magazine and was being described as an ‘ex-officio’ trustee [AGM agenda 27 June 2000].
Lack of basic knowledge of the constitution had led to the announcement that the Annual Meeting in 2003 would be held on 15 July when Article 62 required that it be held within six months of the annual accounting period, i.e. before the end of June. The notice had to be revised and the meeting was held at the LDS Church at 64-68 Exhibition Road on 10 June 2003.
The Agenda had as its first item the published minutes of the Annual Meetings in 2001 and 2002 and these were now cancelled and withdrawn, new substituted minutes being unanimously approved. A recording of the meeting in 2002 was available and Sharon Hintze had spent considerable time making a summary which was eventually agreed between us and Frank Hardy. The Chairman said that these ‘would be put on the Society’s web site and issued to anyone requesting them from the Society’. When, seven months later, I noticed that they had still not appeared on the website I wrote to June Perrin, 1 February 2004, and she said that the webmaster, Geoffrey Stone, had put them on the site ‘sometime ago but did not put the link in required to access them’.
When pressed at this June 2003 meeting the Chairman agreed that he was quite unable to say what proportion of the members’ annual subscriptions (due on the first day of January and forming half the Society’s income) had yet been paid. As a result the March Magazine had been sent to all the members regardless of payment and no reminders for unpaid subscriptions had yet been issued. I said that in earlier years it had always been possible to sort out those who had paid by the time of the March Magazine, the non-payers being then sent a first reminder, and that as ‘almost half’ the total membership was now paying by direct debit [as stated in AR 2000 page 5] the whole process should now be a great deal easier.
Remembering the arguments in 1986 I said that the discounts offered to members on publications and courses had affected gift aid, but Frank Hardy failed to see the connection and their importance when coupled with the increase in charges for access by non-members which had been publicised as ‘making your membership even better value’ [Notes and News insert in Gen Mag December 1998] and in the words of a publicity leaflet, ‘With just 3 library visits you could recover the cost of your subscription’.
These access fees had been increased in January 1999 (from £3 an hour, £7.50 for 4 hours and £10 for a day) to £3, £8 and £12 respectively and had been further increased in 2002 to £3.30, £8.80 and £13.20 [AR 2002 page 3]. They were again increased in 2003 to £3.50, £9.20 and £14.50 [2003 AR page 3] and then in 2005 to £4, £10 and £18 [2005 AR page 10]. Even in 1999 an accountant could have argued, as we were well aware, that this free access was thus worth about £50 a week. At the Annual Meeting in 2003 I asked leave to propose a vote of no confidence in the Society's internal accounting procedures but only a minority supported me and no vote was taken.
The members’ subscriptions had meanwhile been increased, though unaccountably no details are given in the Magazine or Annual Report, and as a result by the end of 2003 the total number of members had fallen by two thousand from 14,051 to 12,055 [2003 AR page 3] though there was a slight increase to 12,275 in 2004 [AR 2004 page 3]. The Annual Report says that the number at the end of 2005 was again 12,055, a figure which in all the circumstances seems likely to be a mistake rather than a coincidence.
Several members were actively involved in the continuing criticism of the Society’s administration. On 13 August 2003 June Perrin told Mrs Susan Bourne (a member since 1982 whose subscription payment had escaped record) that she had no secretarial support and that ‘workload prevents me corresponding individually’ but that there were problems with the membership system going back to when it was first installed ‘and the conversion was carried out badly’. She said that when first employed she had been told that ‘Membership was never part of her remit’. The present accounts, she claimed, ‘were more accurate than the Society has ever had in the past’ and again ‘I don’t think the Society ever previously had monthly management accounts and cash flows to aid efficient decision making’. The reality, as previous Minutes clearly show, was that detailed accounts and bank statements had been provided to the General Purposes and Executive Committees in alternate months for many years prior to her arrival at the Society, but her claim to providing ‘the first monthly management accounts ever’, was repeated in the Centenary history in 2011 [(2011) page 147; those as early as March 1983 are, by chance, in my SoG files].
William Michael Wood, of Luton (1937-2018), a Fellow of the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management who had joined the Society only in 1999, was elected Chairman of the Executive Committee after the General Meeting in 2003. A new General Purposes Committee was constituted and met for the first time on 5 August 2003. I met William Wood at the Family Records Centre the following day and in response to a request from him I made extensive comments on the vague generalities of the Society’s so-called ‘Business Plan’ on 25 August 2003. In the covering letter I also said that ‘If there is the slightest interest, attention to detail, or pride in one’s work, within the administration of the Society, it is far from apparent’. All the Society’s corporate memory had been destroyed and every vestige of continuity had been broken. There were too many trustees with differing agendas in the promotion of other organisations or who saw genealogy as merely a hobby the pursuit of which did not need improvement and the results of which were of no permanent value, so that every proposal was an up-hill struggle. Differing views had led to so many changes in the presentation of the Annual Accounts that a consistent view on most items was almost impossible. I urged the abolition of the trading company which he said existed solely because of the agreement with Origins [Diary, 20 August 2003]. Of the Business Plan I said that ‘I had really hoped to see a clear forward-looking finance based statement’. That, of course, he was quite unable to provide and I lost patience with his public relations speak, angrily leaving a chance meeting on 8 January 2004, saying ‘Do something!’. In March 2004 he was spending three days a week at the Society and the ‘Business Plan Summary 2003-2006’ was handed out at the Annual Meeting in June, but the Society continued to survive only on bank overdrafts and bequests.It was not until late in 2004 that the discounts to members on publications were reduced to ten per cent.
In late 2003, in an effort to save money on the audit (the cost of which had been £5,400 in 1999 but which had increased to £9,500 in 2002 and 2003), a re-tendering process was initiated and a considerable saving achieved [AR 2004 page 19]. Messrs F. W. Stephens consequently resigned as auditors on 8 December 2004 and the audit was carried out by Messrs Kingston Smith, their charge being reduced to £4,000 in 2004, though it increased somewhat in 2005.
Also in late 2003 Sharon Hintze had lined up several volunteers to help with the input of the membership subscriptions in 2004 so that those who had not paid would not get the March Magazine. That worked well with reminders going out in early February. However, as a result of the increase in subscriptions large numbers of members, particularly those living overseas, had resigned and by April 2004 the numbers of the latter had fallen dramatically from the 1,341 of 1999 to ‘about 400’. The Membership Secretary resigned in February 2004. No figure for the overseas membership has since appeared in any Annual Report.
In 2004 the Society received a bequest of £152,875 from the estate of Annabelle Montague-Smith who had died in 2003 [AR 2004 page 10] and was the widow of another old friend, Patrick Montague-Smith, mentioned above. She, like Miss Brock, received no tribute or obituary in the Magazine even though they had made the largest bequests that the Society had ever known. However, the Society was thus enabled to repay in 2004 the personal loans made by the two Committee members.
A further remarkable bequest followed in 2006 when the Society received £100,000 under the will of the regular counter volunteer Ernest Henry Angell who died on 30 June 2006, leaving the Society a large collection of books and papers, the money being specifically in memory of his late wife Esme Evelyn Angell, nee Constable, another regular volunteer, who had died on 6 September 2004. This much liked and dependable couple had lived just across the road from the Society at Speed House in the Barbican.
The periodical Computers in Genealogy published by the Society since 1982, that owed much to the input and ideas from the very active Computer Committee which had been abolished in 2000 (following lobbying by Paul Blake), was discontinued in 2005 when thanks were given to Sean Brady its editor for some years but the Annual Report [2005 AR Page 14] gives no reason or circulation figures (and it is not mentioned in the Accounts).
Prior to a change in the Articles at the AGM in 2005 the trustees of the SoG were elected for four years and could serve a maximum of eight years without a break, the Vice Presidents being re-elected annually. Under the new Article 40 the trustees were to be elected for three years and could serve a maximum of only six years. There was no special provision exempting existing trustees from these regulations and yet some existing trustees continued to serve and be listed in the Magazine. Similarly under the new Article 37 the Vice-Presidents could be elected for three years and might be re-elected for a maximum of nine years, but the names of the existing Vice-Presidents continued to be put forward in 2005 and 2006 although some had served for more years that now allowed. I wrote to the Chairman of the Trustees on 23 May 2006 urging him to regularise the position and those Trustees affected agreed to stand down at the AGM on 27 June 2006. In reply to a further letter about the Vice-Presidents I was absurdly told that they were beginning new terms, thus completely ignoring the intention of the change.
As a result of building work on the adjoining site by St Bartholomew’s Trust, notice of which had been received in 2005, the Society lost some of its ‘right to light’ and a compensation settlement was agreed with the developers, the Society receiving £78,500 which was to be reflected in the 2007 accounts [AR 2006 ‘Post Balance Sheet Event’ page 33]. In 2006 the Acting Director, June Perrin, was designated Chief Executive Offcer, ‘to bring us into line’, the Chairman of the Trustees wrote, ‘with other organisations of our stature’ [Centenary History, page 103].
In 1999 the membership of the Federation of Family History Societies consisted of two nominating societies, 135 family history societies in the UK (either local societies or one-name societies),16 associate societies and 69 overseas associate societies. Membership was open to any properly constituted group with at least forty members, an approved constitution and a regular newsletter, magazine or journal, which had been in existence for a year and held meetings at least once annually. It represented the great majority of family history societies in the United Kingdom, in the total membership of which there had been an annual increase of about 4% per annum for six years, though it fell by 1.2% in 1999.
The Federation received about a thousand letters a year from individuals about their ancestors and these were normally passed to the local societies, but many of the latter were struggling to find committee members and volunteers, though in general they appeared to have sufficient financial resources. The demands on their volunteers caused by publicity on the Internet had become a frequent cause for complaint and one society did not even want its address published anywhere. However, the individual members of the various societies knew little of the Federation and its work which had relied greatly on its income from the sale of its own publications. This income was now declining and causing concern about the future of the organisation, but the channels of communication between the separate publications company (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Federation to which the editors of Family History News and Digest reported) and the Executive Committee of the Federation were poor and ‘interference’ by the latter was unwelcome and indeed resented. The Executive Committee, in reality the trustees of the charity, in my experience had little corporate or collective feeling, its individual members having quite separate responsibilities through the sub-committees which they chaired.
I had, of course, usually attended annual meetings of the Federation of Family History Societies since its foundation in 1974 and had attended meetings of its Executive Committee, alternately in Birmingham and London, every three months since 1992. I was a member of Education Committee from 1994 to 1998. I generally disapproved of honorary officers getting involved in the administration of their organisations but following my election as President of the Federation in April 1998. I almost immediately became involved in work on its constitution and structure. The Chair of the Executive Committee, David Lambert, early in 1999 set up a small working group on the ‘Future of the Federation’ which he asked me to chair. Why I agreed to do so I shall never know. My place as the Society of Genealogists’ representative on the Federation’s Executive Committee had been taken by Robert Gordon in early 1998 but the necessary involvement of so many volunteers on which the Federation relied and its lengthy meetings (one of which I had taken the Minutes in 1995 typically lasted from 11 a.m. to 5.45 p.m. and had sixty-two sections) were quite alien to the commercially-minded Robert Gordon and those who supported him in ‘streamlining’ both organisations and there was clearly trouble ahead.
The working group on the Federation’s future first met at the Family Records Centre on 15 December 1998. The other members of the group were Colin Chapman a Vice-President, David Hawgood the Federation Computer Adviser, Richard Ratcliffe and Pauline Saul the Federation Administrator. I had drafted an outline statement as a basis for discussion which included many relevant points from a think-tank weekend held on 19-20 February 1994 (when Richard Ratcliffe had been Chairman) and other points from papers submitted by Susan Lumas, Pauline Saul and John (and Sheila) Rowlands and we received many useful comments from David Lambert, Clifford Debney, Brenda Smith, Beryl Hurley and Brian Salter.
We met again on 8 January 1999 and the first draft of our conclusions was sent to the Executive Committee for discussion on 13 February 1999. A number of important suggestions about staff salaries and conditions of service and about the Finance and General Purposes Committee were made seperately to the Executive Committee, when it agreed that the Finance and General Purposes Committee should meet – it had not done so for more than a year – and start work on some Standing Orders. I had asked for comments by 10 March and optimistically thought that our final paper might be ready for the Federation AGM at Winchester on 10 April 1999 when Clifford Debney was elected Chairman of the Executive Committee in succession to David Lambert who had served for five years.
The final version of our consultation document was sent to the Federation Administrator for duplication to the member societies in March and we asked for comment by 30 June 1999. My intention was to summarise the comments received and to attempt then to formulate a document which would form the basis of an agreed statement of the Federation’s policies and aims for the immediate future which might be put to a members’ meeting in September 1999. Forty-six societies responded, some in considerable detail, and I incorporated all their comments into a forty-page document which was sent to the members of the working group on 26 July 1999. After study by the group a two page summary of the main points was produced which included its recommended actions. The document and the group’s suggestions were then put on the Federation’s website. We recommended that several specific points on the more controversial questions be put to the member societies in the form of a questionnaire and thought that any resulting constitutional changes might perhaps be made at the Annual Meeting in April 2000.
However, I was told that there was no time for this to be discussed and at the Executive Committee meeting on 13 November 1999 Clifford Debney said that a seminar to consider the document would be held in Birmingham on 22 January 2000 and that ‘suggestions for discussion’ should be sent to him. The resulting seminar, chaired by him, was attended by some 58 delegates. These included representatives from eight one-name societies only two of which had submitted observations on the original document but who were concerned to retain their voting rights at annual meetings and the receipt of free copies of publications.
The position of the growing number of one-name societies was, in my view, one of the main problems to be decided. Regardless of how much they paid I did not basically think that a small one-name society should have the same voting rights as a large and active county society. Some provided platforms for representatives who remained the same for many years but who represented very little except themselves. Figures from the Treasurer showed that in 1998 the Guild of One-Name Studies had 1,486 members and it paid an annual subscription to the Federation of £297. The 35 one-name societies together paid a further £1,101. If the Guild and the one-name societies became associate members the Federation would gain £124. If the Guild became a Nominating Member and represented the one-name societies, an alternative that I tended to favour, it would pay £400 and the Federation would lose £998. However, in the latter case the Federation (or its publications company) would save about £1,400 on the free publications then given yearly to each member society.
Clifford Debney, out of his depth but enjoying the attention, had taken votes on some specific points at the meeting and seems to have thought that that was an end to the matter. At the Executive Committee on 29 April 2000, with Debney in the Chair, it was agreed that discussion of the paper on the Future of the Federation would be postoned until the next meeting. I was in America but on my return wrote a detailed letter to him on 22 May saying that ‘I thought the organisation of the AGM [at Bath on 15 April] a disgrace, only confirming a widely held view that the Federation is one of the worst administered organisations in the field, run like some small third-rate society, but with one or two competent and committed people on the fringe desperately trying to keep things going and give the apparance that all is well’. I criticised the omission of items from the agenda and from the annual report and the wording of many sections of the latter which the Executive Committee had obviously not seen, stressing the corporate responsibility of the Executive (the members of which were the trustees of the organisation), the lack of communication within the organisation and with the trading company, the lack of minutes of the Finance and General Purposes Committee, the demoting of the Projects Committee, committees chosing their own members, the unwillingness to circulate and discuss the annual accounts of the publications company and the false importance attached to ‘Council Meetings’ when that word did not appear in the Federation’s Articles of Association. I said that the recommendations of the working party on the future of the Federation, which had found warm and general acceptance amongst the majority of the member societies, had not been formally adopted, that I was exasperated by the delay, the fact that the few controversial points had not been formulated and put formally to the member societies as recommended, and that the other sections had not been put to the appropriate sub-committees. Instead ad hoc decisions had been taken under pressure from one or two people. I wondered why I had wasted so much time on it. At the end I said that copies of my letter should be given to the members of the Committee and to the others that received its Minutes and that I was considering my personal situation as President.
Debney replied on 31 May saying that my comments and concerns ‘are just what is needed to enable the Executive to discuss our future inter-relationship with the membership in a constructive manner’ and that he would put the letter to the Finance & General Purposes Committee. That was the last thing that I wanted to hear as that newly constituted Committee was dominated by those who were creating havoc at the Society of Genealogists and on 6 June 2000 I wrote again saying that I was not looking for further discussion, but for action. I said that the recent history of the Finance & General Purposes Committee and his intention not to circulate the letter did not inspire me with confidence. I again asked for the letter to be circulated to the Executive and said that I would have circulated it myself but that although the AGM had taken place seven weeks earlier and the first Executive of the new year five weeks earlier, I had not yet received a list of its members and their addresses.
He did not reply until 1 August, saying that in order to save money the Executive would now only meet twice a year and that there would be a further discussion about the document at its meeting on 16 September. Consequently on 3 August I formally resigned as President with immediate effect, saying that I no longer wished to have my name associated with an organisation in the administration of which I had so little confidence and which seemed to have lost all idea of its priorities and the purpose of its existence. The day after I resigned I was surprised to receive a letter dated 2 August from Pauline Saul, the highly popular Administrator of the Federation since July 1985, also announcing her intention to leave on 3 November. Our resignations were announced by Debney to the Federation at its meeting at Lincoln on 2 September 2000, but my reasons for resigning were not given. One delegate who had watched with dismay the bizarrely incompetent shilly-shallying and prevarication wrote that I was ‘well out of it’, but my ‘friends’, of course, could not wait to take the name of ‘yesterday’s man’ out of the Federation’s Annual Reports for 1999 and 2000. The personal animosities which were then afflicting the Society of Genealogists (and for which genealogy has always been notorious) then became commonplace also in the Federation.
As President I had attended the Federation’s AGM at Crewe, 18 April 1998 (when I was elected President), the ‘Getting-to-know-you day’ at Birmingham, 13 June 1998, the Council Meeting at Nottingham, 5 September 1998, the AGM at Sparsholt College, Winchester, 10 April 1999, the launch by Sarah Kennedy and Michael Fish of the rose ‘Ancestry’ to mark the 25th Anniversary of the Federation at the Hampton Court International Flower Show, 6 July 1999 (my photograph appearing on the cover of the September 1999 issue of Family History News and Digest), and the AGM at Bath University, 15 April 2000, and I had opened the Federation meetings at Greenwich University, Avery Hill, on 4 September 1999. My successor as President of the Federation, Lady Teviot, was elected at the AGM at Leicester in 2001.
Richard Ratcliffe was anxious to preserve something from this fiasco and on 22 July 2000 had persuaded the Federation’s Executive Committee to arrange a Council Meeting in November to discuss ways of implementing our report, but this was postponed and in December he was asked to produce a summary document for the January meeting of the Executive which could be sent to member societies with the Newsflash. Following correpondence between us he drafted a brief resolution under twelve headings which, although it omitted all the detail, was approved by the Executive Committee on 27 January 2001 and eventually agreed at a General Meeting of the Federation at Leicester University on 21 April 2001. It committed the Federation’s Executive to take positive action towards the twelve objectives and to report annually on the progress made. Dr Richard Baker, the Institute’s nominated member of the Executive retired at that meeting and was not replaced and Robert Gordon similarly resigned on 29 November 2001, the nominating status being altogether abolished by a Special Resolution that Alec Tritton, Acting Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Federation, brought to its Annual Meeting at the University of Warwick on 13 April 2002. Tritton said that the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies had, following the increase in the Federation’s subscription, resigned its nominating status in 2001 and ‘it was felt that Members no longer wished to have Nominating Societies’. Marjorie Moore, representing the Society of Genealogists said that the Society ‘would prefer the status to remain’ but 43 societies voted for the motion and only 5 against. The motion was thus carried and the possibility of such a status was then removed from the new Articles of Association agreed by the Federation in 2004. The Society remained an ordinary member of the Federation but withdrew even that, on financial grounds (it paying a subscription of £600 p.a.), in 2009. Brenda Smith, the popular assistant-administrator, had retired in August 2001.
Debney’s ‘two very turbulent years’ (as his successor described them) as Chairman also ended in April 2002 and there being no other candidate Alec Tritton was appointed Acting Chairman by the Executive and, following formal election, he served until April 2006. In September 2002 he reported at some length on the recent developments (in the notes given to the member societies before the General Meeting at Coventry), using the headings of Richard Ratcliffe’s summary. There the matter rested, it not being mentioned in the minutes of that meeting. In June 2005, when a further Think Tank weekend was being planned, the circulated papers included a note from Maureen Selley, the chair of Devon Family History Society, pointing out that the Executive Committee had not reported annually and that it and the sub-committees had not met four times a year and its minutes had not been circulated or posted on the web site, all as previously intended and agreed [page M42].
The genealogical world was going through a period of rapid change and there were strongly differing perceptions as to its future, reflected in submissions to this further Think Tank, ‘Footpaths to the Future’, in 2005. Pauline Litten, a Vice-President, recounted the unpleasant words recently used to describe the Federation’s attitude (i.e. arrogant, autocratic, authoritarian, dictatorial, hectoring). She thought that it was concentrating almost totally on its pay-to-view databases and the production of CDs whereas many individuals still preferred to read books to learn more about their hobby and how to pursue it. With its new ‘business’ image the Federation was in danger of losing the ‘volunteer’ ethos. She warned that the necessity to run the Federation in a businesslike way did not mean that it should adopt the management style of the worst businesses which were often seen as uncaring and intolerant. Currently, she wrote, the Federation had ‘a dire reputation for its treatment both of its staff and of volunteers’ [Pages E13-E14]. Colin Chapman, another Vice President, submitted a thoughtful paper saying that the original aims of the Federation were charitable, major decisions being discussed and taken by the Council and the member societies thus having a feeling of belonging. He said that an individual, expert in a particular field, might not possess adequate personnel-management or financial skills to join a committee. If members preferred paper-based publications it was ‘senseless’ to concentrate solely on electronically accessible materials.
In the same document Derek Palgrave wrote that there should be a wide-ranging questionnaire on the needs of the societies and that the links with them should be emphasised, arguing that representation from the regional groups on the Executive and the sub-committees should be sought. He believed that the Publications Company should have a substantial measure of autonomy and restored to its position prior to 2000, saying that it should not ‘be undermined by overloading the Board with Non-Executive Directors from the Federation Executive ... who have by-passed incumbent managers/directors and precipitated their resignations’ [pages F15, K37 and AA77]. The joint-editors of Family History News and Digest, John and Sheila Rowlands, had retired in March 1999 after eleven years.
Geoffrey Riggs (1940-2011) questioned the Federation’s ability to continue to man itself ‘with suitable candidates with the experience and more importantly time and effort to contribute meaningfully’ to its running. He thought the way forward might be to engage further paid staff, including a Research Officer to liaise with government and other national bodies [Page N45].
Riggs was elected Chairman in April 2006 and when that year Tom Wood indicated that he wished to stand down as editor of Family History News and Digest it was agreed that the journal would cease publication in September. The valuable Digest section, coordinated by Derek Palgrave, who thought the whole decision ‘incomprehensible’, also ceased to be compiled. The Executive had agreed that the Newsflash would now be published six times a year, sent freely to all member societies and placed on the Federation’s website, but that too was discontinued in December 2006, the two journals being combined into a single bi-monthly Ezine or electronic newsletter, commencing in February 2007. The Federation committees were aware that a very large proportion, some estimates said fifty per cent, of its members were still not using computers and these very unwise decisions marked, in my view, the start of a steady decline in the Federation’s visability and effectiveness.
I had been a member of the Federation’s Education Committee since 1994 and amongst the proposals put forward in our recommendation for the ‘Future of the Federation’ in 1999 was that it should encourage family history with youth organisations and that this should not only be with schools. In February 2001 I wrote to Richard Ratcliffe suggesting that the Executive Committee set up a sub-committee of the Education Committee and call for volunteers from amongst the many teachers interested in family history who had practical experience of teaching and of implementing the national curriculum. I suggested, for instance, that it organise a ‘Young Genealogists’ Day’ to be held once a year or every other year and I drafted a programme which would include project work and an exhibition of the results. Hoping to galvanise the committee I offered to covenant £1,000 a year to cover the cost of room hire, prizes to the applicants and other expenses, my only condition being that it be called the ‘Anthony Camp Award’.
However, instead of setting up a sub-committee, a suggestion blocked by the Chair of the Education Committee, Dominic Johnson, the matter was left in her hands and her response was slow and lukewarm. She appeared unaware of the recommendations in the paper on the ‘Future of the Federation’ and seven months later was still asking in Family History News and Digest, ‘Has the time now come to encourage this study amongst the younger element of the population?’ [FHN&D Aug/Sep 2001 vol 13 no 2 page 52]. In the December 2001 Newsflash she unbelievably asked for comment ‘good or bad, on ‘young genealogists’, for or against the idea’. By then I had noticed that when Education Liaison Officer for Nottinghamshire Family History Society and in response to the Federation’s survey, her Society had expressed the view that the involvement of young people was, ‘Not a good idea. Teachers are already overloaded with work without dragging them into this as well. Family HIstory is a hobby not a compulsory item. Young people want to be out and about not sitting in libraries and archives or chatting to elderly relatives.’
Because I saw that the project would clearly not be carried forward with any enthusiasm I wrote on 6 January 2002 withdrawing my name from the proposal and saying that my financial commitment would cease after the first year. However, under pressure from other members of the Executive Committee and following a resolution at the Federation’s AGM that year, the project went ahead, being described by Dominic Johnson as ‘a very low key affair as much as anything a trial run’. Twenty-three high quality entries were received and judged by Richard Baker and Michael Gandy, the youngest entrant being only 9 years old. At the Federation meeting at Coventry, 7 September 2002, Dominic Johnson thanked me for my ‘vision in proposing and sponsoring the inaugural award of the Genealogists Award for Young People (GAYP)’ and Jane Starkie wrote an enthusiastic report for Federation News and Digest [vol 14, no 1, April 2003, page 11].
In the same journal there was a lengthy account by Lynda Raistrick of her practical involvement in a family history project which she had been invited to introduce into several primary schools in Yorkshire that year, ‘Working with Young Family Historians’, [pages 17-19], which it is interesting to compare with Donald Steel’s account in Family History in Schools (1973) of his experiences in Surrey and Hampshire. Ten of her children had produced entries for the Federation’s competition. An appeal for further sponsporship of the Federation’s project followed and S & N Genealogy Supplies kindly came forward to sponsor it in 2004. With the demise in 2006 of both the Federation News and Digest and its printed Newsflash, however, I like many others, lost track of developments within the Federation and it does not appear that any further competition was held.
In January 2001 a project was launched to identify and map national research resources for Caribbean Studies and the history of Black and Asian people in Britain and in June that year Dr Deborah Jenkins, the Head Archivist at the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), wrote to me saying that the LMA had successfully applied to the British Library to fund a project which would attempt to identify Black and Asian Londoners in the period 1536-1840, by analysing the content of parish registers held there.
Dr Jenkins hoped that I would assist in the recruitment of a team of four or five record agents for the work. It sounded an interesting project and I said that I would try to help, but advertisements and an approach to AGRA produced very few volunteers, two of whom came to be ‘interviewed’ at the LMA in July. The two agreed the hourly rate of £8 but afterwards one said that he had been ‘mugged’ and did not appear again. The other came only for a very short period in order to see specific registers that had not previously been accessible. As a result I felt duty bound to help and started work later that month. The record agent Margaret Monger helped as did several students found by Helen Wood, an Assistant Archivist at the LMA, who with the Senior Archivist Charlotte Shaw, had made all the practical arrangements.
Appropriate entries in the 1,108 original baptismal registers held at the LMA, from which the work was mainly done, were all ‘marked’ with slips and then scanned in the photographic department. I started with the registers of the four parishes in Hertfordshire, continuing with 27 registers for Kensington and Chelsea, 86 registers for Islington and 63 registers for Westminster, finishing these at the end of January 2002.
One of the earliest entries that I had found, on 6 August, was for Charles, a ten or twelve year old boy, ‘brought from Guiana’ as a servant to Sir Walter Raleigh and baptised at St Luke, Chelsea, on 13 February 1597/8. The finished index was launched by Diane Abbot, M.P., as a computer database at Hackney Library on 17 September 2002 in connection with Black History Month. In 2006 Emily C. Bartels calculated from the burial entries that by 1750 some 1-3 per cent of London’s population were black.
It had not been an altogether pleasant experience. Working at the back of the main document production room I had escaped the crashing microfilm drawers in the first room but then I suffered from the continually banging iron door to the strong rooms immediately behind me. However, I used some of the material noted for a series of articles which I was contributing to Family Tree Magazine, in particular that in June 2003 on the importance of checking any surviving day or rough books for the possible additional information frequently recorded in baptismal and burial registers.
For light relief I had for some time been typing in the evenings the index slips to the Administrations in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 1750-1800, which Michael Wood had sorted into order, checking thousands of entries against the calendars on the shelves at The National Archives and bringing together and cross-referencing many notes of former and later grants. Now, greatly aided by a word processor, I had continued Michael Wood’s work, checking the many inconsistencies between the slips taken from the old PROB 13 volumes and the more modern ‘copies’ in the PROB 12 series on the shelves at the Family Records Centre.
Where noted these many discrepancies were included in the index. That the calendars were not entirely complete had long been recognised, but this cross-referencing of surnames with aliases, of former with later grants, and of surnames entered under prefixies such as De, De La, Mc, O’, Van and Von, with their main elements (something that we had not been able to do with the wills), again showed that the calendars were sometimes far from accurate, different spellings being quite frequently found. Stated places of residence had sometimes resulted from a most cursory examination of the Act, so that Canterbury Way could appear in the Calendar as ‘Canterbury’ or Oxford Street as ‘Oxford’. A third of all the entries in the index related to persons who died in Foreign Parts (calendared as Pts), reflecting the great number of sailors and soldiers killed at sea or overseas in the latter part of the eighteenth century. However, the names of the ships, which generally appear in the calendars from 1781 onwards were often garbled. I noted ‘Overyssel’, for instance, appearing as two ships, ‘Overy’ and ‘Stale’, and the ship ‘Glory’ appearing as ‘Celery’.
The completed alphabetical typescript covered 2,331 pages. These I put in plastic sleeves and delivered to the Family Records Centre in early November 2002, the staff there arranging them in the eight binders now on the shelves at Kew.
In October 2002 Helen Wood moved to the Public Record Office/National Archives and became the Project Manager for ‘Moving Here’, a digitisation project which would record the immigration experiences of Jewish, Irish, Caribbean and Asian communities coming to England from 1840 to the present day. The PRO was the lead of thirty heritage partners which were contributing images of objects, archives and related meta data to a ‘virtual archive’ and the British Library had contributed scans from its newspaper collection then at Colindale relating to Irish and Caribbean communities. The library was not able to fill in all the metadata required by the project but would pay for a searcher to do this work and Helen Wood again asked if I would like to be involved.
It meant extracting material from microfilms of a great number of journals and newspapers and I started in February 2002. Helen said that there were 8,875 pages in the 491 issues and thought that it would take no longer than fifteen minutes to scan each issue on micofilm, noting any particularly pertinent articles, suggesting that it would take 123 hours or about seventeen days each of seven hours. I knew instinctively that it would probably take much longer and suggested that the work be spread over several months.
I started with the Belfast Protestant Journal 1846-7 noting items about the famine and emigration, and continued with the other Irish and English papers already selected by the British Library for appropiate years. These included the Catholic Standard 1853, Cheltenham Examiner 1847, Cork Examiner 1847 and 1921-2, Galway Observer 1930, Irish Echo (Stockport) 1994, Irish Freedom (London) 1939-40, The Irish Liberator 1863-4, Irish Programme (Liverpool) 1884, Liverpool Mercury 1847, Manchester Guardian 1847 and Pictorial Times (London)1846-7.
The level of detail abstracted was considered ‘fine’ but I found the older newspapers extremely tiring to search, even with the largest magnifications available at the Family Records Centre. In late August 2002 the number of large mechanised machines available there had reduced to about six and although I went early it was not always possible to get one, they being popular with census users, and I then used machines at the London Metropolitan Archives. I reckoned in early October that I had done 8,323 pages. Counting a maximum of about four hours a day and not allowing for the typing it had taken more than twice the estimated time.
The Caribbean material consisted of 1,002 pages of the Jamaica Times 1904-20 and a run, under its various names, of the particularly interesting official organ of the League of Coloured People 1933-51 and of the League’s annual reports 1937/8 -49, in each of which I noted almost every item. I completed work on 3 December 2003 and then had a holiday from the crashing and banging at the London Metropolitan Archives, telling Helen Wood that I did not think that there was a more unpleasant place in London in which to work. That was, of course, prior to the more recent great refurbishment of the public search rooms.
I expressed the hope that my abstracted material, which together covered 254 typed pages (all copied on the ‘meta data’ forms), would be available somewhere on the 'Moving Here' website, but I have not been able to find any mention of it there. The site was archived by the National Archives in 2013 and is no longer updated.
Geoffrey Stone had ended his term as a trustee and thus as Honorary Treasurer in July 2007 and Carole Thomas, an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers, was co-opted in his place having joined the Society the previous year. The Annual Accounts for 2005 and 2006 had noted that wherever possible the Society’s costs were allocated directly to its activities. Costs common to a number of activities were allocated ‘on a basis appropriate to the cost’, including a proportion of the space occupied or of the time spent.
In a small organisation like the Society where multi-tasking was encouraged I knew well that such criteria were extremely difficult to apply and there was, of course, a further complication because of the existence of the separate trading company. The Annual Accounts for 2007 said that this apportionment process had been refined in the current year but that the Trustees did ‘not consider restatement of prior year figures on a comparable basis, to be an appropriate use of resources’.
I had, however, noticed that since 2005, taking into account the staff costs involved, the organisation of events included the Family History Fair, had made a loss of £14,000 in 2005, of £19,000 in 2006 and of £62,000 in 2007. The Accounts for 2007 showed staff costs of £64,043, incidental costs of £65,090, other support costs of £12,465, and the loss at £62,385. The simplified pie-charts in the Annual Report for 2007 had shown Events and Lectures as providing 10% of the Society’s income and 19% of its expenditure. Over all the Society had in 2007 made a trading loss of £103,251 but the Annual Report gave a very upbeat assessment of the situation. Of course the events had side effects and benefits which were difficult to quantify, in particular in the sale of books and the recruitment of new members and one would not suggest that they all be dispensed with, but it seemed to me that the Society needed to take a very hard look at the real benefits of all this activity. I believed that if there was £62,385 to give away annually there were perhaps other ways in which it could be used to greater advantage.
In January 2009 I was told in confidence that because of the financial position and the need to economise by about £65,000 a year, that if three of the staff did not take voluntary redundancy that all were to accept a one-fifth reduction in their salaries and that the Society would close on Fridays. I wrote on 24 January 2009 to the Chairman of the Trustees, Colin Ernest Allen (a volunteer and former power station engineer who had become a member in 1988), saying that this was a tragedy for those who had given loyal service to the Society in difficult times. Later that year when the figures for 2008 became available, they confirmed my fears and showed that the Society had made another trading loss of £99,243. Some 7% of income and 14% of expenditure had been attributed to events and the Annual Report called it ‘a very successful year’ and the Fair ‘a major success’. The events in 2008 had provided an income of £45,000 but the direct and support staff costs had been £80,000 (less about £10,000 depreciation, premises and administration). If the annual income continued to decline (it was now about £635,000 but had been £845,654 in 2001) one could see that trouble lay ahead. It seemed to me, however, that little if anything had been learned from the experiences of 2003 with its threat of ‘complete stagnation’. I had asked how that level of staff involvement could be justified and I repeated my general point that too much reliance was being placed on electronic publishing when the Society’s major asset was its open-access library, remarking that it had been truly said that the digitisation of books and films, although making them of easier access, did not in any way increase the resources available to researchers. The Chairman did not reply to my letter until eight months later but an open letter to AGRA about the Society’s problems eventually drew some comments about staff apportionments which were relayed to me by June Perrin.
The chairman Colin Allen himself eventually replied on the Society’s Discussion List on 12 September 2009, making an offensive comment about ‘charging members who currently make no contribution at all to the Society’ (as an Honorary Fellow I paid no subscription). By then the library staff had been put on a four day week and two administration/ reception/ retail posts had been dispensed with. The Society had been closed on Fridays in addition to Mondays as from 1 April 2009. No ‘security charge’ on the building had been necessary but an unspecified part of the designated fund of £255,665 had been spent in 2008 on digitising the Civil Service Evidences of Age and the Great Western railway records (the latter a pet project of Frank Hardy) though, of course, no exact details of expenditure or income from this source were provided.
As mentioned above the Annual Accounts for 2006 had included a note on ‘Resources Expended and Basis of Allocation of Cost’ saying that, ‘Costs common to a number of activities are calculated on a basis appropriate to the cost, this includes proportion of space occupied or time spent. This has been refined in the current year. The trustees do not consider restatement of prior year figures on a compatible basis, to be an appropriate use of resources’ and further noted that ‘the allocation of costs to activities has been refined in the year and meaningful comparatives are not readily available for the revised format’ [2006 AR pages 27 and 29]. The obligation of the trustees and auditors ‘to select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently’ had thus been abandoned where ‘activities’ and staffing were involved. This note continued to appear in the Accounts for the next three years 2007-2009 [2207 AR page 22; 2008 AR page 23; 2009 AR page 22] until I wrote to June Perrin and she admitted, 17 June 2009, that it had been included in error and that the mistake would be mentioned at the Annual Meeting when the accounts were discussed. If that were done it was not mentioned in the Minutes of the Meeting and it was to me another indication that the trustees were not closely scrutinising the Accounts.
I wrote again to Colin Allen on 12 September 2009 about the use of non-recurrent income being used to support recurrent expenditure, saying that although £255,665 had been ring-fenced in 2008, in the five years 2004-8 a further £282,787 had not been ring-fenced and had been taken as general income. The lack of budgeting and monitoring of income and expenditure in 2007 and 2008 seemed confirmed when Colin Allen wrote, 16 September 2009, that ‘it became apparent towards the end of 2008’ that ‘some drastic action had to be taken in order to be able to balance our books’. He regretted his earlier comment and apologised for it, but he now seemed to be saying that the apportionment of staff salaries shown in the Reports for 2007-8 was quite incorrect. As I said on the Society’s Discussion List, it was a fairly important point when people’s salaries and jobs were at stake. The List’s Administrator, Geoffrey Stone, although no longer a trustee, did not like what I was saying and on 2 September 2009 he told me that I had used the List to express ‘personal dissatisfaction with the Society in a way that is unhelpful and not accurate on the facts underlying some of your opinions’. The comments, he claimed, ‘could be libellous’ and he banned me from the List.
Throughout this period following my retirement from the SoG I had been busily engaged in other London repositories and libraries expanding my notes on the mistresses and illegitimate children of the Royal Family, with frequent visits to the London Metropolitan Archives, the British Library, the Institute of Historical Research and to the splendid collection of biographical material at Kensington and Chelsea Public Library. However, in spite of the considerable amount of new material contained, my attempts to find a commercial publisher were all in vain and in 2007 I published what I considered to be the second part, covering the years 1714-1936, myself. I gave it the title Royal Mistresses and Bastards: Fact and Fiction: 1714-1936.
On 11 September 2007 I wrote to Anthony Mortimer, the Bookshop or Retail Manager for Enterprises Ltd since March, asking if the Society would act as the main distributor of the book which was just about to be delivered by the printers. In view of the ‘immense contribution you have personally made to the Society’ he agreed to my suggestion that he sell copies in the Society’s bookshop and deal with credit card orders, I allowing the Society £8 on each book sold for £30. Only a few hundred copies had been printed and I thought that the book might just take off and earn a little for the Society. I delivered copies as needed and the arrangement worked well, the Society selling over the next nine months about 120 copies.
However, following the above correspondence about the Society’s Accounts and in what seemed to be unnecessarily vindictive actions (after an excellent review of the book as ‘indispensable’ by Professor Jane Ridley in The Spectator for 21 November 2009) I found that the Society was turning inquirers away, saying that that it no longer stocked the book, the transaction involved being ‘unprofitable’ and that it did not have permission to give my address (printed in the book itself and in Who’s Who for more than twenty years) to prospective customers. The Society, I was told on 9 December, would also cease to stock and sell My ancestors came with the Conqueror and royalties on the American edition would in future be paid to me directly by the American publisher. That has since been done, most efficiently, by the Genealogical Publishing Company.
Fortunately the sale and distribution of Royal Mistresses and Bastards was taken over by the bookshop ‘Heraldry Today’, by Family Tree Magazine and Amazon, and by the Librairie Gaston Saffroy which stocked it in Paris, until in October 2013 the print run was exhausted. I received as a result a considerable number of interesting letters some of which led to important additional research. I accordingly began to place additions and corrections to the work on a website which I developed at anthonyjcamp.com and which contained outline lists of all the persons mentioned in the book. Professor Ridley herself gave me further publicity and acknowledgment in her most excellent Bertie: a life of Edward VII (2012), which again led to further research.
In 2008 the Thirty Year Rule at the National Archives once more came up for discussion and I wrote in February to the reviewing body to say that in view of the shortage of funds available at the National Archives and the interests of the majority of its readers, a larger proportion of the general public would be better served by making available there three classes of record, presently only available on payment of fees, in two cases after 150 years and in the third only after 240 years.
However, where the review of the Thirty Year Rule was concerned, the points that I had made were completely ignored in the final report. The review team, chaired by Paul Dacre, Editor in Chief of Associated Newspapers, naturally had other interests in mind. The Society of Genealogists made no comment about possible alternative uses for the money involved (the cost of moving to a 15-year rule being estimated at £75 million) - that point was technically outside the review team's terms of reference - and supported the move to modify the rule though it was concerned at the possible consequential reduction of services at The National Archives. My three points were:
As noted above I had beeen much influenced throughout my campaigning career by Anthony Wagner's stress that his first 'Desiderata Genealogica' was the institution of 'a form of registration of births, deaths and marriages, which would lead from one to another'. He wrote that, 'If entries which link marriage entries with the parties' baptisms or births, baptismal or birth entries with the parents' marriage, and death or burial entries with the deceased's birth and parentage have been feasible in France and Germany for three centuries or more and in Australia for one, they should by now be possible in England'. It was a simple point to which we returned again and again. Happily as described above some progress was made by the registration changes of 1969 when, from 1 April that year in England and Wales, the date and place of birth of a deceased person, his or her usual address and the maiden names of married women were included on death certificates, and the places of birth of each parent and their usual addresses were included on birth certificates. Marriage entries remained the same.
Our later attention had therefore centred on access to the records themselves. The records of civil registration of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales, in local Register Offices from 1837, their centralised copies at the General Register Office also from 1837, together with a great number of original and copy records of similar events overseas and in the forces, dating back to 1761, also at the General Register Office, had unfortunately been exempted from the 1958 Public Records Act.
We had drawn attention to the basic facts that the 1836 Registration Act which had brought the main series of these records into existence and the 1949 Marriage Act both spoke of the registers being kept 'so that they may be most readily seen and examined'. The 1953 Births and Deaths Registration Act also said that the local registrar must 'allow searches to be made in any register of births or registers of deaths in his keeping'. The registers had thus been open to public search centrally in London until 1898 and locally in Register Offices until 1974 when the Registrar General, concerned at the inconvenience caused by the growing number of searchers, closed them. The Acts remained in force but no information was available except in the form of certified copies for ever increasing fees.
The position about public access to these records, as I have recounted above, was long argued and the main points about what might be done without legislation were set out in a talk, ‘Facing the Future: the challenge of the Citizen’s Charter for the Registration Service’, which I gave to the officers of the Registration Service at their conference in Chester on 11 February 1993 and which was printed in the Genealogists’ Magazine [vol. 24, no. 8 (December 1993) pages 329-34] and is now available online.
However, the Registrar General continued to dodge every attempt to make these records more easily available and then, at considerable public expense, embarked on a project to digitise the centralised copies, ignoring suggestions that the Genealogical Society of Utah be allowed to film, index and make available the more accurate local originals at no cost to the public. If that had been done in the manner suggested and all the material over a hundred years old released to county record offices and/or the National Archives, an enormous and immediately valuable service would have been done to many thousands of interested persons.
The Registrar General's digitisation project ran into difficulties long ago, but he clearly had no intention that any of the records, even after 180 years, should be made freely available to the public. He is now in 2018 using the digitised copies in a ‘pilot’ project without a planned end date which provides uncertified copies (something suggested many decades ago) of the birth 1837-1917 and death 1837-1957 entries for £6 each.There is no doubt whatever in my mind, however, that the public would be best served by the transfer of the more accurate local records since 1837 to the appropriate local record offices and the microfilming and digitisation by FamilySearch of those more than a hundred years old and, in the case of marriages and deaths to more recent dates, so that they can be seen without charge on the Internet.
Large sections of the older Miscellaneous Records since 1761 remain un-indexed and so-called 'official searches' have been shown to produce different results depending on the member of the registration staff who makes them.They should be transferred to the National Archives and made immediately available for microfilming.
The second group of records that I again suggested should be made publicly available were the unique indexes to divorce decrees nisi and absolute held at the Principal Registry of the Family Division from 1858 to the present day. They are not accessible to the public, but officials carry out paid searches (then £20 for a ten year period). The indexes are in several different formats: manuscript lists by year 1858-1946, on microfiche 1947-1969, on cassettes 1970-80, and on computer from 1981 to date. I said that in view of the uncertainties surrounding the coverage of the incomplete divorce indexes held by The National Archives, copies of these unique indexes should be freely available there. They should, of course, be made more widely available, lust like the public indexes of births, marriages and deaths.
The third group of records were the Register Copy wills proved throughout England and Wales in the years 1858-1925 which for many years had been available at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City on microfilm. In 2008 the wills were not available to public search anywhere in the United KIngdom and copies were available only on payment of fees on personal application at the Principal Registry of the Family Division in London or by post (after considerable delay) from the York District Probate Registry. At that time a plan to digitise the wills and make them available for fees on the Internet had run into problems and meanwhile I could not see any reason why copies of the films chould not be made freely available at the National Archives together with microfilms of the probate and administration act books.
Copies of the calendars of wills and administrations from 1858 to 1958 were available at the Family Record Centre until its closure in 2007 and in 2008 the LDS Family History Centre in London’s Exhibition Road obtained copies of the films of the wills 1858-1925 and of their calendars 1858-1958 from Salt Lake City. These films, which were later available at the LDS Centre in the National Archives at Kew, were donated to the Society of Genealogists in 2017 where they may be seen by Members of the Society and by others on payment of the Society’s usual hourly and day search fees. The Society also has a set of films in which the yearly calendar entries were filmed letter by letter from 1858 to 1930 and are a good deal more convenient to search over long periods.
The actual annual indexes or calendars of wills and administrations from 1858 had, of course, been available on the open shelves at First Avenue House in High Holborn since they were brought from Somerset House in 1998, but there was for some time a concern at the Registry’s charges for copies of original wills and register copies. In earlier years a fee of £0.25p per sheet had been charged for copies, but in 1994 a flat fee of £0.75p was introduced, no matter the number of pages and in April 1999 the fees were suddenly increased to £5 for a copy and £15 for the inspection of an original. Those fees were increased to £6 and £20 by a further Fees Order in 2011.
In March 2009 an official at the Courts Service (of which the Probate Registry forms a part) had held a brief public consultation about the possibility of placing the probate calendars online. I responded saying that if this were done the calendars should be digitised in the manner of The Times Digital Archive or The London Gazette so that one could recover all the subsidiary names and addresses in the entries, as that would be of great value to anyone searching out family relationships and next-of-kin. I also said that any digitisation of the calendars should only be undertaken from the old calendars on the shelves at the Registry as these contained many manuscript additions relating to further grants, etc., as well as the folio numbers needed to locate the register copy wills, and not from the new copies of the calendars which had sometimes taken their place when the old ones needed re-binding.
Nothing official happened but later in 2009 an incomplete set of the un-amended calendars covering many years between about 1862 and 1941, indexed by the name of the deceased only, appeared on the subscription website ancestry.co.uk and this was later extended to cover all the period from 1858 to 1995 excepting only the years 1967-72 and this is presently (2018) the situation.
Meanwhile, in September 2014 the Probate Registry had itself placed online annual indexes from 1858 to the present day (though new grants of probate and administration may take fourteen days to appear) which up to 1995 link to digitised copies of pages in the un-amended calendars and indexes. From 1996, however, the annual indexing of grants is highly unsatisfactory, unhelpfully showing only the name of the deceased, his or her date of death, the date of probate/administration, and the Probate Registry involved. The identification of those with relatively frequent names is almost impossible unless their exact dates of death are already known. The address of the deceased does not appear and the name of the first executor/administrator is not included in the index entries. Copies of the wills and administrations are, however, available at £10.00 each regardless of their length. Recovery of the other subsidiary names mentioned in the calendars from 1858 to 1996 is not possible although a very few have occasionally been picked up, it seems almost by accident, in their indexing by Ancestry.
Forty years ago Francis Leeson wrote, 'until somebody provides the Society with a computer programmed to show what and where original registers, transcripts, indexes, etc. are available for any given parish or group of parishes, boundary maps showing this information are useful' [GM vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 169]. Definitive maps showing the situation in 1844 are now provided by T.C.H. Cockin, The parish atlas of England: an atlas of English parish boundaries (Malthouse Press, 2017).
Although much material about the transcription and indexing of parish registers and bishops transcripts is available on sites such as GENUKI and FamilySearch I believe that the detailed information collected over the years by the Society of Genealogists and published in the various volumes of the National index of parish registers should now be made freely available on the Society’s website and that the co-operation of the Federation of Family History Societies and the various repositories involved should be sought so that it is regularly updated to form a basic tool for all genealogists. The lists published in the Phillimore atlas and index of parish registers used to provide an extremely rough guide as to which parishes were not covered in the main indexes and it should now be possible to devise county tables which would quickly show at least that same level of detail and thus highlight the main gaps in registers, transcripts and indexes.
In May 2009 I was approached by Colin Allen, then Chairman of the Society’s Trustees, in connection with possible contributions to the proposed Society of Genealogists: a century of family history (2011), to be edited by a committee formed of Else Churchill, Nicholas Newington-Irving and the violently abrasive Roy Stockdill (1940-2019). An elaborate draft outline was enclosed which would involve many other writers, the deadline being August 2010. Recognising the amount of work entailed and the relative urgency for decisions I replied on 16 June saying that I would help but in view of my unpleasant experience in 1998 and, indeed, daunted by the conflicting personalities of those who would be involved, I needed clarification on a couple of points. I said that I would need access to the minutes of the Executive Comittee prior to the 1960s but I would not sign any document about confidentiality or copyright arising from that access and that I would not be involved unless the copyright of any texts that I provided remained with me as contributor.
Three months passed and I had heard nothing and so I wrote on 20 September 2009 saying that judging by my experience with My ancestors came with the Conqueror it would be another two years before anyone thought that a reply was called for and I accordingly said that ‘in all the resulting uncertain circumstances I regret to say that I am reluctantly obliged to withdraw my offer in connection with the History’. Another month later I was asked to reconsider the position but declined. When the book appeared I was not amused to hear that the author of one major section had been told not to mention my name.
On 2 February 2011 I was invited to the Society’s Gala Dinner at the Royal Overseas League on 6 May 2011 to celebrate the Society’s 100th anniversary, but having given it consideration, I declined the invitation, ‘in view of all that had happened in the years since I resigned as Director’. Prince Michael of Kent who was present prior to the dinner resigned his patronage of the Society in December 2012.
I had vaguely thought that one day I might bring together all the articles that I had contributed to Family Tree Magazine and Practical Family History on particular sources, but encouraged by Sharon Hintze, then Director of the LDS Family History Library in London, and with the permission of Michael Armstrong, the proprietor of those two journals, I began in December 2008 to re-edit them and place them on the Wiki part of FamilySearch. By 2011 I had completed nearly forty articles on slightly lesser known sources and then expanded and adding references to those available on microfilm at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City (and thus through its centres worldwide), usually limiting myself to sources in England and Wales though including ‘The Irish in England’ . They are to be found at https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Main_Page. They are: Aliens and Immigrants; Apprenticeship in England: overview; Apprenticeship in London and Borough Towns; Parish, Factory and Charity Apprenticeships; Bank of England Will Extracts; British Births, Marriages and Deaths Overseas; Church Courts; Civil Service Evidences of Age; Clergy of the Church of England; Admission to Copyhold Property; County Records; Court Records; Directories; Divorce; Doctors: Physicians, Surgeons, Dentists and Apothecaries; Electoral Rolls or Registers; Guardianship Bonds; Hearth Tax; Illegitimacy; Sources for Labourers in an Agricultural Community; Land and Property; Lawyers; The London Gazette; London Foundling Hospital: Reclaimed Foundlings; Marriage Allegations, Bonds and Licences; Marriage Settlements; Marriage by Registrar’s Certificate or Licence; Non-Parochial Registers; Parish Administration; The Parliamentary Archives; Poll Books; Probate Fees and Valuations; Removal Orders; Schools and their records; Settlement Examinations; Public Schools and their records; Trinity House.
I also contributed three articles on general topics: ‘Proving a Pedigree in England’, ‘Six Short Lessons in Family History in England’ and ‘Dead End or New Beginning’.
I had worked in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City on many occasions over the years. I had also regularly taken groups from the British Isles to work there, explaining with detailed handouts major items in the collections. Latterly I had been most kindly assisted by Darris Williams and had got to know the strengths and weaknesses of the library catalog fairly well, sometimes helping others with advice on their Forum and then expressing my frustrations and concerns with the shortcomings of the catalog and, in particular, of the indexing instructions for some of the projects being undertaken by FamilySearch about which there were daily arguments on the site’s Forum.
I had first been struck, for instance, in the Irish Wills project that someone appearing in a record a ‘Arthur, Duke of Wellington’ should, because his surname did not appear, be indexed merely as ‘Arthur’ – the name ‘Wellington’ was not to appear. Somebody else pointed out that a similar rule had applied in the Cheshire Land Tax Project and that as a result the various properties of any titled landowner (between which any family might move) could not be collectively identified. Because ‘Mary’ and ‘John’ in an entry such as ‘Mary child of John & Sarah Smith’ have no surname only the name of ‘Sarah Smith’ is to be indexed. However, in an entry such as ‘ Mary child of John Smith and Sarah’ only ‘John Smith’ is to be indexed.
I could not believe that anyone familiar with records in England could have devised such a bizarre series of project indexing guidelines and on 16 May 2012 I wrote to Elder Dennis Brimhall, the newly appointed Chief Executive Officer of FamilySearch (he retired in 2015), briefly setting out these points and asking him to look at some of the recent posts on the Forum (under ‘General Indexing Discussions’, ‘UK and Ireland Projects’, ‘Indexing Projects’, ‘FamilySearch Wiki Contributors Corner’, and under ‘Latin America Projects’ about the Barbardos Records & Surname fields) and to discuss them with a competent genealogist with knowledge of English records. I said that an urgent survey needed to be undertaken of all the Project Instructions (other than those for the Census) by competent genealogists. I had little doubt that there were several, perhaps many, projects which would need to be done again, because as a result of the present instructions great numbers of entries would never be found and it was a deeply unsatisfactory situation. In November 2012 I placed an expanded version of my letter on the User Page of the FamilySearch Wiki, https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/User:AnthonyJCamp, but, so far as I am aware, altogether failed to obtain any modification of the programs.
Typical family historians begin their searches, as I did when a child, through a limited range of sources, believing that their families are unique and that they can learn nothing about them from the experiences of others. They may be vaguely aware that enormous resources of information are available at the press of a computer key, but what these represent in the total scheme of matters genealogical is a mystery to them. Many are still unaware that there are organisations today with a vast expertise and collective knowledge of the subject, built up over the last century, that may save them much time and heart-ache in their searches, and above all that will help them to put what they find into an historical perspective instead of just confirming all the prejudices about the past that they had when they began.
In December 2010 I read a comment on one of the FamilySearch Forums saying that genealogy consisted of 'best guesses' and I drafted an angry reply that in the end, fearing to cause offence, I did not post, saying that genealogy is, or at least it should be, a very exact science that makes a clear distinction between the facts that have been proved and those that have not, and has nothing to do with 'best guesses'. The Internet is littered with pedigrees which are valueless because they consist mainly of 'best guesses' which are in fact little more than wishful thinking by those without experience or knowledge of the subject. The discovery of a name roughly at the right time and place may be a valuable clue but one's expertise and knowledge of sources is then called upon either to prove that it is relevant to the family history or that it should be consigned to a footnote or omitted altogether for fear that some uninformed third party will chance upon it and enter it on one of the worthless pedigrees that I have mentioned. There is usually in such cases much to be done to develop the pedigrees of both families and eventually, perhaps, to find the elusive clue that will prove them connected. Of course some informed speculation along the way is often beneficial but a clear line must always be drawn between speculative possibilities and the facts. No family historian with only a few months experience of genealogy is qualified to make such judgments.
[1] GM, vol. 2, no. 2 (June 1926) 41.
[2] Gerald Curtis, Mansion and cottage home: views on a Hertfordshire estate - Walkern Hall -1875-1935 (Unpublished Typescript, n.d.) Chapter 14.
[3] Igor Schwezoff, Borzoi (1935) 441.
[4] TPR, vol. 1 (June 1909) 270.
[5] TPR, vol. 1 (March 1910) 366.
[6] Later Roman historians, concerned by the impossible chronology, made Aeneas the founder, not of Rome itself, but of Lavinium, the head of the Latin League.
[7] As recounted in Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid.
[8] Joseph Stevenson, Historia Britonum (1838); History of the Britons, translated from Stevenson’s text by Rev. J. A. Giles in Six Old English Chronicles (Bohn’s Antiquarian Library, 1840).
[9] Galfredi Monemutensis de Origine et Gestis Regum Britannorum (Paris, 1508); also in Six Old English Chronicles (1840).
[10] Genesis, X, 2.
[11] Kenneth Sisam, ‘Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogies’, in Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 39 (1953) 287-348.
[12] Kenneth Sisam, op. cit., quoted in Anthony Wagner, English Genealogy (1983) 14-15.
[13] Many were extracted between 1880 and 1904 and published by George Wrottesley in his Pedigrees from the Plea Rolls, 1200-1500 (1906) but he made no systematic search for examples before 1327.
[14] William Page, ed., Family origins and other studies (1930) 199.
[15] Sir John Maclean, ed, The Lives of the Berkeleys by John Smyth of Nibley (3 vols. 1893).
[16] Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 369-71, quoting J. H. Round, ‘Our English Hapsburgs: a Great Delusion’, in Peerage and Family History (1901) chapter v.
[17] Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 376.
[18] Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 368.
[19] Both are quoted on the title page of Stacey Grimaldi, Origines Genealogicae (1828).
[20] The figure is given by Stacey Grimaldi, op. cit. (1828) 4. A further 49 claimed ancestry before 1100 and another 29 before 1200.
[21] It curiously finds no mention in Donald Steel's account of the history of parish registers in volume 1 of the NIPR (1968).
[22] Nicholas Herbert in C. R. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis, eds., English county histories: a guide (1994) 157; see also John Wintrip, 'The influence of Ralph Bigland on the Evolution of Parish Registers', in Genealogists' Magazine, vol. 33, no. 8 (December 2020) 267-272.
[23] ‘A Register Booke of Ixworth, Transcribed May Anno Dm 1675, by Simon Boldero’ (SoG, Accession 25986, 19 February 1957).
[24] NIPR, vol. 1 (1968) 183.
[25] R. E. C. Waters, Parish Registers in England (1883) 95.
[26] Patrick Polden, op. cit., 350.
[27] Rex v. Smallpiece, 2 Chitty's Reports, 288, quoted in R. E. C. Waters, op. cit. (1883) 87.
[28] Steele v. Williams, Exchequer Reports, viii, 825, quoted in Waters, op. cit. (1883) 87.
[29] ‘Important to Clergymen: Court of Exchequer, 7 May 1853, Steele v. Williams’, in Carlisle Patriot, 5 November 1853, 6.
[30] Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart, On parochial registration of baptisms, marriages and burials (1833).
[31] Parish Register Abstract: 1831 (London, 1833).
[32] Francis Green, ‘The Selby Romance’, in Y Cymmrodor, xix (1906) 89-123; Bowen is said to have been convicted for these activities at Cardigan Assizes in July 1838 but there is no mention of the case in the Criminal Registers; Charles H. Savory, Life and anecdotes of Jemmy Wood, the eccentric banker, merchant and draper, of Gloucester; also an account of the remarkable trial with reference to his will (1883).
[33] Worcester Herald, 27 July 1844, 4.
[34] 1841 Census of King’s Arms, 27 Aldersgate Street, St Botolph Aldersgate, where he was arrested.
[35] The Selby claims ceased on appeal in 1900 by reason of the Statute of Limitations.
[36] The Home and Foreign Review, no. 4 (April 1863).
[37] Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald, 26 August 1882, 2, and 13 October 1888, 8.
[38] Royal Cornwall Gazette, 22 January 1891, 7; Cornishman, 14 May 1891, 6.
[39] N&Q 2S vi (1858) 380.
[40] Parish Registers. A Bill to make provision for the better preservation of the ancient Parochial Registers of England and Wales (Prepared and brought in by Mr. Borlase, Mr. Bryce, Mr. Cochran-Patrick, and Mr. Mellor.) Ordered, by The House of Commons, to be printed, 19 April 1882. [Bill 132].
[41] Walter Rye, Records and record searching: a guide to the genealogist and topographer (1897) 89 and footnote.
[42] House of Commons, Minutes, 5 July 1882, vol. 271, c1509.
[43] R. E. C. Waters, Genealogical memoirs of the extinct family of Chester of Chicheley (2 vols. 1878).
[44] R. E. C. Waters, op. cit. (1883) 98.
[45] R. E. C. Waters, op. cit. (1883) 95.
[46] W. Raymond Powell, John Horace Round: historian and gentleman of Essex (2001) 52-3.
[47] J. P. Earwaker, A Lancashire pedigree case: or a history of the various trials for the recovery of the Harrison estates, from 1873 to 1886 (Warrington, 1887) viii.
[48] e.g. 'The Bankruptcy of Mr. W. C. Borlase' in The West Briton, Monday, 14 November 1887.
[49] A. J. Jewers, The registers of the parish of St Columb Major, Cornwall, from the year 1539 to 1780 (1881).
[50] William C. Borlase to A. J. Jewers, 15 February 1882.
[51] Marriage by Licence at St John, Islington, 20 July 1887 [Entry 489, Page 245].
[52] 1891 Census of 19 Chamberlain Street, Wells, Somerset, RG12/1913-121-12.
[53] 1891 Census of 7 Endsleigh Road, Plymouth, 1891 Census, RG12/1725-69-4; 1901 Census of 41 Torrington Place, Plymouth, 1901 Census RG13/2093-149-26. She died at Plymouth in 1920, aged 70.
[54] 1901 Census of 31 St Mary's Terrace, Paddington, RG13/1-67-25; 1911 Census of 1 Keats Grove, Hampstead.
[55] S. B. Gould to A. J. Jewers, 27 November 1884.
[56] R. T. Gunton for Marquis of Salisbury to Arthur J. Jewers, 4 April 1885.
[57] George W. Marshall to Arthur J. Jewers, 12 July 1885.
[58] Sir John Lubbock to A. J. Jewers, 7 February 1885; notation by Jewers, 'Since this letter was written I have seen Sir John Lubbock and Mr Borlase and they approve of a Royal Commission'.
[59] A. J. Jewers, Wells Cathedral: its monumental inscriptions and heraldry (1892).
[60] Undated printed form-letter with copy of Memorial to the Queen in Jewers' correspondence.
[61] Subsequent undated note by A. J. Jewers attached to the correspondence.
[62] Ernest L. Ridge, Chaplain to the Archbishop, to A. J. Jewers, 21 July 1894.
[63] Alwyne [Bishop of] Ely to A. J. Jewers, 15 February 1897.
[64] 12 December 1893.
[65] J. Cumming Macdona to A. J. Jewers, 24 January 1897 and 1 March 1897.
[66] House of Commons, Debates, 26 January 1897, vol. 45, c516.
[67] E. A. Fry to A. J. Jewers, 28 January 1897.
[68] Guildhall Library, MS 2480/1-5, now London Metropolitan Archives, CLC/256; GM, vol. 6, no. 3 (September 1932) 107.
[69] Charles H. Athill, Richmond Herald, to A. J. Jewers, 18 November 1918.
[70] A. C. Fox-Davies, Armorial Families: a directory of coat-armour (1899) 455.
[71] D. J. Steel, NIPR, vol. 1 (1968)183-6, quoting N&Q 4S ii118 (1 August 1868) and 142 (8 August 1868).
[72] The marriage, baptismal, and burial registers of the collegiate church or abbey of St Peter, Westminster [1607-1875], edited and annotated by Joseph Lemuel Chester (Harleian Society, Visitation Series, vol. 10, 1876).
[73] The register booke of christnings, marriages, and burialls within the precinct of the cathedrall and metropoliticall church of Christe of Canterburie [1564-1878], edited by Robert Hovenden (Harleian Society, Register Section, vol. 2, 1878).
[74] The registers of St Paul's Cathedral [1697-1899], edited by John W. Clay (Harleian Society, Register Section, vol. 26, 1898).
[75] The registers of the abbey church of SS. Peter and Paul Bath [1569-1800], edited by Arthur J. Jewers (Harleian Society, Register Section, vols. 27-28, 1900-01).
[76] R. E. C. Waters, op. cit. (1883) 98.
[77] N&Q 8S viii, 173.
[78] '100 years of Phillimore & Co' in Local History Magazine, no. 64 (November-December 1997) 12-16.
[79] George W. Marshall, 'Printed Parish Registers', in The Genealogist, New Series, vol. 2 (1885).
[80] London Post Office Directories, and 1904 Poll for St Andrew, Holborn.
[81] 1911 Census of 1 Castellain Road, Maida Vale, RG14/32 image 2.
[82] W. P. W. Phillimore, How to write the history of a family (1888) 153-4; and his Pedigree Work (3rd edn. 1936) 41.
[83] Richard Sims, A manual for the genealogist, topographer, antiquary, and legal professor (1861) 356.
[84] Advertisements in International Genealogical Directory (1907) 108, and (1909) clvi.
[85] Marriage Index of London Churches the property of Messrs Pallot, No 2 New Court, Lincolns Inn, London, undated typescript (c. 1935) in the possession of the author.
[86] Tribute by the Master of the Rolls in The Times, 1 November 1944, 7, column f.
[87] G. H. Martin & Peter Spufford, The Records of the Nation (1990) 124-5.
[88] Roger Ellis, ‘Records preservation from BRS to BRA’, in Jubilee Essays: The British Records Association 1932-1992 (BRA, 1992) 25.
[89] Ursula Bloom, Parson extraordinary (1963)180-9; J. H. Bloom to J. B. Whitmore, 24 February 1941.
[90] 1939 Register; 1911 Census, Montrose, St Martin’s, Jersey.
[91] London Gazette, 15 July 1949, Issue 38666, 3518, and 23 February 1962, Issue 42606, 1648; also PPR Calendar. Mrs Sayers died on 7 June 1962 [PPR Calendar].
[92] According to Cecil Humphery-Smith in an article 'British Ancestry: Pallot Index' (dated 18 January 2006) on http://www.britishancestry.org/articles (accessed 6 June 2011) the Index was started in 1813, continued by the 'Bernardi [sic] brothers', inherited and continued by Cox, Sayers & Co, Pallot made the largest contribution, the Misses Stokes and Mr Challen extended it, and John Andrews (sic) augmented it. I have not been able to confirm the involvement of the De Bernardy family in the early Index. That it evolved partly from an index maintained by Phillimore & Co and assisted Percival Boyd in the compilation of his index is not borne out by the facts.
[93] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 131,
[94] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) xi.
[95] The Index is described in Family History, vol. 20, no. 168 (July 2001) 297-298, but that it was based largely on surviving Bishops Transcripts is not there mentioned.
[96] Pallot's Marriage Index 1780-1837 (Ancestry.com, CD-ROM, 2001).
[97] Although not concerned with genealogy Margaret Paston wrote to her son in 1471, ‘It is a shame and a thing that is much spoken of in this country that your father’s gravestone is not made’; quoted by R. Emmerson in ‘Margaret Paston’s brass’, in Monumental Brass Society Bulletin, 17 (February 1978) 13.
[98] Sir Henry Chauncy, The historical antiquities of Hertfordshire (1700) 554-555.
[99] Ralph Bigland, Observations on Marriages, Baptisms and Burials, as Preserved in Parochial Registers (1764).
[100] Reprinted in Bristol and Gloucester Archaeological Society Record Series (4 vols. 1989-95),edited by Brian Frith.
[101] ‘Mutilation and Destruction of Sepulchral Monuments’, in Stamford Mercury, 19 July 1861, 6.
[102] Lincolnshire Church Notes (Lincolnshire Record Society, vol. 31, 1936) 369-70.
[103] His preface, quoted in D. J. Steel, NIPR, vol. 1 (1968) 265-266.
[104] Frederick Teague Cansick, A collection of curious and interesting epitaphs copied from the monuments of distinguished and noted characters in the ancient church and burial grounds of Saint Pancras, Middlesex, 2 vols. (1869-72) ...[and] in the churches and churchyards of Hornsey, Tottenham, Friern Barnet and Hadley, Middlesex (1875).
[105] Ursula Bloom, Parson Extraordinary (1963) 145.
[106] It was printed as Testamenta Lambethana ... 1312-1636 by Sir Thomas Phillipps in 1854.
[107] Stacey Grimaldi, Origines Genealogicae (1828) 225.
[108] James Raine, ed., Wills and inventories illustrative of the history, manners, language, statistics, etc., of the northern counties of England, from the eleventh century downwards (1835).
[109] Harris Nicolas's summary of his activities appears in his cogent submission (s 103-8) to the Fourth Report made to His Majesty by the commissioners appointed to inquire into the law of England respecting real property (1833).
[110] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 92-96 and 168.
[111] Daniel Joseph Kirwan, Palace and hovel: or, phases of London life (1871) chapter xi.
[112] Kirwan, op. cit. (1871) chapter xi.
[113] Richard Sims, Manual for the genealogist (1861) 344.
[114] N. H. Nicolas, Testamenta vetusta, vol. 1 (1826) 13.
[115] Report of the Council of the Camden Society elected 3rd May, 1847 (1848) 5-10.
[116] Report of the Council of the Camden Society (1853) 5-6.
[117] John Gough Nichols and John Bruce, eds, Wills from Doctors' Commons: a selection from the wills of eminent persons proved in the prerogative court of Canterbury, 1495-1695 (1863).
[118] Kirwan, op. cit. (1871) 159.
[119] Morning Post, 14 October 1874, 7, and other newspapers, e.g. Alnwick Mercury, 31 October 1874, 2.
[120] By 1915 the 'literary searchers' had free access to wills a hundred years after probate.
[121] Walter Rye, op. cit. (1897) 138.
[122] Walter Rye, op. cit. (1897) 104.
[123] Walter Rye, op. cit. (1897) 105.
[124] Calendar of grants of probate and administration and of other testamentary records of the Commissary Court of the Venerable the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, 1504-1829 (HMSO, 1864).
[125] I have a copy of the Returns respecting ... Ecclesiastical Courts (1830) that belonged to Coleman, given to me by Alice Stanley.
[126] His account of the work, dated August 1865, is in Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 2 (1914) 93-96; he is named as the author in the response to Question 5811.
[127] W. P. W. Phillimore, op. cit. (1888) 151.
[128] Ida Darlington, ed., London Consistory Court Wills 1492-1547 (1967) ix-xxii.
[129] Walter Rye, op. cit. (1897) 139-40.
[130] D. M. Barratt, ed., Probate records of the courts of the bishop and archdeacon of Oxford 1516-1732, vol. 1 (1981) vi.
[131] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 47.
[132] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 42-43.
[133] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 46
[134] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 44.
[135] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 46-47.
[136] Lincolnshire Church Notes (Lincolnshire Record Society, vol. 31, 1936) xi.
[137] There is a partial account of his family in TPR, vol. 2 (December 1910) 71-76.
[138] GM, vol. 2, no. 4 (December 1926) vii. 1891 Census of 29 Priory Park Road, Willesden, in which he is described as a genealogist (RG12/1045-74-60/61).
[139] 'American Ancestry', publicity note by Gerald Fothergill, n.d.
[140] A List of MSS and Indexes in possession of Mr. G. Fothergill, publicity leaflet, n.d.
[141] Fothergill Papers, specimen letter, 4 March 1903.
[142] H. R. Plomer to Gerald Fothergill, 18 May 1903.
[143] Fothergill Papers, Somerset House, 19 June 1903; The Times, 20 June 1903, 6.
[144] H. R. Plomer to Gerald Fothergill, 14 June 1903.
[145] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 54.
[146] The outcome is mentioned by Fothergill in his evidence to the Royal Commission.
[147] TSGL: Fifth QR, September 1912, 2.
[148] Dictionary of National Biography, sub John Caley (died 1834),apparently quoting Commons’ Report on Record Commission, 1836.
[149] As it had become in 1540 when the Abbey was dissolved. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Historical memorials of Westminster Abbey (1882) 381-2; for John Ireland see Edward Carpenter, ed., A house of kings: a history of Westminster Abbey (1966) 214.
[150] Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Historical memorials of Westminster Abbey (1882) 378-382.
[151] Elizabeth M. Hallam, ‘Nine centuries of keeping the Public Records’, in The Records of the Nation (1990) 23-42.
[152] John Gough Nichols & John Bruce, Wills from Doctors’ Commons (1863), ii footnote.
[153] Jane Cox, ed., The Nation’s Memory: a pictorial guide to the Public Record Office (1988) 7.
[154] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 84-86.
[155] John Cantwell, ‘The making of the first Deputy Keeper of the records’, in Archives, vol. xvii, no. 73 (April 1985) 22-37.
[156] Quoted in Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 114.
[157] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 139-40.
[158] Christopher Kitching, ‘A Victorian pioneer in the records: Walter Rye’s Records and Record Searching in context’, in Archives, vol. xxxiii, no. 119 (October 2008) 130.
[159] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 141-42.
[160] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 224-5.
[161] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 170-4, 262.
[162] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 181.
[163] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 183.
[164] Kitching, op. cit. (2008) 127; cf. Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 209.
[165] William Page in Family Origins and Other Studies (1930) xviii.
[166] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 199, 213.
[167] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 272.
[168] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 218.
[169] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 225.
[170] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 232.
[171] John Physick and Michael Darby, ‘Marble Halls’: drawings and models for Victorian secular buildings (Victoria and Albert Museum, 1973) 134 (page 191); Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 232, 258, 260-1, 295.
[172] Walter Rye, Records and record searching (1897) 118-119.
[173] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 243, 262.
[174] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 272-7.
[175] Pym Yeatman, ‘Genealogical Research in America’, in Notes & Queries, 9S vii (30 March 1901) 244-5; observations confirmed by ‘G. K. C.’ in Notes & Queries, 9S vii (4 May 1901) 350-1.
[176] C. R. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis, English county histories: a guide (1994) 112-13.
[177] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 292; Modern Public Records: selection and access … 1981 (Cmnd. 8204) Appendix 3, pages 223-4.
[178] Geoffrey Martin in The Records of the Nation (1990) 20.
[179] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 299.
[180] ODNB; Frederick Boase, Modern English Biography, vol. 3 (1901); Christopher Kitching, ‘Walford Dakin [sic] Selby (1845-1889),Superintendent of the Round Room’, in Magna: Magazine of the Friends of The National Archives, vol. 24, no. 1 (April 2013) 18-20. He was baptised and his birth registered as Walford Daking Selby.
[181] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 299, 339.
[182] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 287-304.
[183] Geoffrey Martin in The Records of the Nation (1990) 20.
[184] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 310.
[185] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 332-33; PRO Guide, I (1963) 64.
[186] PRO Guide, II (1963) 275; Cantwell, op.cit. (1991) 394.
[187] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 334.
[188] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 351.
[189] Public Record Office: Museum Catalogue (London, 1948, 1974); J. D. Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 310-11..
[190] Alexandra Nicol, ‘Liaison: Public Records held in other record offices’, in The Records of the Nation (1990) 139-48.
[191] TPR, vol. 1, no. 9 (June 1909) 263-4, quoting the Deputy Keeper’s Seventieth AR (1909).
[192] DNB; her England under the Angevin Kings was published in 1887.
[193] J. H. Round, Family Origins and other Studies (1930) 8.
[194] George Sherwood to J. B. Whitmore, 31 December 1940.
[195] Audrey Deacon & Peter Walne, eds., “A Professional Hertfordshire Tramp”; John Edwin Cussans, Historian of Hertfordshire (Hertfordshire Record Society, 1987) 84-85.
[196] Obituary of Howard by G. J. A. in Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, 3rd Series, vol. 5 (1904) 41-43.
[197] George Burnett, Popular Genealogists (1865) 99.
[198] Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 390.
[199] Morningt Post, 15 April 1897, page 2.
[200] Derby Mercury, 12 May 1897, page 6.
[201] Round, Peerage and Pedigree, ii (1910) 307-84.
[202] DNB; G. C. Baugh in Currie & Lewis, English County Histories: a Guide (1994) 341-2.
[203] Josiah Wedgwood in DNB; M. W. Greenslade in Currie & Lewis, English County Histories: a Guide (1994) 362-4.
[204] Family Origins and Other Studies (1930) xvii-xix.
[205] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 345-47.
[206] Walter Rye, Records and Record Searching (2nd ed. 1897) 124.
[207] C. R. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis, English county histories: a guide (1994) 194-95, 275-76.
[208] Family Origins and Other Studies (1930) xix.
[209] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) 295.
[210] Aleyn Lyell Reade, The Reades of Blackwood Hill (1906) 141.
[211] Walter Rye, Records ad Record Searching (2nd ed. 1897) 11.
[212] History of Yorkshire, vol. 1 (1879) page 14 et seq.
[213] Page 168.
[214] Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal, Clarence Volume (1905) 506, Exeter Volume (1907) 725, and Mortimer-Percy Volume (1911) 219.
[215] Volume vi, page 13, note c; see also The Complete Peerage, xii/2 (1959) 559, note k.
[216] A. L. Reade, The Reades of Blackwood Hill (1906) 185; A. R. Wagner, English Genealogy (1983) 359-60.
[217] Abstract of the Pedigree of Field Marshal George Henry de Strabolgie Neville Plantagenet-Harrison (c. 1850); re-printed in A. L. Morton, ‘The hero as genealogist: General Plantagenet-Harrison’, in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, xl, 351-70.
[218] Morning Post, 21 July 1847, 1; Morning Chronicle, 15 February 1848, 7.
[219] Morning Post, 13 February 1849, 6.
[220] London Daily News, 1 May 1849, 2.
[221] London Daily News, 30 May 1849, 5.
[222] Perry’s Bankrupt Gazette, 25 September 1852, 7.
[223] Morning Post, 21 June 1869, 7.
[224] Evening Mail, 1 April 1850, 1; Freeman’s Journal, 1 April 1850, 2.
[225] The History of Yorkshire: vol. 1, Wapentake of Gilling West (1879),page viii of Preface.
[226] Morning Chronicle, 5 February 1851, 6.
[227] HO18/324 Criminal Petitions, 21 January 1852; HO19/12 Prison Registers, 22 January 1852.
[228] London Gazette, 20 July 1852, 2033; London Gazette, 27 August 1852, 2358; Perry’s Bankrupt and Insolvent Gazette (from The Times, 14 September 1852),25 September 1852, 623-4; London Evening Standard, 14 September 1852, 4.
[229] Morning Chronicle, 17 September 1853, 6.
[230] London Daily News, 2 May 1854, 5; Hull Packet (from The Times),19 May 1854, 7.
[231] London Daily News, 21 June 1855, 6.
[232] Hull Packet, 22 June 1855, 6.
[233] Morning Post, 18 November 1857, 7.
[234] Morning Post, 4 February 1858, 7.
[235] London Daily News, 29 July 1858, 6.
[236] London Gazette, 19 October 1858, 4525; London Gazette, 30 November 1858, 5293. London Daily News, 15 December 1858, 6; Windsor and Eton Express, 18 December 1858, 3.
[237] Morning Post, 27 August 1859, 1 (also 31 August and 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14 September).
[238] Morning Post, 24 April 1862, 1.
[239] Morning Post, 16 December 1862, 1.
[240] A. L. Reade, The Reades of Blackwood Hill (1906) 182-3.
[241] Morning Chronicle, 6 November 1861, 4; London Gazette, 15 November 1861, 4623; London Gazette, 31 January 1862, 567.
[242] Morning Post, 2 January 1863, 7.
[243] Western Times, 4 February 1863, 1
[244] Morning Post, 21 June 1869, 7.
[245] London Gazette, 29 October 1867, 5759; London Gazette, 22 November 1867, 6314.
[246] London Daily News, 19 November 1867, 3, and 10 January 1868, 6.
[247] The time in Spain and the action are described in A. L. Morton, ‘The hero as genealogist: General Plantagenet-Harrison’, in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, xl, 361-5.
[248] Morning Post, 21 June 1869, 7.
[249] RG10/214-16-23.
[250] Later census returns show that she was born at Tetsworth, Oxfordshire, about 1835, and she seems likely to be the Maria Eeley, aged 17, dressmaker, born at Tetsworth, with her father, an agricultural labourer, at Holly Bush Row, St Thomas, Oxford, in 1851, and (describing herself as a widow),aged 26, a lodger of no occupation, at 124 Upper Seymour Street, Pancras, in 1861.
[251] The Herald and Genealogist, vii, 12.
[252] York Herald, 1 February 1873, 3, also 8 and 15 February, 8 March, 12 and 19 April and 3 May.
[253] A. L. Reade, The Reades of Blackwood Hill (1906) 141.
[254] Yorkshire Post, 16 July 1879, 3; Nottingham Evening Post, 26 July 1890, 2.
[255] Francois Weil, Family Trees: a history of genealogy in America (2013) 161-4; New England Historical and Genealogical Register (1889) 423-4.
[256] Manchester Courier, 17 July 1876, 3; The Graphic, 23 December 1876.
[257] York Herald, 7 February 1877, 6.
[258] Sunderland Daily Echo, 16 February 1878, 4.
[259] John D. Cantwell, The Public Record Office 1838-1958 (1991) 250-1.
[260] Westminster Rate Books, 1883-8.
[261] A. L. Reade, The Reades of Blackwood Hill (1906) 185.
[262] Notes and Queries, 7S xi (21 March 1891) 222.
[263] Notes and Queries, 7S xi (25 April 1891) 333 and (13 June 1891) 470-1.
[264] John D. Cantwell, The Public Record Office 1838-1958 (1991) 319.
[265] Walter Rye, Records and Record Searching (1897) 11, note 2.
[266] Memoir and bibliography of Round in Round’s Family Origins and Other Studies (1930) ix-lxxiv.
[267] Biography of Round in Dictionary of National Biography.
[268] W. Raymond Powell, John Horace Round: historian and gentleman of Essex (Essex Record Office, 2001).
[269] Powell, op. cit., 107.
[270] As announced in The Times, 30 January 1914.
[271] Powell, op. cit., 32.
[272] Powell, op. cit., 46.
[273] Powell, op. cit., 48.
[274] Powell, op. cit., 49-50.
[275] Powell, op. cit., 51-53.
[276] Powell, op. cit., 54-58.
[277] Family Origins and Other Studies (1930) xxiii.
[278] Powell, op. cit., 103-4.
[279] Powell, op. cit., 133-4.
[280] Powell, op. cit., 120-26.
[281] Powell, op. cit., 133.
[282] Powell, op. cit., 114.
[283] Powell, op. cit., 69-70.
[284] Powell, op. cit., 116-20.
[285] Powell, op. cit., 136-37.
[286] Powell, op. cit., 139.
[287] Powell, op. cit., 140-42.
[288] Powell, op. cit., 146.
[289] Powell, op. cit., 156-57.
[290] Powell, op. cit., 165.
[291] The Ancestor, xii (1905) 53; Peerage and Pedigree, ii (1910) 58-62, 64-8, 70-4.
[292] Powell, op. cit., 159.
[293] Powell, op. cit., 165.
[294] These carefully constructed articles, each of about a thousand words, appeared almost daily for more than thirty years; a selection was published as Day In and Day Out, by “The Londoner” of The Evening News, in 1924.
[295] Family Origins and Other Studies (1930) xxxiii-xxxiv.
[296] J. Horace Round, Peerage and Pedigree, ii (1910) 240.
[297] Family Origins and Other Studies (1930) xl; Powell, op. cit., 166-68.
[298] John D. Cantwell, The Public Record Office 1838-1958 (1991) 365.
[299] Family Origins and Other Studies (1930) xl-xli. The text of ‘Historical Genealogy’ is given in full, pages 1-12. The second (also printed in the same work, pages 252-65),‘The Garrison Theory of the Borough’, was a typical attack on Professor Maitland who had first promulgated this theory of the origin of boroughs and on those who had accepted and/or developed the idea.
[300] Powell, op. cit., 168.
[301] Powell, op. cit., 120, 187.
[302] ‘Earldoms and Baronies’, in The Complete Peerage, vol. 4 (1916) Appendix H, page 722.
[303] J. H. Round, ‘Barons’ and ‘Peers’, in English Historical Review, vol. 33 (1918) 453-71.
[304] Powell, op. cit., 169-79.
[305] Obituary in GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 113-14, corrected in no. 4 (December 1969) 165; The Times, 8 March 1969, 10.
[306] Powell, op. cit., 179.
[307] Powell, op. cit., 185.
[308] Powell, op. cit., 190-1.
[309] Geoffrey H. White, in GM, vol. 5, no. 7 (September 1930) 218.
[310] GM, vol. 5, no. 1 (March 1929) 1.
[311] Essex Archaeology and History, vol. 29 (1998) 155-182.
[312] The Herald and Genealogist, vol. 4 (1867) 466-67.
[313] Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 400.
[314] Morning Post, Wednesday, 11 March 1846, 1b.
[315] ‘The London Genealogical Society’, in Punch, vol. 10, issue 240 (14 February 1846) 81; the Punch Historical Archive attributes the article to Douglas Jerrold; the Society received unsympathetic notice also in the Hereford Times, 14 March 1846, 7.
[316] List of Subscribers in Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick, Heraldic Visitations of Wales, vol. 1 (1846) viii, where the name appears as ‘H. Wyrelle M. Weber, Esq. Marshal of the London Genealogical Society’.
[317] Advertisement in London Standard, 13 February 1847, 1.
[318] London Gazette, 20 February 1849, No 20947, 534.
[319] N&Q, 2nd Series, vol. v (10 April 1852) 353-4.
[320] Bell’s Weekly Messenger, 8 March 1846, page 1; Hereford Times, 14 March 1846, page 7.
[321] Chelmsford Chronicle, Friday, 7 May 1847, 3.
[322] N&Q 5 (27 March 1852) 297.
[323] N&Q 5 (10 April 1852) 353-4.
[324] London Gazette, 19 November 1850, page 3090; London Gazette, 20 December 1850, page 3472.
[325] Court sat 3 January; Evening Mail, 6 January 1851, 3.
[326] Richard Sims, Manual for the genealogist (London, 1861) 457.
[327] N&Q 7S iv (1887) 234-35.
[328] Chester Chronicle, 10 September 1853, 5 and 17 September 1853, 8.
[329] ‘Genealogical Society’, in Morning Chronicle, Thursday, 15 September 1853, 3.
[330] N&Q 12 (7 and 14 July 1855),advertisements facing 1 and 36.
[331] Morning Post, 9 November 1855, and 15 November 1855, 4.
[332] He was of 3 Oak Terrace, Battersea, aged 29, writer on the public press, 1851 (HO107/1577-31-20); of 19 Brompton Crescent, Kensington, aged 40, Secretary to the Genealogical Society, writer on general literature and genealogist, 1861 (RG9/20-100-59); of 11 Brompton Crescent, Kensington, aged 50, clerk to literary society, 1871 (RG10/50-33-57); of the same address, aged 57, art critic, 1881 (RG11/43-97-28); of 25 Oakley Street, Chelsea, aged 69, genealogist, 1891 (RG12/64-40-5); of 96 Edith Road, Fulham, aged 79, journalist, 1901 (RG13/63-76-41); he had married at St Luke, Chelsea, 1843, Eliza Adkins, and they had several daughters; he died in Wandsworth RD, March Quarter 1911, aged 91 [GRO Death Indexes].
[333] Morning Post, Saturday, 20 December 1856.
[334] London Daily News, Tuesday, 2 June 1857.
[335] London Post Office Directories, 1861-1882.
[336] William Thomas Lowndes, The Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature, new edition by Henry G. Bohn, vol. iv (1871),Appendix, 133 (apparently compiled late in 1864).
[337] ‘Genealogical and Historical Society of Great Britain’, in The Ipswich Journal, 21 August 1858, 3.
[338] Morning Chronicle, Thursday, 5 May 1859, 4.
[339] Morning Chronicle, Monday, 11 July 1859, 3.
[340] Morning Chronicle, Wednesday, 18 July 1860, 5f.
[341] For example the Wells Journal of 25 June 1853, 8, ‘At a meeting of the Council and Fellows of the Genealogical Society, last week, John Davies esq formerly of this City, was elected an Honorary Fellow of that institution, and received his diploma accordingly’.
[342] ‘Collier v. Reeve’, in Hereford Times, Saturday, 15 August 1863, 3.
[343] The Complete Peerage, vol. xi (1949) 41-45 sub ‘Roche’.
[344] The Complete Peerage, v (1926) 55-56.
[345] William Thomas Lowndes, The bibliographer's manual of English literature (1871), Appendix Volume (1864) 133.
[346] W. P. W. Phillimore, How to write the history of a family (2nd edn. 1888) 82; the Society is similarly mentioned in the Addenda to George Gatfield, Guide to printed books and manuscripts relating to English and foreign heraldry and genealogy (1892) 623, as though it still flourished. Walter Rye, Records and record searching (1897) 184, knew that it was 'extinct'.
[347] ‘Gossip of the Clubs, from a London Correspondent’, in Lancaster Gazette, 14 November 1874, 3.
[348] N&Q 7S iv (1887) 68-69 and 234-35.
[349] N&Q 10S iv (1905) 230.
[350] General Register Office, Death Indexes.
[351] N&Q 11S iii (8 April 1911) 266.
[352] London Gazette, 21 August 1855, No 21766, 319.
[353] Bury and Norwich Post, 22 February 1854, 1.
[354] London Gazette, 13 May 1854.
[355] Pall Mall Gazette, 31 October 1872, 6, and 26 November 1872, 6.
[356] The Herald and Genealogist, vol. 4 (1867) 466-67.
[357] ‘A fraternal offer’ in Punch, 23 March 1867, page 124.
[358] The Herald and Genealogist, vol. 4 (1867) 574.
[359] See Dictionary of National Biography.
[360] N&Q, 8S xii (1897) 289.
[361] GM, vol. 11, no. 16 (December 1954) 546.
[362] A. R. Wagner, Records and Collections of the College of Arms (1952) 45.
[363] Burke’s Landed Gentry of Great Britain: The Kingdom of Scotland (2001) 716-720; Old Bailey Proceedings, 31 October 1810, re a robbery at his shop; his Administration (with Will dated 26 October 1824 as of Fleet Street and Hatton Garden) granted PCC 3 March 1825; obituary in Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 22 November 1824.
[364] Obituaries of Maria Innes in Dundee Advertiser, 22 December 1880, page 6, and Cheltenham Chronicle, 28 December 1880, page 2.
[365] The words are those of Horace Round in Peerage and Pedigree, ii (1910) 221.
[366] Susan Hood, Royal Roots - republican inheritance: the survival of the Office of Arms (Dublin, 2002) 23-24.
[367] Frances-Jane French, 'Nepotists and sinecurists: a history of Ulster's Office 1552-1943' in The Irish Genealogist, vol. 10, no, 3 (2000) 350.
[368] Susan Hood, op. cit. (2002) 1-24.
[369] Percy Fitzgerald, Recollections of Dublin Castle and of Dublin society by a native (1902) 30.
[370] Michael Sharpe, Family matters: a history of genealogy (2011) 68; the statement that he worked at the College of Arms is incorrect.
[371] Hansard, 13 September 1886, 309, 272, quoted in Susan Hood, op. cit. (2002) 4.
[372] Interview with Anthony Adolph, for Family History Monthly, 2004.
[373] Sir Bernard Burke, History of the Landed Gentry (6th ed. 1882) Prefatory Notice.
[374] Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, 'The Abuse of Arms', in Armorial Families: a directory of gentlemen of coat-armour (1929) xv.
[375] Sir Bernard Burke, A genealogical history of the dormant, abeyant, forfeited, and extinct peerages of the British Empire (New edition, 1883) ix.
[376] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 180-81.
[377] Mark Bence-Jones, 'The trust of landowning', in Burke's Landed Gentry, vol. 1 (1965) xv-xviii.
[378] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 102.
[379] GM, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1969) 164.
[380] James Leasor, 'The Landed Gentry lower the drawbridge', Express, 1952.
[381] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 180-81.
[382] Burke’s Irish Family Records (1976) vii.
[383] However, some 33 volumes of Irish pedigrees and 69 volumes of his genealogical notes were aquired by the College of Arms after the death of Sir Henry Farnham Burke in 1930 [A. R. Wagner, Records and Collections of the College of Arms (1952) 30-31, 52]; to what extent these have been indexed or systematically examined I do not know.
[384] Advertisements in Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica.
[385] W. H. Godfrey and Sir Anthony Wagner, The College of Arms (1963) 165; as a Herald he is said to have had the largest practice of his day, earning up to £2,000-£3,000 a year.
[386] Anon, Popular genealogists or the art of pedigree-making (1865) 20-21.
[387] E. A. Freeman, 'Pedigrees and pedigree makers', in The Contemporary Review, vol. 30 (1877) 12-13.
[388] W. R. Powell, John Horace Round (2001) 79.
[389] Complete Peerage, xi (1949) 49 note b.
[390] Bibliography and memoir (ed. William Page) in J. H. Round, Family Origins (1930).
[391] For his ancestry and descendants see Burke's Landed Gentry, vol. 1 (1965) 99-101.
[392] Walter H. Godfrey, &c., The College of Arms (1963) 70-71.
[393] N&Q, 8S vi, 21-23 (14 July 1894),155 (25 August 1894) and 235 (22 September 1894).
[394] Ashworth P. Burke, Family Records (1897) vi.
[395] B. C. Trappes-Lomax, 'Moonshine from Burke', in GM, vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1940) 84-86.
[396] Anthony R. Wagner, 'Burke's Peerage, 1949', in GM, vol. 10, no. 11 (September 1949) 407-409.
[397] Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 130, 416.
[398] Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 133.
[399] Richard Sims, Records and record searching (1897) footnote 7.
[400] George Burnett, Popular Genealogists (1865) 99.
[401] Publicity leaflet, 'Culleton's Heraldic Library' (n.d.; pre-1887).
[402] Arlene H. Eakle and others, Descriptive inventory of the English collection (1979) 164; there are microfilms of the Index at the British Library and at the Society of Genealogists (MF 542-6).
[403] A point mentioned by Harry Pirie-Gordon in his Preface to the 1937 Landed Gentry and discussed at some length in A. C. Fox-Davies, Armorial Families (1929) Preface, many correspondents asking for the date not to be published.
[404] His father Thomas Edmond Davies (1839-1908) had adopted the surname Fox-Davies in 1894.
[405] J. H. Round, ‘Heraldry and the Gent’, in Peerage and Pedigree, ii (1910) 307-84.
[406] J. H. Round, Studies in peerage and family history (1901) xxvii; repeated in his Peerage and Pedigree, ii (1910) 321.
[407] Peerage and Pedigree, ii (1910) 336.
[408] The Times, 21 May 1928.
[409] GM, vol. 4, no. 4 (December 1928) 92, he is quoting Round’s criticism in Peerage and Pedigree (1910) of Fox-Davies’ Complete Guide to Heraldry (1909).
[410] Walter Rye, Records and record searching (1897) footnote 3; the question raised by Edmund Robertson, MP for Dundee, 13 November 1888, does not mention the Marsh family. The claimant, Arthur Marsh, born at Swanage in 1856, had been in the merchant navy and was latterly a stevedore at Southampton where he died unmarried in 1934.
[411] Patrick Polden, 'Stranger than fiction? The Jennens inheritance in fact and fiction: Part two: The business of fortune hunting' in Common Law World Review, vol. 32, no. 4 (2003) 338.
[412] Douglas Woodruff, The Tichborne claimant (1957).
[413] Theodore Besterman, The Druce-Portland case (1935).
[414] TPR, vol. 1 (March 1908) 112; GM, vol. 5, no. 6 (June 1930) 187.
[415] A catalogue of books ... the property of John Russell Smith ... on sale ... by Alfred Russell Smith, 36 Soho Square, London (n.d.) 16, says it 'contains double the matter of another hasty production'.
[416] W. H. Godfrey and Sir Anthony Wagner, The College of Arms (1963) 165.
[417] 1871 Census of 14 Regent Square, St Pancras, RG10/220-82-89.
[418] A. R. Wagner, Records and collections of the College of Arms (1952) 47 note 2.
[419] Simon Eliot, ‘Common Bonds: John Camden Hotten and the Transatlantic Trade in Family History and Pornography’, in Swapan Chakravorty and Abhijit Gupta, eds. New Word Order: Transnational Themes in Book History (Delhi, 2011),80-93.
[420] Eliot, op. cit., 89-90.
[421] 1881 Census, RG11/4024-22-38.
[422] 1891 Census, RG12/1042-28-47.
[423] Reference Catalogue of British Topography and Family History, offered for sale by Henry Gray, 47 Leicester Square London WC, 1887.
[424] 1901 Census, RG13/1201-72-18; his book label.
[425] It is attributed to Marshall as a useful supplement to Bridger in A catalogue of books ... the property of John Russell Smith ... on sale ... by Alfred Russell Smith, 36 Soho Square, London (n.d.) 16.
[426] Patrick Polden, op. cit., 357.
[427] London Gazette, Issue 21031, 23 October 1849.
[428] London Gazette, Issue 25315, 5 February 1884, 552.
[429] London Gazette, Issue 28280, 17 August 1909, 6310.
[430] Defined as an illegal agreement in which a person with no previous interest in a lawsuit finances it with a view to sharing the disputed property if the suit succeeds, or 'buying into someone else's lawsuit'.
[431] Rees v De Bernardy [1896] 2 Ch 437.
[432] Wedgerfield v De Bernardy [1908] 24 TLR 497.
[433] Fraser v Buckle [2003] WTLR 1389.
[434] M. A. Pinhorn, ‘Unclaimed Monies’, in GM, vol. 13, no. 3 (September 1959) 81-83.
[435] Colin Price-Beech, ‘What’s a windfall worth?’, in Daily Mail, 3 November 1971.
[436] Georgia Bedworth, 'Tracing the missing beneficiary - heir locators and contingency fees', online at http://www.lawskills.co.uk/articles/counsels_opinion/ (2010; accessed January 2012).
[437] ‘Widow faces 10pc fee on £3m bequest’, in Daily Telegraph, 27 October 1994.
[438] See http://www.titlesearch.com.
[439] H. B. Guppy, Homes of family names in Great Britain (1890) 6.
[440] Patrick Hanks, Flavia Hodges, A. D. Mills and Adrian Room, eds, The Oxford Names Companion (OUP, 2002) xi.
[441] Fothergill’s announcement is in N&Q, 10S vii (4 May 1907) 347; Marshall’s reply 10S viii (20 July 1907) 52, and Fothergill’s answer 10S viii (24 August 1907) 153.
[442] TSGL: Fifth QR, September 1912, 4; ‘Pedigree Analysis Forms’ letter printed 10 July 192.
[443] TSGL: Sixth QR, December 1912, 3.
[444] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 13.
[445] Walter Rye, Records and record searching (1897) 124-125.
[446] ‘Well-known historian dead’, in Aberdeen Journal, 12 February 1938, 5.
[447] J. D. Cantwell, The Public Record Office 1838-1958 (1991) 176-9, 213-4, 253-5, 307.
[448] He died at 127 Farringdon Road, Middlesex, 16 January 1898, aged 50. His administration granted (to his widow) 12 January 1901, Effects £50. He was a Freeman of the City by Redemption, 1881; of The Hope, 90 Cow Cross Street, 1881; of various addresses, bankrupt, residing at 85 Charterhouse Street, 1886; of 12 Dagnall Road, Stroud Green and 83 Charterhouse Street, 1890 [Electoral Registers]; of 28 Cloth Fair, coffee house keeper, witness at Old Bailey, 2 May 1892. His first wife Ellen died 1880, aged 37; he married 2ndly, 1882, Louisa Linton Allen, who died 1888, aged 27; he married 3rdly, 1890, Mary Ann Bruce.
[449] He died at 45 Alma Square, 25 September 1886. His will proved PPR 15 December 1886, Effects £600 16s 4. He was of Thetford, clerk to a wine merchant, 1871; of 6 Sussex Place, Hammersmith, professional antiquarian, 1881 (as Greigson). See Burke’s Landed Gentry, Grigson of Saham Toney (1858) and Rye’s Norfolk Families. She was of Worthing, Norfolk, 1861; of 24 Cedar Road, Clapham, companion lady, 1881; married at Holy Trinity, Clapham, 2 August 1881; at Whinburgh, Musgrave Road, Durban, Natal [Ruvigny, Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal: Mortimer-Percy, Part 1 (1911) 460]. The couple were at 10 Alma Square in 1884 and 1885 [baptisms of children at St Mark, Hamilton Terrace].
[450] She died at 22 Plato Road, Brixton, 18 March 1916. Her will proved PPR, 27 April 1916, Effects £1,137 5s. Clarence Hopper (described as a record & literary agent in 1861) had died at 2 Grove, Margate, Kent, 10 June 1868, from 1 Albert Place, Denmark Road, Lambeth. His administration granted PPR, 12 March 1870. His genealogical collections are in British Library ADD MSS 28015-20; his transcripts relating to the Channel Islands in Egerton MS 2416 and ADD MSS 30188-189; and his correspondence with James Halliwell-Phillipps, 1863-9, in Edinburgh University Library, LoA.
[451] Kitching, op. cit. (2008) 139.
[452] The couple lived at 14 Montpelier Row, Twickenham, in 1861 and 1871. His will was proved PPR, 20 February 1880, Under £16,000. She died at 16 Cleveland Road, Barnes, 3 February 1902. Her administration with will was granted PPR, 25 February 1902, Effects £25 5s 4d.
[453] Rye (1897) 5, quoted in Kitching, op. cit. (2008) 139.
[454] Quoted in Joan Thirsk, ‘Women local and family historians’, in David Hey, Oxford Companion to Family and Local History (2nd ed 2008) 105.
[455] W. R. Powell, John Horace Round (2001) 159 (11 November 1905) and 186 (22 november 1907).
[456] W. R. Powell, John Horace Round (2001) 159-161.
[457] 1911 Census of St George’s Hostel, 77 & 79 Gloucester Street, Belgrave, St George Hanover Square.
[458] David Dymond, ‘Suffolk’, in C. R. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis, eds, English County Histories: a Guide (1994) 369.
[459] 1911 Census of 13 Chenies Street Chambers, London, W. C.
[460] 1911 Census of 4 Strathray Gardens, Hampstead, Middlesex.
[461] 1911 Census of 30 Dennington Park Road, West Hampstead, Middlesex.
[462] Not ‘less than 30’ as stated in Family History Monthly, No. 193 (March 2011) 32.
[463] Way down East, Hal Hungerford, The quest of the golden pearl (1897), The Press Gang Afloat and Ashore, The Grenadiers of Potsdam, etc.
[464] Documented pedigree (Hutchinson (VJ) Family Tree by ‘bobfilm’ on ancestry.co.uk.
[465] 1891 Census of 26 Malfort Road, Camberwell, RG12/466-31-43.
[466] Public Record Office, J 77/979/9749.
[467] North Devon Journal, 17 January 1924, page 5, and Western Morning News, 12 January 1924, page 3..
[468] Quarterly Queries, No. 8, March 1919, page 30, and No. 9, June 1919, page 33.
[469] Based on searches for specific occupations in the online database provided by Findmypast.
[470] Reginald L. Hine, Confessions of an Un-common Attorney (1945) 137-9; identification in copy formerly owned by Sherwood and now with Anthony Camp.
[471] Robert Cowtan, Memories of the British Museum (London, 1872) 382.
[472] http://www.thesociety.org/pasadena/hpb-spr/hpb-spr.htm accessed 27 November 2011.
[473] 1861 Census, RG9/121-105-6; 1881 Census, RG11/183-85-9; 1891 Census, RG12/1059-6-4.
[474] W. P. W. Phillimore, How to write the history of a family (1888) 1 and 6.
[475] Phillimore, op. cit. (1884) 12.
[476] W. P. W. Phillimore (revised by Bower Marsh), Pedigree Work: a handbook for the genealogist (1936) 18-19.
[477] ‘Provincial Records’, in The Times, 10 October 1888, 4.
[478] W. P. W. Phillimore, The "Principal Genealogical Specialist"; or Regina v. Davies and the Shipway genealogy (1899) 17 and introductory Note printed on cover.
[479] Shipway was a director of Hammond & Co, a family breeches-making firm in Oxford Street, and was later responsible for the purchase and restoration of Hogarth’s House at Chiswick which he presented to Middlesex County Council [James Wilsdom & Val Bott, ‘Col Shipway’s Pedigree’, in Brentford and Chiswick Local History Journal (Spring 1996) 17-21].
[480] Phillimore says that he was the son of a small tradesman in Birmingham but his birth, in the name Major Herbert Albert Davies on 1 February 1873, was registered in Marylebone [1a 603].
[481] He was the father of the author Francis Lawrance Bickley (1885-1977).
[482] ‘A tree and a trial’, in Pall Mall Gazette, 24 November 1898, 1.
[483] ‘The custody of local records’, letter from Secretary of Congress in Northampton Mercury, 11 August 1899, 8; Report of The Congress of Archaeological Societies in union with the Society of Antiquaries to the Committee on the Preservation of Local Records appointed by H. M. Treasury, adopted 28 March 1900.
[484] The Morning Post, 20 October 1899, quoted in Deposit of Parish Records in the Guildhall Library with Suggested resolution of Vestry (n.d.; foolscap printed sheet); he was born in Bermondsey, 1837; was Master of the Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks, 1892-3 and 1901-2, and author of The churches & chapels of old London (1901); he lived at St Monica, Micheldever Road, Lee, Kent [1901 Census, RG13/547-74-31] and died there 3 April 1906, aged 69 [PPR Calendar].
[485] William Le Hardy, Guide to the Hertfordshire Record Office: Part I (1961) ix-x.
[486] TPR, vol. 2, no. 17 (June 1911) 158.
[487] Peter Spufford, 'The Index Library: a centenary history, 1988', in The Records of the Nation (1990) 119-137.
[488] Who Was Who 1897-1916 (1920) 561.
[489] Noel Osborne, '100 years of Phillimore & Co', in Local History Magazine, no. 64 (November/December 1997) 12-16.
[490] Christopher Kitching, ‘A Victorian pioneer in the records: Walter Rye’s Records and Record Searching in context’, in Archives, vol. xxxiii, no. 119 (October 2008) 126-139.
[491] Hassell Smith and Roger Virgoe, 'Norfolk', in C. R. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis, eds. English county histories: a guide (1994) 285; also obituary in The Times, 26 February 1929.
[492] There is a pedigree of George Samuel Fry in TPR, vol. 2, no. 17 (June 1911) 152-3.
[493] Sir Anthony Wagner, English Genealogy (1983) 303.
[494] Anthony Richard Wagner, The records and collections of the College of Arms (1952) 46-47, and op. cit. (1983) 303 and 403.
[495] James B. Allen, Jessie L. Embry & Kahlile B. Mehr, Hearts turned to the fathers: a history of the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1894-1994 (BYU Studies, 1995) 34. It was he who, as President in 1890, wrote the Manifesto testifying that the Church had ceased teaching the practice of plural marriage.
[496] Dr Arthur Adams in A century of genealogical progress (1945) quoted in Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 404.
[497] Francois Weil, Family trees; a history of genealogy in America (2013) 75-6.
[498] ODNB; Herald and Genealogist, iii (1866) 266-73, 464-5; GM, viii (1939) 333-4, 398; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xi (1857) 259-71.
[499] Richard Sims, A Manual for the Genealogist, Topographer, Antiquary, and Legal Professor (2nd ed. 1861) 309-17.
[500] 1861 Census of 5 New North Street, Finsbury, RG9/182-83-78; 1871 Census of 16 Linden Villas, Bermondsey, RG10/639-24-42; 1881 Census of 124 Southwark Park Road, Bermondsey, RG11/572-45-19. He died at the latter address 26 May 1882; will proved in Principal Probate Registry, 22 July 1882; Personal Estate £2,047-11-6.
[501] The statement that Cokayne sold the register transcripts to the College of Arms for £3,000 in John Titford, 'The Chester Manuscripts', in GM, vol. 25, no. 19 (June 1997) 402, which puts Cokayne in a bad light, seems contradicted by Sir Anthony Wagner, The records and collections of the College of Arms (1952) 46, who states that the College paid £700 in 1886 to which Cokayne first made a substantial contribution and then repaid the whole balance.
[502] New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, October 1872, 200.
[503] She had confessed to Chester that two wills provided to Stephen Whitney Phoenix were fabricated; Paul C. Reed, ‘Whitney Origins Revisited’, in The American Genealogist, number 69 (1994) 9-14; Francois Weil, Family trees; a history of genealogy in America (2013) 154-5.
[504] Eliot, op. cit., 89-90.
[505] '10,000 names of early settlers of U.S.', in The Times, 15 October 1935.
[506] James A. Emmerton and Henry F. Waters, Gleanings from English records about New England families (Salem, Mass: 1880).
[507] Gurdon Wadsworth Russell, An account of some of the descendants of John Russell the Emigrant, ed. E. S. Welles (Hartford, Connecticut, 1910).
[508] The first book of any size to be printed entirely on a Gestetner duplicator.
[509] TPR, vol. 3, no. 33 (June 1915) 288.
[510] The 85 articles and 745 pages were reprinted as Virginia gleanings in England (GPC, 2007).
[511] James B. Allen, Jessie L. Embry and Kahlile B. Mehr, Hearts turned to the fathers: a history of the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1894-1994 (Provo, Utah, 1995) 17-22.
[512] James B. Allen and others, op. cit. (1995) 22-23.
[513] James B. Allen and others, op. cit. (1995) 33-35.
[514] James B. Allen and others, op. cit. (1995) 36.
[515] James B. Allen and others, op. cit. (1995) 27, 36-37.
[516] James B. Allen and others, op. cit. (1995) 39-40, 45; he had married at South Norwood in 1887, converted in 1888, re-married at Logan, Utah, in 1889, described himself as a provision dealer in Holborn in 1891 and as a carpenter at Draper, Utah, in 1900.
[517] The provisional council approved the rules of the new society, 9 December 1907.
[518] Quoted by Bernau in 'The genealogy of the submerged' in his Some special studies in genealogy (1908) 67, from Camden's Remains concerning Britain (1674).
[519] Bernau, op. cit. (1908) 69.
[520] That Bernau was a member of the Eugenics Education Society is stated on the title page of the 2nd Supplement of the 2nd Edition of his Directory (1910) which contains lengthy statements from the Secretary, Mrs Gotto, and the Chairman of Council, Dr J. W. Slaughter, of the Society, as well as another letter from Slaughter appealing for copies of pedigrees, and reviews of The Eugenics Review and The Mendel Journal.
[521] His baptismal entry at St Augustine, Kilburn, 30 May 1888 (sic),says that he was born 7 November 1878, but his birth was registered at St Olave in the December Quarter of 1877.
[522] ‘’Hereditary Paupers’, in Shoreditch Observer, 20 November 1886, page 3.
[523] 'Report of the Committee appointed to consider the eugenic aspects of Poor Law Reform: Section 1, The eugenic principle in Poor Law administration' in Eugenics Review, 2 (1910-11) 167-177, quoted in Pauline M. H. Mazumdar, 'Eugenics: the pedigree years', in Robert A. Peel, Pedigree studies (1999) 20.
[524] Mazumdar, op. cit. (1999) 23.
[525] Bernau, op. cit. (1908) 70.
[526] Veronica di Mambro, 'The University of Cambridge Eugenics Society', in Newsletter of the Galton Institute (June/September 2003).
[527] Robert Resta, ‘A brief history of the pedigree in human genetics’, in Robert A. Peel, ed., Human Pedigree Studies: Proceedings of a Conference organised by the Galton Institute, London, 1998 (1999) 62-84.
[528] Mazumdar, op. cit. (1999) 43, note 10.
[529] Francis Galton, Natural inheritance (1889),quoted in Peel, op. cit. (1999) vii.
[530] TPR, vol. 1, no. 8 (March 1909) 234-5.
[531] TPR, vol. 3, no. 33 (June 1915) 285.
[532] 1871 Census of 2 Brunswick Place, Fulham, RG10/67-14-20; 1881 Census of 150 Earls Court Road, Kensington, RG11/49-53-45; 1891 Census of 40 Claverton Street, Pimlico, RG12/76-95-5.
[533] 1901 Census of 14 Market Place, Wallingford, RG13/1139-43-28.
[534] Principal Probate Registry, 27 February 1905. His widow, Fanny Elizabeth, died at Brockley in 1913 (Principal Probate Registry, 30 July 1913).
[535] TSGL: paper read at the Quarterly Meeting, 10th November, 1916, by George Sherwood, on "How to make pedigrees interesting" (1916) 3 and 4.
[536] GM, vol. 12, no. 14 (June 1958) 465.
[537] Publicity Reference Books, 1889-1914, 1914-42, on FHL MF 402,924.
[538] 1891 Census, The National Archives, RG12/51-46-11.
[539] TPR, vol. 1 (March 1909) 238; GM, vol. 6, no. 1 (March 1932) 23.
[540] Copy bound in George Fry's set of Genealogical Queries and Memoranda at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London.
[541] Baptismal Register of St John the Evangelist, Brixton, 18 November 1894, Page 290, Entries 2314-5.
[542] 1901 Census, The National Archives, RG13/555-72-31.
[543] TPR, vol. 1 (June 1907) 21.
[544] TPR, vol. 1 (September 1907) 47.
[545] 1881 Census, The National Archives, RG11/732-66-6, and 1891 Census, The National Archives, RG12/519-130-51/52.
[546] His obituary in GM, Official Section, June 1962, 5. He has not been found in the UK in the 1901 Census Returns; in 1911 he described himself as ‘steamship chartering agent, employer’.
[547] 1900 Electoral Register, Parliamentary Borough of Lewisham, Parish of Lee, Lodgers, 710.
[548] Charles Bernau, 'Descent of Bernau from the Dukes of Normandy’, in The Genealogical Magazine (March 1901) 507-509.
[549] Charles Bernau to Rene Droz, 3 September 1908, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[550] N&Q, 9S vii (1 June 1906) 426-7.
[551] Charles Bernau to Rene Droz, 3 September 1908, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[552] TPR, vol. 1 (September 1907) 48.
[553] TPR, vol. 1 (December 1908) 206.
[554] George Sherwood to Beach Whitmore, 31 December 1940.
[555] TPR, vol. 1 (September 1907) 44.
[556] TPR, vol. 1 (June 1909) 272.
[557] TPR, vol. 1 (September 1907) 144-48 and 160.
[558] Charles Bernau, International Genealogical Directory, 2nd Edition, 2nd Supplement (1910) xxxi.
[559] Charles Bernau to Rene Droz, 3 September 1908, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[560] Anthony Wagner, A herald's world (1988) 163.
[561] See the later discussion about the appointment of a Director of Research.
[562] Charles Bernau to Rene Droz, 10 September 1908, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[563] Charles Bernau to Rene Droz, 17 September 1908, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[564] Advantages stressed in the joint Introduction by Francis Leeson and Malcolm Pinhorn to the International genealogical directory: originally founded 1907: a directory of surname, family & individual interests, with lists of genealogists record-searchers & useful addresses on a worldwide basis (Pinhorns, 1971-72) and later directories.
[565] TPR, vol. 1 (March 1910) 366.
[566] International Genealogical Directory, 2nd edition, 2nd supplement (1910) xlxix-liii dated 1 December 1909.
[567] N&Q, 8S ii (16 July 1892) 44.
[568] N&Q, 11S i (5 March 1910) 187-8.
[569] N&Q, 11S i (12 March 1910) 205.
[570] N&Q, 11S i (9 April 1910) 285.
[571] N&Q, 11S i (5 March 1910) 286.
[572] N&Q, 11S i (1910) 251.
[573] N&Q, 11S i (23 April 1910) 337.
[574] N&Q, 11S i (21 May 1910) 401-2.
[575] N&Q, 11S i (25 June 1910) 510-11.
[576] The date of the first meeting of the 'Provisional Committee' appears in The Antiquary, vol. 47 (August 1911) 314.
[577] GM, vol. 4, no. 1 (March 1928) 15; the four volumes of the Armory were received in 1921; Tenth Report, 1921, 18. Joseph Eedes was born in Southwark, Surrey, 25 August 1821, son of John Eedes, citizen and stationer (died 1847); apprenticed to his father, 1835; of 2 George Street, St Pancras, herald painter, 1871; of 11 George Street, 1890-91 (Electoral Register); there, lawyer’s clerk, 1891; died at 26 Rutland Street, Middlesex, 1 September 1891, aged 70; PPR Administration. The surname Eedes is often rendered incorrectly.
[578] London Evening Standard, 13 May 1896, page 2, and 15 May 1896, page 6; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 17 May 1896, page 5 (with sketches of Briggs, his wife and Emir Hafiz).
[579] Obituary (in the alternative spelling of ‘Bradbrooke’) in The Times, 11 May 1940, in GM, vol. 9, no. 2 (June 1940) 57 and N&Q, 25 May 1940; his father’s ancestry is in TPR, vol. 1 (September 1908) 159. The article in the British Medical Journal appeared 11 January 1908 and is summarised in TPR, vol. 1 (March 1908) 109-110; inter alia it tested the suggestion of Mr Marcus Rubin that the population of a parish could be estimated by multiplying its average number of baptisms by thirty. He was apparently also the ‘W.B.’ who with ‘J.R.C.’ wrote ‘Vital Statistics from old parish registers’, in The British Medical Journal, 13 January 1940, 67-68, based on the registers of Petworth. In the 1911 census he recorded his son Edward, aged 4, as ‘Unemployed’ and himself as ‘Head (titular)’ of the family!
[580] The Antiquary, volume 47 (January 1911) 3.
[581] TSGL: Notice, Report and Balance Sheet and Accounts: As on 15th June 1911.
[582] N&Q, 11S i (25 June 1911) 511.
[583] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962),Official Section, 6. His widow Dorothy Olivia Holworthy died in 1962.
[584] 1891 Census, RG12/629-109-16; 1901 Census, RG13/1310-64-29.
[585] 1881 Census, RG11/809-74-42; 1891 Census, RG12/774-55-43; executor to father, William Merritt Crow, 1933 [PPR].
[586] E. E. Squires, 'William Blyth Gerish, Antiquary', East Herts Archaeological Society Transactions, vol. 7 (1923) 1.
[587] Anthony Camp, 'William Gerish and the Society of Genealogists', Hertfordshire's Past, no. 25 (Autumn 1988) 8-13; E.E. Squires, 'William Blyth Gerish, Antiquary', East Herts Archaeological Society Transactions, vol. 7 (1923) 1-3; W. Branch Johnson, 'Thank You Mr Gerish', Hertfordshire's Past and Present, no. 8 (1968) 48-52; Nicholas Connell, 'An indefatigable antiquarian: the life and work of William Gerish', Hertfordshire's Past, no. 51 (Autumn 2001) 23-31.
[588] Charles Bernau to Lady Elizabeth Cust, 7 October 1910, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[589] Lady Elizabeth Cust was the daughter of the 5th Earl of Darnley.
[590] Memorandum and Articles of Association of TSGL (1911) 20, paragraph 22.
[591] Marquis of Ruvigny, The titled nobility of Europe (1914) 932. He seems to have called himself 'Marchese De Liveri Di Valdausa'.
[592] Charles Bernau, International Genealogical Directory, 2nd edition, 3rd Supplement (1911) No 1585.
[593] Fountain Lodge, 38 Larkhall Rise, built by Sir Francis Pettit Smith (died 1874) who invented the screw propeller.
[594] He was John Allan Rolls (1837-1912),created Baron Llangattock at the recommendation of Lord Salisbury on leaving office in 1894. His third and youngest son, Charles Stewart Rolls, killed in 1910, was one of the founders of Rolls-Royce [Complete Peerage, viii (1932) 98].
[595] Charles Bernau to George Apperson, 27 November 1910, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[596] The Antiquary, volume 47 (January 1911) 3-4.
[597] Charles Bernau to William Gerish, 26 April 1912, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[598] The Times, 15 February 1911.
[599] A suggestion in 1927 that the Society ‘register the pedigrees of those Russian refugees of noble birth who have settled in this country’, discussed in an editorial in the Magazine (vol. 3, no. 1, March 1927, 1) was not taken further.
[600] Obituary in The Times, 16 August 1921, 11b.
[601] He was knocked down by a cart outside The Temple Gates; The Times, 10 May 1919, 15b.
[602] George Sherwood, George Sherwood: Credentials, printed leaflet circulated by him in March 1940. Frank Evans was the father of Edward Ratcliffe (Evans),1st Lord Mountevans (1881-1957),known as 'Evans of the Broke' for his exploits on HMS Broke in 1917 and commander of the British Antarctic Expedition after the death of Captain Scott. The father does not seem to have been a genealogist as the Evans pedigree in Burke's Peerage (2003) does not show his date of birth or parentage.
[603] Obituary in GM, vol. 4, no. 1 (March 1928) 15. The obituary of Briggs is not signed but is in the style of George Sherwood.
[604] Sir Henry Arthur White, a Founder Member, resigned before 1919 and died 5 January 1922.
[605] The Antiquary, volume 47 (July 1911) 268-69.
[606] Malcolm Pinhorn, op. cit., note 10.
[607] George Sherwood, Credentials (1940) 2.
[608] The Antiquary, vol. 47 (August 1911) 314.
[609] Sir Walter Besant and G. E. Mitton, The Strand district (1902) 70.
[610] The Antiquary, vol. 47 (August 1911) 314.
[611] TSGL: Second Quarterly Report, Dec. 1911, 2. They were perhaps the rooms of the Women's Aerial League of the British Empire or the Surrey Engineering Company. Both organisation were at No 227 & 288 in the 1912 Directory but not listed in 1913.
[612] TSGL: Income and Expenditure Account. For the period 16th June, 1911, to 31st December, 1911. The firm Spencer, Santo & Co was then in liquidation; see London Gazette, Issue 28549, 10 November 1911, 8177.
[613] TSGL: Notice, Report and Balance Sheet and Accounts, as on 31st December, 1911.
[614] List (dated 15 August 1911) in TSGL, First QR, September 1911, 4.
[615] TPR, vol. 2, no. 18 (September 1911) 186.
[616] Charles Bernau, International Genealogical Index, Second Edition, Third Supplement (1911) xlv-xlvi.
[617] Malcolm Pinhorn, 'Foundation of the Society of Genealogists: a footnote' in GM, vol. 22, no. 5 (March 1987) 179-181.
[618] SoG 58th AR 1969, 1; obituary by Pirie Hogarth in GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 303-304; pedigree in Burke's Landed Gentry of Great Britain: The Kingdom in Scotland, sub 'Pirie-Gordon of Buthlaw' (2001) 531.
[619] TSGL: Ninth AR 1920, 9.
[620] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 1 and 4.
[621] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 4.
[622] Articles of Association, ‘Privileges’, 1911, pages 14-15; TSGL: Fellows' Interests, Form 1, printed March 1911.
[623] TSGL: Reporting Form, Form 3, printed March 1911.
[624] Quarterly Queries, No. 6, September 1918, page 21; postage of 6d in advance was requested in Quarterly Report, No. 8, March 1919, page 29.
[625] TSGL, Seventh AR 1918, 6.
[626] The Antiquary, vol. 47 (August 1911) 314.
[627] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 2.
[628] TSGL: Third QR, March, 1912, 2.
[629] TSGL, Incorporated 8th May, 1911, 1911-12, 10.
[630] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 6-23.
[631] He joined the Society in 1916, was elected a Fellow in 1924, and died on 1 July 1927 [obituary in GM, vol. 3, no. 3 (September 1927) 62-63]. He designed the Society's bookplate, based on the Seal, but it is not clear that he designed the Seal itself.
[632] TSGL: Eleventh AR, 1922, 6.
[633] Glencross's advertisement in the International Genealogical Directory (1907) 108.
[634] Obituary by George Sherwood in TPR, vol. 3, no. 32 (March 1915) 255-6 and (with photograph) in The British Archivist, vol. 1, nos. 19-20 (1914-5) 153-4.
[635] He advertised herald-painting in TPR (September 1911) back cover.
[636] TSGL: Income and Expenditure Account. For the period 16th June, 1911, to 31st December, 1911; Sixth QR, December 1912, 2.
[637] TSGL: Fifth QR, September 1912, 2.
[638] TSGL, 1911-12, 20-21.
[639] TSGL, First AR, 1912, 10.
[640] TSGL: Third QR, March, 1912, 2.
[641] Charles Bernau to George Apperson, 20 May 1912, quoted by Malcolm Pinhorn.
[642] TSGL: Sixth QR, December 1912, 2.
[643] TSGL: Sixth QR, December 1912, 2.
[644] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 21.
[645] 9 April 1913. TPR, iii, 25.
[646] The Times, 3 June 1913, 3.
[647] I have been unable to prove the identity of the secretary Constance Agnew with this person but it appears that it is the same lady.
[648] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 2.
[649] TSGL: Twelfth QR, June 1914, The Ancestor, vol. 50, 230.
[650] TSGL: Eleventh QR, March 1914, 107.
[651] TSGL: Seventh AR, 1918, 6; Quarterly Queries, No. 28, January 1924, page 112.
[652] GM, vol. 4, no. 1 (March 1928) 15.
[653] TSGL: Fifth QR, September 1912, 2.
[654] TSGL: First QR, Sept. 1911, 2.
[655] TSGL: Ninth QR, September 1913, in The Antiquary, Vol. 49, 351.
[656] TSGL: Specimen Index-Slips, examples dated 18 February 1911.
[657] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 2.
[658] TSGL: Fourth QR, June 1912, 2.
[659] TSGL: Fifth QR, September 1912, 3.
[660] TSGL: Eleventh QR, March 1914, in The Antiquary, vol. 50, 108.
[661] TSGL: Sixth QR, December 1912, 2.
[662] TSGL: Seventh AR 1918,7, 8 and 23.
[663] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 3.
[664] TSGL: Sixth QR, December 1912, 2.
[665] TSGL: Seventh QR, March 1913, 4.
[666] TSGL: Ninth QR, September 1913, 351.
[667] TSGL: Ninth QR, September 1913, 351.
[668] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 8.
[669] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 7.
[670] TSGL: Tenth QR, December 1913, 468.
[671] TSGL: Eleventh QR, March 1914, 108.
[672] TSGL: Seventh AR 1918, 6 and 23.
[673] TSGL: Seventh AR 1918, 8; Eighth AR 1919, 6.
[674] TSGL: Fourth QR, June 1912, 2.
[675] TSGL: Fifth QR, September 1912, 2; form letter, ‘Deeds – Letter to Landowners’.
[676] TSGL: Seventh QR, March 1913, 2.
[677] TSGL: Tenth QR, December 1913, 468.
[678] Quarterly Queries, No. 2, September 1917, page 12.
[679] Quarterly Queries, No. 6, September 1918, page 22
[680] Quarterly Queries, No. 7, December 1918, page 25.
[681] TSGL: First AR, 1912, 12-13.
[682] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 14-17.
[683] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 14-17.
[684] GM, vol. 5, no. 12 (December 1931) 406-8 etc.
[685] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 4 (December 1962),Official Section, 4.
[686] Anthony Camp, 'Records of the English Abroad', in Family History, vol. 12, Nos. 91/92 (August 1982) 203-17.
[687] He had seen active service with the 24th Regiment throughout the Punjab Campaign, 1848-9; Lieutenant, 1843; Half-Pay Captain, 1858; Major, 1881. He latterly called himself Lawrence-Archer. He was at Buckingham Road, Aylesbury, in 1871 as J. Henry L. Archer, birthplace ‘does not know Baptised in Jamaica’ [RG10/1411-71-31]. He died at Umberslade Parva, Bedfont Park, Chiswick, 14 February 1889; his will proved 5 March 1889, Effects £100.
[688] Philip Wight, Monumental Inscriptions of Jamaica (1966) v.
[689] Obituary of V. L. Oliver in GM, vol. 9, No. 6 (March 1942) 238.
[690] Obituary by Kathleen Blomfield in GM, vol. 10, No. 6 (June 1948) 182.
[691] TSGL: First QR, Sept. 1911, 3.
[692] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 2.
[693] TSGL: Seventh QR, March 1913, 2; Eighth QR, June 1913, 26l; Second AR, 1913, 4. The text does not survive.
[694] ‘Parish Pump History’ in Manchester Courier, 5 April 1913, 6.
[695] Nature, vol. 91 (17 April 1913),165-166.
[696] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 2.
[697] TSGL: Third QR, March 1912, 2.
[698] My diary, 6 January 1969, at 24 Melody Road, Wandsworth.
[699] Anthony Camp, ‘Mad Annie Druce and the saving of the Census’, in Family Tree Magazine (January 2002) 4-6.
[700] GM, vol. 11, no. 6 (June 1952) 215.
[701] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 2.
[702] TSGL: Third QR, March 1912, 2.
[703] TSGL: First AR, 1912, 13-14.
[704] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 3-4.
[705] TSGL: Fourth QR, June 1912, 2-3.
[706] TSGL: Sixth QR, December 1912, 3.
[707] TSGL: Seventh QR, March 1913, 3.
[708] TSGL: Ninth QR, September 1913, The Antiquary, vol. 49, 351.
[709] TSGL: Fifteenth AR, 1926, 6.
[710] TSGL: Fourteenth AR, 1925, 5.
[711] TSGL: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 3-4.
[712] Typed circular sent with copies of the Third QR, April 1912; Fourth QR, June 1912, 2.
[713] TSGL: Fifth QR, September 1912, 2.
[714] Royal Commission on Public Records: Appendices to the Second Report; volume II (Part II) (1914) 290-91.
[715] TSGL, Seventh QR, March 1913, 1; he was already a Founder and Fellow but had decided to resign from the Executive Committee.
[716] TSGL: Seventh QR, March 1913, 2. The date 27 January there given is incorrect; no evidence was taken on that date.
[717] Royal Commission on Public Records: Minutes of Evidence and Index to the Second Report; volume II (Part III) (1914) 44-46.
[718] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 2 (1914) 204.
[719] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 50-54.
[720] In 1913 he submitted ‘Some notes on the ancient ecclesiastical records now deposited in the Principal Probate Registry’ to the Royal Commission (Appendices to the Second Report, vol. 2, part 2 (1914) 92-94. His talk to the Royal Historical Society on 13 January 1921, ‘Notes from the Ecclesiastical Court Record at Somerset House’, was printed in its Transactions, Fourth Series, vol. 4 (December 1921) 103-139. In it he says that the records had been inaccessible for the last 60 or 70 years but that the position had recently been ‘somewhat modified’.
[721] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 2 (1914) s, 36-37 and 137.
[722] Appendices to the Second Report of the Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 2 (1914) 291-292, and vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 40-42.
[723] Appendices to the Second Report of the Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 47-48.
[724] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 3 (1914) 45.
[725] Royal Commission on Public Records, vol. 2, part 2 (1914) 201.
[726] A list of the Lancashire wills proved within the archdeaconry of Richmond ... from 1793 to 1812, Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society, vol. 66 (1913) v-vi. The Probate Registry now operated an hundred year rule for the publication of indexes by private societies.
[727] TSGL: Seventh QR, March 1913, 2.
[728] TSGL: Fourth QR, June 1912, 2.
[729] TSGL: Eighth QR, June 1913, 2.
[730] Editorial in The British Archivist, vol. 1, no. 1 (March 1913) 1-4.
[731] A detailed listing of some 495 cases with first plaintiffs’ surnames beginning with ‘A’, from the Country Depositions in C22, which had been abstracted by Frederick Simon Snell.
[732] Prospectus for A thoroughly exhaustive genealogical work: Sixteenth Century Marriages, circulated with TPR, June 1911.
[733] TPR, vol. 2, no. 19 (December 1911) 224.
[734] 1911 Census of 5 Dryden Mansions, Queen's Club Gardens, West Kensington, London W.
[735] GM, vol. 8, no 5 (March 1939) 279.
[736] Evening News, 25 October 1921.
[737] TSGL: Fifth QR, September 1912, 2.
[738] TPR, vol. 3, no. 27 (December 1913) 96.
[739] TSGL: Tenth QR, December 1913, in The Antiquary, vol. 49, 468.
[740] TSGL: Eleventh QR, March 1914, in The Antiquary, vol. 50, 108.
[741] TPR, vol. 3, no. 26 (September 1913) 62.
[742] TPR, vol. 3, no. 26 (September 1913) 62; Second AR, 1913,4-5.
[743] TSGL: Second AR, 1913, 22.
[744] TPR, vol. 3, no. 27 (December 1913) 94-95.
[745] Suggestions for Hon. Local Secretaries [April 1914].
[746] The Antiquary, vol. 50 (June 1914) 231.
[747] TPR, vol. 3, no. 27 (December 1913) 94; Eleventh QR, March 1914, in The Antiquary, vol. 50, 107.
[748] The Antiquary, vol. 50 (June 1914) 230.
[749] Notice inserted in Seventh Report, 1918.
[750] Advertisement on back cover of TPR, June 1913.
[751] Advertisements on back covers of TPR, December 1913 and March 1914.
[752] Not all were covered; see Society of Genealogists: a century of family history (2011) 131.
[753] The Genealogical Co-operative Search Club: The Hon. Treasurer's and Secretary's Report for the Year 1914/15, 2.
[754] The Antiquary, vol. 50 (June 1914) 230.
[755] TPR, vol. 3, no. 31 (December 1914) 223.
[756] TPR, vol. 3, no. 36 (March 1916) Preface.
[757] This had been stated by J.T. Smith, Nollekens and his times, ii (1828) 206-8, and E. B. Chancellor, The eighteenth century in London (1920).
[758] W.L. Rutton, 'Bloomsbury Square: Isaac Ware and Isaac D'Israeli, Residents' in Home Counties Magazine, iv (1902). At a meeting at the Society on 24 May 1924, Mr. H.W. Peel said that the rate books showed that although the house had masqueraded as No 23 Hart Street for some years, it had always been No 5 and not No 6, but Mr Duncan Moul thought that No 5 was formerly part of a fine private residence, No 6 [The Morning Post, 25 May 1924].
[759] Dictionary of National Biography, sub John Radcliffe.
[760] Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert, eds, The London Encyclopaedia (1995) 78.
[761] Page 356.
[762] Open House London: Architectural Information: Pushkin House, 5A Bloomsbury Square WC1 (September 2011).
[763] TSGL: Income and expenditure account: For the year ended 31 December 1914.
[764] TSGL: Seventh AR 1918, 27.
[765] TSGL: Seventh AR 1918, 6.
[766] ’50 years of rock climbing’, in The Times, 13 April 1936.
[767] Note on 'Finance' in TSGL: Report of Quarterly Meeting, 22 October 1915, 3.
[768] TSGL: 12th QR, June 1914, in The Antiquary, vol. 50 (1914) 230.
[769] They are listed in TPR, vol. 3, no. 36 (March 1916) 371-4.
[770] Circular from J. Leonard E. Hoopell, Chairman of Library Sub-Committee, 30 0ctober 1915.
[771] Note on 'The Library' in TSGL: Report of Quarterly Meeting, 22 October 1915, 3-4; The antiquary, vol. 50 (June 1914) 230.
[772] Balance Sheet, 1916, 'Pedigree Papers, 7s 3d'.
[773] The British Archivist, vol. 1, nos. 19-20 (June 1915) 154.
[774] Second AR, 1913, 22.
[775] TSGL: Seventh Quarterly Report, March 1913, 4.
[776] The British Archivist, vol. 1, no. 18 (August 1914) 152.
[777] The British Archivist, vol. 1, nos. 21-22 (April 1920) 165.
[778] Subsequently Sir Gerald Woods Wollaston, Garter King of Arms, 1930-44, died 4 March 1957, aged 82.
[779] Sir Henry Howorth (1842-1923) was a Vice-President of the Society, 1915-22.
[780] TSGL: Report of Quarterly Meeting, 22 October 1915.
[781] TPR, vol. 3, no. 35 (December 1915) 352.
[782] He resigned in 1939 and died at Norwich in 1944, aged 87.
[783] TPR, vol. 3, no. 36 (March 1916) 382-3.
[784] Well known local antiquary, died aged 68; obituary in Shrewsbury Chronicle, 21 April 1860.
[785] An illuminator and designer of book-plates, she was the daughter of Robert Lucas Pearsall, madrigal composer, and married John Hughes, barrister of the Inner Temple; obituary in The Musical Times, 1 March 1917, page 117.
[786] Quarterly Queries, No. 12, March 1920, page 45.
[787] The Church Times, 11 March 1917.
[788] Quarterly Queries, No. 15, December 1920, page 59.
[789] Quarterly Queries, No. 4, March 1918, page 13; TSGL: Seventh AR 1918, 6.
[790] The list of 'Lectures delivered to the Society of Genealogists' published in GM, vol. 5 (March 1931) 289-90, is not complete.
[791] Quarterly Queries, No. 27, December 1923, page 108.
[792] TPR, vol. 3, no. 35 (December 1915) 352.
[793] Circular letter to Members, 19 April 1916.
[794] Quarterly Queries, No. 4, March 1918, page13: No. 6, June 1918, page 17; No. 6, September 1918, page 21; No. 7, December 1918, pages 25-26; No. 11, December 1919, page 41.
[795] The Spectator, November 1918.
[796] TSGL: Seventh AR 1918, 7.
[797] Quarterly Queries, No. 31 (December 1924) 1.
[798] TPR, vol. 3, no. 35 (December 1915) 351-2.
[799] Prospectus for Dramatis Personae, circulated with TPR; it was not a ‘new journal’ as stated in Michael Sharpe, op. cit. (2011) 113-4.
[800] George Sherwood, The Pedigree Directory 1917 (1917) 67.
[801] Advertisement in TPR, vol. 3, no. 36 (March 1916) back cover.
[802] I was told by Duncan Harrington in 1996 that he had seen a suggestion that Charles Edward Banks paid for their extraction; Duncan Harrington to Anthony Camp, 23 September 1996.
[803] The Genealogical Co-operative Search Club: Prospectus for Minor Search 18, 15 September 1921, 2.
[804] ? County, by Charles A. Bernau (Breage, 1932) Explanation.
[805] Electoral Registers.
[806] GM, vol. 9, no. 15 (September 1946) iv.
[807] The Times, 17 July 1939, 1a. She moved back to the Lewisham area after his death and died in 1988.
[808] Principal Probate Registry; his estate was proved at £3,741-2-3.
[809] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962),Official Section, 5-6.
[810] His The planters of the Commonwealth was published in 1931.
[811] He described himself as 'county council record keeper' when acting as executor to his aunt Annie Josephine Holworthy in 1937. Felix Hull said that he brought together a great quantity of private and other archives in the Record Office.
[812] SoG 51st AR 1962, 2.
[813] Society of Genealogists of London: Seventh AR 1918, 8.
[814] Quarterly Queries, No. 20 (March 1922) 79.
[815] Quarterly Queries, No. 21 (June 1922) 84.
[816] Society of Genealogists of London: Second QR, Dec. 1911, 2 and 4.
[817] Eighth AR 1919, 7.
[818] Although the records are not complete, of the 126,593 persons baptised into the Church by the British missions between 1837 and 1937, over 52,000 emigrated to America; V. Ben Bloxham, &c., op. cit. (1987) 355.
[819] She had joined prior to 1919 and remained a member until her death in 1933; GM, vol. 6, no. 9 (March 1934) 411.
[820] James B. Allen, &c., op. cit. (1995) 59-80.
[821] Eighth AR, 1919, 7.
[822] Quarterly Queries, No. 6, September 1918, page 22.
[823] Quarterly Queries, No. 6, September 1918, page 22.
[824] Quarterly Queries, No. 4, March 1918, page 14.
[825] Eighth AR, 1919, 8-9.
[826] Quarterly Queries, No. 13, June 1920, page 51.
[827] Ninth AR, 1920, 7.
[828] Tenth AR, 1921, 7.
[829] Eleventh AR, 1922, 8.
[830] Quarterly Queries, No. 13, June 1920, page 51, and No. 22, September 1922, page 88.
[831] Quarterly Queries, No. 11, December 1919, page 41.
[832] Quarterly Queries, No. 22, September 1922, page 88.
[833] Quarterly Queries, No. 20, March 1922, page 80.
[834] Twelfth AR, 1923, 7.
[835] Thirteenth AR, 1924, 8.
[836] Thirteenth AR, 1924, 28.
[837] Fourteenth AR, 1925, 6.
[838] Quarterly Queries, No. 4, March 1918, page 13.
[839] Quarterly Queries, No. 30, September 1924, page 119.
[840] ‘Book Plates: Ex-Libris Society’s Successor’, in The Times, 22 March 1919, page 9.
[841] Eighth AR, 1919, 10; also Quarterly Queries, No. 9, June 1919, page 33.
[842] Ninth AR, 1920, 18.
[843] Thirteenth AR, 1924, 28; he was of 78 Worsley Road, Leytonstone, chartered accountant, in 1901; there, MA, PhD, in 1914 [Kelly’s Directory]; and there genealogist (retired) in 1911.
[844] Eleventh AR, 1922, 8; Quarterly Queries, No. 24, March 1923, page 96, says 58 volumes.
[845] Eleventh AR, 1922, 26; Quarterly Queries, No. 23, December 1922, page 91.
[846] Twelfth AR, 1923, 8.
[847] Twelfth AR, 1923, 8 and 28.
[848] Quarterly Queries, No. 23, December 1922, page 91.
[849] Fourteenth AR, 1925, 6.
[850] The Times, 20 February 1919.
[851] I have undated cuttings of these letters but they do not appear in The Times Digital Archive.
[852] The Times, 12 June 1919.
[853] Church Times, 30 May 1919.
[854] Written Answer by Mr Baldwin, Secretary to the Treasury, to Mr Perkins, 22 April 1920.
[855] Eighth AR, 1919, 8.
[856] Ninth AR, 1920, 6.
[857] 'All about your family', in Evening News, 14 October 1921.
[858] Brigadier-General H. C. Surtees to Gerald Fothergill, 1 May 1922.
[859] Eighth AR, 1919, 8.
[860] He was a nephew of the SoG's earlier President the Marquess of Tweeddale.
[861] Obituary in The Field, 13 December 1923.
[862] 'The value of old records: a plea for their preservation', in Wiltshire Gazette, 9 December 1920; TSGL, Ninth AR, 1920, 6-7.
[863] Eleventh AR, 1922, 9.
[864] TSGL, Seventh AR, 1918, 7.
[865] TSGL, Eighth AR, 1919, 9.
[866] Quarterly Queries, No. 10, September 1919, page 37.
[867] TSGL, Eighth AR, 1919, 7.
[868] TSGL, Ninth AR, 1920, 7.
[869] TSGL, Ninth AR, 1920, 7-8.
[870] Though he was not listed in the AR.
[871] Society of Genealogists: a century of family history (2011) 170.
[872] In 1951 the Whitmore papers showed that she had a regular stream of work from John B. Whitmore.
[873] 49th AR, 1960, 1; GM, vol. 13, no. 5 (March 1960) 156.
[874] Unfortunately no record that I have seen provides her forename.
[875] TSGL, Tenth AR, 1921, 7.
[876] TSGL, Eleventh AR, 1922, 7.
[877] Quarterly Queries, No. 23, December 1922, page 91: No. 24, March 1923, page 95: No. 25, June 1923, page 99: No. 26, September 1923, page 103.
[878] TSGL, Twelfth AR, 1923, 8.
[879] Quarterly Queries, No. 26, September 1923, page 103; ‘Society of Genealogists: progress of research work’, in The Times, 28 June 1923.
[880] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 26 (September 1923) 103.
[881] TSGL: Twelfth AR, 1923, 6, 9 and 31.
[882] TSGL: To my fellow members: George Sherwood, August 1923.
[883] Quarterly Queries, No. 29, June 1924, page 115.
[884] The Society of Genealogists: Fifteenth AR 1926, 5 and 8.
[885] ‘The pedigree hunters: Americans who hustle the London genealogists’, in Evening News, 17 September 1925.
[886] ‘Pedigree hunting is so thrilling’, in The Evening News, 30 March 1926.
[887] ‘Expensive searches for noble ancestors’, in Nottingham Evening Post, 8 December 1927, 6.
[888] Kathleen Blomfield to Francis Humphrey-Davy, 9 October 1935.
[889] Anthony Powell, ‘A Veteran Membership’, in GM, vol. 23, no. 11 (September 1991) 419.
[890] Ninth QR, September 1913, in The Antiquary, Vol. 49, 352.
[891] ‘Public School Registers’, in The Times, 16 October 1919.
[892] His father, Cholmeley Austen Leigh (died 1899),was the son of Revd James Edward Austen Leigh (died 1874),the son of Jane’s brother James Austen by his second wife Mary Lloyd [Burke’s Landed Gentry, ii (1969) 381, sub Knight of Chawton].
[893] GM, vol. 5, no. 1 (March 1929) 18.
[894] George Sherwood, Credentials (March 1940) 2.
[895] James Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary 1867-1953 (1959) 46.
[896] James Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary 1867-1953 (1959) 49.
[897] Evening News, 25 October 1921.
[898] The Society of Genealogists, Tenth AR 1921, 8; The Times, 29 October 1921 (which only mentioned Hooppell).
[899] Eleventh AR, 1922, 8.
[900] Wagner, op. cit. (1983) 234, note 3.
[901] Introduction by Roger Ararat to Charles Skilton's reprint of The Jacobite Peerage (1974) ix-xxxi.
[902] W. Raymond Powell, John Horace Round (2001) 180.
[903] TSGL, Tenth AR 1921, 8.
[904] The Evening News, Saturday, 16 October 1920.
[905] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 12 (March 1920) 1; The Times Literary Supplement, 16 February 1922. Some 31 volumes of Baigent's notes, mainly on the ecclesiastical history of Hampshire, were given to the British Library; see C.R.J. Currie and C.P. Lewis, English County Histories: a Guide (1994) 172. He was the co-author with James Millard of a History of Basingstoke (1889).
[906] John Challenor Covington Smith, in evidence to the Royal Commission on Public Records, 23 January 1913 (Vol. II, Part III) 48.
[907] Douglas Woodruff, The Tichborne Claimant (1957) 204. For Baigent's involvement see 67-68, &c.
[908] Woodruff, op. cit. (1957) 239.
[909] The Times, 12 October 1921; Westminster Gazette, 12 October 1921; Daily Chronicle, 14 October 1921; Evening News, 14 October 1921.
[910] Morning Post, 15 October 1921.
[911] Evidence of Samuel Minnis, Royal Commission of Public Records: Appendices to the Second Report: Volume II (Part II.) (1914) 127.
[912] Gerald Fothergill to S. Minnis, Inland Revenue, 1 December 1914, and his reply, 8 December 1914.
[913] Quarterly Queries, No. 20, March 1922, page 80, and No. 21, June 1922, page 84, and No. 23, December 1922, page 91; Eleventh AR 1922, 7.
[914] Twelfth AR, 1923, 7.
[915] Eleventh AR, 1922, 8; Quarterly Queries, No. 24, March 1923, thanked him for presenting six boxes of index slips to the Registers which suggests he had completed the task.
[916] Sixteenth AR, 1927, 5.
[917] Sixteenth AR, 1927, 6; she resigned her membership in 1937 and died 27 June 1950; obituary in GM, vol. 11 (September 1951) 110.
[918] AR, 1932, 1.
[919] GM, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1937) 18 and 22.
[920] GM, vol. 7, no. 7 (September 1936) 366.
[921] GM, vol. 7, no. 11 (September 1937) 595.
[922] 'Index to Chancery Proceedings on the Defendant Side', publicity note by Gerald Fothergill, n.d.
[923] We were still selling copies in the SoG bookshop in the 1960s when Phyllis Shield sold the world rights to the Genealogical Publishing Company for $50.
[924] GM, vol. 2, no. 4 (December 1926) 106 and vii; Fifteenth AR, 1926, 7.
[925] Obituary in GM, vol. 15, no. 14 (June 1968) 615. Phyllis Winifred Shield was the daughter of Dr Robert Delafosse Shield, of Chelsea, and after his death her mother married Gerald Fothergill. She had a high reputation for careful genealogical work, became an Associate Member in 1935, and prepared many thousands of slips for the PCC will indexes published by the British Record Society.
[926] The title became extinct in 1964.
[927] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 22 (September 1922) 87.
[928] Tenth QR, December 1913, in The Antiquary, vol. 49, 468.
[929] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 21 (June 1922) 83.
[930] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 22 (September 1922) 87.
[931] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 23 (December 1922) 92.
[932] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 24 (March 1923) 95.
[933] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 25 (June 1923) 99.
[934] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 26 (September 1923) 103.
[935] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 27 (December 1923) 107.
[936] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 28 (January recte March 1924) 111.
[937] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 29 (June 1924) 115; Moul was an insurance manager but well known for his pen and ink illustrations in journals and ‘picturesque’ county volumes.
[938] GM, vol. 1, no. 3 (September 1925) 91.
[939] GM, vol. 1, no. 4 (December 1925) 122.
[940] ‘Those terrible initials’, in Morning Post, 25 February 1929.
[941] GM, vol. 6, no. 5 (March 1933) 208.
[942] TSGL: Anglo-Irish Genealogy by Revd H. L. L. Denny, a paper read ... 12 May 1916, 8.
[943] Arthur Vicars, Index to the Prerogative Wills of Ireland 1536-1810 (Dublin, 1897).
[944] The insignia of the Order of St Patrick as worn by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in his capacity as Grand Master of the Order and then valued at upwards of £50,000.
[945] Susan Hood, Royal Roots - Republican Inheritance: The survival of the Office of Arms (Dublin, 2002) 63.
[946] Susan Hood, Royal Roots - Republican Inheritance: The survival of the Office of Arms (Dublin, 2002) 114-15.
[947] He gave 2,430 sheets in 6 bundles in 1921, Tenth AR, 1921, 18, and 769 sheets in 1922, Eleventh AR, 1922, 8.
[948] SoG AR 1986, 7; SoG AR 1987, 5.
[949] ‘Family histories: full records of 2,000,000 different surnames’, in Evening News, 11 February 1925.
[950] ‘Last of the Shansfields: origin of family name lost in the mists of time’, in Daily Chronicle, 29 July 1925.
[951] The Morning Post, 21 July 1924.
[952] ‘Pedigree peddling’ and ‘The pedigree pedlars: bogus family trees for Americans’, in Daily Mail, 30 April 1926.
[953] The Times, 5 November 1924.
[954] Quarterly Queries of TSGL, No. 30 (September 1924) 119; SoG, AR, 1928, 3.
[955] SoG, AR, 1925, 8.
[956] SoG, AR, 1925, 7.
[957] GM, vol. 4, no. 4 (December 1928) 73.
[958] Obituary by Cregoe Nicholson, in GM, vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 516-17.
[959] Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage (2003) sub Denny of Castle Moyle.
[960] GM, vol. 5, no. 11 (September 1931) 349.
[961] Revd Sir Henry Denny died in 1953, aged 74; obituary in GM, vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 516-17.
[962] SoG AR 1925, 7.
[963] GM, vol. 1, no. 1 (April 1925) 21.
[964] GM, vol. 1, no. 2 (June 1925) 33, and no. 4 (December 1925) 122.
[965] SoG AR 1926, 6.
[966] SoG AR 1927, 6; SoG AR 1928, 7.
[967] SoG AR 1933, 2.
[968] GM, vol. 1, no. 1 (April 1925) 19 and vii.
[969] Obituary in GM, vol. 11, no. 10 (June 1953) 352-53.
[970] George Sherwood to John Beach Whitmore, 31 December 1940.
[971] GM, vol. 1, no. 3 (September 1925) 65.
[972] ‘Gypsy Blood’, in The Times, 18 December 1933.
[973] ‘“F.E. Smith’s” Gipsy blood’, in Observer, 17 December 1933.
[974] ‘Lord Birkenhead’s “Gipsy Blood”: daughter not certain’, in Daily Telegraph, 18 December 1933.
[975] SoG AR 1933, 2.
[976] Anthony R. Wagner, ‘The Royal descent of Mr Neville Chamberlain’, in GM, vol. 8, no. 4 (December 1938) 204-5.
[977] ‘Mr Chamberlain’s ancestry’, in Birmingham Post, 6 October 1938.
[978] ‘Genealogical Nonsense’, in Truth, 30 December 1938; ‘Royal Descent Deduction’, in Bristol Evening Post, 9 January 1939.
[979] GM, vol. 2, no. 1 (March 1926) 2.
[980] GM, vol. 2, no. 3 (September 1926) 65-66.
[981] GM, vol. 10, no. 6 (June 1948) 187.
[982] Obituary by B. S. Bramwell, in GM, vol. 9, no. 14 (March 1946) 540-41, and The Eugenics Review (1946) 48; see also Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes.
[983] His article 'School Registers in the possession of the Society' in GM, vol. 9, no. 4 (March 1941) 113-16, deals only with the nine schools examined by the Public Schools Commission in 1862, i.e. Charterhouse, Eton, Harrow, Merchant Taylors', Rugby, Shrewsbury, St Paul's, Westminster and Winchester.
[984] ‘Colonel Parker: squire and antiquary’, in The Times, 25/26 February 1938.
[985] He advertised in GM, December 1933 to September 1934, based at Norwich.
[986] SoG AR 1932, 2.
[987] GM, vol. 6, no. 7 (September 1933) 286.
[988] GM, vol. 6, no. 11 (September 1934) 511.
[989] SoG AR 1934, 1-2.
[990] SoG AR 1935, 2.
[991] SoG AR 1936, 2.
[992] GM, vol. 5, no. 10 (June 1931) 309, and no. 11 (September 1931) 352; review in The Observer, 18 September 1932.
[993] GM, vol. 7, no. 9 (March 1937) 480.
[994] SoG AR 1936, 2.
[995] B. S. Bramwell, 'Genealogy and the Order of Merit', in GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) 493-99.
[996] Obituary by Kathleen Blomfield in GM, vol. 10, no. 8 (December 1948) 267.
[997] GM, vol. 5, no. 7 (September 1930) 226.
[998] The statement in Subject Index to Volumes 1 to 26 of GM 1925-2000 (2002) 4 that it was published separately is not correct.
[999] SoG AR 1924, 2.
[1000] SoG AR 1938, 2.
[1001] He tried to answer his critics in 'Pauperism and heredity' in The Eugenics Review, vol. xiv (April 1922) 152-163.
[1002] 'Family ability: persistence of cleverness through generations', and 'The descent of Man', in The Morning Post, 6 December 1923.
[1003] 'The descent of genius', in Westminster Gazette, 7 December 1923.
[1004] The Londoner, 'The goodly heritage', in Evening News, 7 December 1923.
[1005] GM, vol. 5, no. 7 (September 1930) 221.
[1006] Mazumdar, op. cit. (1999) 37-38.
[1007] Andrew Parkin, 'Henry Twitchin and the expansion of the Eugenics Society between the Wars', in Galton Institute Newsletter, March 2006.
[1008] Mazumdar, op. cit. (1999) 38; see also Robert A. Peel, ed., Essays in the history of eugenics (Galton Institute, 1998).
[1009] Obituary in The Eugenics Review, January 1949, 188; another by Mrs Blomfield in GM, vol. 10, no. 8 (December 1948) 267.
[1010] Kathleen Hodson, The Eugenics Review 1909-1968, 169.
[1011] Obituary in GM, vol. 12, no. 13 (March 1958) 451. He called himself ‘Beach Whitmore’ but to friends usually signed himself ‘John’.
[1012] An editorial in GM, vol. 2, no. 4 (December 1926) 89, saying that a new edition of Marshall's Guide was one of the great needs of the day revealed that Whitmore had been working intermittently on a supplement for five years, hoping for publication in 1929 [GM, vol. 3, no. 4 (December 1927) 73]. A later plea by William F. Carter that the Society itself start to compile such an index, appeared in GM, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1935) 25.
[1013] J. A. Venn to J. B. Whitmore, 17 June 1953.
[1014] Obituary by Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 20, no 11 (September 1982) 388.
[1015] Jointly published at £4.00 by the Research Publishing Company and the Society; reviewed in GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 359.
[1016] Anthony J. Camp, 'British pedigrees and interests: who else has been working on this family' in Genealogical Research Directory: National & International (Melbourne, 2000) 17-25.
[1017] GM, vol. 1, no. 1 (April 1925) 21.
[1018] Catalogue of Parish Registers in the possession of the Society of Genealogists (1924) 4.
[1019] GM, vol. 1, no. 3 (September 1925) 72.
[1020] GM, vol. 1, no. 4 (December 1925) 122; that issue did not appear until after 11 February 1926 as is apparent from other entries on that page.
[1021] SoG AR 1926, 6-7.
[1022] SoG AR 1927, 6.
[1023] SoG AR 1929, 2.
[1024] SoG AR 1930, 2.
[1025] SoG AR 1931, 2.
[1026] SoG AR 1932, 2.
[1027] GM, vol. 6, no. 10 (June 1934) 433.
[1028] Obituary in GM, vol. 15, no. 9 (March 1967) 344.
[1029] ‘East Anglian Miscellany’ in East Anglian Daily Times, 4 August 1934.
[1030] SoG AR 1935, 1; obituary by Kathleen Blomfield in GM, vol. 7, no. 6 (June 1936) 311.
[1031] GM, vol. 7, no. 3 (September 1935) 122.
[1032] GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 141 and 146-47.
[1033] e.g. 'Thirty Million Romances', from our own correspondent, Upper Warlingham, The People, Sunday, 1 August 1937.
[1034] ‘How your ancestors are traced’, in Dundee Evening Telegraph, 26 January 1939.
[1035] SoG AR 1939, 2.
[1036] GM, vol. 9, no. 10 (March 1944) 397.
[1037] GM, vol. 10, no. 5 (March 1948) vi.
[1038] GM, vol. 10, no. 6 (June 1948) vi.
[1039] SoG AR 1955, 1.
[1040] GM, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1935) 23.
[1041] SoG AR 1934, 2.
[1042] SoG AR 1935, 1; the amount given is not specified in the Annual Accounts.
[1043] GM, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1935) 26.
[1044] GM, vol. 7, no. 2 (June 1935) 76.
[1045] GM, vol. 7, no. 3 (September 1935) 121.
[1046] SoG AR 1935, 1.
[1047] J. B. Allen, J. L. Embry and K.B. Mehr, op. cit. (1995) 144.
[1048] Editorial, GM, vol. 3, no. 2 (June 1927) 25.
[1049] Lord Farrer, TS 'Draft of suggested petition to the Lord Chancellor' [c.1926].
[1050] B. G. Bouwens, Wills and their whereabouts (1939) 25.
[1051] B. G. Bouwens, Wills and their whereabouts (1939) 1-2.
[1052] 'Preservation of parish records', in The Times, 18 October 1920.
[1053] ‘Parish Registers’, in The Church Times, 1 May 1925.
[1054] Dorothy L. Powell, ed., Guide to archives and other collections of documents relating to Surrey: Parish records, civil and ecclesiastical (1927).
[1055] ‘The care of parish registers’, in GM, vol. 4, no. 3 (September 1928) 62-63.
[1056] By the Law of Property Acts of 1922 and 1924 and the Land Registration Act of 1925 the preservation of manorial records was no longer a legal necessity.
[1057] ‘The preservation of ancient documents’, in GM, vol. 5, no. 11 (September 1931) 368.
[1058] ‘The British Records Association’, in GM, vol. 7, no. 4 (December 1935) 197.
[1059] GM, vol. 5, no. 6 (June 1930) 161.
[1060] Cantwell, op. cit. (1991) page 389.
[1061] GM, vol. 5, no. 8 (December 1930) 246-247.
[1062] Guy Parsloe, ‘Migrations of Historical Manuscripts’, in GM, vol. 5, no. 6 (June 1930) 168-169.
[1063] ‘County Muniment Room Opened’, in The Western Morning News & Mercury, 20 April 1931.
[1064] J. E. King, ed., Inventory of parochial documents in the Diocese of Bath and Wells and the County of Somerset (Somerset County Council County Records Committee, 1938).
[1065] ‘Access to Records’, in The Times, 21 November 1933.
[1066] Obituary by Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 25, no. 6 (June 1996) 235-7.
[1067] F. G. Emmison, 'The genealogical sources of the Bedfordshire Record Office’, in GM, vol. 7, no. 4 (December 1935) 172-6.
[1068] Page 176.
[1069] The Lord Farrer, 'English Genealogy', in GM, vol. 7, no. 4 (December 1935) 179-182.
[1070] ‘Ecclesiastical News: preserving parish registers’, in The Times, 20 December 1933.
[1071] The Englishman (Calcutta),7 May 1921.
[1072] Hugh Eyre Campbell Beaver (1890-1967) was Knighted, 1943.
[1073] GM, vol. 2, no. 2 (June 1926) 57.
[1074] GM, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1935) 25.
[1075] GM, vol. 7, no. 4 (December 1935) 179-80.
[1076] GM, vol. 5, no. 3 (September 1929) 81.
[1077] SoG AR 1931, 1-2.
[1078] GM, vol. 6, no. 7 (September 1933) 326.
[1079] GM, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1935) 25.
[1080] GM, vol. 9, no. 1 (March 1940) 14. The typed volume for 1706-1709 was not accessioned until September 1946; GM, vol. 9, no. 15 (September 1946) 39.
[1081] GM, vol. 4, no. 3 (September 1928) 68.
[1082] William Brock, A young Congo missionary: memorials of Sidney Roberts Webb, M.D. (1897); review in The British Medical Journal, vol. 1, no. 1886 (20 February 1897) 468-9.
[1083] Notice of AGM 16 May 1928.
[1084] GM, vol. 5, no. 9 (March 1931) 288.
[1085] GM, vol. 12, no. 9 (March 1957) 313. In 1938 she commenced a slip-index to the marriages in the registers of the Society of Friends [GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 146].
[1086] GM, vol. 12, no. 9 (March 1957) 313; GRO Death Indexes, March Quarter 1955, Tonbridge, 5b 1142.
[1087] The Hamilton Advertiser, 3 November 1928, following a talk by A. E. Stamp; Robertson’s name is appended to an article in the 7 December 1929 issue following a talk by G. W. Wollaston, Norroy.
[1088] ‘Pharaoh’s lost daughter’, in Daily Graphic, 7 March 1926.
[1089] The Hamilton Advertiser, 28 July 1928.
[1090] For Harold Waring Atkinson see Alumni Cantabrigienses; he received the MBE (1919) as Hon. Librarian to the British Prisoners of War Book Scheme; joined SoG, 1923; elected Fellow 1931; author of Families of Atkinson of Roxby and Thorne and Dearman of Braithwaite (1933); incorrectly called Harold Blaxland Atkinson in SoG History (2011).
[1091] GM, vol. 5, no. 1 (March 1929) 21.
[1092] GM, vol. 5, no. 2 (June 1929) 45.
[1093] Specimen Index Slips.
[1094] GM, vol. 5, no. 9 (March 1931) 288.
[1095] She was born in Fulham RD, 17 July 1895 [GRO Birth and Death Indexes].
[1096] GM, vol. 5, no. 9 (March 1931) 288.
[1097] 1901 Census Returns for 57 Victoria Road, Hornsey, Middlesex; The National Archives, RG13/1239-80-37/37; in the 1911 Census he said that he was born in London.
[1098] The National Archives, Divorce Court File J77/2188/8545; they had married in 1917.
[1099] Who Was Who 1941-1950; GM, vol. 6, no. 6 (June 1933) 237.
[1100] Daily Graphic, 5 July 1949.
[1101] GM, vol. 7, no. 3 (September 1935) 115.
[1102] GM, vol. 7, no. 6 (June 1936) 299.
[1103] GM, vol. 7, no. 9 (March 1937) 479
[1104] GM, vol. 7, no. 11 (September 1937) 575.
[1105] GM, vol. 5, no. 5 (March 1930) 129.
[1106] GM, vol. 6, no. 3 (September 1932) 102.
[1107] SoG AR 1930, 1.
[1108] Obituary in GM, vol. 5, no. 10 (June 1931) 327.
[1109] ‘With the pedigree hunters’, in Liverpool Post, 10 July 1931.
[1110] GM, vol. 5, no. 11 (September 1931) 349.
[1111] SoG AR 1931, 1.
[1112] SoG AR 1932, 1.
[1113] SoG AR 1933, 1.
[1114] GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 142 (he retired from the Executive Committee in July 1938).
[1115] His Arms, registered at the College of Arms and at Ulster Office, are detailed in A. C. Fox-Davies, Armorial Families (1929) 462-3.
[1116] Reprinted with many corrections in Anthony J. Camp, My ancestors came with the Conqueror: those who did, and some of those who probably did not (1988, 1990).
[1117] T. R. Thomson, 'The Falaise celebrations', in GM, vol. 5, no. 12 (December 1931) 394-97; ‘The Conqueror’s Companions: claims of descent questioned’, in The Observer, 17 January 1932; ‘Simple Faith and Norman Blood’, in Sunday Times, 17 January 1932; ‘The Conqueror’s Companions’, in Sunday Times, 7 February 1932.
[1118] GM, vol. 5, no. 12 (December 1931) 389.
[1119] ‘Companions of the Conqueror: genealogists’ doubts on descent’, in The Times, 15 February 1932; ‘Companions of Conqueror’, in Daily Telegraph, 15 February 1932; ’New Battle of Hastings: to settle claims to Norman blood’, in Sunday Times, 14 February 1932; ‘Simple faith or Norman blood’, in Observer, 14 February 1932; ‘Companions of the Conqueror’, in Guardian, 19 February 1932; ‘The Conqueror’s Companions’, in Melbourne Argus, February 1932; Saturday Night (Canada),14 March 1932.
[1120] GM, vol. 6, no. 2 (June 1932) 50-57.
[1121] ‘”I’m a Norman, aren’t we all?”: and all except the Chinese agreed’, in Sunday Express, 14 February 1932.
[1122] When young he contributed a pedigree of his Clack ancestry to TPR, vol. 1 (December 1908) 185-8, and was then a frequent contributor, but in June 1909 (vol. 2, 129-30) he wrote that his family’s ‘gentle origin’ and ‘ultra-Tory state of mind forbids any familiar intercourse with the proletariat’. Sherwood added a note that no family is really of gentle origin and that Clack descended from an innkeeper! The livid Clack countered that the inn was sub-let and that his ancestor lived elsewhere (vol. 2, 349-50) but he did not contribute to TPR again.
[1123] The Times, 20 February 1932.
[1124] Sunday Times, 28 February 1932.
[1125] L'Echo de Falaise, 27 June 1931, and Journal of the United Associations of Great Britain and France, Autumn 1931.
[1126] M. Jackson Crispin and Leonce Macary, Falaise Roll: recording prominent companions of William Duke of Normandy at the conquest of England (1938) reprinted with important additions and corrections by G. Andrews Moriarty (Baltimore, 1985).
[1127] Review of The Falaise Roll in The American Genealogist, vol. xvi, no. 1 (July 1939) 56-63.
[1128] Professor D. C. Douglas, 'The Companions of the Conqueror', in History, vol. 28, 129-147.
[1129] GM, vol. 9, no. 11 (September 1944) 417-24.
[1130] The main articles are reprinted in Anthony J. Camp, My ancestors came with the Conqueror: those who did and some of those who probably did not (Society of Genealogists, 1988; corrected reprint, 1990; Genealogical Publishing Company: Baltimore, 1990).
[1131] ‘Lord Raglan on “faked pedigrees” of famous families’, The Daily Mail, 8 September 1933.
[1132] ‘Family Trees “all a fake”’, The Evening News, 7 September 1933.
[1133] ‘Ld. Raglan hits out again’, Daily Express, 9 September 1933.
[1134] Punch, 20 September 1933.
[1135] “Saxon Descent” in Morning Post, 16 September 1933.
[1136] GM, vol. 6, no. 8 (December 1933) 337-38. Charles Evans wrote later that the criticism of Saxon descents was just, with the exception perhaps of the descent of the Berkeleys from Eadnoth, Staller to Edward the Confessor; GM, vol. 6, no. 11 (September 1934) 497.
[1137] GM, vol. 6, no. 2 (September 1932) 92.
[1138] ‘GM’ in The Northern Whig & Belfast Post, 24 September 1932.
[1139] Obituary in GM, vol. 13, no. 1 (March 1959) 17.
[1140] GM, vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1955) ii.
[1141] GM, vol. 7, no. 5 (March 1936) 259.
[1142] GM, vol. 7, no. 8 (December 1936) 432.
[1143] His pedigree is in TPR, vol. 1 (June 1908) 124-5; there was a tradition of French descent but at that time could not be traced beyond John Lart (1719-1790) of Nottingham.
[1144] GM, vol. 7, no. 9 (March 1937) 488
[1145] The object of his enmity was Hugh O’Bryen Horsford (1881-1958) a clerk in the Registry since 1902.
[1146] Obituary in GM, vol. 12, no. 6 (June 1956) 203.
[1147] GM, vol. 6, no. 4 (December 1932) 175, quoting Sydney Morning Herald, 30 August 1932.
[1148] GM, vol. 6, no. 8 (December 1933) 369.
[1149] Herbert J. Rumsey, ' Genealogy in Australia', in GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 125-41.
[1150] Obituary by Herbert Rumsey in GM, vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1947) 13.
[1151] John Stewart and Anthony Syme, ‘Dare you climb your family tree?’, in The Reader’s Digest (January 1968) 52-56.
[1152] GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 685.
[1153] GM, vol. 6, no. 3 (September 1932) 102.
[1154] The Times, Classified Advertisement, 15 September 1932.
[1155] GM, vol. 6, no. 4 (December 1932) 141.
[1156] Nature, no. 129 (20 February 1932) 272-73.
[1157] W. A. Munford, A history of the Library Association 1877-1977 (1976) 194-5.
[1158] GM, vol. 6, no. 4 (December 1932) 141
[1159] GM, vol. 6, no. 6 (June 1933) 237; Munford (1976) 195, 218-9.
[1160] GM, vol. 5, no. 11 (September 1931) 364.
[1161] SoG AR 1932, 2.
[1162] GM, vol. 6, no. 7 (September 1933) 286; SoG AR 1933, 2.
[1163] GM, vol. 9, no. 10 (March 1944) 395.
[1164] SoG AR 1934, 1.
[1165] Francis H. M. N. Humphrey-Davy to Mrs Blomfield, 8 October 1935; Mrs Blomfield to him, 28 April 1934.
[1166] Her description in the 1939 Register.
[1167] SoG AR 1933, 1.
[1168] Dr T. R. Thomson to Anthony Camp, 22 April 1961.
[1169] GM, vol. 6, no. 5 (March 1933) 217.
[1170] SoG AR 1933, 2; SoG AR 1934, 1.
[1171] SoG AR 1933, 1 and 2; GM, vol. 6, no. 7 (September 1933) 281, and vol. 6, no 8 (December 1933) 337 and 349 (where some of the exhibits are described); The Times, 12 October 1933, report and list of principal attendees.
[1172] SoG AR 1934, 1.
[1173] SoG AR 1935, 1.
[1174] GM, vol. 7, no. 3 (September 1935) 115.
[1175] GM, vol. 7, no. 3 (September 1935) 115.
[1176] SoG AR 1935, 1,
[1177] GM, vol. 7, no. 7 (September 1936) 365.
[1178] TPR, vol. 1 (June 1908) 140.
[1179] SoG AR 1933, 1.
[1180] Kathleen Blomfield to John E. N. Walker, 27 March 1935.
[1181] SoG AR 1933, 1.
[1182] GM, vol. 7, no. 7 (September 1936) 365-66.
[1183] SoG AR 1935, Balance Sheet.
[1184] Obituary by Kathleen Blomfield in GM, vol. 9, no. 9 (September 1943) 356-57. For his life see his daughter Ursula Bloom's Parson Extraordinary (1963) and 'A clerk in unholy orders' in Reginald L. Hine, Confessions of an un-common attorney (3rd ed. 1946) 28-30. A fund for the benefit of his widow was opened in March 1944; GM, vol. 9, no. 10 (March 1944) 402.
[1185] Lord Farrer to J. Harvey Bloom, 4 May 1937.
[1186] His name appears on the inside cover of the Magazine for September and December 1937.
[1187] GM, vol. 3, no. 2 (June 1927) 39.
[1188] GM, vol. 3, no. 4 (December 1927) 89, et seq.
[1189] GM, vol. 4, no. 2 (June 1928) 42.
[1190] GM, vol. 5, no. 11 (September 1931) 349.
[1191] GM, Official Section, xiv, no. 3 (September 1962) 7.
[1192] SoG AR 1931, 2.
[1193] GM, vol. 6, no. 3 (September 1932) 103.
[1194] SoG AR 1932, 1.
[1195] GM, vol. 6, no. 11 (September 1934) 512.
[1196] GM, vol. 6, no. 7 (September 1933) 293
[1197] GM, vol. 6, no. 8 (December 1933) 368.
[1198] Obituaries in GM, vol. 12, no. 13 (March 1958) 451-52, and The Times, 23 December 1957.
[1199] GM, vol. 6, no. 9 (March 1934) 385.
[1200] SoG AR 1933, 2.
[1201] GM, vol. 7, no. 3 (September 1935) 122.
[1202] GM, vol. 6, no. 10 (June 1934) 453-56.
[1203] SoG AR 1933, 2.
[1204] GM, vol. 6, no. 10 (June 1934) 456-60.
[1205] GM, vol. 6, no. 11 (September 1934) 512.
[1206] GM, vol. 6, no. 12 (December 1934) 560.
[1207] SoG AR 1934, 1.
[1208] SoG AR 1935, 2; Ainsworth was Honorary General Editor for the British Record Society, 1937-40, and then worked for the Irish Manuscripts Commission; he was the first person to be granted Arms by the new Genealogical Office in Dublin in 1943; he succeeded his father as a Baronet in 1971.
[1209] GM, vol. 7, no. 5 (March 1936) 253.
[1210] GM, vol. 8, no. 4 (December 1938) 223.
[1211] 149 names are listed in GM, vol. 8, no. 7 (September 1939) 397.
[1212] GM, vol. 9, no. 6 (March 1942) 241.
[1213] drawing attention to the importance of the latter in GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 102-3.
[1214] The News Chronicle, quoted in Star (London),31 July 1934.
[1215] GM, vol. 6, no. 2 (June 1932) 77.
[1216] GM, vol. 8, no. 4 (December 1938) viii.
[1217] Margaret Blunden, The Countess of Warwick (1967) 154-5, 163, 165.
[1218] GM, vol. 5, no. 11 (September 1931) 365.
[1219] GM, vol. 5, no. 11 (September 1931) 366.
[1220] GM, vol. 5, no. 12 (December 1931) 411.
[1221] Kathleen Blomfield (Secretary) to Messrs Fudge & Co Ltd, 22 July 1937.
[1222] GM, vol. 8, no. 5 (March 1939) vi.
[1223] GM, vol. 10, no. 6 (June 1948) i.
[1224] GM, vol. 6, no. 1 (March 1932) vi.
[1225] K. Bell (Secretary) to L.A. Spikesman, Artcards Ltd, 15 December 1931.
[1226] Folkestone Herald, 19 March 1932; Daily Mirror, 11 May 1932.
[1227] Obituary by Pirie Hogarth in GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 303-4. He edited the 1937 edition of Burke's Landed Gentry and died 8 December 1969; see The Times, 10 December 1969.
[1228] Harry Pirie-Gordon to William Gun, 19 April 1932.
[1229] ‘”Public Plunderer”: four years for former St Leonards Resident’ (with photograph),in Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 28 January 1928, 3.
[1230] GM, vol. 6, no. 7 (September 1933) 281.
[1231] K. Blomfield to Roderick K. Eskew, 14 November 1934.
[1232] TPR, vol. 1 (March 1908) 112.
[1233] Francis Green, ed., The National Library of Wales: Calendar of Deeds & Documents; vol. 1, The Coleman Deeds (Aberystwyth, 1921).
[1234] Obituary by Kathleen Blomfield in GM, vol. 9, no. 11 (September 1944) 445.
[1235] GM, vol. 7, no. 8 (December 1936) un-paginated extra .
[1236] GM, vol. 5, no. 6 (June 1930) 187.
[1237] GM, vol. 7, no. 8 (December 1936) 426.
[1238] GM, vol. 5, no. 9 (March 1931) vii.
[1239] Truth, Wednesday, 8 March 1933, 371.
[1240] Daily Mail, Tuesday, 18 July 1933.
[1241] Associated Newspapers Limited, Legal Department, to Colonel E. A. Loftus, 31 December 1935.
[1242] Miss P. W. Shield to Mrs K. Blomfield, 17 October 1933.
[1243] Obituary by Henry P. Armstrong in GM, vol. 22, no. 10 (June 1988) 386.
[1244] Janson & Co to Colonel E. A. Loftus, 28 November 1935.
[1245] Faculty of Genealogical Research to Louis V. Amend, 30 April 1936.
[1246] Mrs K. Blomfield to Joseph A. Amend, 11 March 1940.
[1247] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 1 (March 1962),Official Section, 4.
[1248] E. A. Impey to Mrs K. Blomfield, 14 March 1948.
[1249] I am indebted to Dr Maureen Ille of the I’Anson One-Name Study for some of these biographical details.
[1250] His signature as ‘A. Bryan I’Anson’ on his daughter Frances Beryl’s 1929 marriage entry at Epsom has striking similarities to that of ‘Janson & Co’ on a 1936 letter to Colonel Loftus.
[1251] Daily Mail, 14 July 1933.
[1252] GM, vol. 7, no. 2 (June 1935) 78-79; Ian Coster, 'Money in 'missing heir' hunts', in The Evening Standard, 16 March 1935, 11.
[1253] John Bull, 18 December 1937.
[1254] Evening Standard, 8 February 1939; News Chronicle, 9 February 1939; The Times, 9 February 1939.
[1255] The Genealogical Quarterly to Mrs K. Blomfield, 27 June 1933, 25 July 1933, 28 June 1937.
[1256] GM, vol. 7, no. 3 (September 1935) 122.
[1257] ‘Agreement set aside as champertous’, Yorkshire Post, 13 July 1935, 7.
[1258] GM, vol. 6, no. 10 (June 1934) 433.
[1259] GM, vol. 6, no. 12 (December 1934) 565.
[1260] GM, vol. 7, no. 1 (March 1935) 21. D. J. Steel speculated that the group may have been shown ‘a few pre-Reformation missals or even rough books with English entries’ [NIPR, vol. 1 (1968) 25, footnote 14].
[1261] GM, vol. 6, no. 11 (September 1934) 490-92.
[1262] SoG AR 1938, 2.
[1263] GM, vol. 16, no. 8 (December 1970) 430.
[1264] Mrs M. E. Duggan, 'Trinity House Apprenticeships', in GM, vol. 16, no. 8 (December 1970) 427-9.
[1265] GM, vol. 6, no. 11 (September 1934) 510.
[1266] SoG AR 1935, 2; GM, vol. 15, no. 2 (June 1965) 86.
[1267] A key to the handwriting used in ancient parish registers (The Society of Genealogists; undated).
[1268] GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 142.
[1269] SoG AR 1935, 2.
[1270] GM, vol. 7, no. 4 (December 1935) 195.
[1271] The Law Times, 14 December 1935; Preston Guardian, 4 January 1936.
[1272] SoG AR 1935, 2.
[1273] SoG AR 1937, 1.
[1274] GM, vol. 7, no. 4 (December 1935) 196; vol. 7, no. 5 (March 1936) 254; vol. 7, no. 6 (June 1936) 331; a further part to 1790 had been indexed on slips.
[1275] SoG AR 1935, 2.
[1276] GM, vol. 7, no. 7 (September 1936) 365.
[1277] GM, vol. 7, no. 7 (September 1936) 369.
[1278] SoG AR 1937, 1.
[1279] GM, vol. 7, no. 5 (March 1936) 249.
[1280] SoG AR 1936, 2.
[1281] GM, vol. 7, no. 11 (September 1937) 575.
[1282] 'New interest in genealogy', in The Daily Telegraph, 18 March 1937.
[1283] SoG AR 1935, 2.
[1284] 'Invisible Ink' in Swindon Evening Advertiser, 29 June 1937.
[1285] SoG AR 1937, Income and Expenditure Account.
[1286] Mazumdar, op. cit. (1999) 24, 29, 32.
[1287] Robert Resta, 'Social, ethical and technical implications of pedigree construction: what the maps tells us about the mapmakers', in Robert A. Peel, ed., Human Pedigree Studies (1999) 107-114.
[1288] Society of Genealogists, Exhibition of genealogical and heraldic records (1937) 26-27.
[1289] The Daily Telegraph, 29 June 1937; Morning Post, 29 June 1937.
[1290] 'Family skeletons are no secret here' in News Chronicle, 2 June 1937; 'Looking for ancestors' in Daily Sketch, 24 June 1937; 'Family History Secrets' in News Chronicle, 28 June 1937.
[1291] 'Guide to research into heredity' in The Daily Telegraph, 1 July 1937; Sheffield Independent, 30 June 1937; 'Study of family pedigrees' in Northampton Daily Chronicle, 1 July 1937; 'What pedigrees show' in Northern Whig (Belfast),30 June 1937.
[1292] 'A Diary' in Birmingham Post, 29 June 1937; 'Twenty-five years in the trees' in Liverpool Daily Post, 25 March 1937.
[1293] 'Pedigrees' in Manchester Guardian, 30 June 1937; 'It pays to be modest' in The Evening News, 28 June 1937.
[1294] Yorkshire Observer, 3 July 1937; Nottingham Journal, 5 July 1937; Northern Evening Despatch, 3 July 1937.
[1295] 'Genealogy made Easy' in The Observer, 20 June 1937.
[1296] 'Pedigree Research: exhibition by Society of Genealogists' in The Times, 29 June 1937.
[1297] 'Genealogical Exhibition' in Irish Independent, 1 July 1937.
[1298] 'Hunting for Ancestors', in Exchange & Mart, 8 July 1937.
[1299] Society of Genealogists: Exhibition of Genealogical and Heraldic Records: held at Chaucer House, Malet Place, London, June 28 [sic] to July 3 1937 (1937).
[1300] SoG, Income and Expenditure Account, 1937.
[1301] GM, vol. 7, no. 12 (December 1937) 650.
[1302] GM, vol. 8, no. 6 (June 1939) 335.
[1303] The story of the General Register Office and its origins from 1538 to 1937, Compiled by the Registrar General and illustrated by certain exhibits shown at the General Register Office, Somerset House, Strand, W.C.2, in commemoration of the centenary 1837-1937 of the General Register Office and Registration Service in England and Wales (HMSO, 1937).
[1304] Evening News, 1 November 1938; many years later I was able to purchase the original cartoon.
[1305] The News Chronicle, quoted in Star (London),31 July 1934.
[1306] 'Proving Aryan pedigrees is new British "Industry"', in News Chronicle, 11 June 1936. There is some evidence that information from the 1861 Census was occasionally given at an earlier date: Gerald Fothergill mentions it as a possible source in TPR, vol. 2 (December 1910) 76.
[1307] 'Genealogists in Germany: new professional status', in Observer, .. March 1936.
[1308] 'Nazis seek English ancestors to prove pure blood' in Natal Daily News (Durban),3 December 1938.
[1309] 'Horace Thorogood, '9,000,000 index items to find ancestry', in Evening Standard, 28 August 1945.
[1310] The Times, 14 August 1940.
[1311] The Times, 16 August 1940.
[1312] The Times, 19 August 1940; presumablythe solicitor Charles L. Nordon, of Croydon.
[1313] Obituary in GM, vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1955) 61.
[1314] GM, vol. 10, no. 10 (June 1949) 352.
[1315] GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 141.
[1316] GM, vol. 9, no. 11 (September 1944) 439.
[1317] GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 146.
[1318] A list of the Poll Books and Registers of Electors held had been published in GM, vol. 5, no. 3 (September 1929) 78-79; the 1939 list, Library of The Society of Genealogists: Poll Books (March 1939),followed the donation by Harry Anderson Pitman of fifty poll books; its insertion is noted at vol. 8, no. 5 (March 1939) 281.
[1319] GM, vol. 8, no. 5 (March 1939) 280.
[1320] GM, vol. 8, no. 6 (June 1939) 335.
[1321] GM, vol. 8, no. 5 (March 1939) 280.
[1322] GM, vol. 8, no. 7 (September 1939) 397 and 409.
[1323] GM, vol. 9, no. 10 (March 1944) 385.
[1324] GM, vol. 10, no. 7 (September 1948) v.
[1325] Percival Boyd to John B. Whitmore, 5 October 1948.
[1326] GM, vol. 11, no. 16 (December 1954) 547.
[1327] Executive Committee Minutes, February 1955.
[1328] GM, vol. 12, no. 3 (September 1955) 96.
[1329] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 398; he had joined the Society in 1920 and was elected a Fellow in 1929.
[1330] GM, vol. 12, no. 3 (September 1955) 99.
[1331] '100 years of Phillimore & Co' in Local History Magazine, no. 64 (November-December 1997) 12-16.
[1332] GM, vol. 7, no. 2 (June 1935) 78.
[1333] Obituary by R. F. Wilkinson in GM, vol. 10, no. 8 (December 1948) 268.
[1334] His encyclopaedic knowledge is acknowledged in W. E. Tate, The Parish Chest (1946) Preface.
[1335] GM, vol. 7, no. 4 (December 1935) 193.
[1336] Obituary in GM, vol. 12, no. 13 (March 1958) 449-50.
[1337] GM, vol. 7, no. 2 (June 1935) i.
[1338] GM, vol. 7, no. 3 (September 1935) v.
[1339] Marion J. Kaminkow, A new bibliography of British genealogy with notes (Baltimore, 1965); reviewed in GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) 255-57.
[1340] Cecil R. Humphery-Smith, A genealogist's bibliography (1977; Phillimore, 1985).
[1341] GM, vol. 7, no. 7 (December 1936) 426.
[1342] GM, vol. 7, no. 12 (December 1937) vii.
[1343] GM, vol. 8, no. 4 (December 1938) 222.
[1344] Obituary in The Times, 28 January 1939.
[1345] ‘A Somerset Dictionary Maker’, in Taunton Courier, 28 December 1932, 10.
[1346] Some details of its contents are given in Society of Genealogists: a century of family history (2011) 127-8.
[1347] C. A. Higgins, 'Fees for Searching Parish Registers', GM, vol. 11, no. 4 (December 1951) 144-145.
[1348] To one shilling and sixpence for the first, and nine pence for subsequent years.
[1349] For example the Rev J. H. Butcher at Duston Vicarage, Northamptonshire, charged all entries noted on a ‘certificate’ basis and asked a guinea for ‘facilities’ for every three hours or part thereof; Rev J. H. Butcher to Messrs Lambert & Raggett, genealogists, 16 January 1952.
[1350] For example F. H. L. Errington, Chancellor of the Diocese of Newcastle, to Mr Lazenby, 24 February 1926. See also 'Parish Registers: Fees for Searchers' in GM, vol. 7, no. 5 (March 1936) 248.
[1351] W. E. Tate, The Parish Chest (1983) 55.
[1352] F. G. Emmison, 'Our Parish Registers: their interest to the village teacher, historian and student' in Library List, no. 10 (September 1931) 8.
[1353] SoG AR 1992, 10.
[1354] GM, vol. 6, no. 12 (December 1934) 560.
[1355] SoG AR 1937, 2.
[1356] Obituary by Brian Fitzgerald-Moore in GM, vol. 18, no. 5 (March 1976) 258-59.
[1357] Principal Probate Registry, General Calendar of Grants; he died at 10 Marine Terrace, Barmouth, Merionethshire, 12 July 1928, probate being granted at Lichfield to Hubert Kendall Percy Smith, 19 September 1928.
[1358] Stephen Selby to Anthony Camp, 27 February 1992.
[1359] The National Archives, Divorce Court Files, J77/3484/6284 and J77/3517/7289 (she first petitioning for restitution of conjugal rights and then for divorce). The couple both appear in the Electoral Registers at 23 Thirlmere Road, Streatham, 1933-6, whilst he appears alone at 7 Eardley Crescent, Earls Court, 1929-35, and then with an unidentified Kate Smith at 134 Portsdown Road, Maida Vale, 1935, and at 90 Fordwych Road, Kilburn, 1937. He was alone there in 1938.
[1360] 1901 Census of Dunstall Hill, Wolverhampton, RG13/2678-26-43; his birth does not appear to have been registered.
[1361] SoG AR 1938, 1-2; SoG Income and Expenditure Account, 1938.
[1362] SoG AR 1938, 1-2, as ‘Byrd’.
[1363] SoG AR 1936, 2.
[1364] SoG AR 1937, 1.
[1365] It sold for 12s 6d and was remaindered at 6s in 1961; GM, vol. 13, no. 9 (March 1961) v.
[1366] The letter and Leader were printed in GM, vol. 8, no. 2 (June 1938) 80-83.
[1367] SoG AR 1938, 2.
[1368] K. Blomfield, Memorandum for the Executive Committee, 16 March 1938.
[1369] GM, vol. 9, no. 4 (March 1941) 129.
[1370] Executive Committee Minutes, 16 March 1938.
[1371] Executive Committee Minutes, 18 May 1938.
[1372] GM, vol. 8, no. 2 (June 1938) 82.
[1373] GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 141.
[1374] Executive Committee Minutes, 20 July 1938. The grant was announced in GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1938) 147.
[1375] SoG AR 1938, 1.
[1376] Report of the Fact-Finding Sub-Committee set up 11 February 1953.
[1377] GM, vol. 8, no. 6 (June 1939) 336.
[1378] GM, vol. 8, no. 7 (September 1939) 393.
[1379] SoG AR 1939, 1-2.
[1380] GM, vol. 8, no. 4 (December 1938) 222-23.
[1381] ‘Pedigree wanted’, in Picture Post London, 18 February 1939, 36-38.
[1382] Evening Standard, 10 July 1939; Northampton Echo, 11 July 1939; Dundee Evening Telegraph, 15 July 1939.
[1383] ‘Smith by any other spelling’, in News Chronicle, 28 June 1939.
[1384] SoG AR 1941, 1.
[1385] The Daily Telegraph, 5 June 1940.
[1386] ‘Smith by any other spelling’, in News Chronicle, 28 June 1939; ‘Your Pedigree’, in Tit Bits, 9 September 1939; cost of binding in SoG AR 1939, 3.
[1387] GM, vol. 8, no. 7 (September 1939) 388-91.
[1388] 'A. R. P. and record preservation' in Liverpool Post, 17 August 1939.
[1389] The News Chronicle, 27 January 1950.
[1390] James B. Allen, Jessie L. Embry and Kahlile B. Mehr, Hearts turned to the fathers: a history of the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1894-1994 (Provo: Brigham Young University, 1995) chapter 6, 'Gathering the records'.
[1391] H. K. Percy-Smith to K. Blomfield, 3 & 4 September 1939.
[1392] K. Blomfield to H. K. Percy-Smith, 13 September 1939.
[1393] Minutes of the Executive Committee, 11 July 1940.
[1394] Report of the Fact-Finding Sub-Committee set up 11 February 1953.
[1395] Eastern Daily Press, 30 July 1940.
[1396] GM, vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1940) 83, and 'Parish Registers in War Time', 89.
[1397] SoG AR 1940, 2.
[1398] GM, vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1940) 90.
[1399] Minutes of Executive Committee, 1 March 1941.
[1400] Minutes of Executive Committee, 1 March 1941,
[1401] Kathleen Blomfield, 'Micro-Photography of Parish Registers', in GM, vol. 9, no. 4 (March 1941) 126-27.
[1402] Its letterhead called it the 'Committee for Micro-Filming Parish Registers'.
[1403] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 193.
[1404] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 178. If so, there had been a rapid increase; Bethell Bouwens had told the Annual Meeting on 24 April that 57 had been received in the last year (page 176).
[1405] Minutes of Executive Committee, 23 April 1942.
[1406] GM, vol. 9, no. 6 (March 1942) 238.
[1407] Minutes of Executive Committee, 25 November 1942.
[1408] Report of the Fact-Finding Sub-Committee set up 11 February 1953.
[1409] GM, vol. 9, no. 8 (March 1943) 305-7.
[1410] GM, vol. 9, no. 9 (September 1943) 354. See his obituary by Wilfred Samuel in GM, vol. 11, no. 2 (June 1951) 66-67.
[1411] GM, vol. 9, no. 11 (September 1944) 445-47.
[1412] Western Morning News, 30 March 1943; The Post and Weekly News, 3 April 1943.
[1413] ‘Use of Libraries’, in The Times, 13 September 1939.
[1414] SoG AR 1939, 2.
[1415] GM, vol. 8, no. 8 (December 1939) 417.
[1416] GM, vol. 9, no. 6 (March 1942) 238.
[1417] GM, vol. 8, no. 5 (March 1939) 282.
[1418] GM, vol. 8, no. 8 (December 1939) 418.
[1419] GM, vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1940) 96.
[1420] SoG AR 1939, 2.
[1421] George Sherwood to H. K. Percy-Smith, 1 August 1940.
[1422] SoG AR 1940, 2; the lectures were on the ancestry of John, 1st Earl of Bedford, and on Gretna Green Marriages.
[1423] GM, vol. 9, no. 1 (March 1940) 14
[1424] SoG AR 1940, 1.
[1425] GM, vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1940) 94.
[1426] GM, vol. 9, no. 2 (June 1940) 58. In 1948 members were causing problems by parking within the gates; GM, vol. 10, no. 5 (March 1948) 147.
[1427] GM, vol. 9, no. 4 (March 1941) 136.
[1428] GM, vol. 9, no. 7 (September 1942) 257.
[1429] GM, vol. 9, no. 4 (March 1941) 133.
[1430] SoG AR 1945, 1.
[1431] GM, vol. 9, no. 15 (September 1946) 18 and 24.
[1432] GM, vol. 9, no. 10 (March 1944) 402, and vol. 10, no. 3 (September 1947) 76.
[1433] She is described as his niece in SoG AR 1968 1.
[1434] GM, vol. 8, no. 7 (September 1939) 393, and vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1947) 17.
[1435] SoG AR 1939, 2.
[1436] GM, vol. 8, no. 8 (December 1939) 431.
[1437] SoG AR 1939, 2.
[1438] George Sherwood to H. K. Percy-Smith, 1 August 1940.
[1439] GM, vol. 8, no. 8 (December 1939) 418.
[1440] George Sherwood to H. K. Percy-Smith, 1 August 1940.
[1441] GM, vol. 8, no. 3 (September 1940) 88, and vol. 9, no. 4 (March 1941) 139-41.
[1442] GM, vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1940) 90-91 and 95.
[1443] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 176.
[1444] George Sherwood to H. K. Percy-Smith, 1 August 1940.
[1445] Obituary by Kathleen Blomfield in GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 193.
[1446] Quarterly Queries, September 1917, 5, and Membership List, 1919.
[1447] e.g. GM, vol. 6, no. 10 (June 1934) ii.
[1448] George Sherwood, The sources of family history: 3, leaflet inserted in GM, September 1930.
[1449] The material collected, with the two books and his cash accounts for them, is on Family History Library microfilm 402,920.
[1450] GM, vol. 6, no. 12 (December 1934) iii.
[1451] George Sherwood, Irish Family History Catalogue (1936) Item 46.
[1452] GM, vol. 7, no. 4 (December 1935) ii, and no. 6 (June 1936) ii.
[1453] Advertisements in GM [vol. 8, no. 1 (March 1938) viii].
[1454] TPR, vol. 2, no. 17 (June 1911) 157.
[1455] Simon Fowler, 'Paying for a past with pedigree', in BBC History Magazine, vol. 2, no. 9 (September 2001) 41.
[1456] The National Archives, J77/2295/1888.
[1457] GM, vol. 1, no. 4 (December 1925) 123 (as Mrs Mary Ethel McIntyre); GM, vol. 5, no. 4 (December 1929) 124.
[1458] Casper L. Redfield, The Dynamics of Evolution (1916) summarised in TPR, vol. 3, no. 36 (March 1916) 381-2.
[1459] TPR, vol. 3, no. 36 (March 1916) 382.
[1460] Circulated with the March 1940 issue of GM.
[1461] George Sherwood to J. B. Whitmore, 31 December 1940.
[1462] GM, vol. 9, no. 4 (March 1941) 134.
[1463] Anthony Camp to Robert E. F. Garrett, 22 April 1963.
[1464] Lilian J. Redstone, 'The saving of records in wartime', in GM, vol. 9, no. 14 (March 1946) 525-29.
[1465] George Sherwood, Credentials (March 1940) 2.
[1466] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 176.
[1467] GM, vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1940) 100.
[1468] Kathleen Blomfield to H. K. Percy-Smith, 1 October 1942; also H. K. Percy-Smith to Cregoe Nicholson, 28 September 1955.
[1469] Juliet Gardiner, The Blitz (2010) 332.
[1470] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 176
[1471] Electoral Registers, 1934 (at number 29) to 1939 (at number 19).
[1472] The Australian Genealogist (1941) 229-30.
[1473] SoG AR 1941, 2.
[1474] W. A. Munford, A history of the Library Association 1877-1977 (1976) 227-28.
[1475] Laurence Ward, The London County Council bomb damage maps 1939-1945 (2015) map 49, page 79.
[1476] Cyril Hankinson, My forty years with Debrett (1963) 29-30; obituary Daily Telegraph, 5 October 1984.
[1477] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 196.
[1478] GM, vol. 8, no. 4 (December 1938) 223. His executors gave a large collection of books including further Poll Books to the Society in 1942; GM, vol. 9, no. 6 (March 1942) 237 and 251.
[1479] GM, vol. 9, no. 6 (March 1942) 249.
[1480] GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) 508. Mr Harrison's initials are incorrectly given as G. H. in the List of Members 1936. He was the last surviving son of Edward Francis Harrison (1829-1887),Bengal Civil Service, and married Marjorie Frances Delves-Broughton (died 1946) in 1905; his death noted in The Times, 12 August 1949.
[1481] Marquis de Ruvigny, The nobilities of Europe (1910) 273.
[1482] GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) 508-9.
[1483] A. R. Wagner, The records and collections of the College of Arms (1952) 53.
[1484] London Survey Committee, The College of Arms (1963) 26-28.
[1485] GM, vol. 10, no. 6 (June 1948) 178.
[1486] SoG AR 1941, 1.
[1487] SoG AR 1942, 1.
[1488] GM, vol. 9, no. 6 (March 1942) iii.
[1489] He wrote to J. B. Whitmore, 3 January 1940, from Yeoford, Devon, that ‘16 windows became paneless and 3 or 4 ceilings came down’ in his house at 176 Worple Road, Wimbledon.
[1490] SoG AR 1941, 2.
[1491] GM, vol. 9, no. 6 (March 1942) 236-37. James Reginald Morshead Glencross, MA, LLB, was killed in a road accident in June 1944; GM, vol. 9, no. 11 (September 1944) 444.
[1492] In 1913 local enthusiasts put up a headstone to him at Satley which incorrectly gives his date of birth as 1862. He was born at Woolley Close, by Brancepeth, 14 April 1867 and died at 1 Newbiggin Road, Lanchester, from Holly Cottage, Satley, 20 March 1942 (and not in 1943 as sometimes stated); he had married Mary Heaviside in 1916.
[1493] Unsigned obituary in GM, vol. 9, no. 8 (March 1943) 317.
[1494] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 176. She died unmarried at Bognor Regis in 1984.
[1495] George Sherwood to H. K. Percy-Smith, 1 August 1940.
[1496] Cyril Hankinson, My forty years with Debrett (1963) 30.
[1497] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 176-77.
[1498] GM, vol. 9, no. 5 (September 1941) 178.
[1499] SoG AR 1941, 2.
[1500] GM, vol. 9, no. 6 (March 1942) 222.
[1501] GM, vol. 9, no. 8 (March 1943) 312.
[1502] GM, vol. 9, no. 10 (March 1944) 392.
[1503] GM, vol. 9, no. 12 (March 1945) 477.
[1504] GM, vol. 9, no. 14 (March 1946) 539.
[1505] GM, vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1947) 12.
[1506] SoG AR 1941, 2; GM, vol. 9, no. 7 (September 1942) 273.
[1507] SoG AR 1942, 2.
[1508] The GRO indexes show that Rita K. Drenon was born at Barnet in 1928 and married at Hendon in 1955.
[1509] Obituary in GM, vol. 12, no. 9 (March 1957) 311-12.
[1510] GM, vol. 9, no. 7 (September 1942) 273.
[1511] GM, vol. 9, no. 8 (March 1943) 319.
[1512] GM, vol. 9, no. 9 (September 1943) 361 and 364.
[1513] GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) 509.
[1514] GM, vol. 9, no. 15 (September 1946) 24.
[1515] GM, vol. 10, no. 3 (September 1947) 72.
[1516] ‘Look before you waste’, in Radio Times, 7 November 1939.
[1517] Kathleen Blomfield, ‘The British Records Association’, in GM, vol. 9, no. 8 (March 1943) 299-301.
[1518] GM, vol. 10, no. 3 (September 1947) 77.
[1519] GM, vol. 10, no. 5 (March 1948) 148.
[1520] GM, vol. 13, no. 2 (June 1959) 33.
[1521] Observer (London),17 March 1936.
[1522] SoG AR 1943, 1-2.
[1523] Kathleen Blomfield, 'Retrospect and Prospect: the Society and its work', in GM, vol. 9, no. 10 (March 1944) 395-98.
[1524] SoG AR 1944, 1.
[1525] GM, vol. 9, no. 11 (September 1944) 438.
[1526] GM, vol. 9, no. 11 (September 1944) 448-49.
[1527] SoG AR 1944, 1.
[1528] SoG AR 1944, 1-2.
[1529] 'Scots Ancestry Research', in The Scotsman, 17 March 1945, quoted in GM, vol. 9, no. 12 (March 1945) 478-79.
[1530] Gerald Hamilton-Edwards, In search of Scottish ancestry (1972) 170.
[1531] GM, vol. 9, no. 12 (March 1945) 486-89.
[1532] SoG AR 1944, 1.
[1533] GM, vol. 10, no. 15 (September 1950) 581.
[1534] GM, vol. 11, no. 16 (December 1954) 555.
[1535] GM, vol. 8, no. 1 (March 1938) 34.
[1536] GM, vol. 8, no. 7 (September 1939) 398.
[1537] GM, vol. 10, no. 12 (December 1949) iv. She became a Member in 1947, was elected a Fellow in 1955, and died in 1982. She was the sister-in-law of the Honorary Treasurer, Sir William Elderton.
[1538] 'Searches in the Society's Library and Collections', paper inserted in GM for March 1944.
[1539] SoG AR 1945, 2.
[1540] GM, vol. 10, no. 5 (March 1948) 147 and vi.
[1541] ‘Searches for Members in the Society’s Library’, leaflet inserted in Magazine, 1951.
[1542] GM, vol. 11, no. 2 (June 1951) ii.
[1543] SoG AR 1945, 1.
[1544] GM, vol. 9, no. 2 (June 1940) 54.
[1545] GM, vol. 9, no. 3 (September 1940) 89.
[1546] GM, vol. 9, no. 11 (September 1944) 439.
[1547] SoG AR 1945, 2; GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) 508.
[1548] GM, vol. 9, no. 14 (March 1946) 542-43. The appeal was renewed at the AGM in June 1946; GM, vol. 9, no. 15 (September 1946) 24,
[1549] GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) 511.
[1550] SoG AR 1941, 1.
[1551] SoG AR 1945, 2.
[1552] Guy Morgan, 'You can change your name for about £3', in Strand Magazine, September 1946, 38.
[1553] SoG AR 1946, 2.
[1554] SoG AR 1945, 1; GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) 511. Other volumes that he brought with him are listed on 515-16 and 552-53.
[1555] GM, vol. 11, no. 12 (December 1953) 420.
[1556] GM, vol. 10, no. 9 (March 1949) 317.
[1557] ‘Whose library?’ in Daily Telegraph, 31 May 1955; ‘Breaking up a library: claims to India records”, in Daily Telegraph, 1 June 1955.
[1558] SoG AR 1949, 2.
[1559] Walter Hayes, 'The Smiths went to India ... and now their having difficulty in finding their way home', in Daily Graphic, 5 July 1949.
[1560] 'Tracing their ancestry' in Evening Standard, 19 August 1949; 'Anglo Indians must choose their nation', in Evening Standard, 1949.
[1561] SoG AR 1951, 1.
[1562] GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) 508.
[1563] SoG AR 1946, 2; SoG Income and Expenditure Account, 1947.
[1564] SoG AR 1946, 2; SoG Income and Expenditure Account, 1947.
[1565] SoG AR 1946, 1.
[1566] SoG AR 1946, 1-2.
[1567] St John's Evening Telegram (Newfoundland),8 December 1947.
[1568] The Spectator, 14 and 21 January (? 1948).
[1569] The Sketch, 31 March 1948, 172.
[1570] GM, vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1947) 18.
[1571] GM, vol. 10, no. 3 (September 1947) 73.
[1572] SoG AR 1947, 2.
[1573] SoG AR 1947, 1-2.
[1574] GM, vol. 10, no. 3 (September 1947) 73.
[1575] SoG AR 1948, 1.
[1576] SoG AR 1949, 1.
[1577] GM, vol. 10, no. 11 (September 1949) 410.
[1578] GM, vol. 10, no. 8 (December 1948) 268.
[1579] SoG AR 1947, 2.
[1580] GM, vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1947) 14.
[1581] H. S. Pocock, 'Five Generations', in GM, vol. 9, no. 15 (September 1946) 19-21.
[1582] J. N. Deacon, 'Twelve Generations', in GM, vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1947) 7-10.
[1583] Gerald Hamilton-Edwards, 'Six Generations', in GM, vol. 10, no. 5 (March 1948) 141-44.
[1584] Obituary by Alan Rolfe in GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 149. A well known actor and professional genealogist, he became a Member in 1929 and was elected a Fellow in 1969, having been a member of the Executive Committee, 1965-69.
[1585] Erik Chitty, 'Nine Generations', in GM, vol. 10, no. 6 (June 1948) 186.
[1586] Gerald Hamilton-Edwards, 'The Physical Side of Genealogy', in GM, vol. 10, no. 7 (September 1948) 225-29. The use of spring-back binders instead of index slips was recommended by G. H. Shelswell-White in GM, vol. 10, no. 8 (December 1948) 269.
[1587] GM, vol. 11, no. 7 (September 1952) 251 and 253. Obituary by Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 279; obituary in The Times, 16 August 1972.
[1588] GM, vol. 11, no. 13 (March 1954) 449.
[1589] Secretary (Mrs Blomfield) to P. J. Ryves Harding, 30 May 1947.
[1590] GM, vol. 11, no. 7 (September 1952) 252.
[1591] GM, vol. 10, no. 8 (December 1948) 266; SoG AR 1948, 2.
[1592] GM, vol. 11, no. 14 (June 1954) 485, and no. 15 (September 1954) 510; Bernau, as mentioned, claimed to have done 1721 but may have employed Winstanley.
[1593] James B. Allen, &c., op. cit. (1995) 223.
[1594] James B. Allen, &c., op. cit. (1995) 251.
[1595] James B. Allen, &c., op. cit. (1995) 251.
[1596] Norwich Diocesan Gazette, June 1949.
[1597] Canterbury Diocesan Notes, November 1949.
[1598] 'No one must film church registers' in Evening Standard (London),4 November 1949.
[1599] GM, vol. 10, no. 12 (December 1949) 456.
[1600] SoG AR 1947, 1 and 3.
[1601] SoG AR 1946, 1.
[1602] SoG AR 1948, 2.
[1603] SoG AR 1949, 1.
[1604] GM, vol. 10, no. 15 (September 1950) 576.
[1605] Obituary in GM, vol. 13, no. 11 (September 1961) 356. He was a professional genealogist, specialising in Devon and Cornwall, and latterly a partner in Phillimore & Co Ltd. A member from 1933 he was elected a Fellow in 1952. Much liked by the staff of the Society. A recent widower he committed suicide at his home in Chelsea, 19 April 1961.
[1606] GM, vol. 10, no. 15 (September 1950) 578; obituary by Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 23, no 7 (September 1990) 265; she had died on 1 November 1989, aged 95.
[1607] GM, vol. 11, no. 1 (March 1951) 21.
[1608 GM, vol. 10, no. 15 (September 1950) 578.
[1609] SoG AR 1950, 1.
[1610] GM, vol. 11, no. 2 (June 1951) 66.
[1611] Obituaries in GM, vol. 13, no. 1 (March 1959) 16-17, and The Times, 15 December 1958. He had joined the Society in 1937, was on the Executive Committee from 1946 until his death, and elected a Fellow in 1948. He bequeathed the Society £25.
[1612] GM, vol. 11, no. 3 (September 1951) 106.
[1613] Obituary by Cregoe Nicholson in GM, vol. 14, no. 4 (December 1962) 4-5.
[1614] GM, vol. 11, no. 4 (December 1951) 146-47.
[1615] The Times, 31 March 1952, 2e.
[1616] Report of the Fact-Finding Sub-Committee set up 11 February 1953.
[1617] Kendall Percy-Smith to Anthony Camp, 31 January 1975.
[1618] His will dated 20 April 1965 proved at Winchester, 7 August 1975.
[1619] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 4,
[1620] GM, vol. 10, no. 14 (June 1950) 539.
[1621] Obituary by Cecil Humphery-Smith in GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1963) 155-56. Gale had originally joined the Society in 1924 but resigned in 1927, re-joining in 1933. He was elected a Fellow in 1955.
[1622] SoG AR 1959, 2.
[1623] SoG AR 1962, 2.
[1624] GM, vol. 10, no. 16 (December 1950) 605.
[1625] GM, vol. 11, no. 13 (March 1954) ii.
[1626] She was elected a Fellow in 1969, but resigned her membership in 1975, taking the surname Pridal the following year; she married at Worthing in 1985 and (as Mrs Please) died there in 1996.
[1627] SoG AR 1950, 2.
[1628] H. K. Percy-Smith to V. W. B. Church, 15 February 1954.
[1629] H. K. Percy-Smith, ‘The headquarters of genealogy in Britain’, in The Amateur Historian, Dec.-Jan. 1953
[1630] SoG AR 1950, 1.
[1631] GM, vol. 11, no. 1 (March 1951) 21.
[1632] GM, vol. 11, no. 3 (September 1951) 104.
[1633] Munford (1976) 273-4.
[1634] The Times, 15 June 1951.
[1635] GM, vol. 11, no. 3 (September 1951) 103-4.
[1636] GM, vol. 11, no. 7 (September 1952) 253; The Times, 9 May 1952.
[1637] GM, vol. 11, no. 11 (September 1953) 386.
[1638] GM, vol. 11, no. 14 (June 1954) 482.
[1639] Obituary by Anthony Wagner in GM, vol. 13, no. 7 (September 1960) 217-18.
[1640] GM, vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 513-14.
[1641] SoG AR 1953, 2.
[1642] Obituaries in GM, vol. 13, no. 1 (March 1959) 17, and The Times, 21 January 1959.
[1643] GM, vol. 11, no. 11 (September 1953) 386.
[1644] GM, vol. 11, no. 13 (March 1954) 450.
[1645] SoG AR 1954, 2.
[1646] SoG AR 1956, 2.
[1647] SoG AR 1957, 2.
[1648] SoG AR 1958, 2; GM, vol. 12, no. 13 (March 1958) 448.
[1649] SoG AR 1959, 2.
[1650] SoG AR 1960, 2.
[1651] SoG AR 1963, 2.
[1652] Insert in June 1965 Magazine.
[1653] SoG AR 1967, 2.
[1654] SoG AR 1968, 2.
[1655] SoG AR 1969, 3.
[1656] SoG AR 1970, 2.
[1657] SoG AR 1971, 3.
[1658] SoG AR 1950, 2.
[1659] The Society of Genealogists: Searches for Members in the Society's Library (1951).
[1660] Ann Temple's Column, 'Family Trees', in Daily Mail, 14 August 1952.
[1661] SoG AR 1951, 1.
[1662] GM, vol. 11, no. 7 (September 1952) 250; SoG AR 1951, 1.
[1663] James Leasor, ‘Name Your Past’, in Daily Express, 17 October 1952.
[1664] SoG AR 1953, 1.
[1665] Gerald Hamilton-Edwards, 'Civil and Parish Registration in Scotland', in GM, vol. 11, no. 1 (March 1951) 1-11.
[1666] GM, vol. 11, no. 4 (December 1951) 146.
[1667] SoG AR 1960, 2.
[1668] GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) 265.
[1669] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 355; GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 125; GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 350.
[1670] SoG AR 1974, 1; GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 32.
[1671] M. F. Lloyd Prichard, 'The Genealogy of the Poor', in GM, vol. 11, no. 3 (September 1951) 97-101. She was born in 1905. She wrote An economic history of New Zealand in 1939 and edited the works of Edward Gibbon Wakefield in 1968; she was a Labour candidate at the Cambridge City Elections in 1956 and for Newcastle upon Tyne in 1958; see ‘News in Brief; Prospective Candidate’ in The Times, 1 February 1958, page 3.
[1672] Obituary in GM, vol. 12, no. 5 (March 1956) 168.
[1673] Partridge’s article, ‘Suffolk’s “Stone Parish Registers”’ had appeared in GM, vol. 5, no. 12 (December 1931) 409-10.
[1674] GM, vol. 11, no. 3 (September 1951) 108-9.
[1675] SoG AR 1951, 1.
[1676] GM, vol. 11, no. 7 (September 1952) 251.
[1677] GM, vol. 11, no 7 (September 1952) 254. He described progress in GM, vol. 12, no. 13 (March 1958) 443-46.
[1678] H. J. W. Stone, 'A comprehensive plan for copying churchyard inscriptions', in GM, vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1955) 54-55.
[1679] T. V. H. FitzHugh, How to write a family history (1988),7-9; see also Alan Crosby in The Local Historian, vol. 42, no. 3 (August 2012) 178-9.
[1680] SoG AR 1952, 2; SoG AR 1953, 2.
[1681] GM, vol. 11, no. 8 (December 1952) 283.
[1682] SoG AR 1953, 2.
[1683] GM, vol. 11, no. 9 (March 1953) 325-26.
[1684] ‘Searching registers’, in Church Times, 24 September 1954, 720.
[1685] C. Harold Ridge, 'Scientific Genealogy', in GM, vol. 11, no. 4 (December 1951) 137-40.
[1686] H. L. White, 'More Scientific Genealogy', in GM, vol. 11, no. 5 (March 1952) 173-76.
[1687] GM, vol. 15, no. 13 (March 1968) 517.
[1688] GM, vol. 15, no. 14 (June 1968) 600-1, and vol. 16, no. 1 (March 1969) 8-10.
[1689] Cregoe D. P. Nicholson to J. B. Whitmore, 9 December 1949.
[1690] George Sherwood to J. B. Whitmore, 1950.
[1691] H. Guy Harrison to J. B. Whitmore, 1 June 1949.
[1692] GM, vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1955) 67-68.
[1693] GM, vol. 11, no. 4 (December 1951) 146.
[1694] GM, vol. 11, no. 3 (September 1951) 118-9.
[1695] P. A. M. Taylor, 'Passenger Lists as an Historical Source', in GM, vol. 12, no. 6 (June 1956) 197-200.
[1696] GM, vol. 11, no. 4 (December 1951) 147, no. 7 (September 1952) 251, and no. 8 (December 1952) 281.
[1697] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 6 (June 1963),Official Section, 4.
[1698] Donovan Dawe, 'London Business House Histories', in GM, vol. 11, no. 6 (June 1952) 201-7, and no. 7 (September 1952) 235-41.
[1699] Edgar R. Samuel, 'Jewish Ancestors and Where to Find Them', in GM, vol. 11, no. 12 (December 1953) 412-14,
[1700] GM, vol. 12, no. 5 (March 1956) 149-54, and no. 6 (June 1956) 185-88.
[1701] GM, vol. 12, no. 4 (December 1955) 128.
[1702] Michael Newmarch, ‘Pedigrees Curtailed', in The Sun (Baltimore),7 December 1952.
[1703] Obituary in Daily Telegraph, 20 May 1987; see also his son Richard Pine's letter, 'An unfair obituary', in Daily Telegraph, 4 June 1987. As Editor of Burke, 1946-60, L. G. Pine was responsible for four editions of the Peerage (1949, 1953, 1956 and 1959),the important 17th edition of the Landed Gentry (1952) and for the 4th edition of the Landed Gentry of Ireland (1958).
[1704] ‘Law of Succession to the Crown’, in The Times, 27 May 1953, page 8.
[1705] GM, vol. 11, no. 5 (March 1952) 183; 'Decline of the Landed Gentry: an editor's regrets', in The Times, 10 April 1952.
[1706] Obituary by Cregoe Nicholson in GM, vol. 14, no. 3 (September 1962),Official Section, 7-8.
[1707] GM, vol. 11, no. 10 (June 1953) 354.
[1708] GM, vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 521.
[1709] ‘Of Norman descent’, in The Times Literary Supplement, 2 July 1954.
[1710] James Leasor, 'The blue-bloods lose the Battle of Hastings, 1954: that Norman ancestor is mainly a myth', in Express, 14 February 1954.
[1711] Anthony Wagner, 'de Merck and de Marris', in GM, vol. 11, no. 14 (June 1954) 467-69; also Brigadier B. C. Trappes-Lomax, 'De Merk and De Marris', in GM, vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 544-46; L. G. Pine's reply is in the latter Magazine 548-49, and a further note in vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1955) 67.
[1712] GM, vol. 12, no. 1 (March 1955) 26.
[1713] GM, vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1955) 64-65.
[1714] Anthony Wagner's review in GM, vol. 12, no. 6 (June 1956) 206-7, answered by L. G. Pine in vol. 12, no. 7 (September 1956) 237.
[1715] GM, vol. 12, no. 12 (December 1957) 421. Peter Spufford subsequently reviewed the 4th edition slightly more kindly but as 'still weak on how to find things out' in vol. 18, no. 14 (December 1975) 205-6.
[1716] Chelmsford Chronicle, 19 July 1889, page 5 ; Essex Standard, 20 July 1889, page 5.
[1717] The Essex Chronicle, 8 June 1928, page 5.
[1718] The Times, ‘Manorial Lordships for sale’, 14 September 1954, page 4, and ‘The Honour of Beaumont’, page 9.
[1719] The Times, ‘History under the hammer’, 4 November 1954, page 2
[1720] The Times, 28 October 1955, page 5.
[1721] The Times, 27 July 1966, page 1.
[1722] The Times, 30 September 1964, page 12.
[1723] The Times, ‘Regulating the sale of lordships’, 10 May 1977, page 9, and 21 June 1977, page 4.
[1724] Munford, op. cit. (1976) 287.
[1725] SoG AR 1948, 4.
[1726] GM, vol. 10, no. 8 (December 1948) 266.
[1727] GM, vol. 10, no. 11 (September 1949) 410.
[1728] GM, vol. 10, no. 11 (September 1949) 419.
[1729] SoG AR 1948, 2.
[1730] SoG AR 1947, 2.
[1731] GM, vol. 10, no. 7 (September 1948) 230.
[1732] GM, vol. 10, no. 11 (September 1949) 419.
[1733] GM, vol. 10, no. 12 (December 1949) 454.
[1734] SoG AR 1949, 1.
[1735] Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert, eds, The London Encyclopaedia (1992) 123.
[1736] GM, vol. 10, no. 13 (March 1950) 494.
[1737] SoG AR 1949, 1.
[1738] George Sherwood to John Beach Whitmore, 8 December 1949.
[1739] Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert, eds, The London Encyclopaedia (1992) 123.
[1740] SoG AR 1950, 2.
[1741] GM, vol. 10, no. 15 (September 1950) 577.
[1742] GM, vol. 11, no. 1 (March 1951) 20-21.
[1743] SoG Balance Sheet, 31 December 1951.
[1744] GM, vol. 11, no. 3 (September 1951) 105.
[1745] SoG AR 1951, 2.
[1746] Obituary in GM, vol. 13, no. 5 (March 1960) 155-56. Descended from the family of Robert Catesby, the Guy Fawkes conspirator, he was elected a Fellow in 1955 and died 10 March 1960.
[1747] GM, vol. 11, no. 7 (September 1952) 250-51.
[1748] SoG AR 1952, 1.
[1749] SoG, Balance Sheet, 31 December 1952.
[1750] Messrs. Knight, Frank & Rutley had conducted a sale of the contents for Mrs Vaughan Morgan on the premises on 1 July 1952 [The Times, 17 June 1952, 12f].
[1751] GM, vol. 13, no. 11 (September 1961) 356.
[1752] George Sherwood to John Beach Whitmore, 21 May 1953.
[1753] GM, vol. 11, no 11 (September 1953) 383-85.
[1754] SoG AR 1953, 1.
[1755] GM, vol. 11, no. 13 (March 1954) 451.
[1756] GM, vol. 11, no. 16 (December 1954) 547. Sir William Palin Elderton (1877-1962) had joined the Society in 1939, was elected to the Executive Committee in 1949, and was Honorary Treasurer from 1951. He was married to Enid the sister of Miss Freda Podmore, a Research Assistant at the Society from 1938 to 1950 (she died in 1982). See his obituaries in The Times, 7 April 1962, and in GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962),Official Section, 6.
[1757] Cregoe Nicholson to Anthony Camp, 8 April 1962.
[1758] Society of Genealogists: Change of Address.
[1759] ‘New home for genealogists: removal to South Kensington’, in The Times, 28 June 1954, 5.
[1760] SoG AR 1954, 1-2; SoG, Income and Expenditure Account, 31 December 1954.
[1761] GM, vol. 11, no. 14 (June 1954) 482, and vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 510-11.
[1762] GM, vol. 10, no. 7 (September 1948) 231.
[1763] Obituary by Gerald Hamilton-Edwards and Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 28. He had joined the Society in 1933, was elected to the Executive Committee in 1954, and was particularly active on the Finance Committee 1954-67, as Treasurer in 1960-61 launching the Golden Jubilee Appeal Fund. He was elected a Fellow in 1955 and a Vice-President in 1964. The fine upholstered committee chairs that he presented in 1977 and which were re-covered by Peter Dudgeon in February 1980 were sold by Michael McEvoy when Finance Officer.
[1764] Advertisements in GM, June 1934 to March 1935.
[1765] Horace Joseph William Stone, known as 'John', a keen archaeologist and particular friend of Nicholson's, had joined the Society in 1937, was a member of the Executive Committee from 1947, and elected a Fellow in 1948. He lectured with Beach Whitmore on ‘The making of a school register’ in 1949. He died suddenly on 11 November 1956, aged 48, leaving a widow and two children; obituary in GM, vol. 12, no. 9 (March 1957) 312; also Essex Chronicle, 23 November 1956.
[1766] Society of Genealogists: Chairman’s Appeal, February 1954.
[1767] GM, vol. 11, no. 14 (June 1954) 469; The Times, 28 June 1954, 5. The fund had reached £770 in September 1954; vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 514. By the end of the year it was £793; SoG AR 1954, 1.
[1768] GM, vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 511.
[1769] GM, vol. 11, no. 11 (September 1953) 384.
[1770] GM, vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 512.
[1771] 'The work of Ernest George and Peto in Harrington and Collingham Gardens', in Survey of London, Volume XLII, Southern Kensington: Kensington Square to Earl's Court (Greater London Council, 1986),184-95.
[1772] Obituary by Cregoe Nicholson in GM, vol. 13, no. 11 (September 1961) 357.
[1773] GM, vol. 12, no. 1 (March 1955) 19.
[1774] GM, vol. 11, no 16 (December 1954) 547.
[1775] GM, vol. 12, no. 1 (March 1955) 10; the AR, 2, says that he assisted to the end of March.
[1776] SoG AR 1955, 2.
[1777] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 28.
[1778] SoG AR 1955, 1, and AR 1956, 1.
[1779] SoG AR 1956, 1.
[1780] SoG AR 1957, 1.
[1781] SoG AR 1958, 2.
[1782] SoG AR 1959, 1.
[1783] GM, vol. 12, no. 3 (September 1955) iv and 96.
[1784] Obituary in Daily Telegraph, 12 May 1987.
[1785] GM, vol. 12, no. 1 (March 1955) 10.
[1786] GM, vol. 10, no. 5 (March 1948) 141.
[1787] SoG AR 1954, 2.
[1788] Obituary in GM, vol. 15, no. 2 (June 1965) 85-86. She had joined the Society in 1925 and was elected a Fellow in 1955. She was a founder member of the Society of Scribes and Illuminators. She wrote the W. V. S. Roll of Honour in Westminster Abbey.
[1789] GM, vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1955) 59.
[1790] GM, vol. 9, no. 13 (September 1945) iii. Later he advertised 'Ancestry traced - Informative, educative, sincere' [GM, vol. 11, no. 9 (March 1953) iii].
[1791] GM, vol. 10, no. 3 (September 1947) 73-74.
[1792] GM, vol. 11, no. 3 (September 1951) 105.
[1793] George Sherwood, This is Genealogy (Brockley, September 1949).
[1794] GM, vol. 5, no. 12 (December 1931) 398-400.
[1795] TPR, vol. 3, no. 34 (September 1915) 315 and 317.
[1796] SoG AR 1952, 2.
[1797] GM, vol. 11, no. 13 (March 1954) iii.
[1798] SoG AR 1956, 2.
[1799] GM, vol. 12, no. 11 (September 1957) 365.
[1800] GM, vol. 12, no. 13 (March 1958) 446.
[1801] Obituary by Cregoe Nicholson in GM, vol. 12, no. 14 (June 1958) 465; SoG AR 1958, 1.
[1802] Obituary by Jack Bird in GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 670-72.
[1803] Advertisements in GM, March 1934 to March 1942 when he vacated his office and his chambers at 30 Holborn owing to the War and moved to 51 Jersey Road, Hounslow.
[1804] K.S. Painter, 'The Lullingstone wall-plaster: an aspect of Christianity in Roman Britain' in The British Museum Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 3/4 (Spring 1969) 131-50. The plaster had been given to the British Museum in 1967.
[1805] Viscount Mersey, President, speaking at the AGM 1955, GM, vol. 12, no. 3 (September 1955) 94.
[1806] GM, vol. 11, no. 14 (June 1954) 481.
[1807] SoG AR 1955, 2.
[1808] SoG AR 1956, 2.
[1809] V. W. B. Church to R. G. Swann, 23 September 1954.
[1810] SoG AR 1955, 1.
[1811] R. G. Swann to C. D. P. Nicholson, 14 June 1955.
[1812] R. G. Swann to C. D. P. Nicholson, 27 July 1955 and 10 September 1955.
[1813] GM, vol. 12, no. 8 (December 1956) 265.
[1814] SoG AR 1955, 1.
[1815] Minutes of Executive Committee, July 1955.
[1816] Minutes of Executive Committee, October 1955.
[1817] GM, vol. 12, no. 4 (December 1955) 128.
[1818] C. D. P. Nicholson to R. G. Swann, 22 September 1955.
[1819] SoG, 55th AR, 1955, 2.
[1820] GM, vol. 12, no. 8 (December 1956) 265.
[1821] GM, vol. 12, no. 5 (March 1956) 166, and vol. 12, no. 8 (December 1956) 265-66.
[1822] SoG AR 1956, 2.
[1823] SoG AR 1955, 1.
[1824] GM, vol. 12, no. 8 (December 1956) 266.
[1825] GM, vol. 12, no. 8 (December 1956) 267-68.
[1826] Minutes of Executive Committee, October 1956.
[1827] GM, vol. 12, no. 8 (December 1956) 278; SoG AR 1956, 1.
[1828] SoG AR 1956, 1.
[1829] GM, vol. 11, no. 16 (December 1954) 556.
[1830] Executive Committee Minutes, May 1959.
[1831] Obituary in GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 500-1. He had joined in 1954.
[1832] GM, vol. 10, no. 8 (December 1948) 270.
[1833] GM, vol. 11, no. 15 (September 1954) 514; volume 12, no. 1 (March 1955) 19, and no. 3 (September 1955) 88 and 94; SoG AR 1954, 2.
[1834] GM, vol. 12, no. 5 (March 1956) 166; it had been approved 15 November 1955 and was noted in the AR, 2.
[1835] For an account of his family research see ‘How I did it, or four centuries of Spuffords’, The Amateur Historian, vol. 5, no. 6 (Winter 1963) 173-6, 182. He died 18 November 2017; obituary in GM, vol. 32, no. 9 (March 2918) 378.
[1836] GM, vol. 12, no. 5 (March 1956) 163-65 and 170.
[1837] GM, vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1955) 59-60.
[1838] Kathleen Blomfield to J. B. Whitmore, 14 July 1948.
[1839] Lawrence Tanner's autobiography Recollections of a Westminster antiquary (1969) does not mention the Society. His wife's nephew, Nicholas MacMichael (1933-1985),a brilliant medieval genealogist, was his Deputy as Keeper of the Muniments and an active member of the Society, joining in 1957 and being elected a Fellow in 1969.
[1840] GM, advertisements, September 1952. In October 1967 he lectured at the Society on ‘An adventure into genealogy’, breaking off now and then and playing on his violin accompanied by Harold East on the piano, an extraordinary performance to which hardly anyone came. Obituary by Donald Whyte, GM, vol. 25, no. 6 (June 1996) 235. He had been elected a Fellow in 1973.
[1841] GM, vol. 12, no. 6 (June 1956) 203.
[1842] Minutes of Executive Committee, December 1956.
[1843] Minutes of Executive Committee, January 1957; GM, vol. 12, no. 9 (March 1957) 310.
[1844] GM, vol. 12, no. 10 (June 1957) 347.
[1845] GM, vol. 13, no. 6 (June 1960) 170-72.
[1846] GM, vol. 12, no. 7 (September 1956) 242-43. I reviewed the second volume (1959) in GM, vol. 13, no. 11 (September 1961) 345.
[1847] Brian Lawson, ‘Which 1851 Census’, in Journal of Isle of Man Family History Society, May 1997, 48-49.
[1848] W. D. S. Caird, Principal Probate Registry, to P. H. Blake, Society of Genealogists, 27 November 1961.
[1849] By the Hon. Guy Strutt.
[1850] Ida Darlington, ed., London Consistory Court Wills 1492-1547 (1967) ix-xxii.
[1851] GM, vol. 11, no. 10 (June 1953) 337-38.
[1852] Obituary in The Times, 21 November 1956; appreciation by Sir Harry Luke, The Times, 20 December 1956.
[1853] Anthony Wagner, A herald's world (London, 1988) 163.
[1854] Minutes of Executive Committee, December 1956.
[1855] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 397-98.
[1856] Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten; the official biography (1985) 365.
[1857] GM, vol. 12, no. 11 (September 1957) 365-71.
[1858] ‘The earl talks of Gusty, Rico and Missy’, in Sunday Express, 26 May 1957.
[1859] C. D. P. Nicholson to H. K. Percy-Smith, 8 May 1957, and reply 15 May 1957; GM, vol. 18, no. 5 (March 1976) 259.
[1860] ‘The earl and his family secrets’, in The Sunday Express, 9 March 1958.
[1861] GM, vol. 13, no. 3 (September 1959) 3.
[1862] Anthony J. Camp, 'The Matrilineal Descent of Queen Victoria', in GM, vol. 13, no. 8 (December 1960) 241-44. That article was further amended by Charles F. H. Evans in GM, vol. 14, no. 9 (March 1964) 273-77, it now being agreed that after 31 generations in the female line Lord Mountbatten's descent ended with Erembourg, wife of Gervase de Chateau-du-Loire, in the eleventh century.
[1863] GM, vol. 15, no. 9 (March 1967) 344. She had joined the Society in 1933.
[1864] ‘New hope for a princess in claim to fortune’, in Evening News, 1 August 1960.
[1865] According to Simon Konarski, Armorial de la noblesse Polonaise titree (Paris, 1958) 174, Jean Nepomucene Dembinski had been created a Count of Galicia by Emperor Joseph II in 1784 but the title became extinct in 1924. There are many untitled families of the surname. The assumption of the titles of Prince and Count Dembinski in London in 1958-66 is noted in Szymon Konarski, O heraldyce i "heraldycsnym" snobismie (Paris, 1967) 38, 41.
[1866] SoG AR 1957, 1.
[1867] SoG AR 1958, 1.
[1868] GM, vol. 13, no. 7 (September 1960) 193-96.
[1869] GM, vol. 12, no. 15 (September 1958) 501-7.
[1870] GM, vol. 11, no. 4 (December 1951) 146.
[1871] SoG AR 1957, 2.
[1872] Florence Moss to Anthony Camp, 3 October 1965.
[1873] SoG AR 1957, 2.
[1874] SoG AR 1957, 2.
[1875] SoG AR 1959, 2.
[1876] 25 September 1957.
[1877] 17 February 1958.
[1878] GM, vol. 15, no. 3 (September 1965) 116; obituary in GM, vol. 15, no. 6 (June 1966) 233-34. She joined the Society in 1959 and continued to work as a genealogist and record searcher until her death; she was the Acting Secretary of the Empire Day Movement.
[1879] GM, vol. 12, no. 15 (September 1958) 502.
[1880] SoG AR 1992, 10.
[1881] Harold Darton, ‘How to climb your family tree’, in Everybody’s, 1 February 1958.
[1882] ‘Want a Coat of Arms? Trace Your Family Tree? See … Vivian Ottley-Ward-Jackson’, in Life (c.1967-8). In the article L. G. Pine is quoted as saying ‘one of six family trees he traces springs from an illegitimate root’.
[1883] ‘Genealogist as Mr X: man accused of threat’, in The Times, 5 September 1956; ‘Mr ‘A’ gives evidence in threat charge’, in Kensington News, 27 July 1956, 1 and 7. Many years later he told me that in the 1920s he had family ‘expectations’ which had not materialised and that he had lived well beyond his means.
[1884] The Lady, 3 December 1959 and 1 January 1960.
[1885] ‘Tree-Climbing’, in Sunday Observer, 25 December 1960.
[1886] GM, vol. 12, no. 11 (September 1957) iv and 383. It was unavailable for years and then Messrs G. F. Rapkin produced a new edition in 1971; GM, vol. 16, no. 10 (June 1971) vii; SoG AR 1971, 2.
[1887] J. S. Gordon Clark, Sketch pedigree in tabular form of twelve generations of the descendants of John Pepys and Margaret Knight parents of Samuel Pepys the diarist (1964); GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 391.
[1888] GM, vol. 12, no. 11 (September 1957) 383.
[1889] GM, vol. 13, no. 1 (March 1959) 21-22.
[1890] ‘Home News: “Deliberate Deception” of Artificial Insemination’, in The Times, 15 January 1958, page 4.
[1891] ‘Baptism entries of adopted persons’, in The Times, 15 January 1958, page 4.
[1892] ‘Records of Adoption; what the parish registers hide’, in The Times, 25 November 1957, page 9.
[1893] Elizabeth Hirst, ‘Basic Principles of Adoption’, in The Times, 27 November 1957, page 11.
[1894] E. A. F. Fenwick, ‘Records of Adoption’, in The Times, 3 December 1957, page 11,
[1895] Lawrence E. Tanner, ‘Records of Adoption’, in The Times, 4 February 1958, page 9.
[1896] GM, vol. 12, no. 12 (December 1957) 432; Minutes of Executive Committee, October 1957.
[1897] F. W. Bennett to Members, 19 February 1958; John Phillips to Members, 24 February 1960.
[1898] Cregoe D. P. Nicholson to Magazine and Library Subscribers, November 1957.
[1899] C. D. P. Nicholson, 'Some Early Emigrants to America', in GM, vol. 12, nos. 1-16 (1955-58) and vol. 13, nos. 1-8 (1959-60). They were reprinted separately by the Society in 1965.
[1900] John Wareing, 'Some Early Emigrants to America, 1683-4: a supplementary list', in GM, vol. 18, no. 5 (March 1976) 239-46. Fourteen additional names appeared in his article 'The emigration of indentured servants from London, 1683-86', in GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 199-202.
[1901] GM, vol. 13, no. 2 (June 1959) 33.
[1902] GM, vol. 13, no. 4 (December 1959) 120.
[1903] John Phillips to Members, 24 February 1960.
[1904] Minutes of Executive Committee, April and May 1959; the total extent of the defalcations ‘by a former employee of the Society’ is given in the AR for 1958, 1, as £461-3-7.
[1905] SoG AR 1957, 2.
[1906] Anthony Camp to Lawrence E. Tanner, 18 October 1959.
[1907] Lawrence E. Tanner to Anthony Camp, 16 October 1959 (sic).
[1908] SoG AR 1959, 2.
[1909] SoG AR 1960, 1.
[1910] They appear in the lists of accessions in GM, vol. 13, no. 4 (December 1959) 125.
[1911] SoG AR 1960, 2.
[1912] SoG AR 1963, 1.
[1913] SoG AR 1960, 2.
[1914] SoG AR 1959, 1.
[1915] It first appears in the Balance Sheet as £85 on 31 December 1959.
[1916] SoG AR 1960, 2; SoG AR 1962, 2; SoG AR 1963, 1; SoG AR 1964, 1; SoG AR 1965, 2; SoG AR 1966, 1; SoG AR 1967, 2.
[1917] SoG AR 1959, 2.
[1918] Local History Magazine, no. 6 (November-December 1997) 14-15.
[1919] C. Harold Ridge to J. B. Whitmore, 21 May 1953.
[1920] Society of Genealogists: a century of family history (2011) 47.
[1921] GM, vol. 13, no. 9 (March 1961) i.
[1922] GM, vol. 14, no. 1 (March 1962) v.
[1923] GM, vol. 10, no. 12 (December 1949) 457.
[1924] GM, vol. 13, no. 8 (December 1960) 250-51.
[1925] GM, vol. 12, no. 15 (September 1958) 504.
[1926] G. D. Squibb, 'Visitation Pedigrees and the Genealogist', in GM, vol. 13, no. 8 (December 1960) 225-36, and no. 9 (March 1961) 266-74. Reprinted with some additions in a separate work of the same name (Phillimore, 1965).
[1927] GM, vol. 13, no. 9 (March 1961) 288.
[1928] GM, vol. 9, no. 10 (March 1944) 396.
[1929] GM, vol. 12, no. 6 (June 1956) 200-1.
[1930] GM, vol. 12, no. 15 (September 1958) 526.
[1931] GM, vol. 12, no. 15 (September 1958) 521.
[1932] SoG AR 1958, 2.
[1933] ‘Britain’s parish history: vast tasks involved’, in Daily Telegraph, 14 March 1959.
[1934] GM, vol. 13, no. 3 (September 1959) 68-69 and 84.
[1935] NIPR, vol. 5 (1966) vii.
[1936] ‘Bishop bans the Mormon films’, in Sunday Express, 25 October 1959.
[1937] ‘American missionaries with cameras are touring the parishes of Britain: Churches warned: Mormons are filming the names of dead’, in The Sunday Express, 18 December 1960.
[1938] ‘Vicars are told: make Mormon searchers pay’, in Daily Express, 19 December 1960.
[1939] ‘Baptism after death: Mormons tracing ancestors’, in The Times, 20 December 1960.
[1940] ‘The Mormons: I protest against this niggling intolerance’, in Daily Express, 22 December 1960.
[1941] GM, vol. 13, no. 9 (March 1961) 289; the questionnaire was dated November 1960.
[1942] GM, vol. 14, no. 1 (March 1962),Official Section, 1.
[1943] 'Work in Progress 1961', in GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 317.
[1944] GM, vol. 14, no. 1 (March 1962),Official Section, 1.
[1945] SoG AR 1962, 2.
[1946] Circular letter from D. J. Steel, 1 September 1963.
[1947] Obituary in GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 278. He had also transcribed several registers and was elected a Fellow in 1970.
[1948] GM, vol. 13, no. 12 (December 1961) 397.
[1949] GM, vol. 13, no. 7 (September 1960) 197.
[1950] GM, vol. 13, no. 7 (September 1960) 203-5.
[1951] R. S. Kirk, 'A Genealogical Tour of America', in GM, vol. 13, no. 7 (September 1960) 198-99.
[1952] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 325, and no. 11 (September 1961) 353.
[1953] SoG AR 1960, 2.
[1954] Business Archives: Quarterly Bulletin of the Business Archives Council, No. 20, September 1964, 12; his autobiography, Paymaster's Voyages, appeared in 1971 and was revised in 1981.
[1955] Joint Committee of the British Records Association and Business Archives Council: Report on Education and Training in the Care and Conservation of Business Archives, Duplicated Typescript, 1960.
[1956] SoG AR 1960, 2.
[1957] SoG: Annual General Meeting: 17th May, 1961.
[1958] GM, vol. 12, no. 13 (March 1958) 447; his wife Alexandra was a daughter of Andrew (Weir),First Lord Inverforth.
[1959] SoG AR 1960, 1.
[1960] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 324-25.
[1961] SoG AR 1960, 1.
[1962] GM, vol. 13, no. 11 (September 1961) 355-56, and no. 12 (December 1961) 398-99.
[1963] GM, vol. 14, no. 3 (September 1962),Official Section, 2.
[1964] GM, vol. 14, no. 1 (September 1963),Official Section, 3.
[1965] The members of the Sub-Committees in 1961-62 are listed in the Register of Members (1961) 5.
[1966] GM, vol. 13, no. 9 (March 1961) 257-58.
[1967] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 326, and no. 11 (September 1961) 354. Steel claimed that it had been 'rather hurriedly prepared' in time for the Exhibition; GM, vol. 14, no. 1 (March 1962),Official Section, 1.
[1968] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961).
[1969] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 297.
[1970] GM, vol. 13, no. 11 (September 1961) 329.
[1971] GM, vol. 14, no. 1 (March 1962) 1.
[1972] Anthony Camp to Peter Spufford, 1 March 1963.
[1973] Cecil R. Humphery-Smith, review of James Harrison Daniels, The Daniels-Daniells Family 1630-1957 (1959),in GM, vol. 13, no. 12 (December 1961) 392-93.
[1974] GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962) 59-60.
[1975] ‘Transportation from Hertfordshire, England to America, 1646-1775’ in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, cxv (1961) 55-57; GM, vol. 14, no. 4 (December 1962) 119-20.
[1976] GM, vol. 14, no. 3 (September 1962) 92-93.
[1977] GM, vol. 14, no. 3 (September 1962) 65.
[1978] GM, vol. 14, no. 4 (December 1962) 97.
[1979] from June 1962; Minutes of Publications Sub-Committee, 29 June 1962.
[1980] GM, vol. 14, no. 7 (September 1963) 193.
[1981] The statements on pages 4-5 of GM: subject index to volumes 1-26 1925-2000 are not correct.
[1982] SoG AR 1939, 1.
[1983] Minutes of Publications Sub-Committee, 29 June 1962.
[1984] GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 394.
[1985] GM, vol. 15, no. 4 (December 1965) 151.
[1986] GM, vol. 15, no. 16 (December 1968) 708.
[1987] SoG AR 1968, 2.
[1988] SoG AR 1971, 2.
[1989] The Times, 9 May 1961; GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 324, and no. 11 (September 1961) 353.
[1990] Obituary in Telegraph, 18 July 2001.
[1991] ‘Genealogist traces his own descent’, in Bristol Evening Post, 28 August 1959; ‘Impersonal’, in Daily Mail, September 1960.
[1992] GM, vol. 13, no. 6 (June 1960) 181-84. Twelve years later, when the 2nd edition appeared, I made slight amends by saying that the book 'had achieved so much, in so brilliant, concise and clear a manner, to show that genealogy is truly the 'handmaid of history''; vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 150.
[1993] Reviews, ‘Pedigree – Key to History’ by Anthony Powell, in Daily Telegraph, 4 March 1960, and ‘The tangled threads of genealogy’, by Cyril Connolly, in The Sunday Times.
[1994] Obituary by John Harvey in GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 198; see also Who Was Who. He had joined the Society in 1943.
[1995] Hartley Thwaite, 'Simple Annals', in GM, vol. 14, no. 6 (June 1963) 182-87.
[1996] N&Q, New Series, vol. 8, no. 2 (February 1961) 42.
[1997] Anthony Richard Wagner, English Genealogy (1960) 370-371; also 3rd ed. (1983) 420.
[1998] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 324.
[1999] Society of Genealogists: Annual General Meeting: 17th May, 1961.
[2000] What’s on in London, 14 July 1961, 6.
[2001] Henry Fielding, 'A family tree for a tenner: are you descended from a king .. or a villain?' in Daily Herald, 19 July 1961.
[2002] The Star, 24 July 1961.
[2003] E. S. Turner, 'A convict for every man' in Punch, 9 August 1961, 201-3.
[2004] Donald Gomery, 'The art of looking back' in Daily Express, 18 July 1961.
[2005] 'The common touch in genealogy' in The Times, 18 July 1961; A.J. Forrest, 'Family fun in genealogy', in The Birmingham Post, 11 November 1961.
[2006] Paul Tanfield, 'So they've proved Tony is royal after all' in Daily Mail, 6 June 1961; A. R. Wagner, 'The ancestry of Mr Anthony Armstrong-Jones' in GM, vol. 13, no, 4 (December 159) 97-103; no. 5 (March 1960) 129-33; and no. 9 (March 1961) 280-81.
[2007] Court Circular, 7 July 1961, The Times, 8 July 1961, 19.
[2008] Sir Anthony Wagner, Society of Genealogists: Jubilee Lecture: Genealogy and the Common Man (1961). The text of the Lecture was also printed in Anthony Wagner, Pedigree and progress: essays in the genealogical interpretation of history (1975) 144-53 with a Postscript, 154-55.
[2009] Sir Anthony Wagner, 'To each his family tree', in Sunday Times, 17 December 1961.
[2010] 'London Letter' in the Guardian, 16 December 1961.
[2011] Oswald Greenwaye Knapp, 'Homes of Family Names', in GM, vol. 5, no. 7 (September 1930) 211-12; he had concluded that 'modern Directories are not safe guides to the locating of surnames six or seven centuries ago'. For Knapp's obituary by Kathleen Blomfield, see vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1947) 15.
[2012] 'Our family trees' (Letter),in Sunday Times, 14 January 1962.
[2013] GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962) 63.
[2014] Classified Advertisement in The Times, 25 January 1963.
[2015] The research for which was discussed by R. A. McKinley in 'Research into Lancashire Surnames', in GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 393-95.
[2016] The first two volumes were reviewed in GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 141-42.
[2017] GM, vol. 14, no. 6 (June 1963) 191.
[2018] GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 394.
[2019] GM, vol. 15, no. 10 (June 1967) 371.
[2020] Anthony Camp, 'Poll Books', in GM, vol. 13, no. 11 (September 1961) 330-32.
[2021] Minutes of Executive Committee, February 1956.
[2022] SoG AR 1961; the Balance Sheet, shows the Collection as an asset, at cost, £100.
[2023] Agreement dated 14 November 1961 between the Society of Genealogists and James Robert Cunningham, Supervisor of the British Mission Genealogical Department.
[2024] Pinhorns’ Post, No 1 (Spring 1984) 2.
[2025] SoG AR 1961, 2.
[2026] GM, vol. 15, no. 5 (March 1966) 186.
[2027] Mark H. Hughes, 'Notes on some finding aids to Chancery Proceedings in the Library of the Society of Genealogists' in GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 129-31.
[2028] Hilary Sharp, How to use the Bernau Index (1996) 15.
[2029] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 299.
[2030] SoG AR 1959, 1.
[2031] SoG AR 1961, 1.
[2032] SoG AR 1960, 1; GM, vol. 11, no. 11 (September 1961) 353. Douglas Gabriel took a close interest in the Society for some years; I described him as 'a really nice man' at his death in Cornwall in 1988 ['Diary' in Family Tree Magazine, 16 September 1988].
[2033] Society of Genealogists: Annual General Meeting: 17th May, 1961.
[2034] SoG AR 1961, 1.
[2035] Survey of London, vol. XLII (1986) 182, quoting The Times, 23 May 1963, 9, recounting the auction of 43 properties in 17 lots for £369,500 the previous day.
[2036] GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 394.
[2037] GM, vol. 15, no. 4 (December 1965) 152.
[2038] Malcolm Pinhorn to Anthony Camp, 28 January 1962.
[2039] GM, vol. 13, no. 11 (September 1961) v.
[2040] GM, vol. 14, no. 7 (September 1963) 227.
[2041] Archives, vol. 6, 246.
[2042] Gerald Hamilton Edwards, In search of ancestry (1966) 60.
[2043] Family History, volume 1, 186.
[2044] The Virginia Magazine.
[2045] P. William Filby, American & British Genealogy and Heraldry (1970) 98.
[2046] Anthony Camp to Ian Macfarlane for Phillimore & Co Ltd, 18 October 1968.
[2047] GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962) 63-64, and no. 3 (September 1962) 95.
[2048] GM, vol. 14, no. 3 (September 1963),Official Section, 3.
[2049] e.g. Cecil Humphery-Smith in Family History, vol. 20, no. 168 (July 2001) 293, saying 'The BVRI work was subsequently take up into the Computer File Index and transmogrified into the International Genealogical Index'.
[2050] GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) ii.
[2051] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 230.
[2052] Review by Francis Leeson, GM, vol. 21, no. 7 (September 1984) 510.
[2053] GM, vol. 14, no. 4 (December 1962) 122-27.
[2054] GM, vol. 14, no. 6 (June 1963) 191.
[2055] Malcolm Pinhorn to Anthony Camp, 31 October 1962.
[2056] Archibald Colliard to Anthony Camp, 22 October 1962.
[2057] Robert Garrett to Archibald Colliard, 23 November 1962.
[2058] Archibald Colliard to Anthony Camp, 29 January 1963.
[2059] Archibald Colliard to Anthony Camp, 29 April 1963; GM, vol. 14, no. 7 (September 1963) 227.
[2060] He had joined the Society in 1951, was elected a Fellow in 1955, and resigned in 1968.
[2061] GM, vol. 14, no. 6 (June 1963),Official Section, 1.
[2062] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 6 (June 1963),Official Section, 3-4.
[2063] Obituary in GM, vol. 14, no. 8 (December 1963),Official Section, 3-4.
[2064] GM, vol. 14, no. 10 (June 1964) 357-58.
[2065] SoG AR 1962, 2.
[2066] SoG AR 1966, 2.
[2067] Obituary in GM, vol. 17, no. 2 (June 1972) 107.
[2068] SoG AR 1961, 2.
[2069] SoG AR 1972, 2.
[2070] Obituary by Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 313. He joined the Society in 1954, was a member of the Executive Committee 1955-62 and 1963-67, and was elected a Fellow, 1969.
[2071] He had gone to New York as a ‘music conductor’ on the Queen Mary in 1937.
[2072] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 325.
[2073] Burke's Landed Gentry, 18th Edition, vol. 3 (1972) sub Blake of Barham Court.
[2074] John Betjeman to the Secretary, 10 October 1961.
[2075] Alex Shoumatoff, The mountain of names (1985) 216-217, and his Russian blood: a family chronicle (1982).
[2076] Messrs. Briant & Chambers, 157 Kennington Lane, London S.E.11, to P. H. Blake, 3 January 1962.
[2077] Peter Spufford to Philip H. Blake, 7 March 1962.
[2078] ‘Duties of the Director of Research and the Society’s Secretary’, undated TS.
[2079] C. D. P. Nicholson to Anthony Camp, 23 April 1962.
[2080] GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962) 62-63.
[2081] W. D. S. Caird, Principal Probate Registry, to P. H. Blake, Society of Genealogists, 14 May 1962.
[2082] Report of Committee on Non-Parochial Registers to Council of British Records Association, Duplicated Typescript, 19 May 1960.
[2083] GM, vol. 13, no. 10 (June 1961) 325.
[2084] GM, vol. 14, no. 8 (December 1963) 267-68.
[2085] GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962),Official Section, 1.
[2086] GM, vol. 14, no. 2 (June 1962),Official Section, 1.
[2087] Burke's Landed Gentry (1898) sub Bere of Morebath and Timewell, Devon; GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 284.
[2088] A. R. Wagner to A. J. Camp, 20 April 1960.
[2089] A. J. Camp to A. R. Wagner, 17 June 1960.
[2090] See Who Was Who 1971-1980.
[2091] Malcolm Pinhorn to Anthony Camp, 28 August 1962.
[2092] His executors were his sister Dorothy Caroline Whitmore, Lawrence Tanner and Cregoe Nicholson, but the sister died in 1962 and the grant of probate (£16,021) was revoked, a new grant (£100,014) being made to the other two in May 1963. He had bequeathed a considerable fortune to Westminster School. He had married in 1929 but I was told that they were divorced not long before his death.
[2093] GM, vol. 14, no. 4 (December 1962),Official Section, 1.
[2094] GM, vol. 14, no. 7 (September 1963),Official Section, 2.
[2095] ‘Joys of collecting one’s ancestors: even the sheep stealers’, in The Guardian, 17 October 1962, 21.
[2096] Stanley Charles Wyatt had joined the Society in 1946 and resigned in 1968. He was appointed British Member of the Ottoman Public Debt Council in 1928 and knighted in 1939. He wrote Cheyneys and Wyatts: a brief history (1960).
[2097] ‘Recruiting at 90’ in Evening Standard, 24 April 1967.
[2098] GM, vol. 14, no. 4 (December 1962),Official Section, 1.
[2099] A. H. Noble (Honorary Treasurer) to Anthony Camp, 23 September 1962.
[2100] Anthony Camp to Douglas B. G. Gabriel, 29 October 1962.
[2101] SoG AR 1962, 2.
[2102] SoG AR 1962, 2.
[2103] A. R. Wagner to A. J. Camp, 19 April 1963; reply 22 April 1963.
[2104] A. J. Camp to A. R. Wagner, 6 November 1963.
[2105] A. R. Wagner to A. J. Camp, 13 November 1963.
[2106] A. R. Wagner to A. J. Camp, 1 June 1967.
[2107] Obituary in The Daily Telegraph, 20 October 2004.
[2108] Robert Garrett to Anthony Camp, 18 April 1963.
[2109] Obituary in The Daily Telegraph, 31 December 1982; for his ancestry see Burke's Landed Gentry, ii (1969) sub Garrett formerly of Cromac House.
[2110] Anthony Camp to Robert Garrett, 22 April 1963.
[2111] Anthony Camp to Robert Garrett, 22 April 1963
[2112] SoG AR 1963, 1.
[2113] As Gerald Hamilton-Edwards knew when, to Jack Bird's annoyance, he brought it up with Mountbatten in the Chair at the AGM in August 1959; GM, vol. 13, no. 3 (September 1959) 67.
[2114] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 560.
[2115] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 621.
[2116] Cecil Mackay to Robert Garrett, 19 June 1974.
[2117] Report of the Executive Committee, Society of Genealogists, 21 May 1963.
[2118] Anthony Powell to Peter Reid, 26 March 1963. The letter was offered for sale by Richard Ford on UKBookWorld.com in May 2012.
[2119] GM, vol. 14, no. 7 (September 1963) Official Section, 1-2.
[2120] Obituary by Cecil Mackay in GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 500. See Who Was Who. He had joined the Society in 1932.
[2121] GM, vol. 14, no. 7 (September 1963) Official Section, 2-4.
[2122] Obituary in GM, vol. 15, no. 14 (June 1968) 615. She joined the Society in 1947, typed inter alia the Coachmakers' Company Apprentices, and was a professional genealogist. She died 23 November 1967 having bequeathed £100 to the Society.
[2123] GM, vol. 15, no. 1 (March 1965) 34-37.
[2124] GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) 265.
[2125] GM, vol. 15, no. 4 (December 1965) 153-4.
[2126] GM, vol. 15, no. 4 (December 1965) 151-2.
[2127] R.E.F. Garrett to Sir Anthony Wagner, 21 November 1963.
[2128] R.E.F. Garrett to Sir Anthony Wagner, 27 November 1963.
[2129] Anthony Camp to R.E.F. Garrett, 20 November 1963.
[2130] Anthony Camp to R.E.F. Garrett, 11 December 1963.
[2131] Cecil Mackay to Anthony Camp, 27 June 1963.
[2132] Anthony Camp form letter, 9 August 1963.
[2133] GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 394.
[2134] SoG AR 1969, 2.
[2135] Obituary by Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 28, no. 9 (March 2006) 423.
[2136] Peter Spufford to Anthony Camp, 10 June 1971.
[2137] SoG AR 1965, 1.
[2138] SoG AR 1966, 1.
[2139] SoG AR 1967, 1.
[2140] SoG AR 1970, 1.
[2141] GM, vol. 17, no. 2 (June 1972) 97.
[2142] SoG AR 1971, 1.
[2143] Philip Blake to Kenneth Elphinstone, 27 February 1962.
[2144] SoG AR 1965, 1.
[2145] The places are listed in Lydia Collins & Mabel Morton, Monumental Inscriptions in the library of the Society of Genealogists: Part Two: Northern England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and Overseas (1987) 39.
[2146] SoG AR 1982, 5.
[2147] SoG AR 1965, 1.
[2148] SoG AR 1974, 1.
[2149] SoG AR 1972, 1.
[2150] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 605.
[2151] An advertisement for volume 1 in GM, vol. 15, no. 1 (March 1965) iv, says that new entrants formed a sixth of the 600 families included.
[2152] ‘Editorial Preface’, Burke’s Landed Gentry, vol. 3 (June 1972) ix.
[2153] Obituaries in The Daily Telegraph, 24 April 2003, and The Independent, 8 May 2003.
[2154] ‘New editor, 26, for ‘Burke’s Peerage’’, in Daily Telegraph, 7 July 1972; ‘New editor of Burke’s says it is raw history’, in The Times, 7 July 1972; obituary in The Times, 28 December 2007; the ‘teeth-gritting ordeals’of working with Townend (named in the book as ‘Simon Burton’) are recounted in Massingberd’s autobiography Daydream believer: confessions of a hero-worshipper (2001) chapter 7.
[2155] Hugh Massingberd, Daydream believer: confessions of a hero-worshipper (2001) 131.
[2156] Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, ‘Burke’s New Genealogical Series’, in GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 133-4.
[2157] Philip Howard, ‘A new tome to keep tabs on old peerages’, in The Times, 4 December 1972.
[2158] Philip Howard, ‘New editor of Burke’s says it is raw history’, in The Times, 7 July 1972.
[2159] Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, ‘Coats of arms and all that’, in Daily Telegraph, (? date but prior to 19 July 1977).
[2160] Hugo Vickers, in obituary of David Williamson, The Independent, 8 May 2003.
[2161] GM, vol. 20, no. 5 (March 1981) x.
[2162] ‘The big sting in Burke’s Peerage’, The Sunday Times, 6 July 1980, 13 July 1980 and 28 September 1980.
[2163] ‘Burke’s Peerage: 3 on fraud charges’, The Sunday Times, 28 September 1980; ‘Burke’s Peerage’ plot case’, The Times, 2 March 1982, page 23 (corrected 5 March 1982, page 2) and ‘Two cleared of Burke’s conspiracy’, 18 March 1982, page 4.
[2164] He died 25 December 2007, aged 60; obituary in The Daily Telegraph, 27 December 2007.
[2165] Court Circular, The Times, 14 December 1976, page 17.
[2166] Ralph S. Atherton, 'Beyond the Workhouse: an Edwardian mystery', in GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 261-65.
[2167] Ralph S. Atherton, 'Beyond the Workhouse - 2: an Edwardian mystery solved', in GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 604-10.
[2168] Margaret Dorothy Haynes (1899-1991) formerly Fellingham nee Butler to Anthony Camp, 22 December 1969.
[2169] Della Denman, ‘Americans keep busy hunting down British twigs on their family trees’, in New York Times, 10 January 1974, 43.
[2170] Travel Magazine, April 1969, page 82.
[2171] Anthony Camp to C. D. P. Nicholson, 27 March 1963.
[2172] GM, vol. 14, no. 6 (June 1963),Official Section, 1.
[2173] SoG AR 1968, 1; GM, vol. 16, no. 1 (March 1969) 20-22; Minutes of the Meeting of the Fellows, 8 January 1969.
[2174] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 108; SoG AR, 1.
[2175] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 359.
[2176] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 608.
[2177] GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 238.
[2178] 27 June 1973; GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 352.
[2179] Minutes of the Meeting of the Fellows of the SoG, 6 November 1973.
[2180] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 594.
[2181] GM, vol. 18, no. 5 (March 1976) 232, and no. 6 (June 1976) 275.
[2182] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 164.
[2183] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 194.
[2184] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 265 and 266.
[2185] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 267.
[2186] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 337.
[2187] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 375.
[2188] Society of Genealogists: Memorandum and Articles of Association: Revised 1979, 7; ‘How the Society’s constitution affects Members’, GM, vol. 20, no. 1 (March 1980) 2-3.
[2189] GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 388-89.
[2190] Family History, vol. 2, no. 11, 149.
[2191] Peter Spufford to Anthony Camp, 19 May 1965.
[2192] Joseph Jacquart, 'Un 'handbook' anglais de genealogie' in Le Phare Dimanche, 31 January 1965, 17; see Marcel Berge, 'Hommage a Joseph Jacquart', in L'Intermediaire des Genealogistes, no. 143 (September 1969) 321-31. He had drawn the attention of UK readers to three articles about the development of genealogical studies in Belgium since 1945 (in La Libre Belgique, 6, 24 and 25 August 1951) in GM, vol. 11, no. 6 (June 1952) 215.
[2193] His project on the distribution of Belgian surnames is described in GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 392.
[2194] GM, vol. 17, no. 9 (March 1974) x, and no. 10 (June 1974) 522.
[2195] GM, vol. 14, no. 7 (September 1963) i.
[2196] J. M. Sims, A catalogue of parish register copies in the possession of the Society of Genealogists (Revised Enlarged Edition, 1963) Introduction.
[2197] SoG AR 1968, 2.
[2198] GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 395.
[2199] SoG AR 1964, 11.
[2200] SoG AR 1965, 2.
[2201] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 522.
[2202] SoG AR 1979, 3.
[2203] SoG AR 1963, 2.
[2204] Obituary in GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) 271.
[2205] SoG AR 1963, 1.
[2206] GM, vol. 15, no. 3 (September 1965) 128.
[2207] GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) iv.
[2208] As Examples of Handwriting 1550-1650; e.g. GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 294 and viii,
[2209] SoG AR 1964, 2; GM, vol. 15, no. 4 (December 1965) 152.
[2210] James R. Cunningham, 'The genealogical work of the Latter-Day Saints', in GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 369-73.
[2211] James B. Allen, &c., op. cit. (1995) 251.
[2212] C. K. Adams, Chairman of the Executive Committee, to members, 23 November 1964.
[2213] GM, vol. 14, no. 11 (September 1964) 395.
[2214] C. K. Adams, Chairman, to members of the Society, 23 November 1964.
[2215] 'Society split on Mormon request', The Times, 2 December 1964.
[2216] GM, vol. 15, no. 4 (December 1965) 152.
[2217] SoG AR 1964, 1.
[2218] Society of Genealogists: Forthcoming Microfilm Acquisitions, June 1974.
[2219] SoG AR 1964, 1.
[2220] GM, vol. 15, no. 3 (September 1965) 132-34.
[2221] GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 686.
[2222] GM, vol. 16, no. 8 (December 1970) 430 and 454.
[2223] GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 474.
[2224] GM, vol. 17, no. 2 (June 1972) 92.
[2225] GM, vol. 17, no. 4 (December 1972) 191.
[2226] Obituary by Jeremy Gibson in GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 44. He had joined the Society in 1948 and was elected a Fellow in 1969.
[2227] GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 250.
[2228] SoG AR 1963, 1.
[2229] SoG AR 1964, 1.
[2230] D. J. Steel to all Roman Catholic parishes listed in the Catholic Directory, April 1965.
[2231] D. J. Steel to Anthony Camp, 7 March 1966, and reply, 1 April 1966.
[2232] D. J. Steel, assisted by Mrs A. E. F. Steel and C. W. Field, NIPR: a guide to Anglican, Roman Catholic and Nonconformist Registers before 1837, together with information on Marriage Licences, Bishop's Transcripts and Modern Copies: volume V: South Midlands and Welsh Border comprising the Counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire (SoG, 1966).
[2233] SoG AR 1965, 2.
[2234] Anthony Camp, 'The NIPR', in GM, vol. 15, no. 9 (March 1967) 331-32.
[2235] GM, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1969) viii.
[2236] Local History Magazine, no. 64 (November-December 1997) 16.
[2237] GM, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1969) 164.
[2238] SoG: Publications Committee: 14 October 1977.
[2239] SoG AR, 1983, 4.
[2240] NIPR: other publications, A5 sheet, late 1966
[2241] Minutes of Magazine & Publications Sub-Committee, 2 October 1967.
[2242] D. J. Steel, assisted by Mrs A. E. F. Steel, NIPR: volume I: sources of births, marriages and deaths before 1837 (I), (SoG, 1968),price £2-12-6.
[2243] Peter Spufford in GM, vol. 16, no. 2 (June 1969) 56.
[2244] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 110-11.
[2245] D. J. Steel, assisted by the late Mrs A. E. F. Steel, NIPR: volume XII: sources for Scottish genealogy and family history (Phillimore & Co. Ltd., 1970),price £4. Reviewed by David Cargill in GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 485-87.
[2246] GM, vol. 16, no. 5 (March 1970) 203-11.
[2247] D. J. Steel and L. Taylor, 'Family History in the Classroom', in GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 329-33.
[2248] GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 297. Family History in Schools by D. J. Steel and Lawrence Taylor followed in 1973.
[2249] 'Conference Report: Family History in Schools', in GM, vol. 16, no. 8 (December 1970) 426.
[2250] It was much revised in 1982 by which time it had a rival in ‘The Elephant Game’ produced by the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies at Canterbury.
[2251] GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 475.
[2252] GM, vol. 17, no. 1 (March 1972) 16-20.
[2253] GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 240.
[2254] GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) iv.
[2255] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 440-41.
[2256] D. J. Steel, NIPR Volume 2: sources for nonconformist genealogy and family history (Phillimore & Co. Ltd., 1973).
[2257] D. J. Steel and Edgar R. Samuel, NIPR Volume 3: sources for Roman Catholic and Jewish genealogy and family history (Phillimore & Co. Ltd., 1974); advertisement in GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) vi.
[2258] GM, vol. 15, no. 9 (March 1967) 342.
[2259] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 588.
[2260] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 588.
[2261] Obituary by R. E. Vine in GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 373. He had been elected a Fellow in 1970.
[2262] GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 179.
[2263] Patrick T. R. Palgrave-Moore, NIPR: volume IV: South East England: Kent, Surrey and Sussex (SoG, 1980) v.
[2264] Charles P. Neat to Anthony Camp, 3 September 1974.
[2265] SoG AR 1976, 5.
[2266] GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 286.
[2267] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 343, and no. 8 (December 1970) vi.
[2268] GM, vol. 17, no. 4 (December 1972) 178.
[2269] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) vii.
[2270] Mildred Surry to C. A. Shire for The Pitman Press, 30 November 1978.
[2271] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 295.
[2272] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 362-63.
[2273] My diary entry for 20 July 1987 in Family Tree Magazine, November 1987.
[2274] GM, vol. 15, no. 6 (June 1966) 224-25.
[2275] James B. Allen, Jessie L. Embry and Kahlile B. Mehr, Hearts turned to the fathers: a history of the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1894-1994 (Provo, 1995) 201-2; GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 296.
[2276] Minutes of Publications Sub-Committee, 29 June 1962.
[2277] D. J. Steel to members of the Society, 20 July 1965, sent with June 1965 Magazine.
[2278] GM, vol. 15, no. 6 (June 1966) iv; SoG AR 1966, 2.
[2279] GM, vol. 15, no. 10 (June 1967) v, and no. 11 (September 1967) 401.
[2280] GM, vol. 15, no. 13 (March 1968) 512.
[2281] GM, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1969) 168.
[2282] GM, vol. 15, no. 14 (June 1968) 601-2.
[2283] GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 680-83.
[2284] GM, vol. 15, no. 1 (March 1969) 24-25.
[2285] GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 680-83.
[2286] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 117.
[2287] GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 324.
[2288] SoG AR 1974, 2.
[2289] GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 289.
[2290] GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 290.
[2291] GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 291.
[2292] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 360-61.
[2293] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 345.
[2294] GM, vol. 16, no. 8 (December 1970) 403.
[2295] GM, vol. 16, no. 8 (December 1970) 429-30.
[2296] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 613, and vol. 17, no. 1 (March 1972) 26-27.
[2297] ‘The Northern Group of the Society of Genealogists’, list of members and interests, 1 May 1975.
[2298] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 612.
[2299] GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 681-82.
[2300] GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 686.
[2301] ‘The King in the Jones family tree’ and ‘The Princess and Mister Jones are twelfth cousins (twice removed)’, in Daily Mail, 16 March 1960.
[2302] ‘English ancestors of Mr Armstrong-Jones’, in Daily Telegraph, 7 April 1960.
[2303] GM, vol. 15, no. 3 (September 1965) 122.
[2304] 'Birstall Records', in GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 39.
[2305] GM, vol. 15, no. 9 (March 1967) 334-35.
[2306] Colin Bell, ‘New life for those rude forefathers’, in The Sunday Times, 18 February 1968.
[2307] GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) 266.
[2308] W. E. Tate, The Parish Chest (3rd ed. 1967) Preface.
[2309] R. E. Vine, 'Printing and Indexing Parish Registers by Computer', in GM, vol. 15, no. 12 (December 1967) 461-8.
[2310] GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971)479-82. In Family History in Schools (1973) Steel wrote that because children write slowly they could dictate the entries into a tape-recorder (on page 141 he shows a primary school child doing that) and make a written copy later.
[2311] GM, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1969) 170-71.
[2312] R. F. Hunnissett, Indexing for Editors (British Records Association, 1972) 8.
[2313] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 98.
[2314] Norah K. M. Gurney to Mrs C. M. Mackay and Anthony Camp, 13 December 1972.
[2315] SoG AR 1969, 2; D. J. Steel to Anthony Camp, 29 October 1969.
[2316] F. G. Emmison, letter in The Times, 7 January 1968.
[2317] GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 283.
[2318] GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 237-38.
[2319] GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 294.
[2320] Gerald Hamilton-Edwards, 'Genealogy and Biography', in GM, vol. 15, no. 2 (June 1965) 68-73.
[2321] GM, vol. 15, no. 9 (March 1967) 335-38.
[2322] Hon Mrs Michael Joseph to Anthony Camp, 25 March 1968.
[2323] Tracing your British ancestors (1967); review by Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 655.
[2324] GM, vol. 15, no. 16 (December 1968) 717.
[2325] GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 245-46.
[2326] GM, vol. 15, no. 3 (September 1965) 97-103, and no. 4 (December 1965) 139-44.
[2327] R. E. F. Garrett, Chancery and other Legal Proceedings (Pinhorns, 1968); review in GM, vol. 16, no. 1 (March 1969) 17. Garrett continued to take considerable trouble to discover the exact coverage of some sections of the Bernau Index, but with little success; Robert Garrett to Anthony Camp, 23 June 1980.
[2328] Lieut. Commander M. Godfrey, R.N. (Retd),'British Military Records as Sources of Biography and Genealogy', in GM, vol. 16, no. 1 (March 1969) 1-5.
[2329] R. F. Monger, 'Emigrants in Public Records', in GM, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1969) 135-43, and 'Immigrants in the Public Records', vol. 16, no. 5 (March 1970) 197-201.
[2330] GM, vol. 15, no. 1 (March 1965) 44-50, and no. 3 (September 1965) 130-1.
[2331] Obituary in GM, vol. 15, no. 8 (December 1966) 307-8; SoG AR 1966, 1. He became a Life Member in 1919 and was elected a Fellow in 1955.
[2332] An index to the pedigrees was published in GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 661-69.
[2333] GM, vol. 15, no. 9 (March 1967) 343. Further details were given in vol. 15, no. 13 (March 1968) 518-19.
[2334] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 114-15.
[2335] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 115-16.
[2336] John Sims subsequently worked at the Institute of Historical Research, moved to the India Office Library and Records (where he was in charge of official publications) in 1975, and then to the National Sound Archive as Assistant Director in 1985 [British Library News, no. 106 (April 1985) 1]. He edited inter alia the important A Handlist of British Parliamentary poll books (University of Leicester History Department, 1984).
[2337] SoG AR 1965, 2.
[2338] SoG AR 1965, 2.
[2339] GM, vol. 15, no. 3 (September 1975) 136.
[2340 GM, vol. 15, no. 4 (December 1975) 162.
[2341] GM, vol. 15, no. 8 (December 1966) 307.
[2342] Obituary by Cecil Mackay in GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 216.
[2343] Finding Aids to the Microfilmed Manuscript Collection of the Genealogical Society of Utah: Number 3: Arlene H. Eakle, Arvilla Outsen & Richard S. Tompson, Descriptive Inventory of the English Collection (Salt Lake City, 1979) 88-90.
[2344] Sandra M. Hewlett, The Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, to Anthony Camp, 2 December 1997.
[2345] Notice of his death in GM, vol. 15, no 14 (June 1968) 614-15, and his obituary by Jack Bird in the same, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 670-72.
[2346] 'The Arms of Hesse and Thuringia', in GM, vol. 15, no. 8 (December 1966) 279-84.
[2347] Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten: the official biography (1985) 670.
[2348] GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) iv and 307. Geoffrey Yates joined the Society in 1966, was a member of the Executive Committee 1968-75 and of the Library Committee 1971-78. He resigned his membership in 1989.
[2349] GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) 239-50.
[2350] Reviewed in GM, vol. 15, no. 11 (September 1967) 410-11.
[2351] SoG AR 1982, 5.
[2352] SoG AR 1967, 2.
[2353] GM, vol. 15, no. 8 (December 1966) 307.
[2354] SoG AR 1966, 2.
[2355] GM, vol. 15, no. 11 (September 1967) 401.
[2356] SoG AR 1967, 1.
[2357] SoG AR 1968, 2; GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 678.
[2358] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 355.
[2359] GM, vol. 15, no. 11 (September 1967) 415.
[2360] SoG AR 1968, 2.
[2361] SoG AR 1967, 2; GM, vol. 15, no. 11 (September 1967) 415.
[2362] SoG AR 1966, 1.
[2363] GM, vol. 15, no. 7 (September 1966) 266-67.
[2364] Anthony Wagner, English Genealogy (1960) 371.
[2365] Anthony J. Camp, ‘Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths', in GM, vol. 15, no. 11 (September 1967) 397-400.
[2366] GM, vol. 15, no. 12 (December 1967) 448.
[2367] SoG AR 1967, 1.
[2368] SoG AR 1968, 2.
[2369] ‘Limitation on research’, in The Times, 2 January 1968.
[2370] The letters are quoted in Donald Steel’s memorandum, ‘Records of Births, Marriages & Deaths’, 29 October 1969.
[2371] Announced in The Times, Tuesday, 13 July 1971, 4.
[2372] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 613.
[2373] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 122.
[2374] GM, vol. 17, no. 1 (March 1972) 42.
[2375] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 156.
[2376] Donald Wright, ed., Some copy census returns held by West Midland public libraries (1973) reviewed in GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 443.
[2377] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 122.
[2378] GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 349.
[2379] SoG AR 1972, 1.
[2380] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 406
[2381] Simon Jenkins, ‘Give us back Somerset House’, Evening Standard, 2 November 1971, 13.
[2382] Penny Hunter Symon, ‘Somerset House grandeur is all outside’, The Times, 27 September 1971.
[2383] ‘Somerset House to be reborn as arts centre’, The Daily Telegraph, 15 March 1997, 11; ‘Queen Mother turns house into home for the arts’, in Daily Telegraph, 26 May 2000, 5.
[2384] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 405.
[2385] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 623-24.
[2386] My letter of 25 October 1974 is quoted in GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 68.
[2387] Hansard, vol. 354, cols.1492-3.
[2388] Hansard, vol. 355, cols.1010-31.
[2389] GM, vol. 17, no. 12 (December 1974) 646.
[2390] The wording is given in GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 69-70.
[2391] They are listed in GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 70.
[2392] ‘Salvation Army fights “birth records” move’, in Daily Telegraph, 3 February 1975, 2d-e.
[2393] Hansard, vol. 357, col. 167; reports in The Times, The Guardian and the Daily Telegraph, 19 February.
[2394] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 3.
[2395] Anthony J. Camp, ‘”Somerset House” does not go to Southport’, in GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 67-75.
[2396] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 125.
[2397] Colin D. Rogers, The family tree detective (Manchester University Press, 1983) 15.
[2398] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 149-50.
[2399] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 117.
[2400] GM, vol. 18, no. 5 (March 1976) 253-54.
[2401] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 158.
[2402] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 367.
[2403] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 327-28.
[2404] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 2, and no. 3 (September 1977) 80.
[2405] SoG AR 1977, 3.
[2406] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 255-56.
[2407] Charles L. Beddington, ‘Divorce Certificates’, in The Times, 21 April 1938.
[2408] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 266-67,
[2409] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 235.
[2410] SoG AR 1978, 4.
[2411] GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 304-6.
[2412] ‘‘Family Tree’ Bill may face the axe’, in Daily Telegraph, 24 November 1978.
[2413] SoG AR 1978, 3-4.
[2414] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 378.
[2415] SoG AR, 1979, 5.
[2416] Anthony J. Camp, 'Estate Duty Office Wills', in GM, vol. 15, no. 11 (September 1967) 393-97.
[2417] Guide to the contents of the Public Record Office: Volume III: documents transferred 1960-1966 (HMSO, 1968) 91.
[2418] David T. Hawkins, 'Estate Duty Wills and Administrations (1796-1857)', in GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 269-73,
[2419] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 38.
[2420] Obituary in the Swindon Advertiser, 24 January 2008.
[2421] SoG AR 1967, 2; GM, vol. 15, no. 11 (September 1967) 415 and 430.
[2422] Peter Spufford, 'Genealogy and the Historian', in GM, vol. 15, no. 12 (December 1967) 431-47.
[2423] Francis L. Leeson, 'The study of single surnames and their distribution', in GM, vol. 14, no. 12 (December 1964),405-12.
[2424] For example in GM, vol. 15, no. 2 (June 1965) 78-80.
[2425] GM, vol. 15, no. 6 (June 1966) 223. That value was further explored in W. A. Cummins, 'Telephone Directories and Surnames' in GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 266-69.
[2426] GM, vol. 15, no. 14 (June 1968) 594-99.
[2427] GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 493.
[2428] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 622-23.
[2429] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 452. There was an immediate argument about the size of the slips, Francis Tyack saying that they should be the metric size A7 [vol. 17, no. 9 (March 1974) 486-88] whilst others, like David Palgrave, preferred a 6 X 4 inch punch card system [vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 451-52].
[2430] GM, vol. 17, no. 2 (June 1972) 100.
[2431] GM, vol. 17, no. 4 (December 1972) vii.
[2432] GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 270-71.
[2433] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 453-54.
[2434] GM, vol. 17, no. 9 (March 1974) 506.
[2435] Insert in December 1972 Magazine.
[2436] e.g. John Rayment in GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 308.
[2437] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 522.
[2438] GM, vol. 19, no. 4 (December 1977) 117.
[2439] SoG AR 1967, 2.
[2440] SoG AR 1968, 2; GM, vol. 15, no. 16 (December 1968) 707.
[2441] GM, vol. 17, no. 4 (December 1972) 191.
[2442] L. W. L. Edwards, Index to Cornish Nonconformist Registers deposited at the Public Record Office (London, 1976); advertisement in GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) ix.
[2443] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 552.
[2444] SoG AR 1968, 2; Andrea Waters returned to marry Timothy Tindal-Robertson in May 1971.
[2445] SoG AR 1968, 2.
[2446] SoG AR 1969, 2.
[2447] ‘Reminders’ circulated with March 1969 Magazine.
[2448] Anthony Camp to J. Denis Burton, 25 October 1969.
[2449] SoG AR 1969, 3.
[2450] ‘Revised classification scheme for use in the Library of the Society of Genealogists, September, 1970’.
[2451] SoG AR 1970, 2.
[2452] SoG AR 1970, 3.
[2453] SoG AR 1971, 3.
[2454] SoG AR 1971, 2.
[2455] SoG AR 1972, 2.
[2456] C. K. Adams to all SoG members, 31 July 1967.
[2457] SoG AR 1968, 1. The Minutes of the AGM held on 2 July 1969 say that the completion date was 31 March 1968; GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 109.
[2458] He personally signed almost every letter sent out in his name; GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 500.
[2459] GM, vol. 15, no. 14 (June 1968) 606.
[2460] Anthony Camp to Arthur Noble, 26 April 1968.
[2461] SoG AR 1971, 1.
[2462] ‘Notice to quit lifted for 88 in bedsitters’, in The Guardian, 12 January 1971.
[2463] GM, vol. 15, no. 14 (June 1968) vi, and no. 15 (September 1968) iv.
[2464] SoG AR 1968, 1; GM, vol. 16, no. 1 (March 1969) iv.
[2465] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 110.
[2466] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 292.
[2467] GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 678; SoG AR 1967, 1.
[2468] SoG AR 1967, 2.
[2469] Society of Genealogists: Executive Committee: Report (28.11.68) by the House Sub-Committee.
[2470] Estimate from Flatfurn Ltd, 3 October 1968; Anthony Camp to Hon Guy Strutt, 29 November 1968 and 1 January 1969; Hon. Guy Strutt to Anthony Camp, 16 December 1968 and 12 January 1969.
[2471] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 111.
[2472] SoG AR 1970, 1.
[2473] SoG AR 1974, 2; GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 552.
[2474] SoG AR 1969, 1.
[2475] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 82.
[2476] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 405.
[2477] SoG AR 1974, 1.
[2478] SoG AR 1974, 1.
[2479] SoG AR 1975, 1.
[2480] Cecil Mackay to Robert Garrett, 19 June 1974.
[2481] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 607.
[2482] SoG AR 1971, 3; SoG AR 1972, 2.
[2483] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 588.
[2484] SoG AR 1982, 6.
[2485] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 354 and 357-58.
[2486] SoG AR 1970, 1.
[2487] GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 483-84.
[2488] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 128-30.
[2489] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 125.
[2490] Cecil Mackay to Anthony Camp, 11 October 1972.
[2491] GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 354.
[2492] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 112.
[2493] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) viii.
[2394] SoG AR 1969, 2.
[2495] SoG AR 1970, 2.
[2496] GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 305.
[2497] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 523.
[2498] Alice Stanley to Anthony Camp, 20 November 1984.
[2499] 'P.C.C. records at the Principal Probate Registry', in Archives (October 1969) 100-1.
[2500] The Times Literary Supplement, Thursday, 18 July 1968.
[2501] Supplement to London Gazette, 11 June 1966, 6548 (no citation).
[2502] Anthony J. Camp, Wills and their whereabouts (4th edition, 1974) xxxii-xxxvi.
[2503] GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 298. The PCC wills became available again at the PRO in Chancery Lane, 8 June 1970.
[2504] Jane Cox, Hatred pursued beyond the grave: tales of our ancestors from the London church courts (1993) ix. See also her Wills, inventories and death duties: the records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and the Estate Duty Office: a provisional guide (PRO, 1988).
[2505] GM, vol. 15, no. 14 (June 1968) 588.
[2506] GM, vol. 16, no. 1 (March 1969) 23.
[2507] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 116-17.
[2508] GM, vol. 16, no. 5 (March 1970) 236.
[2509] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 363.
[2510] GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 469.
[2511] SoG AR 1972, 1.
[2512] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 138.
[2513] GM, vol. 18, no. 5 (March 1976) 226.
[2514] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 358.
[2515] GM, vol. 16, no. 6 (June 1970) 298.
[2516] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 336-37.
[2517] Anthony J. Camp, ‘The perils of prervation’ , in GM, vol. 21, no. 8 (December 1984) 265-75.
[2518] Malcolm Pinhorn to P. H. Blake, 5 April 1962.
[2519] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 116.
[2520] Philip Blake to Anthony Camp, 3 March 1969.
[2521] SoG AR 1969, 2.
[2522] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 326.
[2523] GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 351.
[2524] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 586.
[2525] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 230.
[2526] GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1978) 301.
[2527] D. J. Steel, 'World Conference on Records', in GM, vol. 16, no. 5 (March 1970) 233-36.
[2528] Anthony Camp’s aide memoire for Mrs Mackay, January 1969.
[2529] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 101-2.
[2530] GM, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1969) 166.
[2531] GM, vol. 16, no. 5 (March 1970) 224.
[2532] Philip Harris, Report to Board on meeting with Anthony J. Camp, 10 December 1968 (Affidavit PH1, June 1974).
[2533] C. M. Mackay, Secretary, to Phillimore & Co Ltd, 30 October 1969, to Philip Harris, Managing Director, 3 November 1969, and 26 November 1969; Philip Harris to C. M. Mackay, 6 November 1969.
[2534] SoG AR 1969, 2.
[2535] Francis Leeson, 14 October 1975, quoted in report to Publications Committee, 14 October 1977.
[2536] Philip Harris to Mildred Surry, 8 February 1977.
[2537] Donald Steel, 29 August 1977, quoted in report to Publications Committee, 14 October 1977.
[2538] Jeremy Gibson, 26 September 1977, quoted in report to Publications Committee, 14 October 1977.
[2539] Philip Harris to Brian Brooks, 12 September 1977.
[2540] Society of Genealogists: Publications Committee: 14 October 1977.
[2541] Society of Genealogists: Publications Committee: 14 October 1977.
[2542] Committee on Departmental Records Report, HMSO 1954, Cmd 9163.
[2543] Gerald Hamilton-Edward to Anthony Camp, 4 March 1967.
[2544] SoG AR 1965, 1.
[2545] Philip H. Blake to Lord Denning, 24 February 1967.
[2546] SoG AR 1966, 1.
[2547] The British Records Association: thirty-fifth report of council … for the year 1966-1967 (1967) 8.
[2548] Philip H. Blake to the Master of the Rolls, 24 February 1967.
[2549] Peter Spufford (for British Record Society) to Sir George Coldstream (Lord Chancellor’s Permanent Secretary),1 November 1966.
[2550] G. K. S. Hamilton-Edwards to Lord Chancellor, 28 February 1967.
[2551] H. Leslie White to Editor of GM, 17 December 1966.
[2552] ‘Lord Denning wants 6 miles of wills cleared’, Daily Telegraph, 26 August 1966; ‘Cutting Law Records; aim to keep only the useful’, The Times, 26 August 1966.
[2553] C. K. Adams, Chairman, SoG, to the Lord Chancellor, 11 October 1966.
[2554] R. Thesiger for Lord Chancellor to C. K. Adams for SoG, 20 October 1966.
[2555] M. Roper for Advisory Council to Chairman, SoG, 8 November 1966.
[2556] Conference on Legal Records: observations on the Report of the Committee on Legal Records (Institute of Historical Research, duplicated TS, February 1967).
[2557] M. Roper for Advisory Council to Chairman, SoG, 12 December 1966; Anthony Camp to M. Roper, 2 March 1967.
[2558] M. Roper to Anthony Camp, 17 November 1967; Hansard, House of Lords, 14 November 1967, cols. 585-586.
[2559] The British Records Association: thirty-sixth report of council … for the year 1967-1968 (1968) 9.
[2560] Both quotations appear in John Cantwell, ‘The Public Record Office: Friend of Foe?’, in Contemporary Record, vol. 9, No. 2 (Autumn 1995) 368.
[2561] Anthony Camp to Lord Chancellor, 6 November 1968; SoG AR 1968, 1.
[2562] Sir Anthony Wagner to Lord Chancellor, 12 November 1968.
[2563] GM, vol. 16, no. 3 (September 1969) 111.
[2566] ‘Seven miles of wills to be moved’, Daily Telegraph, 9 June 1969.
[2565] R. Thesiger for Lord Chancellor to Anthony Camp, 24 March 1971.
[2566] John Ringrose to Anthony Camp, 2 September 1980 and 29 April 1992.
[2567] Jane Cox, ed., The Nation’s Memory (HMSO, 1988) 10.
[2568] ‘Threat to West Country records’, in The Times, 31 May 1966; Dr W. A. L. Seaman’s letter, ‘Records in danger’, in The Times, 7(?) June 1966.
[2569] Full details are given in C. T. and M. J. Watts, My ancestor was a merchant seaman (1986 etc.); see also Magna (April 2013) 46-28, and (May 2015) 46.
[2570] ‘1937 adds to Record Office jam; Cabinet papers for public’, in Daily Telegraph, 2 January 1968.
[2571] Stella Colwell, ‘A genealogist’s view of the Public Records’, in The Records of the Nation (1990),151-2.
[2572] ‘Queues for Records’, in The Times, 22 February 1968, 11.
[2573] ‘Queues for Records’, in The Times, 1 March 1968, 9, a letter signed by Elton, David Thomson & Dorothy Whitelock.
[2574] GM, vol. 16, no. 10 (June 1971) 546-48.
[2575] SoG AR 1971, 2.
[2576] ‘Future of Public Record Office’, The Times, 21 March 1972, page 15.
[2577] ‘Public Record Office’, The Times, 22 March 1972, page 17.
[2578] ‘Public Record Office’. The Times, 25 March 1972, page 17.
[2579] Briton C. Busch, of New York, The Times, 3 April 1972, page 7; Professor P. J. Korshin, of Pennsylvania, The Times, 4 April 1972, page 13.
[2580] P. William Filby, ‘Bletchley Park and Berkeley Street’, in Intelligence and National Security, vol. 3, no. 2 (April 1988) 272-84.
[2581] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 349.
[2582] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 19.
[2583] GM, vol. 16, no. 7 (September 1970) 358.
[2584] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 606.
[2585] SoG AR 1972, 3.
[2586] Anthony Camp to Simon Pointer, Oxford Heraldry Society, 7 January 1972.
[2587] SoG AR 1979, 4.
[2588] They are listed in GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 639-41.
[2589] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 617.
[2590] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 606-7.
[2591] GM, vol. 17, no. 9 (March 1974) 474.
[2592] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 589.
[2593] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 88-89; repeated no. 7 (September 1976) viii and vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) viii and no. 6 (June 1978) xii.
[2594] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 333.
[2595] SoG AR 1978, 6.
[2596] GM, vol. 17, no. 1 (March 1972) 27.
[2597] SoG AR 1972, 2.
[2598] GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 299; a second edition appeared in 1978, see review in GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 289-90.
[2599] GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 239.
[2600] GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 350, and no. 8 (December 1973) 440.
[2601] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 582.
[2602] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 2-3; SoG AR 1975, 4, gives the number as 66.
[2603] Patricia M. Riach, 'Parish Register Transcriptions Missing from the Society's Collections', in GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 132-33.
[2604] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 351-52; SoG AR 1975, 4, mentioning that only six had then been recovered.
[2605] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 326.
[2606] SoG AR 1975, 4.
[2607] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 351.
[2608] SoG AR 1976, 4.
[2609] SoG AR 1976, 4.
[2610] SoG AR 1974, 2.
[2611] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 140.
[2612] Obituary by Kathleen Blomfield in GM, vol. 10, no. 2 (June 1947) 52.
[2613] G. H. Holley in Miscellany of Norfolk Record Society, vol. 27 (1956).
[2614] SoG AR 1974, 2.
[2615] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 140.
[2616] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 84-85.
[2617] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 140.
[2618] L. W. Lawson Edwards, 'Sun Fire Insurance Office Claims 1770-1788, in GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 192-201.
[2619] Roland Gwyn to L. W. Lawson Edwards, 6 July 1987. He died at Boynton Beach, Florida, on 13 August 1987.
[2620] A transcript of the debate, taken from Hansard, is given in GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 589-603.
[2621] Obituary by Monnica Stephens in GM, vol. 28, no. 3 (September 2004) 115.
[2622] GM, vol. 17, no. 1 (March 1972) 38-39 and 42.
[2623] GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 351.
[2624] GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 239.
[2625] Anthony Camp to Isobel Mordy, 11 May 1974.
[2626] SoG AR 1979, 3.
[2627] SoG AR 1972, 2.
[2628] SoG AR 1973, 2.
[2629] Reviewed by Donald Steel in GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 89-90.
[2630] SoG AR 1974, 1; SoG AR 1974, 1.
[2631] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 61-62.
[2632] Brendan Mulholland, ‘Vicar put parish records on rubbish dump’, in The Sunday Express, 27 April 1975.
[2633] SoG AR 1975, 3.
[2634] An edited version of the discussion in the House of Lords, taken from Hansard, vol. 368, no. 35, for Thursday, 19 February 1976, was printed in GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 278-87.
[2635] SoG AR 1976, 3.
[2636] Letter, ‘Charges for using Parish Registers’, in The Times, 7 October 1976, signed by representatives of the Cambridge Group, Federation of Family History Societies, Friends Historical Society, Historical Association, Huguenot Society, Local History Tutors’ Conference, Local Population Studies, Social History Society, Society of Genealogists, Standing Conference for Local History, and Universities’ Council for Adult Education.
[2637] SoG AR 1976, 3.
[2638] SoG AR 1977, 3.
[2639] SoG AR 1977, 2-3.
[2640] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 83.
[2641] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 234.
[2642] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 196-98, quoting Hansard for 9 January 1978, cols. 1395-1400.
[2643] SoG AR 1978, 4.
[2644] SoG AR 1979, 6.
[2645] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 235.
[2646] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 338.
[2647] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 379.
[2648] Duncan Harrington, ‘Ensuring the future of parish records’, in The Times, 7 May 1983.
[2649] Catalogue of Deighton, Bell & Co, 13 Trinity Street, Cambridge, received 6 December 1979.
[2650] GM, vol. 17, no. 1 (March 1971) i.
[2651] GM, vol. 17, no. 1 (March 1972) 26.
[2652] Obituary in Swindon Advertiser, 24 January 2008.
[2653] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 612.
[2654] SoG AR 1972, 2.
[2655] GM, vol. 17, no. 2 (June 1972) 65.
[2656] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 121-22,
[2657] GM, vol. 17, no. 4 (December 1972) 192.
[2658] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 407-18.
[2659] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 420-29, and no. 9 (March 1974) 475-81.
[2660] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 430-38.
[2661] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 543.
[2662] GM, vol. 17, no. 9 (March 1974) 473-74.
[2663] D. G. Mason to the Joint Editors, 12 May 1974; his letter was read to the Publications Sub-Committee, 11 June.
[2664] A. R. Wagner, English Genealogy (1983) 134.
[2665] ‘The Arms Game’, in Heraldry Gazette: the official organ of the Heraldry Society, vol. 2, Nos. 47 & 48 (July & October 1968) 1.
[2666] ‘Heraldic arms draw dollars’, in The Times, 13 January 1969.
[2667] ‘Arms’ in ‘Ego’ in Sunday Observer, 5 January 1969.
[2668] Anthony Wagner, ‘Heraldic Arms Sale’, in The Times, 16 January 1969.
[2669] GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 324.
[2670] Parliamentary Debates (Hansard): House of Lords, vol. 342, no. 79 (10 May 1973) columns 514-90; ‘Peers want College of arms left alone’, in The Times, 13 May 1973, 14; abbreviated report of Debate in GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 355-64; Denis Herbstein, ‘Fares please, heralds told’, in The Sunday Times, 13 May 1973.
[2671] Parliamentary Debates (Hansard): House of Lords, vol. 344, no. 108 (4 July 1973) columns 237-41.
[2672] Formed in 1975 and dissolved in 1982.
[2673] ‘Heralds meet their Waterloo’, in GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 18.
[2674] Anthony Camp to Jeremy Gibson for Phillimore & Co Ltd, 24 March 1971.
[2675] Anthony Camp to Philip Harris for Phillimore & Co. Ltd., 28 April 1971.
[2676] Lovegrove & Durant to Anthony Camp, 27 May 1971.
[2677] Anthony Camp to Philip Harris for Phillimore & Co. Ltd., 1 December 1971.
[2678] Lovegrove & Durant to J. Denis Burton for Society of Genealogists, 6 January 1972.
[2679] Cecil Mackay for Society of Genealogists to Lovegrove & Durant, 19 January 1972.
[2680] Jeremy Gibson to J. Denis Burton for Society of Genealogists, 16 February 1972.
[2681] J. Denis Burton to Jeremy Gibson, 19 February 1972.
[2682] Helen G. Thacker to Anthony Camp, 5 April 1972.
[2683] C. Clutton, Esq., & Others to Anthony Camp, Esq., Assignment of Copyright in the First and Second Editions of a book entitled "Wills and their whereabouts" originally compiled and published by the late Mr. Bouwens, 27 September 1972.
[2684] Jeremy Gibson to Anthony Camp, 8 March 1974.
[2685] Jeremy Gibson to Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, 6 March 1974.
[2686] Arnold Hawker to Jeremy Gibson, 7 March 1974.
[2687] Anthony Camp to Lawson Edwards, 22 March 1974.
[2688] Anthony Camp to Jeremy Gibson, 14 March 1974.
[2689] GM, vol. 17, no. 9 (March 1974) vi.
[2690] GM, vol. 17, no. 9 (March 1974) 474.
[2691] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) vi.
[2692] Vera Gibbons, Book Shop, Phillimore & Co Ltd, 28 March 1974.
[2693] The Bookseller, 6 April 1974, 1893.
[2694] The Bookseller, 6 April 1974, 1888.
[2695] Brian Fitzgerald-Moore to The Editor, The Bookseller, 11 June 1974.
[2696] The Bookseller, 20 April 1974, 2030.
[2697] Anthony Camp to Anders Larsen, 12 August 1974.
[2698] Robert Massey to Anthony Camp, 11 April 1974.
[2699] Jeremy Gibson to Robert Massey, 6 September 1974.
[2700] e.g. writing that it would give him 'great pleasure' to acknowledge any assistance that I might care to give with his book Probate Jurisdictions, 27 September 1981; I did not reply.
[2701] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) viii.
[2702] Anthony Camp to Alexander Sandison, 17 March 1975.
[2703] Alexander Sandison, to Anthony Camp, 12 May 1975.
[2704] D. B. G. Gabriel, of Lawrence, Graham & Co, to Mrs C. M. Mackay, 24 May 1974.
[2705] Journal of Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry, no. 35 (November 1974) 18-20.
[2706] Lord Mountbatten to Anthony Camp, 9 and 11 July 1968.
[2707] Anthony Camp to Lord Mountbatten, 16 July 1968.
[2708] Lord Mountbatten to Anthony Camp, 8 August 1968.
[2709] GM, vol. 17, no. 4 (December 1972) 179-82.
[2710] Hugo Vickers, Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece (London, 2000) 369.
[2711] Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten: the official biography (London, 1985) 682.
[2712] David Williamson, Brewer's British Royalty (London, 1996) 347.
[2713] The meddlesome solicitor Edward Frank Iwi (1904-1966),described as a ‘lawyer and genealogist’ by Ziegler, seems to have been best known for his tongue in cheek letters to the press on hypothetical questions and his Laws and flaws: lapses of the legislators (Odhams Press, 1956); see his obituary in The Times, 7 June 1966, page 12. In September 1959 he had written to the Prime Minister saying that the use of the surname Windsor alone on the birth certificate of Prince Andrew would be a ‘Badge of Bastardy’. His article 'The heir-apparent' appeared in Debrett's Peerage (1965) 19-20.
[2714] Patrick Montague-Smith to Mrs C. M. Mackay, 27 June 1972. Obituary in The Times, 7 June 1966, page 12.
[2715] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 123-24.
[2716] Hugo Vickers, Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece (London, 2000) 369.
[2717] John W. Barratt to Jeremy Gibson, 22 November 1973.
[2718] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 417.
[2719] Lord Mountbatten to Jeremy Gibson, 18 June 1974.
[2720] SoG AR 1972, 1.
[2721] Review by Jeffrey Finestone in GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 597-98; Charles ‘Arnold’ McNaughton relied greatly on Mountbatten’s encouragement and sponsorship and shortly after the latter’s murder on 27 August 1979, he jumped to his death off a local high bridge, 14 October 1979.
[2722] Obituary in GM, vol. 17, no. 4 (December 1972) 222.
[2723] GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 615-16.
[2724] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 130-31,
[2725] GM, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1972) 127.
[2726] ‘Congress of Genealogy and Heraldry’, in Daily Telegraph, 11 September 1962; ‘£2,000 grant that failed’, Daily Telegraph, 5 December 1962.
[2727] Vincent Mulchrone, ‘Fine goings on … among the nobility yesterday’, in Daily Mail, 15 September 1962.
[2728] GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 350.
[2729] Minutes of XIII International Congress meeting held at IHGS, Canterbury, 22 September 1973, 1.
[2730] Minutes of English Genealogical Congress committee meeting, 15 November 1973, 2.
[2731] Journal of the Bristol & Avon Family History Society (December 1990) 24.
[2732] GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 294.
[2733] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 523.
[2734] GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) x.
[2735] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 448-49.
[2736] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 523.
[2737] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 522.
[2738] Journal of the Bristol & Avon Family History Society (December 1990) 24-27.
[2739] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 524-25.
[2740] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 524.
[2741] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 559-60.
[2742] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 622.
[2743] Journal of the Bristol & Avon Family History Society (December 1990) 24-27.
[2744] Journal of the Bristol & Avon Family History Society (December 1990) 25.
[2745] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 581 and 621-22.
[2746] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 621-22.
[2747] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 618-20.
[2748] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 617.
[2749] Anthony Wagner, A Herald's World (London, 1988) 163.
[2750] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 590-93.
[2751] Cecil Mackay to Robert Garrett, 19 June 1974.
[2752] GM, vol. 17, no. 9 (March 1974) 474.
[2753] Brenda Leech, for Exhibition & Trade Fairs International Ltd., to Anthony Camp, 12 August 1974.
[2754] Journal of Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry, No. 35 (November 1974) 1.
[2755] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) facing 612.
[2756] Diary, 24 June 1975.
[2757] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 525.
[2758] GM, vol. 17, no. 12 (December 1974) 645.
[2759] Minutes of XIII International Congress meeting held at IHGS, Canterbury, 22 September 1973, 2.
[2760] Journal of the Bristol & Avon Family History Society (December 1990) 27.
[2761] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 33.
[2762] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 34.
[2763] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 34-35.
[2764] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 35-36.
[2765] Eva Beech, 'A genealogy class in North Staffordshire', in GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 202-4.
[2766] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 37.
[2767] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 37-38.
[2768] GM, vol. 17, no. 12 (December 1974) 645-46.
[2769] Obituary by Dr W. E. Church and Cecil Humphery-Smith in GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 149.
[2770] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 127.
[2771 Minutes of AGM, 21 September 1975, printed in Federation of Family History Societies 21st Anniversary (1995) 11-16.
[2772] GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 178; SoG AR 1975, 1.
[2773] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 332.
[2774] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 64.
[2775] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 121.
[2776] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 275-76.
[2777] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 120 and 122.
[2778] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 122; obituary by Cecil Humphery-Smith in Family History, vol. 12, nos. 91/92 (August 1982) 201-2.
[2779] D. A. Palgrave, 'One-Name Societies', in GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 296-98.
[2780] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 79.
[2781] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 160.
[2782] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 306-7.
[2783] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 59.
[3784] The Midland Ancestor, vol. 4, no. 1 (1975).
[2785] GM, vol. 17, no. 8 (December 1973) 406.
[2786] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 5-6.
[2787] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 118.
[2788] SoG AR 1975, 5.
[2789] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 66.
[2790] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 63.
[2791] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 326.
[2792] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 327.
[2793] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 38-39.
[2794] GM, vol. 19, no. 4 (December 1977) 118.
[2795] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 229.
[2796] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 64 and 66.
[2797] GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 181.
[2798] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 332.
[2799] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 3.
[2800] SoG AR 1975, 4-5.
[2801] GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 182-86.
[2802] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 299-300.
[2803] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 95.
[2804] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 99-100.
[2805] GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 210.
[2806] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 291.
[2807] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 119.
[2808] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 229.
[2809 Printed as ‘Belgie en Engeland een twee Richtingen Verkeer’, in Vlaamse Stam (1972) 31-44.
[2810] Emilia Adamczykova to Anthony Camp, 10 November 1973.
[2811] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) x-xi.
[2812] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 276.
[2813] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 305-6.
[2814] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 304-5.
[2815] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 365.
[2816] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 365-67.
[2817] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 332.
[2818] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 83.
[2819] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 195.
[2820] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 329.
[2821] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 1 and 3; it was re-founded as South Wales Family History Society in 1977, GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 80.
[2822] Reviewed in GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 91, and no. 4 (December 1977) 119.
[2823] SoG AR 1984, 6.
[2824] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 118-19.
[2825] GM, vol. 18, no. 5 (March 1976) 228-31.
[2826] Circular dated 3 June 1976 from Elizabeth Simpson, Secretary, Federation of Family History Societies.
[2827] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 14-16. The surname of Alan Reid is there incorrectly given as Read.
[2828] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 20.
[2829] See review by Morris Bierbrier in GM, vol. 18, no. 5 (March 1976) 247-48.
[2830] XII International Congress: 1976: Proceedings, 69-70.
[2831] Printed in full in XII International Congress: 1976: Proceedings, 27-33.
[2832] SoG AR 1976, 5.
[2833] XII International Congress: 1976: Proceedings, 34.
[2834] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 349.
[2835] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 194.
[2836] Obituaries in The Times, 11 February 1992, and Daily Telegraph, 11 February 1992.
[2837] Alex Haley, 'Search for an Ancestor', in New Community, vol. 3 (Autumn 1974) 321-6.
[2838] GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 179.
[2839] The impact of Roots in the USA was described by Mark Ottaway, 'Tangled Roots', in The Sunday Times, 10 April 1977.
[2840] James B. Allen, &c., op. cit. (1995) 291.
[2841] James Rose and Alice Eichholz, Black Genesis (Detroit, 1978).
[2842] Mark Ottaway, ‘Tangled Roots’, in The Sunday Times, 10 April 1977, 17.
[2843] Allegations that some 81 passages in the book had been taken from a novel, The African by Harold Courlander (1967) were the subject of an out-of-court settlement in December 1978, as noted in GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 302.
[2844] Charles Laurence, ‘1,000 find pride in their slave roots’, in Daily Telegraph, 1 September 1986, 1.
[2845] John Harlow, ‘American TV boycotts expose of Haley’s Roots’, in Sunday Times, 7 September 1997.
[2846] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 63.
[2847] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 2-3.
[2848] GM, vol. 10, no. 9 (March 1949) 310-14; see also his letter vol. 13, no. 12 (December 1961) 395-6.
[2849] Reviewed by John Harvey in GM, vol. 15, no. 1 (March 1963) 32.
[2850] GM, vol. 14, no. 8 (December 1963),Official Section, 1.
[2851] SoG AR 1963, 1.
[2852] GM, vol. 14, no. 9 (March 1964) 300-1.
[2853] Obituary in GM, vol. 15, no. 8 (December 1966) 307. He had joined the Society in 1957; was a professional searcher in the West Country; borrowed many original registers for transcription; and died 5 May 1966.
[2854] GM, vol. 14, no. 10 (June 1964) 356-57.
[2855] GM, vol. 15, no. 9 (March 1967) 342.
[2856] GM, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 1969) 171-72.
[2857] SoG AR 1969, 2.
[2858] SoG AR 1970, 2.
[2859] GM, vol. 16, no. 10 (June 1971) 565.
[2860] Christopher T. and Michael J. Watts, 'M. I.s from Cleared Burial Grounds', in GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 241-44. A few more were added in 1979; GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 353.
[2861] GM, vol. 16, no. 9 (March 1971) 470-74.
[2862] Martin C. Brimble, 'Monumental Inscriptions', in GM, vol. 16, no. 11 (September 1971) 609-12.
[2863] The Times, 3 and 5 January 1973; GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 255-56.
[2864] TSGL: Seventh QR, March 1913, 2.
[2865] GM, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1973) 308.
[2866] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 564.
[2867] GM, vol. 17, no. 10 (June 1974) 522.
[2868] H. Leslie White, 'Proposed Revision of the Pastoral Measure, 1968', in GM, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1973) 251-54.
[2869] SoG AR 1972, 2.
[2870] SoG AR 1976, 4.
[2871] SoG AR 1974, 2.
[2872] SoG AR 1977, 3.
[2873] Dr H. Leslie White, 'Monumental Inscriptions: a progress report', in GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 19-21.
[2874] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 154; she had joined the Society in 1962.
[2875] GM, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1975) 88. The Leicestershire parishes covered by Mrs Moll are listed on page 111.
[2876] SoG AR 1976, 4.
[2877] Kendall Percy-Smith to Anthony Camp, 31 January 1975.
[2878] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 329; reviewed by Dr White in GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 53.
[2879] GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 324.
[2880] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 51-52.
[2881] SoG AR 1976, 3-4.
[2882] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 159.
[2883] Review by Leslie White in GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 324-25.
[2884] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 229.
[2885] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 375.
[2886] SoG AR 1979, 3.
[2887] SoG AR 1980, 4.
[2888] GM, vol. 15, no. 15 (September 1968) 685.
[2889] Anthony Camp to Arnold Hawker and Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, 11 March 1975.
[2890] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 127.
[2891] Cecil Mackay to Robert Garrett, 19 June 1974.
[2892] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 117.
[2893] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 334.
[2894] L. W. Lawson Edwards to Staff Committee, 2 July 1975.
[2895] Cecil Mackay to J. Denis Burton, 13 October 1975.
[2896] Anthony Camp to Brian Fitzgerald-Moore, 13 December 1975.
[2897] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) vi.
[2898] GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 178.
[2899] The City of London Polytechnic became the London Guildhall University in 1993 and the Fawcett Library was renamed The Women's Library in 2000, moving into new purpose-built premises at Calcutta House, Old Castle Street, London E1, in 2001.
[2900] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 337.
[2901] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 274.
[2902] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 333.
[2903] Anthony J. Camp, ‘Research’ (TS, June, 1976).
[2904] GM, vol. 17, no. 11 (September 1974) 587.
[2905] GM, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1975) 1-2.
[2906] GM, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1975) 123-25.
[2907] GM, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1975) 181.
[2908] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 333-34.
[2909] SoG News Letter sent to members, 17 November 1976; GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 2.
[2910] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 81.
[2911] Memorandum and Articles of Association of TSGL (1911) Article 26; also Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Society of Genealogists (1965) Article 18.
[2912] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 334.
[2913] e.g. GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 326.
[2914] Mildred Surry, Secretary, to defaulting members, 19 August 1976.
[2915] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 37-38.
[2916] SoG AR 1976, 2.
[2917] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 82.
[2918] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 233.
[2919] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 235; SoG AR 1978, 5.
[2920] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 334.
[2921] Anthony Camp to Peter Spufford, 1 March 1963, when I had suggested that the Disney pedigree (proposed for the Magazine cover) might be used.
[2922] The original stencil cost 15s; Anthony Camp to Peter Spufford, 1 May 1963 and 7 August 1963.
[2923] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 78.
[2924] Anthony Camp to Lucy Mary Kellogg, 31 June 1972.
[2925] Alan Hamilton, ‘President’s son finds his roots in Dorset’, The Times, 10 June 1977.
[2926] Mary Ellen Synon, ‘King’s Langley wins fame as Carter ‘home’’, in Daily Telegraph, 12 August 1977, 15.
[2927] ‘The Carter family lived next door’, The Times, 11 October 1977.
[2928] Which was similar to the article 'Careers in heraldry and genealogy' published in GM, vol. 18, no. 8 (December 1970) 400-03.
[2929] Anthony Camp to Alexander Sandison, 17 November 1977.
[2930] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) x-xi.
[2931] Alexander Sandison, 'The Work of the Publications Committee' in GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1979) 160-62.
[2932] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 267.
[2933] SoG AR 1976, 6.
[2934] SoG AR 1976, 6.
[2935] GM, vol. 19, no. 4 (December 1978) 117.
[2936] Gerald Hamilton-Edwards to Miss Surry, 13 June and 10 July 1977.
[2937] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 333.
[2938] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 1; SoG AR 1976, 5.
[2939] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 193; SoG AR 1978, 3.
[2940] GM, vo. 20, no. 1 (March 1980) 2.
[2941] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 50.
[2942] Mervyn T. Medlycott, 'The City of London Freedom Registers', in GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 45-47; Godfrey Thompson, Librarian of the City of London, added to this in vol. 19, no. 4 (December 1977) 141-42.
[2943] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 95-97.
[2944] GM, vol. 19, no. 4 (December 1977) 125-28.
[2945] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 169-73.
[2946] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 203-4.
[2947] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 245-49.
[2948] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 274-76.
[2949] GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 313-21.
[2950] GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 306-11.
[2951] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 345-47.
[2952] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 347-49.
[2953] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 339-45.
[2954] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 374.
[2955] Obituary of ‘Petros I Palaeologus’, in Daily Telegraph, 8 January 1988.
[2956] Anthony Camp to Prince Petros Palaeologus, 13 November 1969.
[2957] ‘Dynastic denial’, in Daily Telegraph, 16 January 1988.
[2958] The Times, 14 February 1989. He had joined the Society when 15 and was a member 1946-49; a birth-brief showing an outline of his true ancestry appeared in GM, vol. 10, no. 1 (March 1947) 37; he re-joined in 1956.
[2959] Adrienne Corri, The search for Gainsborough (1984) 58. I am indebted to Dr J. B. L. Matthews for re-bringing this book to my attention.
[2960] Adrienne Corri, op. cit., 131.
[2961] Adrienne Corri, op. cit., 155.
[2962] Adrienne Corri, op. cit., 154.
[2963] Adrienne Corri, op. cit., 134.
[2964] GM, vol. 18, no. 6 (June 1976) 274.
[2965] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) iv.
[2966] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 194.
[2967] SoG AR 1981, 5.
[2968] GM, vol. 18, no. 7 (September 1976) 331.
[2969] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 296.
[2970] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 160.
[2971] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 349.
[2972] Anthony J. Camp, ‘British Pedigrees and Interests’, in K. A. Johnson and M. R. Sainty, Genealogical Research Directory: National & International (2000) 17-25.
[2973] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) xii.
[2974] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 97-98.
[2975] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 267.
[2976] GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 301, and no. 10 (June 1979) 337.
[2977] SoG AR 1979, 4.
[2978] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 157-58.
[2979] V. Ben Bloxham, James R. Moss and Larry C. Porter, Truth will prevail: the rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the British Isles 1837-1987 (1987) 432-33.
[2980] James B. Allen, &c., op. cit. (1995) 251-52.
[2981] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 82.
[2982] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 90.
[2983] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 151-52.
[2984] A. J. Camp and L. W. L. Edwards, 'The Computer File Index', in GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 162-63.
[2985] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 256-57.
[2986] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 290-91.
[2987] Mildred Surry to Frederick Filby, 11 January 1979.
[2988] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 409.
[2989] GM, vol. 20, no. 5 (March 1981) 146.
[2990] SoG AR 1979, 2.
[2991] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 194.
[2992] Michael Walcot, 'English Marriage Indexes', in GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 204-8; see also no. 7 (September 1978) 244; no. 8 (December 1978) 292; and no. 9 (March 1979) 311-12 with its important comments about the sources for Pallot's Marriage Index.
[2993] SoG AR 1979, 4-5; GM, vol. 20, no. 2 (June 1980) 37; Rosetta Brading typed its 50,000 cards containing all the marriages prior to 1837 and the baptisms and burials to 1858.
[2994] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 230-31.
[2995] Mildred Surry, 'Notice to newly elected members of the Society', and GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 82.
[2996] SoG AR 1977, 5.
[2997] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 233.
[2998] New Series, vols. xvi-xx; fourteen boxes of his correspondence and articles form a special collection at the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.
[2999] Review by Morris Bierbrier in GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 176-77.
[3000] Review by Morris Bierbrier in GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 288.
[3001] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 53-54.
[3002] Heraldique et Genealogie, vol. 5, no 1 (January-February 1973) 3-9.
[3003] Jacques Dupont & Jacques Saillot, Cahiers de Saint Louis, 3e trimestre, no. 11 (Nantes, 1978). Part 1 was reviewed in GM, vol. 19, no. 4 (December 1977) 140-41.
[3004] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 409.
[3005] Reviewed in Times Literary Supplement, 23 December 1977.
[3006] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 252.
[3007] SoG AR 1978, 5.
[3008] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 265.
[3009] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 231-32.
[3010] GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 303.
[3011] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 338 and no. 11 (September 1979) 373.
[3012] SoG AR 1978, 5.
[3013] GM, vol. 19, no. 4 (December 1977) 117; SoG AR 1978, 5.
[3014] ‘The Landbeach family reconstitution project’, GM, vol. 20, no. 2 (June 1980) 41-44.
[3015] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 279-80.
[3016] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 375-76.
[3017] SoG AR 1979, 5.
[3018] SoG AR 1976, 3.
[3019] GM, vol. 19, no. 2 (June 1977) 38, and no. 3 (September 1977) 79-80.
[3020] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 83.
[3021] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 158.
[3022] J. S. W. Gibson, Census Returns 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871 on microfilm: a directory to local holdings (Gulliver Press and Federation of Family History Societies, 1979).
[3023] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 373.
[3024] GM, vol. 19, no. 9 (March 1979) 302.
[3025] Francis Leeson, 'A visit to Kew', in GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 172-73, and 'How to order by computer at the P. R. O., Kew', in the same, no. 7 (September 1978) 249-51.
[3026] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 194.
[3027] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 338.
[3028] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 214.
[3029] GM, vol. 19, no. 6 (June 1978) 193.
[3030] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 374.
[3031] SoG AR 1979, 6.
[3032] ‘More Moves to Kew’, GM, vol.20 , no. 1 (March 1980) 1-2.
[3033] Eunice Wilson, ‘Follow the PRO to Kew’, GM, vol. 20, no. 3 (September 1980) 100.
[3034] SoG AR 1980, 7-8.
[3035] SoG AR 1981, 7-8.
[3036] SoG AR 1982, 9.
[3037] ‘Access to official records’, in The Times, 30 April 1982; ‘Threat to reading room lifted’, in Daily Telegraph, 1 May 1982; SoG AR 1982, 9.
[3038] GM, vol. 20, no. 4 (December 1980) 234.
[3039] GM, vol. 20, no. 2 (June 1980) 39.
[3040] SoG AR 1982, 9.
[3041] SoG AR 1983, 9.
[3042] British Association for Local History, Report of the Council for the period 1st May 1983 to 29th February 1984, 1.
[3043] Margaret E. Robinson, BALH Administrator/Secretary, for Christopher Charlton, to RUG Representatives, 27 March 1985.
[3044] SoG AR 1984, 10.
[3045] SoG AR 1985, 9.
[3046] SoG AR 1985, 9.
[3047] SoG AR 1986, 10-11; SoG AR 1987, 10.
[3048] SoG AR 1987, 10.
[3049] SoG AR 1988, 9.
[3050] SoG AR 1989, 10.
[3051] SoG AR 1990, 9.
[3052] SoG AR 1990, 10.
[3053] SoG AR 1991, 10.
[3054] SoG AR 1991, 10.
[3055] SoG AR 1992, 10.
[3056] SoG AR 1993, 8.
[3057] SoG AR 1994, 7.
[3058] SoG AR 1995, 10.
[3059] SoG AR 1995, 10.
[3060] SoG AR 1997, 10.
[3061] SoG AR 1996, 9.
[3062] SoG AR 1997, 10.
[3063] http://one-place-studies.org. David Hawgood published a first attempt at such a register in 2001.
[3064] SoG AR 1978, 4.
[3065] SoG AR 1979, 5-6.
[3066] SoG AR 1977, 3.
[3067] SoG AR 1978, 4-5.
[3068] SoG AR 1979, 6; C. T. Watts, ‘Solicitors’ records and the family historian’, GM, vol. 20, no. 5 (March 1981) 168-69.
[3069] SoG AR 1980, 8.
[3070] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 82.
[3071] See advertisement of services in GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) vii
[3072] Obituary by Anthony Camp (from which my adverse comments were removed!) in Family Tree Magazine, vol. 24, no. 9 (Summer 2008) 65.
[3073] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 234.
[3074] GM, vol. 19, no. 12 (December 1979) 418.
[3075] Prince Michael of Kent to Stella Colwell, 4 September 1979, a letter printed in GM, vol. 19, no. 12 (December 1979) 417-18.
[3076] Anthony Camp, 'The Royal Family Historian', in GM, vol. 19, no. 12 (December 1979) 419-21.
[3077] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 265.
[3078] GM, vol. 19, no. 12 (December 1979) 422.
[3079] SoG AR 1980, 1.
[3080] SoG AR 1982, 2.
[3081] P. W. Montague-Smith and M. L. Bierbrier, 'The Ancestry of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent', in GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 269-73.
[3082] SoG AR 1978, 3.
[3083] SoG AR 1978, 1-3.
[3084] SoG AR 1978, 6.
[3085] GM, vol. 19, no. 10 (June 1979) 337.
[3086] Memorandum from Mildred Surry, 31 August 1978.
[3087] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 382-93.
[3088] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 400-2.
[3089] GM, vol. 19, no. 12 (December 1979) 422.
[3090] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 373.
[3091] The lecture was printed in GM, vol. 20, no. 1 (March 1980) 5-10.
[3092] SoG AR 1979, 2-3.
[3093] SoG AR 1980, 4.
[3094] SoG AR 1979, 7.
[3095] SoG AR 1978, 6.
[3096] SoG AR 1979, 6.
[3097] SoG AR 1980, 7.
[3098] SoG AR 1982, 10.
[3099] SoG AR 1980, 8.
[3100] ‘The life of your Director’, 11 January 1980.
[3101] Gary Boyd Roberts, ‘A professional code for genealogical libraries and librarians’, in NGS Quarterly, March 1979, 11-13.
[3102] SoG AR 1978, 6.
[3103] SoG AR 1980, 8.
[3104] Anthony Camp to Morris Bierbrier (Chairman, Library Committee),4 July 1980.
[3105] SoG AR 1981, 8.
[3106] SoG AR 1981, 3.
[3107] SoG AR 1981, 8.
[3108] SoG AR 1982, 10.
[3109] SoG AR 1983, 10.
[3110] SoG AR 1982, 10.
[3111] SoG AR 1981, 8.
[3112] SoG AR 1979, 3-5.
[3113] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 254-55.
[3114] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 235.
[3115] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 379-81.
[3116] SoG AR 1979, 4.
[3117] GM, vol. 19, no. 12 (December 1979) 426.
[3118] SoG AR 1980, 5.
[3119] GM, vol. 19, no. 12 (December 1979) xii; SoG AR 1979, 4; also GM, vol. 20, no. 1 (March 1980) vii..
[3120] Jean-Claude Peissel for Phaidon Press to Anthony Camp, 19 March 1979.
[3121] SoG AR 1980, 1-3.
[3122] GM, Vol. 20, no. 5 (March 1981) 145-46.
[3123] SoG AR 1980, 5-7.
[3124] SoG AR 1980, 5.
[3125] GM, vol. 19, no. 8 (December 1978) 266.
[3126] GM, vol. 19, no. 1 (March 1977) 3.
[3127] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 79 and 81-82. Brian Brooks resigned the Chairmanship 'through ill health' and Brian Fitzgerald-Moore stepped into the breach in response to a cable sent to Hong Kong [GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 234].
[3128] Jonathan Sale, ‘Ancestor worship’, in Punch, Issue 6368, 18 November 1981, page 894.
[3129] SoG AR 1982, 5.
[3130] Court Circular, in The Times, 17 July 1981, page 16.
[3131] SoG AR 1981, 8.
[3132] SoG AR 1981, 8.
[3133] SoG AR 1982, 10.
[3134] SoG AR 1982, 10.
[3135] SoG AR 1983, 9.
[3136] SoG AR 1983, 10.
[3137] SoG AR 1984, 10.
[3138] Department of the Environment, Press Notice, ‘City of London to take over Greater London Record Office’, 27 February 1985.
[3139] Obituary in Washington Post, 15 June 2000.
[3140] He, who had planned and conducted many genealogical tours in England, was tragically killed crossing a street in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1997, aged 66.
[3141] SoG AR 1981, 6.
[3142] SoG AR 1982, 7.
[3143] SoG AR 1983, 7.
[3244] GM, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 1977) 82-83.
[3145] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 379.
[3146] GM, vol. 19, no. 12 (December 1979) xii.
[3147] SoG AR 1980, 4.
[3148] SoG AR 1981, 4.
[3149] SoG AR 1982, 5.
[3150] SoG AR 1985, 6.
[3151] NIPR, vol. 4, part 1, Surrey (1990).
[3152] A second edition, with the same editors, was published in 2000.
[3153] SoG AR 1986, 7-8.
[3154] SoG AR 1982, 5.
[3155] SoG AR 1982, 4.
[3156] ‘Bookish thieves’, in Kensington & Chelsea Times, 13 April 1984, 1.
[3157] SoG AR 1982, 2-4.
[3158] SoG AR 1982, 6.
[3159] SoG AR 1984, 7.
[3160] SoG AR 1982, 5.
[3161] SoG AR 1979, 4.
[3162] SoG AR 1980, 8.
[3163] SoG AR 1978, 3.
[3164] Michael Synge, ‘Improving the Society’s income’, GM, vol. 20, no 1 (March 1980) 11.
[3165] Geoffrey L. Fairs, ‘Preparation is the keynote’, GM, vol. 20, no. 2 (June 1980) 59-60.
[3166] Stella Colwell, ‘Improving the Society’, GM, vol. 20, no. 2 (June 1980) 59.
[3167] Alexander Sandison, ‘The Society and computers’, GM, vol. 20, no. 2 (June 1980) 37-39.
[3168] I. R. Harrison, ‘Just a decade – or a new era’, GM, vol. 20, no. 1 (March 1980) 12.
[3169] ‘The Library Committee’, GM, vol. 20, no. 3 (September 1980) 78.
[3170] I. R. Harrison, ‘An eye to the future: uses of the computer in genealogy’, GM, vol. 20, no. 3 (September 1980) 81-84.
[3171] GM, vol. 20, no. 4 (December 1980) 139.
[3172] GM, vol. 20, no. 5 (March 1981) 146.
[3173] ‘Computers in Genealogy: A symposium – 2’, GM, vol. 20, no. 5 (March 1981),160-61
[3174] Dennis K. Powell, ‘Computer based population records’, GM, vol. 20, no. 5 (March 1981) 161-67.
[3175] Genealogical Research Directory Mid 1984 (Sydney, 1984) unpaginated advertisement.
[3176] SoG AR 1982, 7-8.
[3177] Anthony Camp, Society of Genealogists: Computers (May 1983).
[3178] Computers in Genealogy, vol. 1, no. 5 (September 1983) 105.
[3179] A. Sandison, ‘All in the family: coding family relationships’, Personal Computer World, 6 (April 1983) 180, 183.
[3180] SoG AR 1983, 8.
[3181] SoG AR 1983, 9-10.
[3182] SoG AR 1983, 4.
[3183] SoG AR 1983, 3-6.
[3184] SoG AR 1983, 6-7.
[3185] SoG AR 1983, 5 and 10.
[3186] SoG AR 1984, 6.
[3187] SoG AR 1984, 9.
[3188] Anthony Camp to SoG members in North America, 24 April 1984.
[3189] SoG AR 1986, 7.
[3190] Census Indexes in the Library of the Society of Genealogists (SoG, 1987).
[3191] GM, vol. 17, no. 7 (September 1973) 354.
[3192] The vast power station built in the 1930s, which at its peak had powered over one fifth of London, closed in 1983; the site covered 38 acres!
[3193] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 157; SoG AR 1978, 6.
[3194] GM, vol. 19, no. 7 (September 1978) 233.
[3195] GM, vol. 19, no. 11 (September 1979) 378.
[3196] SoG AR 1979, 6.
[3197] SoG AR 1980, 7.
[3198] SoG AR 1981, 3.
[3199] SoG AR 1981, 7.
[3200] SoG AR 1982, 8.
[3201] SoG AR 1983, 8.
[3202] SoG AR 1981, 7.
[3203] Arnold Hawker, ‘The search for new premises’, in GM, vol. 20, no. 10 (June 1982) 345-46.
[3204] Obituary in Yorkshire Post, 28 January 2011.
[3205] Barbara Whitehead to General Purposes Committee, 9 March 1982.
[3206] SoG AR 1982, 8-9.
[3207] London Borough of Islington, TP/71723/03.1/DJH, 22 July 1983.
[3208] London Borough of Islington, TP/71723/03.1/RPM, 22 November 1983.
[3209] SoG AR 1983, 8-9.
[3210] SoG AR 1985, 8.
[3211] Stones Porter & Co to SoG, 7 February 1984.
[3212] HM Land Registry, Title Number LN 145466 (registered 25 January 1957).
[3213] Francis L. Leeson, ‘14 Charterhouse Buildings’, in GM, vol. 21, no. 8 (December 1984) 284-6.
[3214] John Carey, ‘Light from the shade of a family tree’, in The Times, Saturday, 24-30 March 1984, 11.
[3215] Reviewed in Punch, 16 May 1984, issue 6495, page 75.
[3216] SoG AR 1986, 11.
[3217] SoG AR 1984, 10.
[3218] ‘Insurance History Forum 1984’, in GM, vol. 21, no. 7 (September 1984) 235-8.
[3219] John Merritt, ‘Family tree racket is uncovered’, in The Observer, 13 November 1988.
[3220] ‘Barking up the wrong tree?’, in Which?, April 1989.
[3221] Tony Hetherington, ‘Making a killing in the surname game’, in The Times, 13 May 1989; Victoria Macdonald, ‘Family trees branch out’, in Guardian, 15 August 1989, is less critical.
[3222] Richard Eastman, ‘My least favourite Genealogy Web Site’, on http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2004/08/my_least_favori.html, accessed 2013; Dick Halsey, ‘Halbert’s Still Going Strong’, in Hear Ye Hear Ye (Rochester Genealogical Society),vol. 19, no. 1 (Winter 1998) 5-6; ‘Halbert’s Under Cease and Desist Order’, in NGS Newsletter, March/April 1996.
[3223] ‘Burke’s Peerage wound up’, in Daily Telegraph, 18 February 1987; London Gazette, Issue 50858, 12 March 1987, page 3363.
[3224] The Times, 8 March 2005.
[3225] Lynn Barber, ‘Mr Rent-a-Royal-Quote’, in Sunday Express Magazine, 9 August 1987.
[3226] ‘Her Majesty is an Arab!’ in The Sun, 10 October 1986, 13; Times of India, 28 October 1986, 23; Everyone Has Roots (1978) 98, 183.
[3227] The Advertising Standards Authority Limited to Society of Genealogists, 30 December 1994.
[3228] The Advertising Standards Authority Limited to Society of Genealogists, 14 February 1995.
[3229] Quoted in Hampshire Family Historian (February 1995) 245.
[3230] Jill Parkin, ‘By ‘eck … I’ve got my very own coat of arms’, in Weekend Telegraph, 13 January 1996, 11.
[3231] Emma Cook, ‘A peerage for berks?’, Independent, 17 October 1995.
[3232] Paula Balik, ‘Putting on heirs’, in Express-News, San Antonio, Texas, 8 December 1987, 15-A.
[3233] Maudie S. Walling, History of the Walling Family, 1623-1945 (Dallas, Texas, 1945).
[3234] H. B. Brooks-Baker to members of the Walling Association, 10 February 1988.
[3235] ‘Wallings to gather to discuss oil fortune’, in The Houston Post, Sunday, 8 November 1987, 13A; Judy Kuhlman, ‘Lure of Money, Oil, Land, Brings Texan’s Heirs to City’, in unidentified Oklahoma City newspaper, week of 8 November 1987.
[3236] H. B. Brooks-Baker to Mrs Beatrice Thedford, xxiii ii mcmlxxxviii (23 February 1988).
[3237] Edna Walling Neuhauser (Mrs G. F.) to Anthony Camp, 20 March 1988.
[3238] The case is summarised in ‘Bea Thedford, et al., Appellants, v. Union Oil Company of California, et al, Appellees. No 05-96-0865-CV. 9 August 9 1999’; http://caselaw.findlaw.com/tx-court-of-appeals/1079589.html accessed 2013.
[3239] Anthony Hilton, ‘Burke’s bible peering at a quote’, in London Standard, 28 November 1986.
[3240] Lois Rogers, ‘Blood feud over who knows who’s an oil heir’, in London Standard, 26 October 1987.
[3241] Martin Ivens, ‘Hunt is on for the oil-rich hillbillies’, in Daily Telegraph, 22 October 1986.
[3242] Associated Press articles in The National Enquirer and Wall Street Journal, 8 October 1987.
[3243] The case is summarised in ‘B. L. Peregoy et al, v. Amoco Production Co, et al. Civ. A. No. B-89-00423-CA. 18 June 1990; http://www.leagle.com accessed 2013; see also ‘Judge Rejects Heirs’ Claims to an Oil Fortune’, in The New York Times, 21 June 1990.
[3244] The case was summarised in ‘Roy Feathers, as Administrator of the Estate of Pelham Humphries, Deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Chevron U.S.A., Inc., et al, Defendants-Appellees. 141 F.3d 264 (6th Cit.1998)’; http://federal-circuits.vlex.com/vid/feathers-pelham-humphries-chevron-amoco-36142... Accessed 2013.
[3234] ‘FBI News: End of the Burke’s Peerage show?’ in Private Eye, October 1991, 29; reprinted in International Genealogy Consumer Report, vol. 9, no. 1 (January-June 1992) 2.
[3246] ‘£500,000 : the price of joining the aristocracy’, in The Sunday Times, 4 September 1994, page 5.
[3247] ‘Barony of Ruchlaw’, in The Herald, 21 February 1990.
[3248] ‘The Barony of Alford’, in The Times, 16 December 1989, page 13c.
[3249] ‘Title check’, in Evening Standard, 19 December 1989.
[3250] ‘Royal barony hangs in the balance’, in The Sunday Telegraph, 18 February 1990.
[3251] The phrase was used by Hugh Peskett in Family Tree Magazine, vol. 20, no. 9 (July 2004) page 61.
[3252] He had previously worked for Debrett’s Peerage and in 1982 had edited Debrett’s Handbook, a replacement for the recently defunct Kelly’s Handbook of the Titled, Landed and Official Classes and a rival to Who’s Who, claiming that it contained biographies (as its blurb says) of ‘precisely those with the most spending power in the UK’.
[3253] Anthony Camp, ‘Peers, pedigrees and pastures new: ups and downs at Burke’s Peerage’, in Family Tree Magazine (October 2002) pages 5-6.
[3254] Edinburgh Gazette, Issue 24861, 15 August 2000, pages 1733-34.
[3255] ‘The convention of the baronage of Scotland’, in Burke’s Landed Gentry of Great Britain: The Kingdom in Scotland (2001) page vi.
[3256] Anthony Camp, ‘Titles and entitlement’, in Family Tree Magazine, vol. 20, no 6 (April 2004) pages 23-25.
[3257] Charles Mosley, ‘Virtuous and well deserving?’, in Family Tree Magazine, vol. 20, no.. 9 (July 2004) pages 60-61.
[3258] Vernon Rolls, ‘Good luck to Burke’s, in Family Tree Magazine, vol. 20, no 11 (September 2004),page 26.
[3259] Sebastian Hamilton, ‘Heraldry chief quits after row over title’, in The Sunday Times, 14 May 1995.
[3260] Sean Murphy, ‘Irish Historical Mysteries : The MacCarthy Mor Hoax’, at http://homepage.eircom.net/~seanjmurphy/ithismys/maccarthy.htm (accessed December 2016) and Peter Berresford Ellis, Erin’s Blood Royal: the gaelic noble dynasties of Ireland (London, 1999) Note on page vi and Chapter 6.
[3261] London Gazette, 15 June 2013, Supplement 60534, page 22.
[3262] ‘For sale barony with a commanding view’, in The Daily Telegraph, 22 June 1990, page 5.
[3263] Joseph John Morrow, Lord Lyon, ‘Note issued with Warrant for Letters Patent from Lord Lyon King of Arms in the application of George David Menking of date 21 August 2014’, 30 April 2015.
[3264] ‘Wannabe barons’, in The Telegraph, 28 December 2002.
[3265] Daily Telegraph, 8 March 2005.
[3266] Sarah Duguid, ‘Why the Queen hated the Nabob of Snob’, in The Mail on Sunday, 13 March 2005, 42-43.
[3267] Obituary by Anthony Camp in GM, vol. 28, no 7 (September 2005) 323.
[3268] She died at Burnside, Adelaide, South Australia, 30 July 2005 [death notice in The Daily Telegraph, 15 August 2005].
[3269] Angus McGill, ‘Anyone for a lordship?’, in Evening Standard, 27 Februry 1985.
[3270] Robert Smith, Manorial Society of Great Britain, Annual Review 1987, pages 1-2.
[3271] ‘Acquiring better manors’, in Daily Telegraph, 28 March 1988.
[3272] ‘Be the lord of the manor of Brighton’, in Evening Standard, 10 October 1988.
[3273] Stephen Pile, ‘Manors Maketh Money’, in Telegraph Magazine, 23 November 1996, page 43.
[3274] Stephen Pile, ‘Manors Maketh Money’, in Telegraph Magazine, 23 November 1996, page 43.
[3275] ‘Lord from Lone Star State is here to hold court’, in Daily Telegraph, 16 November 1990.
[3276] ‘Lording it over de Montfort manor’, in Daily Telegraph, 29 July 1990; ‘Tycoon is to the manor bought’, in Daily Mail, 27 July 1990.
[3277] ‘Droit de seigneur’, in Evening Standard, 6 December 1990.
[3278] ‘Search for lord of manor with £250,000’, in The Times, 7 June 1990, page 3.
[3279] Daily Telegraph, 20 July 1990, page 19.
[3280] Peterborough, ‘All that glisters is not old’, in Daily Telegraph, 4 July 1990.
[3281] Peterborough, ‘ASA rejects manor of speaking’, in Daily Telegraph, 13 June 1990, page 19.
[3282] ‘The Heralds are up in arms over titles at a price’, in Sunday Telegraph, 17 June 1990, page 3.
[3283] Hubert Chesshyre, Clarenceux King of Arms, Heralds of Today (2001) pages 4-5.
[3284] Peterborough, ‘Title sales set Lords-a-leaping’, Daily Telegraph, 23 February 1990.
[3285] ‘The new Lord of Balneath’, in The Sunday Telegraph, 10 March 1996, page 17, and ‘Property’
[3286] Stephen Pile, ‘Manors Maketh Money’, in Telegraph Magazine, 23 November 1996, pages 40-45.
[3287] ‘To the manor bought’, in The Sunday Telegraph, 23 August 1998, page 27.
[3288] ‘Lordships for sale?’, in The Sunday Telegraph, 2 May 1999, page 3.
[3289] J. P. Brooke-Little, ‘Editorial’, in The Coat of Arms, N. S. Vol. XII, Spring 1997.
[3290] SoG AR 1986, 6.
[3291] ‘Irreplaceable church records stolen’, The Times, 31 August 1985, page 8.
[3292] SoG AR 1986, 3.
[3293] SoG AR 1986, 3.
[3294] SoG AR 1986, 11.
[3295] SoG AR 1985, 8-9.
[3296] SoG AR 1986, 10.
[3297] SoG AR 1988, 9.
[3298] SoG AR 1986, 10-11.
[3299] SoG AR 1986, 11.
[3300] SoG AR 1986, 6.
[3301] SoG AR 1984, 8.
[3302] SoG AR 1986, 4.
[3303] SoG AR 1986, 4.
[3304] SoG AR 1986, 8.
[3305] SoG AR 1987, 7.
[3306] SoG AR 1986, 4 and 11.
[3307] SoG AR 1986, 7.
[3308] SoG AR 1985, 4-5.
[3309] SoG AR 1986, 3.
[3310] London Borough of Islington, TP/71723.03.1/DJH, 17 November 1986.
[3311] John L. Rayment, 8 February 1987.
[3312] C. T. Watts, 16 February 1987.
[3313] Baker & Associates to Sir Wilfred Robinson, 13 March 1987.
[3314] Paper circulated 14 March 1987.
[3315] SoG AR 1986, 9.
[3316] SoG AR 1986, 4-5.
[3317] SoG AR 1983, 7.
[3318] GM, vol.22, no. 2 (June 1986) 41.
[3319] Anthony Wagner, A Herald’s World (1988) 123.
[3320] GM, vol. 20, no. 1 (March 1980) 15-16.
[3321] SoG AR 1986, 7-8.
[3322] SoG AR 1976, 4.
[3323] SoG AR 1989, 4.
[3324] First available on a blue background in June 1980 (at £4) and then on both blue and maroon backgrounds (a £4.50) in March 1981.
[3325] SoG AR 1987, 5.
[3326] SoG AR 1988, 5.
[3327] Jim Sheppard, ‘Getting to the root of your family tree’, Edmonton Journal, 22 October 1988.
[3328] SoG AR 1987, 11.
[3329] SoG AR 1986, 10-11.
[3330] SoG AR 1987, 10.
[3331] SoG AR 1989, 3
[3332] D. J. Francis to Anthony Camp, 26 January 1986.
[3333] Subsequently with the National Archives in Washington.
[3334] Stephen Young and Susan Lumas, ‘The British 1881 Census Project’ in Federation of Family History Societies 21st Anniversary (1995) 18-29; James B. Allen & others, Hearts Turned to the Fathers: a history of the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1894-1994 (1995) 266-7, 314-7, 319-20.
[3335] SoG AR 1995, 10.
[3336] SoG AR 1996, 9.
[3337] SoG AR 1984, 10-11.
[3338] Human Fertilisation and Embryology: a framework for legislation (Cm 259).
[3339] SoG AR 1987, 11.
[3340] SoG AR 1989, 10.
[3341] Anthony Camp [misprinted as Crump], ‘Is this the Government’s blueprint for family life’, in Daily Telegraph, 25 June 1990, 14.
[3342] SoG AR 1990, 10.
[3343] SoG AR 1992, 10.
[3344] Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (Disclosure of Donor Information) Regulations 2004/1511.
[3345] ‘Changes to access arrangements for adoptees in Enland’, in Descent: the Journal of the Society of Australian Genealogists, vol. 44, part 4 (December 2014) 223.
[3346] Society of Genealogists' News (December 2010) 1.
[3347] Anthony J. Camp, 'The Family History Fair', in Family History News and Digest, vol. 9, no. 2 (September 1993) 42-43.
[3348] SoG AR 1993, 10.
[3349] SoG AR 1994, 10.
[3350] SoG AR 1994, 9.
[3351] GM, vol. 24, no. 11 (September 1994) 514.
[3352] SoG AR 1994, 9.
[3353] SoG AR 1995, 12.
[3354] SoG AR 1996, 12.
[3355] SoG AR 1997, 13.
[3356] SoG AR 1994, 8.
[3357] SoG AR 1997, 13.
[3358] GM, vol. 19, no. 5 (March 1978) 169.
[3359] Probate Department Manager's Circular: the Non-Contentious Probate Fees Order 1999, 30 March 1999.
[3360] Anthony Camp to John Briden, HM Courts Service, 27 March 2009.
[3361] Review of the 30 Year Rule (TSO, January 2009)
