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Newsletter No 22 Spring 2008 Hertfordshire Record Society Chairman: Mr Alan Ruston Secretary: Dr Heather Falvey Treasurer: Mrs Gwyneth Grimwood Chairman's Report This year some long awaited projects have been manuscript book owned by Mr Robert Dimsdale. published. First, in June 2007, came Volume XXII, The work on the 1818 Barnet Enclosure Award A Victorian Teenager’s Diary: the Diary of Lady map has been completed and the text is now at Adela Capel of Cassiobury 1841-1842, edited by HALS, where members of staff are checking the Marian Strachan. The paperback edition of the various transcripts against the original. This is a book was launched at Watford Museum at a complex task and is taking longer than originally special wine and cheese event on Monday 10 expected; however hopefully we will soon be able December. Printing two versions – in both to give information as to when it should appear. paperback and hardback – has proved successful and we have sold quite a few of the paperback As ever we rely on the commitment and work of our version in the Watford area. It is possible that in officers and committee, in particular Heather future other volumes that have a more general Falvey, Gwynneth Grimwood and Sue Flood. They appeal will also be published in both formats. have made the volumes which have appeared possible as well as aiding in the development of In November, Volume XX, Julian Grenfell, soldier those in the pipeline. Not least they have helped to and poet: letters and diaries 1910-1915, edited by sell our books to non-members at outside events, Kate Thomson, appeared. With 362 pages, this is especially Lady Adela’s Diary. I’m also pleased to one of our larger books. Various problems arose add that the increase in our annual subscription during the process of its publication so that has not meant a loss in membership and that new sometimes it seemed as if it would never see the people are joining the Society. light of the day. However a final effort by all concerned early in 2007 produced the result, a In conclusion I want to say thank you to Richard handsome volume that has already been well Busby, who is moving away from Hertfordshire. He received by members and reviewers. I want to has served on the Committee for many years and thank everyone who has worked so hard on what is has been involved with the Society since its early a significant and very different production. days. In addition David Dean has now passed over the editorship of the Newsletter to Peter Elliott The production of Volume XXIII, The Impact of the whom I want to welcome to the task. David also First Civil War on Hertfordshire, 1642-47, prepared has a record of long commitment to our work for by Alan Thomson, is in its final stages and we hope which we give our grateful thanks. to send it to our new printers, Biddles of Kings Lynn, very soon. We have made the change in Alan Ruston printers as it has become apparent to the Committee that new methods of production are Forthcoming Volume 24 now available that will significantly reduce our costs but at the same time keep the high standards of The journal of Benjamin Woodcock, master of the printing and binding that have always been Barnet Union workhouse, 1836 to 1838 associated with our finished volumes. We hope that the result will meet with members’ appreciation. The journal that forms the basis of this book was begun on 1 September 1836 by Benjamin Following not long after that should be Volume Woodcock, the master appointed by the newly XXIV, The Journal of Benjamin Woodcock, master formed Barnet Union. It begins almost a year after of the Barnet Union workhouse, 1836 to 1838, his appointment and although the site for the new edited by Gillian Gear. The text has already been workhouse had been selected, the district’s transcribed and the volume may be available in paupers were still living in some of the parish November at the Symposium of the Hertfordshire poorhouses. Ending on 10 May 1838, the diary Association for Local History, to be held at Barnet covers the period of the building’s completion in the on the subject of the poor. We expect to have an late spring of 1837, the transfer of inmates from the interesting cover illustration to match the content. Barnet, Shenley and East Barnet poorhouses to the new central workhouse and the establishment of a Other volumes in the course of development settled routine for staff, inmates and guardians. include the diary of Mary, Countess Cowper (Professor Stephen Taylor), the Datchworth Tithe In the journal Woodcock describes his daily routine, Accounts (Jane Walker) and Mrs Dimsdale’s admitting and caring for the workhouse inmates, his ‘Receipt Book’ (Heather Falvey). The last item is a handling of problems he experienced in creating a collection of eighteenth century recipes in a 1 smooth-running regime in the new buildings and talk about the mansion and model farm, the records coping with the demands of the many visitors who for which were rescued by HALS from a loft! took an interest in this newly conceived method of dealing with the poor. The journal was produced to The Brickendonbury estate has a long and colourful be seen by the board of guardians. Its survival and history. Little is known about it until Saxon times publication in full provides an opportunity for (approx. 500 AD), when the hill site was claimed by readers to reach a better understanding of the the Saxon, Brica. The word don means hill - the running of an early workhouse, the views and bury was added in medieval times and indicates actions of the master, guardians and paupers. This the site of a manor house: hence Brickendonbury, is a rare opportunity for, whilst the journal was a fortified manor house standing on Brica's hill. It is written to be read by the board of guardians, it has probable that Brica's land extended from the River a personal touch that reflects the attitudes of both Lea to the north, where he would have been able to master and guardians in a way that is not the case build a mill, back to uncleared land to the south in more formal communications such as those with which would have provided timber for construction the Poor Law Commissioners. and fuel, together with game. Perhaps Brica merely claimed an earlier site, although the only evidence The journal is a small, hand written, volume. It is for this is the 'Brickendonbury Hoard', consisting of held at the Hertfordshire Archives and Local some 430 Roman coins dug up from the moat in Studies under reference 70876. In 1984 extracts 1893 when the gardens were being renovated. All were included in Down and Out in Hertfordshire, the coins date from the same period, which may produced by Hertfordshire Publications. The book, indicate that there was a Roman settlement on the which included two other chapters on associated site two thousand years ago. An L-shaped part of topics, is out of print. To provide a better setting the moat still exists on the south and west sides of and increase understanding, the new volume will the mansion. It was probably a dry moat until the include additional information, such as the early construction of the present mansion. admission and discharge register, early accounts and extracts from correspondence between the In 1682, Edward Clarke purchased the estate from Poor Law Commissions and the Board of the Soames family. Clarke was a successful Guardians and the latter’s correspondence. merchant, who moved to London from Analysis of the first admission and discharge Leicestershire at a time when the city was registers has been undertaken in order to establish recovering from the dual devastations of plague the reasons for admission, gender and age of and fire. He was knighted in 1689, became Master inmates on admission, the number of occasions an of the Merchant Taylor's Company from 1690-91 individual was admitted and the reasons for their and eventually Lord Mayor of London in 1696. He eventual discharge. A comprehensive index to the was probably responsible for the first, and what has journal has been designed to identify the behaviour remained the most imposing, part of the mansion. of the inmates and their treatment and the actions, When Sir Edward died in 1703 the estate passed and sometimes the opinions, of those in charge of via his son to his granddaughter Jane Morgan. She them. in turn left it to her daughter, who had married Charles Gould, the Judge Advocate General and A bibliography of both published work relevant to Judge Martial of H.M. Forces. Charles Gould the subject and original sources and their locations changed his name to Morgan upon his wife's will be included. Copies of plans of the original inheritance. The Morgan family appear to have architect’s design, together with maps showing the been responsible for many of the extensions to the location of the former poorhouses and of the new mansion. They also laid out the fine avenue of district workhouse are included, together with a trees which connects the mansion with Hertford, selection of photographs. An especial effort has known as Morgan's Walk. The last Morgan to have been made to ensure that the coloured cover has lived at Brickendonbury was George Gould Morgan been designed to reflect the wealth of information who died there in 1845.

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