Those Places Thursday - The State of the Poor UPDATE

Yes, I know it's Sunday, but this is worth mentioning now rather than waiting another four days.

Berkshire: Reading Poorhouse

An eagle-eyed blog reader, Adrian Bruce, found The State of the Poor: Volume II on Google Books. This is the volume with the rest of the Parochial Reports, as follows:

Bedfordshire: Dunstable, Houghton Regis, Humbershoe, Houghton Regis
Berkshire: Reading, Streatley, Wallingford, Windsor
Buckinghamshire: Buckingham, Maid's Morton, Stony Stratford, Winslow
Cheshire: Chester, High Walton, Mickle Trafford
Cornwall: Gwennap, Kenwyn
Cumberland: Ainstable, Bromfield, Caldbeck, Carlisle, Castle Carrock, Croglin, Cumrew, Cumwhitton, Gilcrux, Harrington, Hesket, Kirkoswald, Nent Head, Sebergham, Warwick, Wetheral, Workington
Derbyshire: Chesterfield, Derby (St Alkmund, All Saints, St Michael, St Peter, St Werburgh), Wirksworth
Devon: Clyst St George, South Tawton, Tiverton
Dorsetshire: Blandford, Durweston
Durham: Durham (St Margaret, St Nicholas), Holy Island, Monk Wearmouth, South Shields, Stanhope, Sunderland, Tanfield
Essex: Colchester (All Saints, St Mary, St James)
Gloucestershire: Bristol, Rodmarton, Stapleton
Hampshire: Gosport, Hawksley, Newton Valence, Petersfield, Portsea, Portsmouth, Southampton, Isle of Wight
Herefordshire: Hereford (All Saints, St Nicholas)
Hertfordshire: St Albans, Chipping Barnet, Redbourn

Norfolk: Yarmouth 'A row'

Kent: Ashford, Chalk, Great Chart, Little Chart, Cobham, Hothfield, Meopham, Westwell
Lancashire: Bury, Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester, Preston, Warrington
Leicestershire: Ashby de la Zouch, Carlton Curlieu, Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicester
Lincolnshire: Alford, Cockerington, Louth, Spilsby, Swineshead, Tattershall, Willoughby, Lincoln
Middlesex: Ealing, Hampton, St Martin's Westminster
Monmouthshire: Abergavenny, Monmouth
Norfolk: Downham, Gressinghall, Heckingham, Norwich, Yarmouth
Northamptonshire: Brixworth, Kettering, Northmapton (St Giles, St Peter), Rode, Yardley Goben
Northumberland: Newcastle, North Shields
Nottinghamshire: Newark, Nottingham, Overingham, Worksop
Oxford: Banbury, Deddington, Oxford
Rutland: Empingham, Luffenham
Shropshire: Bishops Castle, Ellesmere, Shrewsbury
Somersetshire: Frome, Minehead, Walcot (Bath)
Staffordshire: Litchfield, Wolverhampton
Suffolk: Bulcamp, Melton

Shropshire: Shrewsbury, Battlefield Road

 


 

Olympic torch route - Day 3 Exeter

Exeter Cathedral

Exeter, a city, seaport, parliamentary (one member) and municipal borough, capital of Devon, on the left bank of the Exe, about 10 miles N. of the english channel, and on the Great Western Railway.It is built on the top and sides of a hill sloping down towards the river, which is crossed by a stone bridge at the western entrance of the town, which consists of two main streets at right angles with others branching out from them. Much of the town is very ancient, but there are modern terraces and villas, which are daily increasing as the educational advantages of the town which make it desirable as a residence. The cathedral is cruciform, and 408 feet long, with two Norman towers 130 feet high. The choir is 128 feet long, and there are ten chapels, and a chapter house.  There is much Norman work in the different churches of the city; and parts of the old Saxon walls remain, and the ruins of the castle at Rougemont. The free grammar school has 16 exhibitions to Oxford or Cambridge, and there are libraries, museums, and a diocesan training college, a hospital etc. Formerly Exeter was a seat of the woollen trade, but this industry is now extinct. There are iron foundries, agricultural implement works, paper-mills, corn-mills and tanneries, and some manufactures of gloves and lace. There is a basin to which ships of 400 tons have access by means of a canal 5 miles long. The town was an old British station before being the Isca Damnoniorum of the Roman times. Many coins, statues and fragments of pavement have been discovered. The Saxons called it Monktown for its many ecclesiastical establishments.

From Cassell's Encyclopedia; a Storehouse of General Information (undated, but apparently early 1900s)

Exeter contains several ancient parishes and was a Poor Law Union and registration district as well as the seat of the  diocese of Exeter. There is a great deal of useful information about Devon genealogy in general on the Genuki site where Exeter has its own page. The Devon Record Office in Exeter holds records for Exeter.

There is more information about Exeter on Vision of Britain, and historic photographs on the English Heritage Archives site. Google Books has The History of Exeter by the Rev George Oliver, published in 1821

 

Olympic torch route - Day 2 Plymouth

Plymouth, a seaport, municipal and parliamentary borough 9returning two members), situated on the Sound of the same name in the extreme S.W. of Devonshire, England. With Devonport and Stonehouse it forms "The Three Towns". The Sound, protected by the famous breakwater, affords anchorage for the whole navy of England. Mill Bay, where the Great Western Docks are placed, and Sutton Pool accommodate many mercantile ships, and are divided by the leafy promontory known as the Hoe, where stands Smeaton's reconstructed lighthouse and Boehm's statue of Drake. The Government Dockyard in Devonport with Keyham factory and the arsenal make up one of the most complete naval establishments in the world. The church of St Andrew, dating from 1430 and restored in 1874, is the only remnant of antiquity. There are but few local manufactures except sail-cloth, rope, biscuits, soap and gin;but a large foreign coasting trade is carried on, the exports being chiefly minerals, ores and marble. Plymouth is an important centre of traffic for goods and passengers. The names of the explorers Cockeram, Gilbert, Hawkins and Drake will for ever be associated with the place.

From Cassell's Encyclopedia; a Storehouse of General Information (undated, but apparently early 1900s)

War memorial at Plymouth Hoe

Plymouth was badly damaged by bombing during the Second World War and contains a number of war memorials to the fallen in both World Wars and other conflicts. The Poor Law Union and registration district contained several parishes in the diocese of Exeter. Digitised and indexed parish registers for Plymouth have recently been released on Findmypast.co.uk These and other records are held at the Plymouth and West Devon Record Office

There is a good deal of genealogical and historical information, and links to useful websites about Plymouth on its GENUKI page.  There are population statistics and maps of Plymouth on Vision of Britain, and historic photographs on the English Heritage Archives site.

 

People of Abbotsham, so good they named them twice?

Part of my job is to answer enquiries sent by email, and I received one recently that drew my attention to an unusual set of census returns. The enquirer asked if it was possible for a person to appear twice in the same census. The answer to this is yes, for a number of possible reasons.

But this one was particularly interesting because it is not a single individual who appears twice, but half of a village! The place in question is Abbotsham in Devon, in 1841. There are two enumeration districts in Abbotsham, and the enumerator for one of them has listed all the names twice, first in ink, and then in pencil. The instructions to the enumerators in 1841 said that the enumeration books should be completed in pencil, so it may be that this man did not read them properly until he had written everthing out beautifully in ink, all ten pages. The next ten pages see all the names repeated, in exactly the same order, but in pencil (and without the gaps between households that he had left the first time round).

Anyone who has used the 1841 census might wish that a few more enumerators had done the same, because the version in ink is much clearer and easier to read! The reference for this district of Abbotsham in 1841 is HO 107/242 book 2, or if you are browsing by place on Ancestry, Enumeration District 8. Alhough census images can be found on other sites, this is one case where the Ancestry version wins hands down. This is because the images are, unusually, in colour. Most images have been scanned from microfilm, and are therefore in black and white, but where the films were too hard to read, as was the case with Abbotsham, Ancestry were able to scan the original pages.

Just over 200 people were listed twice in Abbotsham, but they were only counted once by the clerks who abstracted the totals, so the population was counted correctly, which was, after all, the object of the exercise.