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The development of hunts in Bedfordshire is recounted in the introduction and through transcriptions of documents from several collections in Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service. The documents relate to private hunts (1708-1797) and to the Oakley hunt (1795-1920). They include the hound book of Richard Orlebar of Hinwick House (1708-1727); private correspondence (Orlebar, William Lee Antonie, Samuel Whitbread II); extracts from magazines and books; and circulars; etc.. While the topics in these documents concentrate on horses, hounds, hunting and several detailed accounts of particular hunts, some correspondence also deals with local matters and politics. An early account of a hunt saboteur is reprinted from a book of reminiscences. He seems to have been a resident of a lunatic asylum in Bedford - but the account may be apocryphal.
There is a list of masters of the Oakley hunt from 1798 to 1915. A map, taken from J. and C. Walker's county map of the north and west of Bedfordshire and neighbouring Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire, shows the places of meeting of the Oakley Hunt in 1850.
Includes 'The Civil War Papers of Sir Will. Boteler, 1642-1655', edited by G. Herbert Fowler (Calendar).
'The Ship-money Papers of Henry Chester and Sir Will. Boteler, 1637-1639', edited by F. G. and Margaret Emmison (Assessments, lists of arrears, and correspondence for Bedfordshire.).
'Notes on the Family of Coke, of Newbury, co. Beds', by Sir Henry L. L. Denny, bart (1480-1664).
Although described in the introduction as 'a life', this book, written as a guide to more than 7000 letters held in Bedfordshire Archives, is far more than that. It is a biography of Jemima, Marchioness Grey (1722-1797), mainly pieced together from the voluminous correspondence between the Marchioness and her two daughters. It recounts her life from infant to grandmother.
During the seventeenth century attention was given to improving river navigation in several parts of the country, in return for tolls from boats carrying cargo on the river. Before the civil war the improvements to the River Ouse were mainly carried out by Arnold Spencer of Cople, who overstretched himself and was in debt, so that the patent for the navigation was passed to others. The toll books have not survived and the author is only able to make an estimate of income and tonnage using the river. The introduction gives an account of the improvements to the river by, e.g. sluices, scouring the river, ditches and tow paths etc., and of the people who undertook them. The story is told through transcriptions of 104 documents from the Francklin manuscripts and one from the Whitbread manuscripts at Bedfordshire Archives.
Contains 'Stagsden and Its Manors', by J. Steele Elliott. 'Three Records of the Alien Priory of Grove and the Manor of Leighton Buzzard', by Robert Richmond. 'Ancient Bedfordshire Deeds, no 3: Northill, Southill, Old Warden, etc', by F. A. Page-Turner. 'Harlington Churchwardens' Accounts', by Joseph Hight Blundell. 'Some Bedfordshire Assessments for the Taxation of a Ninth, 1297, by Mrs. Hilary Jenkinson. 'Institutions to Ecclesiastical Benefices in the County of Bedford, 1535-1660', by The Rev. Canon C. W. Foster.
Notes: I 'Declaration of Common Rights, Eaton Bray and Totternhoe, 1475', by Fred. Puttnam; II 'Catsbrook at Biscot near Luton', by William Austin; III 'Wingate of Streatley and Harlington', by Joseph Hight Blundell; IV 'Variant spelling of Thurleigh'; V 'The Meeting Place of Manshead Hundred', by G. Herbert Fowler.
Contains 'The Meeting-place of Wixamtree Hundred', by F. W. Marsom. 'Newnham Priory: A Bedford Rental, 1506-7', by W. N. Henman. 'Newnham Priory: Rental of Manor at Biddenham, 1505-6', by Barbara Cook. 'The Papers of Richard Taylor of Clapham (c. 1579-1641)', by G. D. Gilmore. 'John Crook, 1617-1699: A Bedfordshire Quaker', by H. G. Tibbutt. 'A Bedfordshire Wage Assessment of 1684', by T. S. Willan. 'A Luton Baptist Minute Book, 1707-1806', by C. E. Freeman.
Churchwardens were parish officers responsible for keeping the church and representing the people in parochial matters. They gradually took on more administrative responsibilities during the sixteenth century. Most parishes had two churchwardens who were appointed annually. They normally kept accounts of their income and expenditure on behalf of the parish. The earliest surviving accounts for Bedfordshire parishes have been included in this volume: Clifton, 1543, 1589-1608; Northill, 1561-1612; and Shillington, I571?-1604. Income from rents for church lands and from individuals is recorded. However the main focus is on expenditure for, e.g. church maintenance, ecclesiastical visitations, and communion bread and wine, church ales and, in Northill, on May festivities.
The volume begins with a tribute In Memoriam for John Arnold Whitchurch, President of BHRS, 1945-1953.
This is an account of the impact made by railways on Victorian society in Bedfordshire between 1846 and 1890. There are chapters about the main railway lines through and within the county; schemes that failed; contractors and navvies, travelling by rail; accidents; railwaymen; and crime. Two maps illustrate railways built 1846-1872 and those proposed but not built 1844-1910. Appendices contain a selection of timetables and fares (including five special excursion timetables) of LNWR, MR and GNR and their branches.
Contains 'A note on the foundation of Northill College in 1406', by Peter Hull. (An introduction is followed by a transcription in Latin of the College's foundation grant.) 'The origin of St. Mary's Square, Bedford', by J. Fines. (Transcription in English of a return to the exchequer by John Maygott, incumbent of the united parishes of St. Peter Dunstable and St. Mary, concerning the site and use to which the materials were put after the demolition of the former church c. 1555.)
'The Black Book of Bedford', by G. D. Gilmore. (The Black Book contains the constitutions or byelaws of the borough of Bedford made between 1562 and 1603.)
'Estate and household management in Bedfordshire, c. 1540', by A. G. Dickens. (A transcription of instructions and advice written by Sir John Gostwick of Willington addressed to his son William.)
'The Gostwicks of Willington', by H. P. R. Finberg. (The Gostwicks were typical of many families in the upper-middle stratum of society. They began as yeomen, rose to the gentry under Henry VIII, then suffered varying fortunes. The article includes a chronology of the family’s activities 1524-1804 and a nine-generation pedigree over three centuries from 1490s).
The analytical introduction describes the two rolls, the commissions of the peace, the justices who presided over the session, the place and work of the sessions, the offences and the punishment of offenders. The Latin transcriptions of the entries are provided with English summaries. The majority of cases (c. 200) were common law trespasses of one sort or another (assault, fighting, taking goods, disturbing the peace, threatening behaviour, etc.). More serious crimes classed as felonies (petty treason, homicide, larceny, robbery and accessories to these offences) accounted for less than fifty cases. One of these serious offences was by the parson of Eversholt who wounded a man, fled to his rectory, and killed one of the men sent to arrest him.
The rolls only record the offence and, usually, the outcome. Unfortunately, no evidence is recorded so that the whole story is not told.
The valor, or survey, of the finances of the English lands of Edmund Grey, Earl of Kent (also Lord Grey of Ruthin in Wales), was drawn up from the Earl’s accounts in 1467-8. The Earl held estates in eight counties, and nearly half of the manors were in Bedfordshire. The introduction analyses the gross value of, and charges upon, each manor. The text of the accounts includes the rents, tenants’ names, field names and a mass of detail about individual tenant’s holdings. Amongst the more unexpected items of repairs is the cost at 3s 4d for making a new cucking stool in Blunham.
Other valuations of the estate to 1524 are given in summary.
Minutes of the meetings of the Court of Aldermen, Common Hall and Common Council. They deal with procedure, admission to the freedom of the town, admission of burgesses, appointment of town officials, town property, repairs, the salary of the school usher and litigation. There is a record of the loyal address to the Lord Protector in 1658 but not, it seems, to Charles II in 1660.
Contains 'In Memoriam J. E. M.', (Dr John Edward Morris).
'The Rural Population of Bedfordshire, 1671 to 1921', by Lydia M. Marshall (Based on the hearth tax return of 1671 and the census returns of 1801 and 1921, with a transcription of the Hearth tax return (TNA E 179, 72/301)).
This is a selection of the letters to Edmond Williamson, rector of Millbrook from 1740 until his death in 1775 and also rector of Lolworth in Cambridgeshire. Williamson was from a Bedfordshire family. He was educated at Westminster and Trinity College Cambridge. About 300 letters addressed to Edmond Williamson have survived. Of the 182 printed here, about half are in full, the remainder abbreviated.
Most of the letters were from Edmond's brother Talbot, who lived in London, and whose property in Husborne Crawley Edmond looked after. Others were from their sister Christian who was married to a retired naval captain; a few from a cousin Edmond Horne; and one or two from other people. The letters tell of family life, house improvements and decoration, food, dress and fashion, marriage, bringing up children, books, estate management, enclosure, the reaction of local gentry to the park-making activities of the Duke of Bedford, pluralism, travel, highwaymen, poverty, war, George II's funeral and George III's coronation.
Despite the one-sided nature of the correspondence, Williamson's life is revealed as well as that of his correspondents.
Contains 'Records of Harrold Priory', edited by G. Herbert Fowler. Harrold Priory, founded c. 1136 for nuns, was established as a house of the Abbey of Arrouaise in northern France. Its history is outlined on Bedfordshire Archives' Community History pages. The Priory's cartulary was compiled c. 1417 and is in the British Library. Additional documents relating to the Priory are in the Trevor Wingfield collection which was donated to Bedfordshire County Record Office in 1932.
This book contains Latin transcriptions or abstracts in English of the cartulary; transcriptions in Latin or Anglo-French of documents from the Trevor Wingfield collection at Bedfordshire Archives; and earlier charters from other sources. There are detailed notes.
Includes 'The Will of Roger Benetheton, 1438/9', edited by the late Rev. R. M. Serjeantson (A Latin transcription with English translation of a will entered on the court rolls of Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire.).
'Ancient Bedfordshire Deeds II: Deeds relating to Elstow,' by F. A, Page-Turner (Sixty-six deeds made between 1553 and 1665, transcribed, translated, abstracted or listed.).
'Ancient Indictments, 1341-2,' by G. Herbert Fowler (Latin transcriptions with English translations of Indictments in the court of King's Bench, with an introduction.).
'Selections from Jury Lists,' by the Rev. J. E. Brown (Jurors are listed by parish for 1780, 1785, 1791, 1798, 1800, 1810, 1820 and 1830. Most parishes are included but a notable exception is Bedford itself. The introduction summarises the qualifications for serving on a jury.)
One of the greatest advantages to a composer no longer in the throes of youth is the resurgence of interest that each decade and demi-decade brings as they approach particular milestone years. For Maconchy, her sixtieth year would be the first of several landmark birthdays that were especially advantageous, with a deluge of performances and speaking engagements filling her calendar throughout the year.
It was the first half of 1967 that proved to be the busiest. On 31 January, she delivered a talk at Morley College as part of a series of public lectures titled ‘The Composer Speaks’. The series, which ran from mid-January to the beginning of March, featured Humphrey Searle, Nicholas Maw (1935–2009), Anthony Milner (1925–2002), Malcolm Williamson (1931–2003), Wilfred Josephs (1927– 97), Edmund Rubbra, and Tristram Cary. A particular emphasis of the series was the relationship between the composer and the contemporary music scene. Maconchy focused her talk on the perils facing composers of serious music:
[W]hat has all this preoccupation with serious music got to do with the world to-day? If one had to justify it – to make out a case for serious music – one would say, I think, that it gives intellectual and emotional satisfaction of the highest order to those who play & those who listen to it. And that its values and standards are absolute – self-interest, compromise, commercialism & money-values are irrelevant to it.
But one must accept music on its own terms. If you try to harness it to serve some extra-musical purpose – however lofty – you degrade it. […]
Many people sincerely ask – ‘Why can't you write to please the public?’ But if you are consciously trying to please, you are not thinking exclusively of the music, you are thinking about what might please & what might not – & so inevitably you begin to ‘write down’. (I don't mean that music that pleases is automatically inferior – of course not: but it is only good if the composer's instinct & whole hearted inclination was to write that way – & not if he has consciously been writing to please.)