B for Books: A-Z Challenge 2020.

My Theme

Family History Meets Local History - 

Sources and Stories from England & Scotland 

My focus here is on the BOOKS   that have inspired my family history writing, and given me a better understanding of the lives of my ancestors. 

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Books written by enthusiast local historians can add so much to learning about the  communities in which our ancestors lived and I have made a point of buying any publication on my ancestral home at Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire. I have  found in them a photograph of the street where my great grandparents lived (since demolished to make way for a small shopping centre), a photograph of my great uncle in a football team before the First World War and the prominent local family where my grandmother worked as a nursery maid.

William and Christina:  One Woman's Search for her Ancestors, by Hilary Wallace Forester.   Published by William Sessions Limited, 1988.

 
I first came across the book years ago  at my local archive centre  and was immediately attracted by its format.  The author traces the story of her great grandparents,  William Wallace and Christina Galbraith   - their ancestors and descendants;  the background to their lives;  and the places and times in which they lived.  The couple lived on the Scottish-English border,  straddling at the River Tweed, the small town of Coldstream  My own story (right)  of my great grandparents "James and Maria" owes much to her approach.

"How to be a Victorian" by Ruth Goodman.

Do you want to find out what life was really like for your ancestors living  in Victorian Britain?    The book gives us an insight  into how Victorians lived their daily lives, whether they be rich of poor, town or country based.  Material has been gathered from contemporary accounts,  letters, diaries, newspapers and magazines.   

The author takes an innovative approach by following a typical routine  day in all its detail  from "Waking Up in the Mornin"   to "Evening Behind the Bedroom Door". 

Of added interest are the descriptions by the  author of her attempts to experience some aspects  of Victorian life  - such as doing the laundry, trying out Victorian recipes, heating the home or  struggling into the multi layers of dress.

We often  can gather information quite easily on the life of the upper classes, but the emphasis here is very much on the day to day lives  of ordinary people - in other words like most of our ancestors. 

 Out of the Dolls House, by Angela Holdsworthy:  the story of women in the 20th century.
In many ways the book complements my title listed above.   It presents a social history  exploring  the changing role of women of all ages and social backgrounds, and relates to the lives of our mothers and grandmothers. 

Servants: A Downstairs History of Britain from the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times, By Lucy Lethbridge. 

A very readable social history  of servants and their employers  from the era of the large country houses, epitomised in "Downton Abbey;  the lonely life of a single "maid of all work"  in a middle class home,  to more recent times and the role of au pairs.   The sources are impressive ranging from diaries, correspondence, newspaper columns, magazine articles, to fictional accounts and interviews with former servants who provide fascinating personal anecdote of their lives.  A book to read if your ancestor was a servant.

Below Stairs by Margaret Powell 

The classic first hand account of what life was like as a servant in the twentieth century.  The author left school at thirteen and began in service in a country house  as a kitchen maid    - the lowest of the low, but determined to better herself.  She writes with a gutsy, witty view point,with strongly held opinions  on her  employers and society in general.  




Fighting on the Home Front, by Kate Adie
What role did your female ancestors play in the First World War?  It was a time when they were coming our of the shadows of their domestic lives to take on new ventures - as munitionettes, land army girls, bus conductors, lady police, in  fund raising charity work, in entertainment and in auxiliary roles in the armed services.  

Written by Kate Adie, the former BBC war correspondent, she gives us a compelling account of the times, drawing on her  own family experiences in north east  England   She concludes with an assessment of the  achievements of these pioneering women and their legacy for the future.  A great social history.  

Two particular points struck me:

• The fact that prior to the war there was already a large group of society women with influential contacts,  who were used to organising and raising money for charitable causes.  They rose to this new challenge  and turned their attention to providing war comforts both at home and abroad -  a factor borne out in my own village with activities regularly reported in the local  press.
   
• The Women's Institute (W.I.) - in Scotland the Women's Rural Institute (WRI) -  was set up in 1915 to encourage women to become more involved in the production of food, to break down the isolation of women on farms and to extend their horizons. My great grandmother Maria Danson was an early member and her badge is  still held by her granddaughters. (below)

My great grandmother's W.I. badge

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