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Local history is the study of the history of a relatively small geographic area; typically a specific settlement, parish or county. Local history came to the fore with the antiquarians of the nineteenth century and was particularly emphasised by the creation of the Victoria County History series in England. Its establishment as a formal academic discipline is usually credited to W. G. Hoskins who also popularised the subject with his book The Making of the English Landscape.
History of English local history
- For the main article see History of English local history.
Researching local history
Local history research, like that of family history, is accessible to people without prior historical training or experience. This is because the very nature of local history is such that starting points are always available locally. An intelligent lay researcher can learn the necessary skills as they research. Archivists and societies can provide advice, encouragement, and information; formal courses of study are also widely available. Many local historians are non-specialists whose enthusiasm for history and have applied this to their area.
Most local history researchers follow a process in which they start from the basic facts offered by the available evidence, make a more detailed analysis of that evidence to explore its implications, and then put that analysis in its wider temporal and geographical context. Some take a more theoretical approach: starting from a hypothesis, which they seek to demonstrate or disprove through evidence.
Primary sources for local history
The primary sources for local history are official, commercial or personal: the original records of government, business, and landownership and the letters and diaries of private individuals. Such records were kept for their contemporary use, not generally with regard to their value for historians. Official records are those for central government, ecclesiastical or parish.
For many aspects of life in the early modern period there are no national statistics. Governments generally began to collect national statistics in the 19th century, for example UK census data from 1801. Before the 19th century knowledge of the past has to be built up from national and local studies using whatever relevant source material survives.
Explaining the extent and chronology of the significant social and economic changes before the nineteenth century poses a problem for historians, since not until the census schedules of 1841 and 1851 were there complete descriptive lists of the inhabitants of every town and village in the country. Historians must therefore depend on sources that were not originally created for the purpose of analysing social structure.
The earliest surviving English census is that for Ealing in 1599. The list was a census of all 85 households in Ealing village giving the names of the inhabitants, together with their ages, relationships and occupations. It survives in manuscript form in the Public Record Office (PRO E 163/24/35), and it has been transcribed and printed by K J Allison.
The hearth tax records of the mid-seventeenth century provide lists of householders, together with the number of hearths in each dwelling, the basis of the tax assessment. Parish officials had to count the hearths. The numbers of hearths are generally proportional to the size of the house. The assessments can be used to indicate the numbers and local distribution of larger and smaller houses. Not every room had a hearth, and not all houses of the same size had exactly the same number of hearths, so they are not an exact measure of house size.
Other forms of census that survive for some limited areas are Poor Law accounts, poll tax returns, and lists of ratepayers.
Gregory King’s Natural and Political Observations on the State and Condition of England (1696) was the best quantitative analysis of English society before 1700. His informed estimate of the population and social structure of England and Wales gives historians a contemporary's view of wealth and status.
The seventeenth century sees the advent of the first reliable local maps. Cartographers like John Speed made street maps of major settlements as well as the more widely published county maps. Some maps, such as Loggan’s Oxford cover their subject in great detail and private maps of land-holdings show similar care.
More personal documents include letters, diaries, wills and probate inventories.
Local history sources may be held centrally in national archives, in more local records offices or in private collections. For most researchers the local records office is the most convenient starting point with its collection of maps, estate papers, parish records, diocesan records, quarter sessions records, the archives of businesses and solicitors' offices, privately deposited deeds, and sundry other material. In the UK local records offices also hold reproductions of centrally held documents of local interest.
Secondary sources for local history
All secondary works are at least one remove from the original or primary source material and represent their author's interpretation of primary sources. However, secondary sources are essential reading for many reasons. They reveal how historians analyse and interpret local sources, set their work in context and suggest what was significant in the period. Most people starting a history project will read some relevant general secondary works first and then select their reading more specifically as their interest develops.
The Victoria County History (VCH) is intended as an encyclopaedia of English local history and is a useful starting point for local historians because of its extensive use of local sources. It was founded in 1899. The VCH is now managed by London University's Institute of Historical Research, with local bodies meeting most of its research costs. More than 200 volumes have already been published. Each county will have a number of general volumes covering the county's prehistory, ecclesiastical history, political history, agriculture, economic and social history. Topographical volumes then cover the history of each parish, town or city, dividing the information into categories, such as manors, churches, charities, nonconformity, schools, local government and economic history. The topographical approach is particularly useful for local historians, providing a starting point for any study of a town or village, parish or manor. References are footnoted so any source material can easily be located.
Besides the VCH there are many county histories written over the last two hundred years, many of which are listed in Currie and Lewis (1994).
National periodicals like Economic History Review, and Agricultural History Review contain articles of local interest in the context of national and international debates. Regional publications such as Northern History, Midland History and Southern History explore aspects of the history of their regions.
The Scottish Historical Review covers all periods of Scottish history and Scottish Economic and Social History is a forum for current research on all aspects of Scottish social and economic history from the medieval period to the present. This includes business history, gender, urban history, labour history and cultural history.
The Welsh Historical Review is published by the University of Wales Press.
Further reading
Books
- Dymond, David. Researching and Writing History: a practical guide for local historians (British Association for Local History, 1999)
- Fowler, Simon. Starting out in local history (Countryside Books, 2001)
- Friar, Stephen. The Local History Companion (Thrupp: Sutton, 2001)
- Hey, David. Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)
- Tiller, Kate. English Local History: an introduction (Thrupp: Alan Sutton 1992)
- Trubshaw, Bob. How to write and publish local history (Heart of Albion Press, 1999)
- Winterbotham, Diana and Crosby, Alan. The Local Studies Library: a handbook for local historians (British Association for Local History, 1998)
Magazines
- Economic History Review
- Agricultural History Review
- Urban History
- Past and Present
- Midland History
- Northern History
- Southern History
- Journal of Regional and Local Studies
- Local Population Studies
- Local Historian
External links
References
- The Victoria History of the Counties of England (VCH).
- Allison, K. J. (ed.) The Ealing Census
- Bede, History of the English Church and People (AD 731).
- Burke, Peter (ed.), New Perspectives on Historical Writing (Polity Press, 1991)
- Clanchy, M.T. From Memory to Written Record (Blackwell, 1992).
- Currie, C. R. J. and Lewis, C. P. A Guide to English County Histories (Thrupp: Sutton, 1994) ISBN 0750902892
- Hoskins, W. G. The Making of the English Landscape.
- Phythian-Adams, Charles. ‘An Agenda for English Local History’, in Societies, Cultures and Kinship 1580-1850 (Leicester Univ. Press, 1993).
- Sheeran, George and Yanina. ‘Reconstructing Local History’, Local Historian (November 1999)
See also
"Local history"