Woodlanders Lives and Landscapes Summer 2020 Newsletter Woodlanders in summer Welcome to the Woodlanders Summer 2020 newsletter. I am almost breathless thinking about all the things our volunteers have done since April and so first of all, I would like to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone. It has been one of the most difficult times in our lives – we won’t forget the spring and summer of 2020 – but when lockdown happened in March, everyone stepped up to the challenge, more volunteers came forward, and below you can read all about the terrific progress you have all made. I’d especially like to thank our Research Associate, Lesley Hoskins for all the hard work she put in during April and May to provide us with the means and knowledge to collect data in a systematic way. We couldn’t have done it without you Lesley. Woodlanders and data collection In the Spring newsletter, I reported that Ancestry.co.uk was available to us and many of you have done remarkable work collecting data from the censuses starting in 1841 and going all the way through to 1911. Thanks to Meriel, Keith, Jane, Pat, Sally, Claire, Vanessa and Rebecca, we now have information on the age, gender and occupations of villagers from Little Missenden, Winchmore Hill, Naphill and Walters Ash, Bledlow Ridge, Stokenchurch, West Wycombe, Buckland and soon we will have the same for Buckland Common, Bradenham and Loosely Row. Rita has very kindly allowed us to use her considerable research on the lives of residents of Loosley Row, (copies in Rita’s folder on the shared drive), so the data collection will allow us to link up Rita’s research with the trades we are researching. Fiona is doing a similar eXercise for Chinnor, using the baptism records and has already discovered that Chinnor was a major centre for chairmaking and lace making in the early 19th century. As part of his research on Bucks workhouses, Peter has collected all the data for the occupants of the Saunderton and Bledlow workhouses from 1841 to 1911 and is now busy analysing the data to find out about the ages, gender and occupations of inmates who had worked in the trades we are interested in. Susan, Graham and Rebecca have also been using Ancestry for their projects – you can read about these below. Lace making, lace schools and lace dealing We are lucky to have Rosemary, with her years of eXperience of reseaching the industry in Buckinghamshire, as our lace consultant and she will be making a video on lace making for the Chalk Cherries and Chairs digital festival in October. Rebecca and Susan are now considerably adding to our knowledge of lace dealers and lace schools in the central Chilterns as well as the lives of lace makers. Susan discovered that opium addiction was a feature of lace makers’ lives which belies the romanticised image of the lace makers’ lives we see in photos, and she has made some fascinating connections between lace dealing and tambour dealing in High Wycombe and lace making and lace beading in West Wycombe (see below). Rebecca is researching lace dealers working in central Chilterns villages and she is also helping us to understand the connections between lace making, lace beading and tambour beading. Straw plait Veronica, our research consultant with her eXtensive knowledge of the straw plait and hat making industry, has inspired further research with her fascinating picture of that industry presented in the Woodlanders blog. Vanessa, who already knew about straw plaiting in Chesham from her earlier research, is now looking at the censuses for Buckland Common and Buckland to build up a picture of the rise and fall of that industry and the life of Mrs Keene from Buckland, born 1877, who made a living from plaiting straw. Meriel has also identified straw plaiters in Little Missenden. Using census data for other villages, volunteers are building up a picture of the industry and where plaiting work was concentrated. Beading: lace beading, tambour beading, fancy work, netting…. These are terms Susan and Rebecca, our volunteers who are working on lace, have come across in relation to beading, which is a rich topic waiting for a researcher. Stuart, our Woodlanders research consultant, has kindly offered to make a video for us about tambour beading to provide inspiration. Tambour beaders seem to have been concentrated in the east side of the Chalk Cherries and Chairs project area. Chair making The censuses naturally throw up vast numbers of chair makers, so we are getting a good picture of the spread of those working in this industry across our area. Graham is researching and writing up the life and family story of his grandfather Daniel Thorn who worked as a chair turner in Buckland Common and he has found a remarkable family tree for the Thorns. Stuart and Keith are discussing the origin of the word ‘bodger’ and we hope to hear more soon. Mavis has begun her research on chair maker Bert White from Beacon’s Bottom and Rebecca has found advertisements in the South Bucks Free Press of 1882 from companies in Wiltshire and Nottinghamshire seeking Windsor chair framers from High Wycombe. Does this suggest that the good reputation of Wycombe chairmakers spread far and wide? Bodgers pubs Jane, Mavis, Claire, Keith, Peter and Alison, and Meriel, supported by Stuart, have formed our first research team to look into Bodgers’ Pubs. We define these as pubs with landlords who doubled up as chairmakers or dealers, opening workshops or factories at their pub or nearby. Or pubs where important bodger activities took place, such as auctions to sell off the ‘stands’ of trees which the bodgers would turn (forgive the pun) in to chair legs. Researchers are finding out about the lives of the landlords and their families. When the research is done, we promise a bodgers’ pub tour which will visit some of these pubs and sample some of the good cheer, ale and fare they supply today. Oral histories: documenting and summarising Pete has been doing invaluable work keeping a list of all the eXisting oral history recordings, with sensible file names, that Stuart has loaned to Woodlanders and there are more to come from Mavis. Pete has has also summarised a number of these recordings which can be found on the shared drive. As part of her research on Winchmore Hill Jane has summarised the recordings of the Hatch family who had a chair factory there. Hannah, a new volunteer, has offered to do a full transcription of John Mayes’ recording of Mrs Carter, tambour beader, as it has so much valuable detail for our research. We are looking for volunteers willing to listen to and summarise recordings done by Stuart and John Mayes (the Wycombe and Chilterns historian) from the 1950s – 1980s. They reveal fascinating detail about home and working lives which will be invaluable to our research. Woodlanders Training Collecting and analysing data using using EXcel spreadsheets was a bit of a steep learning curve for some of us, until Keith stepped in, providing us with two eXcellent training sessions on EXcel. Using clear language and demonstrations, Keith has taught us how to input and sort data, and create charts and graphs. He has set up a system for everyone to use so that we can directly compare the different Chilterns villages. Thank you Keith. We are looking forward to being able to organise all the data to find anwers to those questions about people’s lives that we are so interested in. What kinds of work sustained central Chilterns villagers and how many women and children were engaged in these trades? How did occupations change over time? I will re-book our training session at the Buckinghamshire Archives as soon as it is safe to do so. Woodlanders blog Three new blogs are now available on our Woodlanders web page – ‘Volunteering for Woodlanders Lives’ by Jane, and ‘Hannah’s Tale’ and ‘Hannah’s Tale Part 2’ by Chris. If you haven’t had time to read them yet, here is the link: https://www.chilternsaonb.org/woodlanders-lives/stories.html Thank you Jane and Chris. Our meetings on Zoom Lockdown has been tough, but for Woodlanders, the load was lightened in our fortnightly meetings in April, May and June. We are now having monthly meetings and I’m sure you will all agree that thanks to Zoom and volunteers willingly giving their time, our communication is much improved. Oral history collection Assuming that conditions will get better in the neXt few months (let’s be optimistic), we can plan to collect some oral histories. All the equipment is ready and waiting for us, but as so much time has passed since our training, we will need a refresher. I will invite those who who trained with us in January to a Zoom meeting about oral history in the autumn. A second training day with our British Library trainer can be arranged as soon as we have 12 new trainees. We currently have 5 on the waiting list. In the meantime, keep a look out for suitable candidates for interview – those with memories of the lives of those living in central Chilterns villages, and working in, or connected to the trades we are researching. Chalk Cherries and Chairs Digital Festival October 2020 We’ll be in touch soon to discuss arrangements for the Woodlanders contributions. In the meantime, we hope you can all enjoy some kind of holiday or break in August. Stay safe! Helena and Lesley .