THE MUSEUM As a result of a decision some time ago that allowing it to take place. a structural investigation should gradually be carried out of the whole Museum, a start was The other main exhibition was 'Image of made on this during the year. Unfortunately, Man' from the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation. major structural problems were found in the This was of the highest quality and included part of the building used for offices. This work by such people as: Bourdelle, Derain, meant that three offices have been unusable Epstein, Ernest, Giacometti, Hepworth, and also that some relocation is necessary as Modigliani, Picasso, Renoir, Rodin. Thanks a result of overloading of the second floor of are due to the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation for the whole building. This is producing major their help in allowing the Museum to have this problems as it will mean relocating the Field exhibition. Archaeologist, Archaeological Records Assist­ ant and the Biological Record. The Aylesbury Past 'Project under Hal Dalwood continued for the whole year. The During the year there were two particularly results of the excavation and field work is important exhibitions. One, 'Portrait of a Town recorded in the Archaeological Notes. There -Aylesbury in photographs' was made up of was, in addition, an oral history recording prints made from a collection of glass plate project. The work done by the team has proved negatives which are in private possession and invaluable. which had never previously been exhibited. This as expected proved a most popular The number of visitors to the Museum during exhibition and thanks are due to the owner for the year was: 36439. COUNTY RECORD OFFICE Condensed from the Report of the County Archivist The absence on sick leave of the full-time Amersham Rural District Council and searchroom supervisor put staff under in­ Chesham Urban District Council. They incor­ creased pressure in maintaining the existing porate earlier records of the Amersham Rural service. Sanitary Authority and the Chesham Local Board of Health. Included among the Chesham The report compiled by the Royal Com­ records are minutes of the parish vestry and the mission on Historical Manuscripts following town silver band. Additional material was also their visit to the Office last year is being con­ received for the boroughs of Buckingham and sidered by the County Secretary and Solicitor. Aylesbury, and for Newport Pagnell R.D.C. The report's recommendation for an immediate More unusual is a stray file of Quarter Sessions increase in staffing is to be examined by the indictments for 1663 which predates the Management Services Unit. The._ outcome is existing series of sessions rolls. awaited with hope. The ecclesiastical parishes of Amersham and There was a total of 132 accessions during the Whitchurch deposited their older records. The year, the same total as for 1985. Amersham records, a particularly fine group, include parish registers from 1560, church­ Chiltern District Council deposited the wardens' accounts from 1597 (with some earlier records of its two predecessor authorities, accounts for the reign of Henry VIII), and 215 accounts of the overseers of the poor from Purchase Grant Fund. The Buckinghamshire 1611, as well as a tax assessment for Burnham Record Society helped with the purchase of an Hundred, 1695. estate map of the manor of Dunton, near Winslow, dated 1653, drawn by the astrologer Material for the study of twentieth-century Joseph Blagrave. By a happy chance the written political organization included the records of survey made by Blagrave to accompany the the Chesham Labour Party, and associated map was found to be already in the Record minutes of the Chesham United Trades and Office among the Hampden archives. Labour Council from 1913. They were balanced by the records of the Beaconsfield Other estate records received included a plan Constituency Conservative Association. for a staircase at Denham Place, 1777, and court books for the manor of Whitchurch, School records were represented by those of 1710-1888. Sir William Borlase's School, Great Marlow, a grammar school founded in 1624. The most Finally, Mr E. B. Basden's collection of MS substantial document is an account book material relating to Buckinghamshire has been recording the income and expenditure of the supplemented by his personal papers relating to school trustees from 1795 to 1814. A letter of his activities as collector and bibliographer, 1834 reveals the crisis caused by the imprison­ deposited by his widow. ment of the then headmaster, William Francis, for libelling the senior trustee. In spite of staffing problems, time was found for classifying and cataloguing in final form the Brown and Merry, Estate Agents, presented records of the Religious Society of Friends a sample of the files of their Aylesbury office (Quakers) which date back to the 1660s. More covering the years 1930-50. Smaller groups of work was also done on the records of Wigley, business records were received for Bird estate agents of Winslow, in order to complete Brothers, builders, of Milton Keynes, 1876- the list of the principal series of property 1960, and I'rancis Coalcs and Son (Tring) Ltd, papers, a!!d a medium-si2:ed cnll~>~tion of animal food manufacturers, 1936-1978. business records was catalogued. Property records for three estates in north The number of personal visits to the Office Bucks came via the British Records Associ­ was 2645 (2469 in 1985). The figure for postal ation. These were Tickford Abbey, Thornton enquiries was 706(783). A total of 2735(2750) Hall, and the Hoare family's Wavendon estate. telephone calls was logged, of which 1172( 1348) Some additional deeds for the Shardeloes estate were enquiries and the rest were reservations, in Amersham, and a set of late eighteenth­ etc. Document siips presented a1uuuut~d to century accounts of payments to labourers and 7728(6755) and a total of 13,452(9893) items craftsmen on the Chester family's Chicheley were produced. estate were acquired with assistance from the REVIEWS The Autobiography of Joseph Mayett of Although not 'popular' in a pejorative sense, Quainton (1783--1839). Ed. Ann Kussmaul, this most touching autobiography of a farm pp. xxxii + 101. Bucks Record Society No. 23, labourer at the beginning of the nineteenth 1986. ISBN 0 901198 19 6. £10.00 cloth, £4.50 century must have a wider appeal than some of paperback. the Society's earlier volumes and this, coupled with its use as one episode in a worthy television In their twenty-third publication the Bucks series (This Land of England) has led to it Record Society have broken new ground. appearing not only in the familiar yellow cloth 216 binding but also in paperback form. vision programmes which are awaited with keen interest. The author 'had Grove Farm-that Mayett was exceptional in being literate as was all that mattered' at the age of 19. A full a labourer at that time-his mother had taught autobiography would include much that is here him to read-and never 'taught' to write; yet mentioned only incidentally, such as Harman's despite the lack of punctuation or grammatical successful building enterprise and his distin­ form, his shaky spelling and uncertain capitali­ guished public and political service, here zation, his narrative is clear, so spontaneous recounted only when it directly concerned agri­ that reading is easy and has been much helped culture. His greatest achievement was to intro­ by the editor who has sensibly divided the text duce the Charolais breed into England, and into logical paragraphs. hence to the world. The interest is threefold. The bread-line During the century after the Norman Con­ poverty of the casual farm labourer who, if he quest the Saxon family of del Broc, whose seat failed to be hired at the October hiring fairs was at Hundridge, were actively engaged in might be 'on the parish' receiving perhaps four assarting in the upland hamlets of Great shillings a week at least one of which went on Chesham. They enclosed two virgates, about his cottage rent. The grim details of hiring, sixty acres, near Whelpley Hill (which did not tough farmers (although there were rank as a separate hamlet). The bounds are still exceptions), the wages and the work are both clear enough on the map and on the ground, valuable and moving. However, half the text is but they soon extended their holding, and by taken up with Mayett's twelve years service the critical year 1290 it ranked as a manor with the Royal Bucks Militia which he joined at distinct from Chesham Higham, though the Buckingham in March 1803 and served till the Earls of Oxford still claimed overlordship. By end of the war. It was a tough life but at least he 1362 Grove Manor was held by the great house was fed and clothed and his ability to read and of Cheyne, whose Lollard sympathies contri­ write was an advantage. buted to that radical dissent which has so long characterized the area. Their moat, on this dry The third strand-and to Mayett by far the plateau (520ft.), is the best in our county, with most important-is the information he gives inner and outer ramparts and an inner moat about the Baptist church and his own spiritual enclosing an almost unique example of struggles. The new little chapel whi~h still medieval domestic flintwork. Harman acknow­ survives on Winchendon Hill (and has lately ledges our President's share in his decision to been acquired by the Friends of Friendless turn this haunted hall, long used as a barn, into Churches) had been perennially short of money what became his home, though this was not his and their quarrels both theological and worldly original intention.