University of Hertfordshire Press – förlag

Following 18 carefully structured lessons, this Romani language primer explores the vocabulary and grammar of the Kalderash Roma in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Latin America. Designed for beginner students, this course reference begins with the basic verbs and nouns and builds through to the subtler grammatical necessities of reading and speaking the language. Quotations from native speakers, poems, songs, proverbs, and folktales add to the cultural and historical understanding of the language.

A unique anthology of poetry and prose extracts by Roma writers from 20 countries interwoven with a chronology of the history of the Roma since their departure from India in 997 AD to the repeal of the last US law discriminating against Roma in January 1998.

This definitive work on the contribution of the Gypsies to the development of flamenco traces their influences on music from their long migration from India, through Iran, Turkey, Greece, and Hungary, to their persecution in Spain. This new updated edition provides fuller explanations of some of the technical terms and an invaluable biographical dictionary of 200 of the foremost Gypsy flamenco artists from its origins to the present day, as well as a discography and videography.

The author, who is himself a Romani, speaks directly to the gadze (non-Gypsy) reader about his people, their history since leaving India one thousand years ago and their rejection and exclusion from society in the countries where they settled, their health, food, culture and society. He offers candid frank advice on rejecting prejudices and stereotypes and getting to know Roma as individuals. He describes the development of Roma identity and politics, gives short biographies of prominent Roma in many different walks of life, describes the Romani language and illustrates it with proverbs providing an insight into Roma thought and belief. It is extensively illustrated and provides a rare inside view into the life and society of the Roma people. This book is published in association with OSI, New York, a charitable foundation whose aims include supporting equality of opportunity for the Roma of Central and Eastern Europe.

The story of the enforced settlement of Gypsy travelers in southeast England, whose nomadic lifestyle ended when they were moved to concrete ghettos of local-government-run caravan sites following the 1968 Caravan Sites Act, is told in this textual and visual rendering. The seasonal work harvesting fruit and vegetables that attracted Gypsy families who lived in ""bender"" tents and traveled in horse-drawn wagons to Kent dried up in the post–World War II era when mechanization reduced the need for labor. Historical accounts, primary sources, and stories told by Gypsies provide an intimate picture of the cultural and social impact of this transition and the loss of identity that struck members of this rarely documented ethnic group.

A useful manual for any magician, or for anyone who wonders why the tricks seem so real, this guide examines the psychological aspects of a magician''s work. Exploring the ways in which human psychology plays into the methods of conjuring, rather than focusing on the individual tricks themselves, the book explains general principles of magic. Chapters on the use of misdirection, sleight of hand, and reconstruction, provide a better understanding of this ancient art and a section on psychics warns of their deceptive magic skills.

Powerful and disturbing, this version of the Hamlet story is set in a modern Middle Eastern state whose leader has just died, to be replaced by his brother, a ruthless, Westernized dictator who juggles petro-dollars, arms dealers, and democratic slogans in an attempt to quell the rising tides of Islamic extremism. Presenting a composite of many Arab concerns that affect peoples from the Arabian Gulf to the Atlantic and beyond, it is a concrete and poetic formulation of an Arab viewpoint, combining aspects of the Arab oral-poetry tradition with the rhetoric of modern-day politics. It is Hamlet as pure, dangerous politics.

Lilian Baylis autobiography sets out to discover how Baylis was able to manage two theatres and three companies and still bring in a profit.When Lilian Baylis was badly hurt after a car accident, someone at the scene called out, 'It's Miss Baylis. Miss Baylis of the old Vic'. In spite of her injuries, Baylis drew herself up and imperiously corrected them, 'AND Sadler's Wells'. But Baylis was much more than the manager of the of the Old Vic, AND Sadler's Wells - she was also a founding mother of the British National Opera. She gave career changing breaks to actors such as John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, created new roles for Alicia Markova and furthered the careers of stars in the making such as Alec Guinness, Margot Fonteyn and Joan Cross. Even Joan Littlewood desperately wanted to work for Baylis.This biography sets out to discover how Baylis was about to manage two theatres and three companies, bringing what was considered the very best of high culture to working people, and still haul in a profit. Elizabeth Schafer looks beyond the famous comic anecdotes and discovers the private woman behind the public persona. Based on new and original research , the book draws extensively on Baylis's autobiographical writing, detailing her early career as a musician and dancer and her lover the company of pioneering independent and high-powered women. It reveals how Baylis achieved so much, what it cost her, and gives a glimpse of the autobiographical Baylis herself never found time to write.

Dr Heinrich takes Yorkshire and Westphalia as his two representative regions, detailing the history of theatre in York, Hull, Sheffield, Bradford and Leeds as well as in Munster, Dortmund, Hagen, Bielefeld and Bochum. Dr Heinrich moves from the histories and repertoires of individual theatres to examine their social function, with interesting results. The perception of theatre in Britain changed dramatically during the War years: suddenly the British government became interested in influencing the arts and introduced state subsidies on an unprecedented scale. At the heart of the new policy was not only the belief that theatre could play an important role in the war effort (as both entertainment and education) but also a concept of municipal theatre provision which was, in effect, similar to that which already prevailed in Germany.In Germany, despite claims by the Nazis that theatre programmes must reflect National-Socialist ideas, regional repertoires remained largely unchanged from the days of the Weimar Republic, with comedies, farces and operettas designed to appeal to public taste. In successfully challenging dominant views regarding the alleged fundamental differences between British and German theatre, Dr Heinrich's findings mean that, to an extent, a key chapter in European theatre history must be rewritten.

This book examines the landscape archaeology of the Second World War on the section of the east coast of England known as the Suffolk Sandlings (the coastal strip from Lowestoft to Felixstowe), an area unusually rich in military archaeology. It was in the front line of Britain's defences against invasion throughout the war and as a training ground it was the setting for nationally important exercises in the lead-up to the D-Day landings. In 1944 it also played a major role in Operation 'Diver', the defence against the flying bomb. The Sandlings is therefore an ideal testbed for much wider questions about the militarisation of the landscape during the Second World War. This important new study considers how this area was transformed in the course of the conflict by synthesising an extensive range of sources, including the physical remains of defences and training, aerial photographs, the war diaries of military units on the coast, oral history and artistic representations. What emerges is the most detailed account to date of a coastal landscape during the Second World War.A highly innovative interdisciplinary study, this holistic approach reveals in astonishing detail the struggle to build defences in 1940, the dramatic reorganisation of those defences in 1941? 2 and the slow transformation of the military landscape from one of defence to one where troops prepared for the offensive. The reader is shown not just a new view of the wartime landscape, but a new methodology for the study of conflict landscapes more broadly; in this the book makes a major contribution to scholarship.Richly illustrated with plans, maps and wartime photographs - many published for the first time - the book presents a vivid picture of a landscape in a crucial period in its history and will be of great interest to military historians, landscape archaeologists and all those with an interest in the area.

David Hey (1938–2016) was one of the leading local and regional historians of our age and the author of a number of highly regarded books on the practice of local history. His work on surnames was pioneering and he was amongst the first to identify the potential of DNA in historical studies. In this collection of essays in David’s memory, friends and colleagues celebrate his commitment to the landscape, economy and society of south Yorkshire – especially Sheffield – and Derbyshire, which together make up ‘Hey country’, the area in which he grew up and to which he returned to work. This lively volume will be of interest to anyone who shares David Hey’s curiosity for the people, economies and landscapes of the part of England he made his focus. At the same time the essays will prove to be of interest to all those concerned with the workings of English local society and economy. Covering a wide range of subjects and periods, they include accounts of the early English steel industry, Sheffield cutlers, Lord William Cavendish’s canny use of his stepson’s wardship, the lost woodlands of the Peak District, First World War food production in Derbyshire, south Yorkshire deer parks and a brief history of Little Londons. Fresh research into family and placename history contributes fascinating detail to the mix. The contributors are some of the key researchers in academic local history, including Alan Crosby, Nicola Verdon, John Broad, John Beckett, Ian D. Rotherham, Melvyn Jones, Dorian Gerhold and Peter Edwards. A tribute to David Hey by Charles Phythian-Adams opens the volume.

The growth of nineteenth-century London was unprecedented, swallowing up once remote villages, commons and open fields around the metropolitan fringe in largely uncontrolled housing development. In the mid-Victorian period widespread opposition to this unbridled growth coalesced into a movement that campaigned to preserve the London commons. The history of this campaign is usually presented as having been fought by members of the metropolitan upper middle class, who appointed themselves as spokespeople for all Londoners and played out their battles mainly in parliament and the law courts. In this fascinating book Mark Gorman tells a different story – of the key role played by popular protest in the campaigns to preserve Epping Forest and other open spaces in and near London. He shows how throughout the nineteenth century such places were venues for both radical politics and popular leisure, helping to create a sense of public right of access, even ‘ownership’. At the same time, London’s suburban growth was partly a response to the rising aspirations of an artisan and lower middle class who increasingly wanted direct access to open space. This not only created the conditions for the mid-Victorian commons preservation movement, but also gave impetus to distinctive popular protest by proletarian Londoners. In comparing the campaign for Epping Forest with other struggles for London’s commons, the book highlights influences which ranged from the role of charismatic leaders to widely held beliefs regarding the land, in which the rights of freeborn Englishmen had been plundered by the aristocracy since the Norman conquest.Mark Gorman reveals a largely hidden history, since ordinary Londoners left few records behind, but his new research clearly reveals how their protests influenced the actions of the more visible elite groups who appeared in parliament or in court.

Although the history of orchards and fruit varieties is of great popular interest, there have been few academic treatments of the subject. This book presents results from a three-year project, 'Orchards East', investigating the history and ecology of orchards in the east of England. Together, the eastern counties of Hertfordshire, Essex, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk have a tradition of fruit cultivation comparable in scale to that of the better-known west of England. Drawing on far-reaching archival research, an extensive survey of surviving orchards and biodiversity surveys, the authors tell the fascinating story of orchards in the east since the late Middle Ages.Orchards were ubiquitous features of the medieval and early modern landscape. Planted for the most part for practical reasons, they were also appreciated for their aesthetic qualities. By the seventeenth century some districts had begun to specialise in fruit production - most notably west Hertfordshire and the Fens around Wisbech. But it was only in the 'orchard century', beginning in the 1850s, that commercial production really took off, fuelled by the growth of large urban markets and new transport systems that could take the fruit to them with relative ease.By the 1960s orchards were extensive in many districts but, since then, they have largely disappeared, with significant impacts on landscape character and biodiversity. For well over a century now, orchards have been romanticised as nostalgic elements of a timeless yet disappearing rural world. Even before that, they were embedded in myths of lost Edens, or golden ages of effortless plenty. A key aim of this book is to challenge some of these myths by grounding orchards within a wider range of historical and environmental contexts. Orchards are not timeless, and in some ways our relationship with orchards is a classicexample of the 'invention of tradition'. What do our attitudes to this aspect of our heritage tell us about our wider engagement with the past, with nature, and with place?

This book offers a fresh perspective on British history in the long nineteenth century through the lens of a study of Sevenoaks and the surrounding area of West Kent. It considers, in particular, how the risks faced by the people of this region, and the choices they made to try to mitigate them, shaped their lives and relationships. During a period of often dramatic change, the economic, social, political, religious and cultural interests of individuals were subject to different risk factors; the responses they made (and the reasons for those choices) provide valuable insights and enable the writing of highly nuanced local history. The authors pinpoint the fundamental risk factors affecting the lives of West Kent’s inhabitants (especially the poor): the struggle to obtain the four bare necessities of shelter, food, fuel and clothing, without which their survival was threatened. Other risks abounded too, from abysmal sanitary conditions and the dangers of giving birth, to industrial injuries and being a victim of crime. Secure work and strong family networks were essential to limiting risks – often forming part of the ‘makeshift economy’ – as well as charity, education, health insurance and access to medical care. For many, not all these options were available – or not until much later in the period. Choice was central to religious and political struggles. The examination of beliefs and values reveals the immense impact such issues had across West Kent society, and how and why it divided as a direct result. Finally, the authors consider the advent of motor vehicles, which combined both risk and choice in exciting but potentially dangerous ways.This innovative approach provides a fruitful new way of writing history and offers a model for future local history studies.

Mark Freeman’s classic history of St Albans, first published in 2008, has been substantially rewritten by the author and brought fully up to date, making it an invaluable guide to more than two thousand years of St Albans’s history. From the late Iron Age, when the new oppidum of Verlamion emerged at the site of modern St Albans, to plans to develop the city’s unique ‘brand’ in the 2010s, this is a scholarly yet highly readable account of St Albans from pre-Roman times to the present day. The Roman settlement of Verulamium grew out of Verlamion soon after the Roman invasion; in 60 CE it was attacked during Boudica’s great uprising against Roman rule, along with Colchester and London. Becoming one of the most important towns in Roman Britain and the site of Britain’s first Christian martyrdom, Verulamium later took the martyr’s name as its own, the abbey dedicated to the saint among the most significant religious houses of medieval England. For many in St Albans, the long period of conflict between the abbey and the civic authorities would have cast a shadow over their lives, but the history of St Albans is also the story of political upheavals that beset all England through the centuries, as experienced by the citizens of a rapidly evolving town. Like many other places, it was touched by the Norman conquest, the Wars of the Roses and the civil wars. The emergence of urban self-government in early modern St Albans provides a case study of a process that happened throughout the country. The same is true for the account of St Albans’s suburbanisation and the emergence of a commuter population fostered by the railways in the nineteenth century, the growth and decline of the local manufacturing economy, and its participation in the growth of mass education, consumerism and democratic politics. At every point in St Albans’s history, two key themes play out: the proximity of London, and an awareness of the significance of its own history. The past is a powerful resource, helping a community to understand the events that have made it what it is. That process is exemplified in this masterful volume.

Lady Anne Bacon (1528-1610) was a highly educated woman who lived through the great political and religious transitions of five reigns and was embedded in the network of power at the Tudor court. Her intelligence and education took her far beyond the limits of the domestic sphere and she was caught up in pivotal events, including the crisis at the accession of Mary I and the reform of the Church of England under Edward VI and Elizabeth I. Yet, like many women, her place in the historical record remains shadowy and few today have heard of her. Born into an Essex gentry family, she was one of the five scholarly Cooke sisters, renowned for their learning. As a young woman she applied her linguistic skills to writing and translation, becoming a published translator before she was twenty. She served as a woman of the Privy Chamber, the inner circle of royal attendants, to both Mary I and Elizabeth I. Committed to the cause of religious reform, she was commissioned to translate a book that became central to the revival of the Protestant religion after Mary’s death. She married lawyer Sir Nicholas Bacon, later Elizabeth I’s Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, becoming stepmother to six children. Her own sons, Anthony and Francis, became respectively spy and statesman, and as a widow she ran a great estate alone for thirty years. Drawing on her subject’s forthright letters and other contemporary sources, Deborah Spring’s deeply researched and compellingly readable book reveals Anne Bacon’s extraordinary part in shaping the public story of Tudor history.

Broadland, or ‘the Broads’, is a unique area of wetlands occupying the floodplains of a network of waterways in eastern Norfolk and north-eastern Suffolk, and which includes around forty shallow freshwater lakes. Since the nineteenth century it has been a major holiday destination, with countless visitors attracted by the seemingly timeless tranquillity of its rivers, fens and marshes. The area also provides a globally important habitat for numerous rare species of flora and fauna. But this is, nevertheless, very much a landscape shaped by its history, and even the ‘broads’ themselves, the shallow lakes which give the area its name, are flooded peat-cuttings dating from the Middle Ages.This is the first new academic study of Broadland for many decades and uses the latest research to explore the making of this distinctive landscape. With contributions from a team of prominent East Anglian local historians, archaeologists and natural scientists, Tom Williamson and Alison Yardy explain how the marshes were reclaimed and the fens were managed, explore the development of drainage technology and discuss the impact of commerce, industry and tourism. The landscape of the adjacent uplands is also considered, in chapters examining subjects as diverse as vernacular architecture and monastic foundations, prehistoric archaeology and medieval parish churches. Broadland’s environments everywhere bear the marks of past human exploitation; its landscapes have always been changing. And all this has profound philosophical implications for the practice of conservation in what is now a National Park.Highly readable and copiously illustrated, this authoritative account will be essential reading for all with an interest in the history and ecology of Broadland. But it will also appeal to those who simply want to know more about the forces that have shaped the character of an iconic British landscape.

Thisbook unapologetically celebrates the achievements of the University. Majordrivers of enlightenment and powerhouses of the economy, universities haveevolved and thrived for over a thousand years. While still reflecting theirbeginnings in medieval knowledge-sharing communities, modern universities havegrown exponentially in both size and number. Predictions suggest global studentnumbers will more than double from 216 million in 2016 to 472 million in 2035.This growth has demanded new models of funding as well as many new providerswho have added diversity and complexity to the traditional idea of auniversity.Theauthor recounts this exciting evolution, before turning to the major issueswith which higher education is concerned today, broadly following the studentjourney from admission to graduation and beyond. A prospective universitystudent first needs to gain a place, the process throwing up importantquestions about access and equity. Once admitted, they can benefit from notonly the education on offer but a wealth of extra-curricular opportunities. Andresearch suggests that, once they leave, the experience of university willenrich their life in numerous ways.With clearsighted chapterson research and innovation and thoughtful excursions into funding andgovernance, together with some proposals for change, this is a trenchant reviewof today's university landscape which nonetheless concludes that the currentmodel of higher education is both highly effective and sufficiently adaptive.Whilst facing up to difficult issues which must be addressed, ProfessorMcKellar derives satisfaction from the evidence of great overall achievement.

Dr Rosamond Faith is a leading historian of the Englishpeasantry in the early and central Middle Ages. In a series of influential studies,she has uncovered the basic structures of rural society, revealing how economicorganisation, physical environment, and ideology shaped the lives of ordinarypeople in the earliest documented centuries. In this Festschrift, friends and colleagues take upher theme, offering new perspectives on people who worked for a living betweenthe seventh and fourteenth centuries. King Alfred famously divided society intothree orders, but whereas the lives of ‘those who fight’ and ‘those who pray’are recorded in their own words, the experience of ‘those who work’ can only berecovered indirectly. The essays collected here approach rural society underthree different headings, each examining a different dimension of peasant life. The first section addresses the organisation of ruralsociety.  Every locality was subject toinstruments and processes regulating the exploitation of the landscape, whetheradministrative or co-operative in nature, and whether operating on a regionalor manorial scale. A second group of essays considers how the rural populationwas classified, and how this reflected or obscured realities on the ground. Administrativedocuments employed social categories which did not necessarily align with everydayusage, while people whose livelihood was not wholly agricultural, or notentirely encompassed by the manor, had a light documentary footprint. Furtherpapers address the practicalities of agricultural production. While much wasdictated by universal constraints, scientific and topographical studies shedlight on adaptations in technology and cultivation systems. Theexpert contributions assembled in this lively volume include local studiesranging from Devon to Lincolnshire and will be of interest to anyone thinkingabout the social history of medieval England.

Dr Rosamond Faith is a leading historian of the Englishpeasantry in the early and central Middle Ages. In a series of influentialstudies, she has uncovered the basic structures of rural society, revealing howeconomic organisation, physical environment, and ideology shaped the lives ofordinary people in the earliest documented centuries. In this Festschrift, friends and colleagues takeup her theme, offering new perspectives on people who worked for a livingbetween the seventh and fourteenth centuries. King Alfred famously dividedsociety into three orders, but whereas the lives of ‘those who fight’ and ‘thosewho pray’ are recorded in their own words, the experience of ‘those who work’can only be recovered indirectly. The essays collected here approach ruralsociety under three different headings, each examining a different dimension ofpeasant life. The first section addresses the organisation of ruralsociety.  Every locality was subject to instruments and processesregulating the exploitation of the landscape, whether administrative orco-operative in nature, and whether operating on a regional or manorial scale.A second group of essays considers how the rural population was classified, andhow this reflected or obscured realities on the ground. Administrativedocuments employed social categories which did not necessarily align witheveryday usage, while people whose livelihood was not wholly agricultural, ornot entirely encompassed by the manor, had a light documentary footprint.Further papers address the practicalities of agricultural production. Whilemuch was dictated by universal constraints, scientific and topographicalstudies shed light on adaptations in technology and cultivation systems. The expert contributions assembled in thislively volume include local studies ranging from Devon to Lincolnshire and willbe of interest to anyone thinking about the social history of medieval England.

Archaeology can transform our knowledge of the history of gardens and designed landscapes. Terraces, viewing mounts, pools and other features of the great gardens laid out around elite residences at various times in the past can leave impressive earthwork traces; long-lost walls and garden buildings may be revealed by aerial photography or remote sensing techniques such as Lidar. Landscape parks, moreover, often contain the fossilised traces of the working countryside that was swept away when they were created, providing important information about the ‘genius of the place’ which was consulted when they were first designed. Hertfordshire is particularly rich in such remains. Proximity to London ensured, from an early date, an active land market and a rapid turn-over of properties: where estates were amalgamated with neighbours and mansions demolished, traces of their gardens were often preserved under grass or woodland. And the county’s moderately undulating terrain provided opportunities for - in  some cases necessitated - large  schemes of earth movement to provide level areas for lawns and parterres, or to create terraces. In this fascinating and innovative study - the outcome of several decades of research - systematic field survey and the analysis of aerial photographs and Lidar images are combined with the evidence of early maps and documents to reconstruct the appearance and history of more than twenty of Hertfordshire’s ‘lost gardens’. An archaeological approach also allows us to see garden history in new ways, revealing aspects of design and patterns of development not readily apparent in the kinds of evidence conventionally employed by garden historians.Clearly and accessibly written, and richly illustrated with a wealth of archaeological plans, aerial photographs, archive maps and early engravings and paintings, this book will be essential reading for all those interested in Hertfordshire’s archaeology and garden history, as well as for students of garden and landscape history more generally.

This book discusses how various recurrent early medieval place-names ending in tūn might have originated in response to social, economic, political or religious factors. It considers specifically whether these names might, as some scholars have suggested, reflect a possible function related to one or more aspects of early medieval society but which is not apparent from their etymology.It examines studies of names such as Stretton, Eaton, Burton and Kingston and questions recent theories around suggested functions for these places. The author proposes that most of these recurrent compounds named a land unit distinguished by a simple topographical feature or by the name or status of the landholder rather than by a presumed function. She also considers the hypothesis that the perceived concentration of certain recurrent names in clusters, largely in the central and southern regions of England, was the result of a deliberate designation of these places to provide a function in the strategic defence and administration of Mercia during the eighth and early ninth centuries, with some other kingdoms, especially Wessex, following the Mercian example. She has sought to explain why there is not enough evidence to substantiate, or disprove, the hypothesis about clusters of ‘functional’ place-names and at the same time to show that there is enough evidence to cast doubt on that hypothesis and the nature of the data used to support it.The meaning and uses of tūn, regarded as the commonest element in English place-names, are part of the argument presented in this book. In the light of archaeological and related research in recent decades, some of the past translations of tūn are no longer tenable. This book argues for a general meaning of a defined area of land, held as a unit with rights over the land and its people. The widespread use of tūn reflects a society where landholding was essential to survival and for wealth and power.

Important medical discoveries were made during Queen Victoria’sreign but in this study Jane Pearson is not so much concerned with medicalprogress as with the question of how the profession of medicinedeveloped. The book shows how doctors working in Colchester during theVictorian period developed professionally and also investigates the extent towhich they effected medical and social change in the town. Prior to the Medical Act of 1858 most doctors worked as individualbusinessmen, building up a manageable practice in competition with other medicsin their locality. Deriving their income directly from their patients, doctors wereinclined to refrain from discussing their medical work in public, preferring tomaintain patient confidentiality and to appear conservative. It was difficultto make a reputation in these circumstances and, as a result, some medicslooked to local politics to increase their local standing. After the Act, which set up the register of qualified doctors andinstituted a professional code, the results of medical research began to beshared more widely. Doctors had to learn to cooperate, to call upon colleaguesfor assistance when necessary and to communicate techniques that worked fortheir patients. The education and training of doctors developed to feed andsupport this change. Dr Pearson examines how this was achieved over one or twogenerations and also considers the degree of agency that was exercised by thetown’s doctors, particularly within the entrenched power structures in thetown’s hospitals, and in relation to campaigns for healthier living conditions.Theauthor looks at how the Poor Law welfare system became a point of contentionfor the profession, as its relatively poor remuneration for medical officersrisked reducing doctors’ professional status in general. In Colchester, most ofthe doctors who served the pauperised section of the community did so for agood number of years and most showed a tolerance and understanding of thedifficulties involved in impoverished lives. Drawing on a wealth ofdetailed research, Dr Pearson’s fascinating account of how these significantchanges were achieved in one small Essex town sheds light on a little-knownarea of medical history.

This practical and comprehensive guide provides an introduction to family historians to trace their ancestors in Hertfordshire. Every aspect of our ancestors' lives has been considered, from their birth and baptism to their death and burial. Examples of source material, together with photographs and drawings from the collections at Hertfordshire Archives & Local Studies, illustrate the text. The book is thematic in approach, the chapters incorporating related material on subjects as broad as military ancestors and the poor and the sick. In each chapter a brief background to the subject is followed by a description of the kind of records you can expect to find, including their usefulness to family historians, and details of where those records are held. The emphasis is on sources available in Hertfordshire, and particularly those held in the Family History Centre at Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies (HALS) in Hertford, but other sources are also covered. A wealth of experience from family historians and the staff at HALS is passed on in the form of tips and vital information.Appendices have been used to provide useful addresses and websites, and also to list in detail the availability of essential sources such as parish registers and other records, nonconformist registers, and the whereabouts of wills before 1858. This should be of interest to anyone researching their Hertfordshire ancestors.

Documenting the history of Hertfordshire county, this recent compilation captures an immense amount of research with maps, demographic reports, industrial development layouts, and more. Though other English counties have similarly researched statistics, this is the first for Hertfordshire county. Also included is an exceptionally detailed historical account of Hertfordshire from the time of the Anglo-Saxons through the 20th century.

Don Chapman tells for the first time the story of the "Oxford Playhouse", to coincide with the seventieth anniversary of its present home in Beaumont Street, Oxford. He traces the history of this great theater back to its earliest roots in a production of Agamemnon in 1880 which led to the founding of the Oxford University Dramatic Society, the rebuilding of Oxford's New Theater and, eventually, the launch of the Playhouse itself. Jane Ellis was the 'young, obscure actress' from London who made it happen, motivated by a desire for a venue where she herself might play decent roles. She asked J.B. Fagan (who was to produce the first successful Chekhov play in England) to be the theater's first director. Subsequent directors who made their mark included Stanford Holme, Eric Dance (who rebuilt the theater in Beaumont Street in 1938), Frank Shelley, Peter Hall, Peter Wood, Frank Hauser, Minos Volanakis, Gordon McDougall, Nicolas Kent and Richard Williams.The book also celebrates a galaxy of actors including Flora Robson, John Gielgud, Maggie Smith, Ronnie Barker, Judi Dench and Helena Bonham-Carter and records the first steps of countless students from Peter Brook to Maria Aitken, Diana Quick to Rowan Atkinson, including a few, like Edward Heath and Joanna Trollope, who gained distinction in other spheres.Most fascinating is the role of the University of Oxford. Using the legal powers invested in Vice Chancellors, Dr Lewis Farnell almost stifled the Playhouse at birth in 1923. And even from 1961 to 1987, when the Playhouse was the University Theater, Dr Chapman describes its relationship with the University as 'a shotgun marriage that ended in a messy divorce'.Since reopening in 1991 following a four-year closure, the theater has flourished as an independent trust with support from the University, Arts Council England and other donors, staging a varied program to delight audiences old and new and benefiting in the process from the sea change in academic attitudes to drama. Thea Shurrock, Rosamund Pike and Holly Kendrick are just three of more recent students who have followed in the footsteps of Michael Palin, Imogen Stubbs and Mel Smith and made names for themselves.

Based on oral histories and farm books, this account offers a fascinating analysis of some 300 years of hop-cultivation history in the Weald of Kent, a rural area in the South of England, and in the London Borough of Southwark. The diverse processes of hop agriculture are examined within the wider context of events, such as the advent of the railroads and the effects of war, as are changes to the working practices and technologies used and their reception and implementation in the Weald. Also examining hop trading and dealing, this comprehensive record demonstrates the impact this rural industry had upon the lives of the people engaged in it.

Celebrating the rich heritage of archaeology and of archaeological research in Hertfordshire, the 15 papers collected in this work focus on various aspects of the region, including the Neolithic to the post-Medieval periods, and include a report on the important excavations at the formative henge at Norton. Several chapters focus new attention on the Iron Age and Roman periods, both from a landscape perspective and through detailed studies of artefacts, while a discussion of the rare early Saxon material recently excavated at Watton at Stone makes a vital contribution to the existing corpus of knowledge about this little-understood period. All of the papers in the volume focus on the local scene with an understanding of wider issues in each period and as a result, the papers are of importance beyond the boundaries of the county and will be of interest to scholars with wide-ranging interests.