THS Bulletin 14

Tewkesbury Historical Society

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T.H.S. Bulletin No 14, 2005

Contents

          President’s Foreword and Editorial

When we first embarked upon the venture of producing an annual Bulletin of Research, our first and esteemed editor, Colin Wicken, was always concerned that we would have insufficient material. How things have changed: this year we have faced the difficult task of having an excess of very good material! We are very pleased because, in addition to our own Woodard Award, Society members have been short-listed for the new county Bryan Jerrard Award. However, the highest accolade goes to our secretary, Wendy Snarey, who won a National Award from the British Association of Local History for her article on “Lloyd George’s Domesday”. This emphasises the invaluable work of transcribers to our database since it was Wendy who discovered the wealth of knowledge contained in the 1909-13 Land Tax Survey and who painstakingly transcribed it. Wendy also taught herself the skills necessary to design our website.

Happily this year, we have not been forced to bid farewell to people, but we are pleased that Maggie Thornton has taken over as part-time curator of the Town Museum and that (at the time of writing) funding will not be withdrawn. We have also learned that the Hatte Shoppe development as a heritage centre has won funding from the National Lottery. These are, however, worrying times in local finance.

We also welcome new authors for the Bulletin. Mike English, whom I met at my Thursday computing sessions for local and family historians, has undertaken the invaluable digitised transcription of all the Burial Registers of the Borough Cemetery from 1858-1908 – even the Borough Council is grateful since they only possessed one hard copy!  Geoff Everitt, a scientist, also enjoyed the same provenance; but because he lived in the fascinating Cotteswold Garden development, he succumbed to pressure to writes its history. Jennifer Sherwood also emerged as a family historian. She is, however, also Chair of her Local History Society and we welcome her contribution with more, we hope, to follow. We must also remember that our type-setter, Derek Benson, is a debutant as an author – not content with presenting other people’s work, he has reminded us that the Ham once enabled Tewkesbury to be a rival for Cheltenham races.

We are also grateful to our regular contributors: Norah Day, a life member; Cliff Burd who has written a long overdue article on our unlamented textile industry; Derek Round has also brought to fruition eighteen years research by presenting an article on the other Samuel Osborne of Tewkesbury. We have in the past been mildly criticised for being over-enthusiastic about the Great War but, this year, its only article by Janet Devereux focuses upon the neglected Home Front. David Willavoys, meanwhile, has focussed our attention on the local contribution to fighting the Boer War.  My article commemorates a local soldier who lost his life after the D-Day landings 60 years ago, while Sam Eedle has dragged himself away from his beloved Great War to commemorate the Battle of Trafalgar of 1805; and to prove that a Tewkesburian played a significant – if understated – role in the drama of Nelson’s death.

As Editor, who once studied economic history, I do appreciate being able to understand what prices and wages experienced in the past would mean today. I wrote a short article on the subject in 1999 but continue this practice in this edition. As base, I have used the research of Allan W. Robinson for the Lincolnshire family History Society and brought it up to 2003. Derek Benson has another source – and, generally, we arrived at similar results. We must take care, however, as house prices and wages have altered unrecognisably. My favourite is the comparison in 1540 between the sale of the Abbey Church for £453 with the Abbot’s pension of £266 and the monks of £16. If nothing else, it is food for thought.  I respectfully commend our 14th Bulletin to you all.

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