James Preston - Böcker

Within the liturgy, congregations pledge to accept, love, forgive, and nurture the newly baptized member. The church, however, often lives out this covenant selectively, forcing its gay and lesbian members into silence, alienation, and doubt. We Were Baptized Too challenges the church to take seriously its understanding of baptism and communion as a means of grace, justice, and liberation.

Before the late nineteenth century ale and beer, brewed from malt, were widely consumed due to the lack of affordable, safe alternatives. North Kent was well placed for growing and malting barley to supply local and London brewers.While the malting process was to remain unchanged until after the abolition of the Malt Tax in 1880, the organisation of the industry shifted from small independent maltsters to the control of brewers who employed large-scale malthouses.Malting in Kent suffered a slow decline until it finally disappeared in 1981, its fate inextricably linked to national trends in brewing, particularly consolidation leading to the closure of excess brewing capacity and the consequent closure of dependent maltings.This book attempts to chart the history of malting in Kent, explain its processes, its building design and the reasons for its decline.Its heritage in the form of malthouses that survived demolition, now generally listed buildings with a new life as flats or desirable residences, is fully described.The book is well documented and accompanied by a range of archival and contemporary photographs telling the story of an important, but neglected, local industry.

Kent is thought of as the ‘Garden of England’ and has been described as a county of ‘hops, apples and cherries’. This may be true of a large part of the county, particularly after the Weald lost its important broadcloth and iron industries, but north Kent bordering the Thames and Medway became in the nineteenth century the most highly industrialised area of south-east England outside London.Kent, strategically located on the approach to London, had a long association with the armaments industries. It cast iron cannon from Tudor times to the early eighteenth century, provided the navy with warships from private and royal dockyards, and was an important manufacturer of gunpowder and explosives. It became a major supplier of paper to London stationers, and a source of millions of bricks and millions of tons of lime, cement, stone and sand for nineteenth-century developments in London and overseas. To fill a demand created by these industries for machinery, an engineering sector developed, which was at times at the cutting edge of technology. Barge building developed to exploit cheap water carriage of the county’s products. Diversified farming provided the raw materials for a variety of agriculturally related activities including milling, tanning, malting and brewing.This book outlines the important place Kent industry held in the economy of southern England, and illustrates what remains extant in what is now essentially a post-industrial era.

Kent is strategically located, lying on the approach to London and being the shortest route to and from continental Europe. As a result the evolution of its means of transport has left its mark. Roads were turnpiked in the eighteenth century, creating toll houses, coaching inns, milestones and bridges, while the motor car age saw the rise of filling stations. Kent claims the world’s first all-steam-powered railway. After the railways spread their network of main lines and branch lines they left a legacy of stations, signal boxes and goods sheds, as well as traces where redundant lines have been lifted. Waterborne transport has also made its mark in the form of canals, cuts, locks and bridges, along with sea ports, docks and wharves. Into the twentieth century new forms of transport such as aircraft led to the building of airports – and hoverports, which came but have largely departed.Kent’s Transport Heritage outlines the changes taking place in these various aspects of transport and illustrates what remains extant.

Thomas Aveling, a farmer and self-taught engineer, became the ‘father of the traction engine’. This resulted from efforts to improve agricultural machinery. After success with steam ploughing, his conversion of the portable steam engine, making it self-propelling, produced the first commercially successful traction engine. Establishing a factory in Strood, Kent in 1861, Aveling’s need for finance lead to a partnership with Richard Porter in 1862. This was an ideal relationship that freed Aveling to concentrate on the engineering aspects of the firm. Aveling’s innovations included numerous patents covering improvements to engine layout, to steering and to geared drive. The product that brought the firm international recognition was the steam road roller marketed in 1867. As the world’s most prolific manufacturer, Aveling & Porter became synonymous with the road roller.Profitable as a firm until the failure of the Agricultural and General Engineers combine, the firm was to be resurrected as Aveling Barford at Grantham in 1934.