Society for One-Place Studies

February’s blogging and social media prompt was a tough one. #OnePlaceTragedies was not a topic for everyone understandably, especially given the current worldwide situation. The posts that have been shared are very moving, and show how a tragedy can affect both the community and the place. Many thanks to everyone who felt able to write a post for this prompt.

To bring some light into the darkness of the tragedies, a bonus prompt of #OnePlaceJoys was introduced to add a little levity and happiness. I’m going to include both prompts in this round-up, just so we’re not swamped with misery and grimness.

This post is part one of a round-up of those stories, set out in alphabetical order of place name.

Aldenham in Hertfordshire, England (Dave Annal)

The story behind the stone. The dangers of playing on a frozen pond, and the headstone recording the deaths of 3 children and their mother in 1880 that led to the story being discovered.

Axedale in Victoria, Australia (Jennifer Jones)

Axedale - Photo courtesy of Jennifer Jones

Fatal Accident at Axedale 1886. Farmer James Conroy fell over the culvert at Axe Creek, after spending a few hours in the local Perseverance Hotel.

Deaths of Two Children 1874. Newspaper reports of two unrelated babies who died a day apart.

A #OnePlaceJoys post on the O’Keefe Rail Trail.

Railway Disaster Inquest 1900 and Disaster: New Years Day Excursion to Axedale Station 1900. ‘A shocking railway fatality’ when a vehicle was crossing the railway line when it was hit by a train carrying children on a Sunday School outing.

Badingham and Cransford in Suffolk, England (Elizabeth Walne)

One-Place Tragedy. School mistress Annie Backhouse came from Bradford originally, and came to Badingham to teach around 65 children. The open fire in the schoolroom was the cause of her death, horrifically over 2 months after the accident.

Batley in Yorkshire, England (Jane Roberts)

A St Mary’s School Sensation. Rumours abound about the sudden death of 12 year old John Woodhead – was it pneumonia or did the school teacher strike him?

Hidden Behind a Name. William Townsend or McManus? A very well researched tale of William’s life and death in service on 2 March 1916 at the Somme.

Bledlow in Buckinghamshire, England (Julia Wynn)

Bledlow Tragedy. The brutal murder of farmer John Kingham, and the ensuing court case. Who was responsible for his death?

East Lulworth in Dorset, England (Martin White)

@EastLulworth Moses Roberts, 33, a carpenter, was sadly killed at East Lulworth on 29 Dec 1848. He was cleaning out Brand’s new oven when the arch fell on him.

Great Ellingham in Norfolk, England (Heather Etteridge)

Horseplay in the Village after School Board Election with Fatal Consequences. A simple trapping of his hand in a trap (cart) led to lockjaw and death for labourer Charles Halls. The trap was being used to drag the clerk of the School Board round the village in an unusual local tradition.

Long Buckby Wharf in Northamptonshire, England (Julie Groom)

The canal at Long Buckby Wharf - Photo courtesy of Julie Groom

This is my study and with a canal and a railway, I unfortunately had far too many tragedies to choose from. I have added some #OnePlaceJoys to balance it out.

A double funeral. My great great grandparents Edward and Elizabeth Groom.

#OnePlaceJoys A sumptuous repast... Brewery employees are treated to a sumptuous repast in celebration of their Director’s marriage.

Sad fatality at Long Buckby. 2 young children were drowned in the brook and had an unexpected tribute paid to them.

#OnePlaceJoys Local success... a local chap won prizes at the Crystal Palace International Poultry Show.

Stanley Major. The youngest of the family, Stanley was the third  Major lad to die while in the service of the Army.

#OnePlaceJoys Daventry Horticultural and Floral Society  The young ladies of the Wharf took the prizes for best device in cut flowers.

Sudden death from apoplexy. Eli Marriott’s sudden death left a widow and 8 children berefit.

#OnePlaceJoys Harvest Thanksgiving. The first Harvest celebration in the new Mission Church.

Accident on the London and Birmingham Railway. Blacksmith John Tilley was killed by a train near the Wharf.

Part two of the round-up coming shortly!

Julie Groom
One-placer for Long Buckby Wharf

We have reached the fifth of our interviews with members of the Society for One-Place Studies! After last week’s visit to Australia and our chat with Jennifer Jones (Axedale OPS), this week we return to England. Our guest is someone who has not one but two one-place studies, one well-established (Rillington) and the other quite new (Thorpe Bassett, adjacent to Rillington in North Yorkshire). Please welcome Pam Smith!

Let’s kick off in the usual way, with a fun or interesting fact about yourself.

I love brass band music – marching or seated! Childhood days spent with my paternal mining grandparents in South Yorkshire. Think ‘Brassed Off’ and the Grimethorpe Colliery Band. Also my maternal great grandfather was a band major in the army.

What got you interested in one-place studies – and what keeps you interested?

Professional genealogy took me to Rillington taking images of the community for overseas clients and I subsequently became hooked on the simplicity of the village and its history. To cut a long story short, I founded a local history group with three other residents and the voyage of discovery progressed further and faster as personal reminiscence and testimony filled in the gaps between the records.

When did you start your one-place studies?

Rillington commenced in 2004 and the latest is Thorpe Bassett in 2020 during the lockdown gap last summer.

As someone with lots of OPS experience, what advice would you give to those starting out now?

Don’t rush it. Consider what you want to get out of it first. Why did it develop where it did? Is it a population study including migration? A series of house histories? Or topics such education, poverty, religion, transport, trades? Or all of the above and more. Do one thing and do it well, remembering to record source citations for every event and fact so it is ready for when you publish your book!

Of all the different types of records you use for your one-place study, which are your favourites and why?

How long have you got?!

My preference is record linkage between several sets of records and here are four  of my favourites:

• Hearth Tax returns and parish registers of baptism, marriage and burial to discover more about the social context of the place in the Restoration Period.
• Tithe Map and Apportionment Schedule and the 1841/1851 census – using these names and properties can be connected by where they lived in Victorian times.
• Valuation Office Survey 1910 and the 1911 census to link names to properties together with a description of the building in Edwardian times.
• The 1939 Register and the National Farm Survey 1941-43 are especially valuable for a rural study which contains many farms at the time of World War II.

All with as many maps and old postcards as you can muster.

What has been your favourite OPS discovery or ‘wow!’ moment?

There are so many so I’ll share the most recent! Discovering that Hugh de Menyll had joined the Crusades in 1276 after laying ‘violent hands’ on Robert de Okham, the first Rector of Rillington.

Name your go-to websites for one-place study research – or tell us about some brilliant online OPS resources which you think are overlooked

Background information is the first step.

• British History Online for primary and secondary sources
• GENUKI the go-to genealogy source which is being constantly updated

If you could go back in time and meet someone from your one-place study, who would it be and what would you talk about?

That would be Enos Piercy, tailor 1823-1905 – a much loved churchwarden (for 60 years!), sexton and organist for St. Andrews Church. The stories he would have told! He would have known everyone and everything and had a starring central role in village life.

A random question: What is your favourite animal?

Cats – their combined daft antics and independence mirror my own personality.

Which places – related to your OPS research or otherwise – are you most looking forward to visiting as Covid-related restrictions are lifted?

To get back to the archives! This year I’m studying the Diploma in Genealogy at the IHGS, Canterbury while focussing the portfolio element on my One-Place Study. The Borthwick Institute for Archives, the Special Collections Research Centre, Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds and East Riding Archives are on my list.

Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us Pam, and sharing insights from one-place studies old and new!

Photos supplied by Pam Smith.

Would you like to occupy the hotseat and take part in a future interview as a Society member? Let me know and I will send a set of questions winging its way to you by email.

Steve Jackson
Social Media Coordinator, Society for One-Place Studies
One-placer for Fawsley and Waters Upton

I hope you enjoyed last week’s ‘Q and A’ session with Lucy Sarson (The Crescent, Taunton, OPS)! For the third of our series of interviews with Society members, we have crossed the Atlantic and called upon Eric White, who last year started his one-place study of Richmond, in Maine, USA.

You know by now how this is going to start! Please share a fun or interesting fact about yourself.

My wife and I have a 13 year old West Highland terrier. He’s doing great for his age, beyond being mostly blind and deaf. We recently got a second dog – a two year old Chihuahua mix in the hopes that the younger dog would bring a little life into the older pup. So far the Chihuahua seems to be taking his cues from his older brother. Now we have two dogs who sleep the day away!

What got you interested in one-place studies – and what keeps you interested?

I’ve researched my family history for about seven years. One branch of my tree moved from Massachusetts to a small town in Maine in the early 19th century. The more I study that branch of the family, the more closely they seem to have been intertwined with the community.

When did you start your OPS?

I started the research for my OPS in the summer of 2020 during the COVID-related restrictions. I had been toying with the idea for a while, but was unsure how to really get started.

Tell us about your first steps – what are you concentrating on in the early stages of your research?

My family history research gave me a general familiarity with Richmond, Maine. I started the more dedicated study of the town itself by creating my own transcription of the 1850 census. It includes 2,057 residents within the town with information about their professions, age, gender, race, place of birth, value of real estate, if they were married within the year, if they attended school, and more. I hope to be able to sort and analyze the data to get a snapshot of the town, and then eventually see how it changes over time once I create a transcription of the 1860 census.

Of all the different types of records you use for your one-place study, which are your favourites and why?

So far my favorite records are newspaper records. I love the way that a single newspaper clipping can add so much depth to a study that might begin with censuses and vital records. Recently I have also discovered copies of letters from and to residents of Richmond that provide another glimpse into the life of the town.

What has been your favourite OPS discovery or ‘wow!’ moment?

Since I am relatively new to this research, my ‘wow’ moment is still realizing just how much I can add to my family history research through my OPS. That epiphany is still dawning on me as I flesh out my OPS.

Name your go-to websites for one-place study research – or tell us about some brilliant online OPS resources which you think are overlooked

I start with the census records and city directories on Ancestry. Next I explore newspapers on newspapers.com, genealogybank.com, newspaperarchive.com, and chroniclingamerica.loc.gov. The resource that I think can be most overlooked are the smaller archives. Nearby museums, libraries, and universities can have a wealth of forgotten records. But sometimes it is helpful to cast a wider net as well – I finally tracked down an important record related to my Richmond, Maine OPS in a theology library 1,200 miles away in Atlanta, Georgia.

If you could go back in time and meet someone from your one-place study, who would it be and what would you talk about?

When I perfect the quantum flinghopper on my time machine, I plan to have a wide-ranging conversation with my third great-grandfather, Marshall Spring Hagar. He was the first of the Hagars to move to Richmond and quickly became a leading figure during his 2+ decades there. I think that I have just scratched the surface of his many business pursuits and adventures.

Wishing you all the best with that quantum flinghopper Eric! Now, a random question: What was the last book you read?

Right now I am reading Ships, Swindlers, and Scalded Hogs: The Rise and Fall of the Crooker Shipyard in Bath, Maine by Frederic B. Hill. Bath is a close neighbor to my OPS. Richmond, Maine was a shipbuilding town in the mid-19th century, but it was only a fraction of the size of Bath. I've taken a ton of notes on local history items that I need to follow up on to see how they impacted Richmond. But the last book that I have finished reading was Rick Riordan’s The Son of Neptune. I’m in a two person book club with my nephew. We are working our way through the entire Riordan catalogue.

Which places – related to your OPS research or otherwise – are you most looking forward to visiting when Covid-related restrictions are over?

Not related to my OPS, but one of my big trips post-COVID will be to Egypt and probably a Greek isle or two. I’d also like to visit Scotland sometime soon as well.

Thank you Eric for being our third interview guest, and our first from America!

Photos supplied by Eric White.

Would you like to occupy the hotseat and take part in a future interview as a Society member?  Let me know and I will send a set of questions winging its way to you by email.

Steve Jackson
Social Media Coordinator, Society for One-Place Studies
One-placer for Fawsley and Waters Upton