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Natural History and Local History in Late Victorian and Edwardian England: The Contribution of the Victoria County History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2011

JOHN BECKETT  and
CHARLES WATKINS
JOHN BECKETT
Affiliation:
School of History, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UKjohn.beckett@nottingham.ac.uk
CHARLES WATKINS
Affiliation:
School of Geography, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UKcharles.watkins@nottingham.ac.uk
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Abstract

In 1899 the Victoria County History (VCH) was established as a ‘National Survey’ of England which was intended to show the present day condition of the country and trace the ‘domestic history’ of all English counties to the ‘earliest times’. Natural history was seen as a key component to be included in the first volume for every county. In this paper we examine the reasons for the prominence given to natural history and demonstrate how the expert knowledge of natural historians was marshalled and edited. We use the contrasting counties of Herefordshire and Nottinghamshire to examine key intellectual debates about the role of the amateur and the expert and concern about nomenclature, classification and the state of knowledge about different groups of species. We emphasize the importance of the geography of the natural history and the way in which the VCH charted concerns about species loss and extinction. We examine the reasons why the VCH later abandoned natural history and finally we assess the value of its published output for modern historical geographers, historical ecologists and environmental historians.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , April 2011 , pp. 59 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

Notes

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2. We have not discussed geology in this paper, despite close links to natural history in the period we are discussing. All the first volume in pre-First World War Victoria County History county sets included thirty pages or so on geology written by some distinguished scholars, most notably perhaps, Horace Woodward. Linsdall Richardson wrote on Herefordshire and Professor J. F. Blake on Nottinghamshire, the two counties discussed in this paper: for background see E. J. T. Collins, ed., Agrarian History of England and Wales Volume VII 1850–1925, part II (2000), especially pp. 1623–7.

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26. VCH Archive, A30, Hugh Blakiston to Doubleday, 14th June 1899, See also Strong, Roy, Country Life, 1897–1997: The English Arcadia (London, 1996)Google Scholar.

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29. VCH A37. Report (1903) prepared for a meeting of the Victoria County History Advisory Council.

30. Eric L. Mills, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

31. William Page to Stebbing, 8th March 1905, VCH Archive.

32. Stebbing to William Page, 22nd June 1908, VCH Archive.

33. VCH Archive, A57, Stebbing to Page, 18th February 1908; Page to Stebbing, 20th February 1908, Stebbing to Page, 24th August 1915. This file also reveals that Stebbing regularly wrote more than he was asked for and then resisted being edited for length.

34. Stebbing to William Page, 24th August 1915, VCH Archive.

35. Eric L. Mills, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

36. VCH A37, ‘Natural History in The Victoria History’. Also H.A. Doubleday and W. Page, eds., A Guide to the Victoria History of the Counties of England (c.1903), pp. 27–32, which includes a list of approved sources that should be used. For Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing, see Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 38300 (2004), William Warde Fowler Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 33229 (2004); Henry Horatio Dixon Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 32838 (2004); and George Clarence Druce Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 32898 (2004). Victoria County History correspondence with them is in VCH A51–57.

37. VCH Archive, A21, Doubleday to Sir Roper Lethbridge, 1st December 1899.

38. VCH Archive, A37, Printed list: ‘Natural History in the Victoria History’.

39. VCH Archives, A21, Doubleday to Sir Roper Lethbridge, 1st December 1899; A22 Doubleday to Lethbridge, 1st August 1900.

40. Cornwall Record Office, X1254, Doubleday to James Clark, 24th June 1902.

41. See below. The correspondence can be followed in Cornwall RO, X1254.

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46. George Strong to H. A. Doubleday, 24th April 1899, VCH Archive, A8.

47. George Strong, The Heraldry of Herefordshire being a collection of the armorial bearings of families which have been seated in the county at various periods down to the present time, illustrated with richly emblazoned shields; Together with the Commission of the Peace for the year 1847, &c. adapted to form a supplement to Duncumb's county history (London, 1848).

48. George Strong, Handbook to Ross and Archenfield; also notes on the geology (by W. S. Symonds) and botany of the Wye Valley [by W. H. Purchas], (Ross, 1863).

49. Arthur Doubleday to Lord Biddulph, 24th July 1903, VCH Archive, A8.

50. Clifford Cordley to William Page, 31st December 1908; 12th April 1909; 3rd May 1909, VCH Archive.

51. Jones, Mary MunslowThe Lookers-Out of Worcestershire (Worcester, 1980), pp. 133–4Google Scholar. ‘He was a study in brown. . . brown-shaded tweed knickerbocker suit, brown woollen stockings; brown brogue shoes, well polished, snowy white shirt and stock; with his ruddy face, piercing eyes and gleaming monocle, he was a very distinctive figure around Worcester over so many years.’

52. Massee, George, British Fungus-Flora. A Classified Text-book of Mycology (London, 1894)Google Scholar.

53. Fries, Elias MagnusHymenomycetes Europaei (Uppsala, 1874)Google Scholar.

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56. Carleton Rea to Page, 20th February 1906, VCH Archive.

57. Arthur Doubleday to Augustin Ley, 20th February 1906, VCH Archive.

58. Mark Lawley, A Social and Biographical History of British and Irish Field-bryologists at http://britishbryologicalsociety.org.uk/.

59. Mark Lawley, A Social and Biographical History of British and Irish Field-bryologists at http://britishbryologicalsociety.org.uk/.

60. Augustin Ley to Arthur Doubleday, 17th February 1906, VCH Archive.

61. William Page to William de Winton, Zoological Society of London, 21st February 1906, VCH Archive.

62. William Page to Lindsall Richardson, 8th January 1907, VCH Archive.

63. Lindsall Richardson to William Page, 2nd February 1907, VCH Archive.

64. VCH A6, Lethbridge to Doubleday, 13th December 1899, 14th, 22nd February, 13th August, 17th November 1900; SirLethbridge, Roper, ‘Apple Culture and Cider-making in Devonshire’. Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 32 (1900), 142–94Google Scholar; and xxxiii (1901) for his presidency.

65. VCH A49, James Clark to Page, 11th January 1906

66. VCH Herefordshire, Volume 1, p. 54.

67. VCH Nottinghamshire, Volume 1, pp. 68–9.

68. VCH Herefordshire p. 80.

69. VCH Herefordshire, p. 86.

70. VCH Herefordshire, Volume 1, p. 96.

71. Allen, David Elliston, Books and Naturalists (London, 2010) p. 271Google Scholar.

72. VCH Herefordshire, Volume 1, p. 109.

73. VCH Nottinghamshire, Volume 1, pp. 132–3.

74. VCH Herefordshire, Volume 1, p. 77.

75. VCH Herefordshire, Volume 1, p. 112.

76. VCH Herefordshire, Volume 1, p. 118.

77. The Times, 23rd August 1901.

78. VCH Archive, A44, W.O. Massingberd to W. Page, 3rd April 1906; Page to Massingberd, 5th April 1906.

79. VCH Herefordshire, Volume 1, p. 39.

80. VCH Herefordshire, Volume 1, p. 40.

81. VCH Herefordshire, Volume 1, p. 42.

82. This insect was exhibited at the Entomological Society of London, 6th December 1905; “Mr. E. K. Bankes showed . . . a specimen of Cerostoma asperella, L., discovered by Mrs. Hutchinson near Leominster, on September 21st, 1881, and only taken, as regards Britain, in Dorset (formerly), and Herefordshire very rarely” The Entomologist, XIX. (January 1906) 512, p. 48.

83. VCH Herefordshire, Volume 1, p. 86.

84. VCH Herefordshire, Volume 1, p. 42.

85. VCH Nottinghamshire, Volume 1, p. 45.

86. VCH Nottinghamshire, Volume 1, p. 93.

87. VCH Nottinghamshire, Volume 1, p. 100. Alfred Russell Wallace in Island Life noted that ‘the excessively minute Trichopterygidse described by Mr. Matthews’ were distinguished ‘by very minute and obscure characters’.

88. VCH Nottinghamshire, Volume 1, p. 156.

89. VCH Nottinghamshire, Volume 1, p. 161.

90. VCH Herefordshire, Volume 1, p. 128.

91. VCH Herefordshire, Volume 1, p. 53.

92. VCH Nottinghamshire, Volume 1, p. 43.

93. VCH Nottinghamshire, Volume 1, p. 75.

94. VCH Herefordshire, Volume 1, p. 138.

95. VCH Nottinghamshire, Volume 1, p. 163.

96. VCH Herefordshire, Volume1, pp. 142–3.

97. VCH Herefordshire, Volume 1, p. 149

98. VCH Herefordshire, Volume 1, p. 153.

99. VCH A21: HAD to Trevor-Battye, 5th June 1899.

100. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 72414

101. VCH Archive, Q40, Miss M.K. Dale, to Miss E. Joan Gibbons, 23rd January 1950, Ralph Pugh to Miss Gibbons, 30th March 1950, 13th March 1952; Gibbons to Pugh, 25th June 1951, 18th March 1952; Susan Reynolds to Gibbons, 24th, 27th May 1954.

102. VCH Archive, Catalogue of MSS, A-L, p. 10.

103. The Natural History Curator at the British Museum told John Beckett that library collections (books and manuscripts) went to the British Library in 1973 (19th February 2010), and the Library and Information services at the Natural History Museum are not aware that they have it (22nd February 2010). Nor has it turned up in the Western Manuscripts in the British Library (25th March 2010).

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